This Day in History

[xoxoxoBruce]

Carnival begins today.

Every day is carnival in the Cellar.

[Gravdigr]

February 25

138 – The Roman emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius, effectively making him his successor.

493 – Odoacer surrenders Ravenna after a 3-year siege and agrees to a mediated peace with Theoderic the Great.

1336 – Four thousand defenders of Pilėnai commit mass suicide rather than be taken captive by the Teutonic Knights.

1797 – Colonel William Tate and his force of 1000–1500 soldiers surrender after the Last invasion of Britain.

1836 – Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for the Colt revolver.

1866 – Miners in Calaveras County, California, discover what is now called the Calaveras Skull – human remains that supposedly indicated that man, mastodons, and elephants had co-existed.

1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.

1901 – J. P. Morgan incorporates the United States Steel Corporation.

1919 – Oregon places a one cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.

1928 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, D.C. becomes the first holder of a broadcast license for television from the Federal Radio Commission.

1933 – The USS Ranger is launched. It is the first US Navy ship to be designed from the start of construction as an aircraft carrier.

1939 – The first of 2  1⁄2 million Anderson air raid shelters appeared in North London.

1956 – In his speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union denounces the cult of personality of Joseph Stalin.

1986 – People Power Revolution: President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos flees the nation after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the Philippines' first woman president.

1987 – Southern Methodist University's football program is the first college football program to receive the death penalty by the NCAA's Committee on Infractions. It was revealed that athletic officials and school administrators had knowledge of a "slush fund" used to make illegal payments to the school's football players as far back as 1981.

1991 – Gulf War: An Iraqi scud missile hits an American military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia killing 28 U.S. Army Reservists from Pennsylvania.

1994 – Mosque of Abraham massacre: In the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron, Baruch Goldstein opens fire with an automatic rifle, killing 29 Palestinian worshippers and injuring 125 more before being subdued and beaten to death by survivors.

1995 - At a private party for 1,200 select guests on the closing night of the Frank Sinatra Desert Classic golf tournament, Frank Sinatra sang before a live audience for the very last time. His closing song was 'The Best is Yet to Come'.

2015 – At least 310 people are killed in avalanches in northeastern Afghanistan.

2016 – Three people are killed and fourteen others injured in a series of shootings in the small Kansas cities of Newton and Hesston.

Births

1841 – Pierre-Auguste Renoir; 1873 – Enrico Caruso♪ ♫; 1888 – John Foster Dulles (Washington Dulles International Airport); 1890 – Myra Hess♪ ♫; 1901 – Zeppo Marx (youngest of the Marx Bros); 1913 – Jim Backus (voice of Mr. Magoo, Gilligan's Island); 1917 – Anthony Burgess (author A Clockwork Orange); 1918 – Bobby Riggs; 1920 – Sun Myung Moon (founded the Unification Church); 1927 – Dr. Ralph Stanley♪ ♫(sang O Death in O Brother Where Art Thou); 1928 – Larry Gelbart (creator M*A*S*H); 1929 – Tommy Newsom(NBC Orchestra, sub for Doc Severinson; 1932 – Faron Young♪ ♫; 1935 – Sally Jessy Raphael; 1937 – Bob Schieffer; 1940 – Billy Packer; 1943 – George Harrison♪ ♫(The Beatles, The Traveling Wilburys); 1949 – Ric Flair; 1949 – Jack Handey (SNL's "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey"); 1957 – Dennis Diken(The Smithereens); 1958 – Kurt Rambis; 1961 – Davey Allison; 1966 – Téa Leoni; 1966 – Nancy O'Dell; 1971 – Sean Astin (Rudy, TLOR; 1973 – Julio Iglesias, Jr.; 1975 – Chelsea Handler; 1976 – Rashida Jones

Deaths

1723 – Christopher Wren; 1878 – Townsend Harris; 1899 – Paul Reuter (Reuters News); 1957 – Bugs Moran (mob boss); 1983 – Tennessee Williams; 1987 – James Coco; 1993 – Toy Caldwell♪ ♫(Marshall Tucker Band); 1996 – Haing S. Ngor (The Killing Fields); 2006 – Darren McGavin (Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1957)); 2013 – C. Everett Koop

[xoxoxoBruce]

1836 – Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for the Colt revolver.

Saint Sam.

[Gravdigr]

God created all men. Sam Colt made them equal.

~Somebody

[Gravdigr]

February 26

The 59th running of The Daytona 500 will held today. The Daytona 500 has been NASCAR's season-opening race since 1982.


Events

1616 – Galileo Galilei is formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.

1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from Elba.

1909 – Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process, is first shown to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London.

1914 – HMHS (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signs an act of Congress establishing the Grand Canyon National Park.

1929 – President Calvin Coolidge signs an executive order establishing the 96,000 acre Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

1966 – Apollo program: Launch of AS-201, the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket.

1979 – The Superliner railcar enters revenue service with Amtrak.

1987 – Iran–Contra affair: The Tower Commission rebukes President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff.

1993 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing six and injuring over a thousand.

1995 – The UK's oldest investment banking institute, Barings Bank, collapses after a rogue securities broker Nick Leeson loses $1.4 billion by speculating on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange using futures contracts.

2008 – The New York Philharmonic performs in Pyongyang, North Korea in the first event of its kind to take place in North Korea.

2013 – A hot air balloon crashed near Luxor, Egypt, killing 19 people in history's deadliest ballooning disaster.

Births

1564 – Christopher Marlowe, 1802 – Victor Hugo, 1829 – Levi Strauss, 1846 – Buffalo Bill Cody, 1852 – John Harvey Kellogg, 1866 – Herbert Henry Dow, 1882 – Husband E. Kimmel, 1887 – William Frawley, 1908 – Tex Avery, 1914 – Robert Alda, 1916 – Jackie Gleason, 1920 – Tony Randall, 1928 – Fats Domino, 1928 – Ariel Sharon, 1931 – Robert Novak, 1932 – Johnny Cash, 1945 – Mitch Ryder, 1950 – Jonathan Cain, 1953 – Michael Bolton, 1954 – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 1958 – Tim Kaine, 1971 – Erykah Badu, 1979 – Corinne Bailey Rae

Deaths

1903 – Richard Jordan Gatling, 1997 – David Doyle

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February 27

1560 – The Treaty of Berwick, which would expel the French from Scotland, is signed by England and the Lords of the Congregation of Scotland.

1782 – American Revolutionary War: The House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.

1801 – Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.

1812 – Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely responsible for his election to the Presidency.

1864 – American Civil War: The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia.

1870 – The current flag of Japan, , is first adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships.

1900 – Second Boer War: In South Africa, British military leaders receive an unconditional notice of surrender from Boer General Piet Cronjé at the Battle of Paardeberg.

1900 – The British Labour Party is founded.

1902 – Second Boer War: Australian soldiers Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock are executed in Pretoria after being convicted of war crimes.

1922 – A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Leser v. Garnett.

1933 – Reichstag fire: Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire; Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist claims responsibility. The Nazis used the fire to solidify their power and eliminate the communists as political rivals.

1940 – American biochemists Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discovered carbon-14, which today is used extensively as the basis of the radiocarbon dating method to date archaeological and geological samples.

1943 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.

1951 – The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.

1964 – The Government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.

1991 – Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated".

1991 - James Brown was paroled after spending two years of a six-year prison sentence, imposed for resisting arrest after a car chase across two States.

2010 – An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale strikes central parts of Chile leaving over 500 victims, and thousands injured. The quake triggered a tsunami which struck Hawaii shortly after.

Births

272 – Constantine the Great, 1622 – Carel Fabritius, 1807 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1891 – David Sarnoff (founded RCA), 1892 – William Demarest, 1902 – John Steinbeck, 1905 – Franchot Tone♪ ♫, 1910 – Kelly Johnson (co-founded Lockheed's Skunk Works), 1930 – Joanne Woodward, 1932 – Elizabeth Taylor, 1934 – Ralph Nader, 1938 – Jake Thackray♪ ♫, 1940 – Howard Hesseman, 1943 – Mary Frann, 1951 – Lee Atwater, 1954 – Neal Schon♪ ♫(Journey), 1957 – Timothy Spall, 1959 – Johnny Van Zant♪ ♫(Lynyrd Skynyrd), 1962 – Adam Baldwin, 1966 – Donal Logue, 1971 – Sara Blakely (founded Spanx), 1971 – Rozonda 'Chilli' Thomas♪ ♫(TLC), 1980 – Chelsea Clinton, 1981 – Josh Groban♪ ♫, 1992 – Ty Dillon

Deaths

1892 – Louis Vuitton, 1902 – Harry 'Breaker' Morant, 1936 – Ivan Pavlov, 1968 – Frankie Lymon♪ ♫(The Teenagers), 1977 – John Dickson Carr, 1980 – George Tobias (neighbor 'Abner Kravitz' on Bewitched), 1985 – Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., 1993 – Lillian Gish, 2002 – Spike Milligan, 2003 – Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers' Neighborhood), 2008 – William F. Buckley, Jr. (founded the National Review), 2011 – Frank Buckles (was the last surviving American WWI veteran), 2013 – Van Cliburn, 2013 – Dale Robertson, 2014 – Aaron Allston (game designer), 2015 – Leonard Nimoy

[xoxoxoBruce]

1782 – American Revolutionary War: The House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.

The lying bastards were just waiting for us to relax, until 1812.

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

The lying bastards were just waiting for us to relax, until 1812.

I don't like it, sir. It's too quiet.

[Gravdigr]

February 28

Today is the last day of February.

Today is marked as Rare Disease Day, raising awareness of rare diseases on an international level.

Today is Shrove Tuesday.

Mardi Gras!!!


Events

202 BC – Coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place thus initiating four centuries of Han dynasty rule over China.

1525 – Aztec king Cuauhtémoc is executed on the order of conquistador Hernán Cortés.

1784 – John Wesley charters the Methodist Church.

1827 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

1849 – Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, four months 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.

1867 – Seventy years of Holy See–United States relations are ended by a Congressional ban on federal funding of diplomatic envoys to the Vatican and are not restored until January 10, 1984.

1885 – The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone. (American Bell would later merge with its subsidiary.)

1900 – The Second Boer War: The 118-day "Siege of Ladysmith" is lifted.

1935 – DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invents nylon.

1939 – The erroneous word "dord" is discovered in the Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prompting an investigation.

1940 – Basketball is televised for the first time.

1947 – February 28 Incident: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of an estimated 30,000 civilians.

1953 – James Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April's Nature (pub. April 2).

1954 – The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.

1958 – A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunges down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork river. The driver and 26 children die in what remains one of the worst school bus accidents in U.S. history.

1968 - 25 year old Frankie Lymon, lead singer of The Teenagers, died of a heroin overdose in his grandmother's New York home. Lymon was on leave from a Georgia Army post at the time and was scheduled to record for Roulette Records the next day. He first hit the national charts in 1956 when he was just 13 with 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love'.

1975 – In London, an underground train fails to stop at Moorgate terminus station and crashes into the end of the tunnel, killing 43 people.

1977 - Ray Charles was attacked onstage by a man who tried to strangle him with a microphone cord. The man was a member of a group called Project Heavy, a community program for disadvantaged youths. They promised that the matter would be handled within the organization and no charges were filed.

1983 – The final episode of M*A*S*H airs, with almost 106 million viewers. It still holds the record for the highest viewership of a season finale.

1985 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

1985 - David Byron, singer with Uriah Heep, died from an epileptic fit and liver disease, aged 38. Uriah Heep had a hit with 'Easy Livin' from the 1972 album Demons and Wizards.

1986 – Olof Palme, 26th Prime Minister of Sweden, is assassinated in Stockholm.

1991 – The first Gulf War ends.

1993 – The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group's leader David Koresh. Four ATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

1997 – GRB 970228, a highly luminous flash of gamma rays, strikes the Earth for 80 seconds, providing early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way.

1998 – First flight of the RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.

2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church, becoming the first pope to do so since 1415.

Births

1882 – Geraldine Farrar♪ ♫, 1901 – Linus Pauling, 1906 – Bugsy Siegel, 1915 – Zero Mostel, 1919 – Alfred Marshall (founded Marshall's dept stores), 1923 – Charles Durning, 1929 – Frank Gehry, 1931 – Gavin MacLeod, 1939 – John Fahey, 1939 – Tommy Tune♪ ♫, 1940 – Aldo & Mario Andretti, 1940 – Joe South♪ ♫, 1942 – Brian Jones♪ ♫(The Rolling Stones), 1945 – Bubba Smith, 1948 – Mike Figgis, 1948 – Bernadette Peters, 1948 – Mercedes Ruehl, 1955 – Gilbert Gottfried, 1957 – John Turturro, 1957 – Cindy Wilson♪ ♫(The B-52s), 1958 – Jack Abramoff, 1961 – Rae Dawn Chong, 1969 – Robert Sean Leonard ('Dr. James Wilson' on House), 1969 – Patrick Monahan♪ ♫(Train), 1976 – Ali Larter (Final Destination and Final Destination 2), 1977 – Jason Aldean♪ ♫, 1994 – Jake Bugg♪ ♫

Deaths

468 – Pope Hilarius, 1916 – Henry James, 1967 – Henry Luce (co-founded Time Magazine), 1977 – Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (The Jack Benny Program), 1993 – Ruby Keeler, 2005 – Chris Curtis(The Searchers), 2007 – Billy Thorpe♪ ♫, 2009 – Paul Harvey, 2011 – Jane Russell, 2016 – George Kennedy (The Blue Knight, The Sons Of Katie Elder, Cool Hand Luke)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Today is the last day of February.

And the day we celebrated Brianna's birthday, which was actually the 29th. Miss you babe.

[Gravdigr]

March 1

1565 – The city of Rio de Janeiro is founded.

1642 – Georgeana, Massachusetts (now known as York, Maine), becomes the first incorporated city in the United States.

1692 – Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning what would become known as the Salem witch trials.

1713 – The siege and destruction of Fort Neoheroka begins during the Tuscarora War in North Carolina, effectively opening up the colony's interior to European colonization.

1781 – The Continental Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation.

1815 – Napoleon returns to France from his banishment on Elba, start of the Hundred Days.

1845 – United States President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.

1867 – Nebraska becomes the 37th U.S. state; Lancaster, Nebraska is renamed Lincoln and becomes the state capital.

1872 – Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park.

1893 – Electrical engineer Nikola Tesla gives the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis, Missouri.

1896 – Henri Becquerel discovers radioactive decay.

1901 – The Australian Army is formed.

1910 – The worst avalanche in United States history buries a Great Northern Railway train in northeastern King County, Washington, killing 96 people.

1932 – Charles Lindbergh's son is reportedly kidnapped.

1936 – The Hoover Dam is completed.

1946 – The Bank of England is nationalised.

1953 – Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses; he dies four days later.

1954 – Nuclear weapons testing: The Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, is detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States.

1954 – Armed Puerto Rican nationalists attack the United States Capitol building, injuring five Representatives.

1961 – United States President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.

1995 – Yahoo! is incorporated.

1998 – Titanic became the first film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.

2002 – U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins in eastern Afghanistan.

2006 – English-language Wikipedia reaches its one millionth article, Jordanhill railway station.

Births

1810 – Frédéric Chopin, 1904 – Glenn Miller, 1910 – David Niven, 1914 – Harry Caray, 1914 – Ralph Ellison, 1924 – Deke Slayton, 1926 – Pete Rozelle, 1927 – Harry Belafonte, 1935 – Robert Conrad, 1942 – Jerry Fisher, 1944 – Roger Daltrey, 1944 – Mike d'Abo, 1945 – Dirk Benedict, 1947 – Alan Thicke, 1952 – Nevada Barr, 1954 – Ron Howard, 1956 – Tim Daly, 1967 – George Eads, 1969 – Javier Bardem, 1983 – Lupita Nyong'o

Deaths

1620 – Thomas Campion, 1984 – Jackie Coogan, 1988 – Joe Besser, 1991 – Edwin H. Land, 2013 – Bonnie Franklin

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March 2

1797 – The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound banknotes.

1807 – The U.S. Congress passes the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.

1836 – Texas Revolution: Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico.

1855 – Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.

1859 – The two-day Great Slave Auction, the largest such auction in United States history, begins.

1877 – U.S. presidential election, 1876: Just two days before inauguration, the U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.

1882 – Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor.

1901 – United States Steel Corporation is founded as a result of a merger between Carnegie Steel Company and Federal Steel Company which became the first corporation in the world with a market capital over $1 billion.

1933 – The film King Kong opens at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

1946 – Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.

1949 – Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.

1962 – Wilt Chamberlain sets the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.

1965 – The US and South Vietnamese Air Force begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

1969 – In Toulouse, France, the first test flight of the Anglo-French Concorde is conducted.

1972 – The Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.

1983 – Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.

1995 – Researchers at Fermilab announce the discovery of the top quark.

2017 – The elements Moscovium, Tennessine, and Oganesson were officially added to the periodic table at a conference in Moscow, Russia

Births

1793 – Sam Houston, 1900 – Kurt Weill, 1904 – Dr. Seuss, 1909 – Mel Ott, 1917 – Desi Arnaz, 1919 – Jennifer Jones, 1931 – Mikhail Gorbachev, 1931 – Tom Wolfe, 1942 – Lou Reed, 1943 – Peter Straub, 1948 – Rory Gallagher, 1950 – Karen Carpenter, 1952 – Laraine Newman, 1955 – Dale Bozzio, 1955 – Jay Osmond, 1956 – John Cowsill, 1958 – Ian Woosnam, 1962 – Jon Bon Jovi, 1964 – Laird Hamilton, 1968 – Daniel Craig, 1977 – Chris Martin, 1980 – Rebel Wilson, 1981 – Bryce Dallas Howard, 1982 – Ben Roethlisberger

Deaths

1791 – John Wesley, 1896 – Jubal Early, 1930 – D. H. Lawrence, 1939 – Howard Carter, 1982 – Philip K. Dick, 1987 – Randolph Scott, 1992 – Sandy Dennis, 1999 – Dusty Springfield, 2003 – Hank Ballard, 2004 – Mercedes McCambridge, 2004 – Marge Schott, 2008 – Jeff Healey

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March 3

1776 – American Revolutionary War: The first amphibious landing of the United States Marine Corps begins the Battle of Nassau.

1820 – The U.S. Congress passes the Missouri Compromise.

1845 – Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.

1849 – The Territory of Minnesota was created.

1857 – Second Opium War: France and the United Kingdom declare war on China.

1865 – Opening of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the founding member of the HSBC Group.

1873 – Censorship in the United States: The U.S. Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.

1875 – Georges Bizet's opera Carmen receives its première at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.

1904 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a sound recording of a political document, using Thomas Edison's phonograph cylinder.

1923 – TIME magazine is published for the first time.

1931 – The United States adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.

1939 – In Bombay, Mohandas K. Gandhi begins a hunger strike in protest at the autocratic rule in British India.

1942 – World War II: Ten Japanese warplanes raid Broome, Western Australia, killing more than 100 people.

1951 – Jackie Brenston, with Ike Turner and his band, records "Rocket 88", often cited as "the first rock and roll record", at Sam Phillips's recording studios in Memphis, Tennessee.

1980 – The USS Nautilus, the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine, is decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register.

1985 – A magnitude 8.3 earthquake strikes the Valparaíso Region of Chile, killing 177 and leaving nearly a million people homeless.

1991 – An amateur video captures the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.

1997 – The tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere, Sky Tower in downtown Auckland, New Zealand, opens after two-and-a-half years of construction.

2005 – James Roszko murders four Royal Canadian Mounted Police constables during a drug bust at his property in Rochfort Bridge, Alberta, then commits suicide. This is the deadliest peace-time incident for the RCMP since 1885 and the North-West Rebellion.

2005 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly an airplane non-stop around the world solo without refueling.

2005 – Margaret Wilson is elected as Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, beginning a period lasting until August 23, 2006 where all the highest political offices (including Elizabeth II as Head of State), were occupied by women, making New Zealand the first country for this to occur.

Births

1831 – George Pullman, 1847 – Alexander Graham Bell, 1860 – John Montgomery Ward, 1882 – Charles Ponzi, 1895 – Matthew Ridgway, 1911 – Jean Harlow, 1913 – Harold J. Stone, 1920 – James Doohan, 1923 – Doc Watson, 1940 – Perry Ellis, 1945 – Hattie Winston, 1947 – Jennifer Warnes, 1953 – Robyn Hitchcock, 1962 – Jackie Joyner-Kersee, 1962 – Herschel Walker, 1966 – Tone Lōc, 1970 – Julie Bowen, 1971 – Charlie Brooker, 1974 – David Faustino, 1982 – Jessica Biel

Deaths

1706 – Johann Pachelbel, 1959 – Lou Costello, 1966 – William Frawley, 1987 – Danny Kaye, 1991 – Arthur Murray, 1998 – Fred W. Friendly, 2012 – Ronnie Montrose

[Gravdigr]

March 4

51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth).

1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what is now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.

1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth.

1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter.

1681 – Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.

1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect.

1791 – Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state.

1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress.

1797 – John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States of America, becoming the first President to begin his presidency on March 4.

1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated.

1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the "Stars and Bars") is adopted.

1865 – The third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted by the Confederate Congress.

1882 – Britain's first electric trams run in east London.

1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 1,710 feet (520 m) long, is opened by the Prince of Wales.

1899 – Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 metres (39 ft) wave that reaches up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing over 300.

1908 – The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.

1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.

1974 – People magazine is published for the first time in the United States as People Weekly.

1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister.

1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States.

1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus.

1998 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.

2001 – BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring one person; the attack was attributed to the Real IRA.

2002 – Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers and 200 Al-Qaeda Fighters are killed as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shah-i-Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission.

2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.

Births

1678 – Antonio Vivaldi, 1888 – Knute Rockne, 1906 – Avery Fisher, 1909 – Harry Helmsley, 1913 – John Garfield, 1919 – Buck Baker, 1932 – Ed Roth, 1938 – Paula Prentiss, 1942 – Lynn Sherr, 1944 – Bobby Womack, 1948 – Chris Squire, 1948 – Shakin' Stevens, 1950 – Rick Perry, 1954 – Peter Jacobsen, 1957 – Rick Mast, 1958 – Patricia Heaton, 1961 – Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini, 1961 – Steven Weber, 1963 – Jason Newsted, 1968 – Patsy Kensit, 1986 – Mike Krieger

Deaths

1193 – Saladin, 1852 – Nikolai Gogol, 1858 – Matthew C. Perry, 1925 – John Montgomery Ward, 1972 – Charles Biro, 1994 – John Candy, 1996 – Minnie Pearl, 2008 – Gary Gygax, 2009 – Horton Foote, 2013 – Lillian Cahn, 2016 – Pat Conroy

[Gravdigr]

March 5

1496 – King Henry VII of England issues letters patent to John Cabot and his sons, authorising them to explore unknown lands.

1616 – Nicolaus Copernicus's book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres is added to the Index of Forbidden Books 73 years after it was first published.

1836 – Samuel Colt patents the first production-model revolver, the .34-caliber.

1850 – The Britannia Bridge across the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales is opened.

1872 – George Westinghouse patents the air brake.

1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions.

1940 – Six high-ranking members of Soviet politburo, including Joseph Stalin, sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs, in what will become known as the Katyn massacre.

1946 – Winston Churchill coins the phrase "Iron Curtain" in his speech at Westminster College, Missouri.

1963 – American country music stars Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and their pilot Randy Hughes are killed in a plane crash in Camden, Tennessee.

1974 – Yom Kippur War: Israeli forces withdraw from the west bank of the Suez Canal.

1981 – The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research and would go on to sell over 1.5 million units around the world.

Births

1133 – Henry II of England, 1512 – Gerardus Mercator, 1658 – Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, 1898 – Zhou Enlai, 1908 – Rex Harrison, 1922 – James Noble, 1929 – J. B. Lenoir, 1938 – Fred Williamson, 1948 – Eddy Grant, 1953 – Tokyo Sexwale, 1954 – Marsha Warfield, 1955 – Penn Jillette, 1956 – Teena Marie, 1958 – Andy Gibb, 1963 – Joel Osteen, 1970 – John Frusciante, 1974 – Kevin Connolly

Deaths

1770 – Crispus Attucks, 1827 – Alessandro Volta, 1929 – David Dunbar Buick, 1953 – Joseph Stalin, 1963 – Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, 1980 – Jay Silverheels, 1982 – John Belushi, 1984 – William Powell, 1999 – Richard Kiley, 2013 – Paul Bearer, 2013 – Hugo Chávez