Today in History, 3/25

1199: Richard the Lionhearted is wounded by a crossbow bolt while on campaign in France and dies on April 6.
1306: Robert the Bruce becomes king of Scotland.1584: Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to exploit Virginia. And he took that ball and ran with it!1807: The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
1897: John Laurie is born. He was in the 1954 British classic Devil Girl From Mars, which just happens to be shipping to me from Netflix today.1911: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City kills 146 garment workers. The horrible working conditions led to better factory safety standards.
1911: Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, is born.1918: Howard Cosell is born.1920: Patrick Troughton is born. He played the second Doctor on Doctor Who.

1928: Jim Lovell is born. He was the commander of Apollo 13.1934: Gloria Steinem is born.1942: Aretha Franklin is born.

1947: Elton John is born.1949:The Soviet Union forces more than 92,000 people from the Baltic states to remote areas of Siberia.
1955: United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" as being obscene.1965: Civil rights activists, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. complete their four-day 50-mile march from Selma, AL to the capitol in Montgomery.
1965: Sarah Jessica Parker is born.1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono hold their first Bed-In for Peace in the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel. On Sundays, when I lie in bed until 10 am watching Mystery Science Theater, I like to pretend I'm really having a Bed-In for Peace.
1979: The first fully functional space shuttle, the Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.

Today in History, 3/24

1401: Mongol emperor Timur sacks Damascus.
1603: Queen Elizabeth I of England dies, which leads to:
1603: James VI of Scotland becomes James I of England.1765: Great Britain passes the Quartering Act which requires the thirteen colonies to house British troops.
1832: In Hiram, OH a group of men beat, tar and feather Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr.1874: Harry Houdini is born.1882: Robert Koch announces the discovery of the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis.
1887: Fatty Arbuckle is born.1901: Ub Iwerks, animator, is born.

1902: Thomas Dewey, politician and presidential candidate, is born.1924: Norman Fell is born.1930: Steve McQueen is born. Here's the famous car chase from Bulitt.

1944: In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 prisoners begin breaking out of Stalag Luft III.
1944: R. Lee Ermey is born. He is most famous for playing the psychotic drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket.

1954: Robert Carradine is born. He played Louis in Revenge of the Nerds.1958: Elvis Presley is inducted into the Army in Memphis, TN.
1960: Kelly LeBrock is born. Don't hate her 'cause she's beautiful.
1973: Pink Floyd releases The Dark Side of the Moon.
1970: Lara Flynn Boyle is born.1974: Alyson Hannigan is born. She was the "band camp" girl in the American Pie movies and Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.1989: The Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels of oil into Prince William Sound, AK.Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.

Today in History, 3/23

1645: William Kidd, Scottish pirate and privateer is born.
1708: James Francis Edward Stuart lands at the Firth of Forth. He was the son of King James II of England who had been deposed during the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and claimed the thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland.1775: Patrick Henry delivers his famous "give me liberty or give me death" speech at St. John's Church in Richmond, VA.1801: Tsar Paul I of Russia is stabbed, strangled and trampled to death in his bedroom.
1806: After reaching the Pacific Ocean, Lewis and Clark begin their journey home.
1857: Elisha Otis's first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway in New York City.
1905: Joan Crawford is born. Man, those eyebrows chase me through my nightmares.1915: Valisy Zaitsev is born. He's the sniper whose life was portrayed in the movie Enemy at the Gates. His verified kills were 225, but some say it might be as high as 400.1933: The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.
1949: Ric Ocasek, singer for The Cars, is born.

1950: Anthony De Longis is born. He played the wicked Maje Culluh on Star Trek: Voyager, but he's also the stunt man who taught Harrison Ford how to use a bull whip for the Indiana Jones movies.1957: Amanda Plummer is born. She was in The Fisher King and Pulp Fiction.1962: The NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as part of Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace plan.1983: Ronald Reagan makes his speech outlining his plans for the Strategic Defense Initiative
1989: Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce could fusion at the University of Utah.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.

Today in History, 3/22

1599: Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck is born. He was a favorite painter of Charles I of England, mostly for Van Dyck's ability to make Charles look like the god on Earth he thought he was. Making Charles' decidedly plain wife look hot didn't hurt either. This is his "Self Portrait With Sunflower" (the sunflower represents Charles I).
1621: The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony sign a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.
1630: The Massachusetts Bay Colony outlaws possession of cards, dice and gaming tables.
1638: Anne Hutchinson is expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.1765: The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Stamp Act.
1871: William Woods Holden of North Carolina becomes the first governor of a US state to be removed from office by impeachment, mostly for being overzealous in his pursuit of the Klu Klux Klan.1887: Chico Marx is born.

1908: Louis L'Amour is born.1912: Karl Malden is born.

1920: Werner Klemperer is born. He is most famous for playing the bumbling Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heroes.1920: Ross Martin is born. He played Artemus Gordon in the old Wild Wild West TV show.1931: William Shatner is born.

1935: M. Emmet Walsh is born. He plays small roles in all kinds of movies, from Escape From the Planet of the Apes to The Jerk ("Die, gas pumper!") to Bladerunner. If you've seen a movie in the last forty years, odds are Emmet Walsh was in it.

1943: The entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burned alive by the Nazis.
1976: Reese Witherspoon is born.1978: Karl Wallenda of The Flying Wallendas dies after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.1993: The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips, featuring a 60 Mhz clock speed.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.

Today in History, 3/21

1556: The Archbishop of Canterbury and co-founder of the Anglican Church, Thomas Cranmer is burned at the stake by Queen Mary I ("Bloody Mary") for heresy.
1685: Johann Sebastian Bach is born.
1800: With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII is crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of paper mache.
1804: The Napoleonic Code is adopted as French civil law.
1844: The original date predicted by William Miller for the return of Christ.
1871: Otto von Bismarck is appointed chancellor of the German Empire.1902: Son House, bluesman, is born.

1922: Russ Meyer is born. He directed the classic Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

1946: Timothy Dalton is born. I thought he made a pretty good Bond.1949: Eddie Money is born.

1952: Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, OH.1958: Gary Oldman is born. He's one of my favorite actors and even managed to make the Lost in Space movie less of a turd.1962: Matthew Broderick is born.1962: Rosie O'Donnell is born.1963: Alcatraz closes.
1970: Vinko Bogataj crashes during a ski jump competition in Germany. His image would become infamous as the "agony of defeat guy" on the ABC Wide World of Sports.
1980: President Jimmy Carter announces the US boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
1980: On the season finale of Dallas J.R. Ewing is shot by an unseen assailant.Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.

1616: Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment.
1739: Nadir Shah sacks Delhi, India and steals the jewels to the Peacock Throne.1815: After escaping imprisonment on Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with an army of about 300,000 beginning his Hundred Days Rule.
1852: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published.1899: At Sing Sing prison, Martha M. Place is sentence to become the first woman to be executed in the electric chair.
1904: BF Skinner is born.
1906: Ozzie Nelson is born.
1916: Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity.
1922: The USS Langley is commissioned as the first US Navy aircraft carrier.
1922: Carl Reiner is born.
1936: Vaughan Meader is born. He was famous for his near-perfect impersonation of John F. Kennedy and he pretty much lost his job after that day in Dallas. I used to play his "The First Family" record on my college radio show all the time.1942: At Terowie, Australia, Douglas MacArthur makes his famous speech where he says, "I came out of Bataan and I shall return."
1945: Rick Berman, producer of most modern Star Trek, is born. Love him or hate him, he still was very influential.1948: John de Lancie is born. He played the evil (or perhaps just Puckish) superbeing Q on Star Trek.1952: The United States ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
1958: Holly Hunter is born.1962: Stephen Sommers is born. He directed such popcorn flicks as The Mummy and Deep Rising.1965: LBJ sends federal troops to Alabama to protect civil rights marchers.
1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married in Gibraltar.Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.