October 27, 1962: In what has been called “the most dangerous moment in human history,” Vasily Arkihpov vetoes the launch of a nuclear torpedo in a confrontation with the USS Randolph. Had Arkihpov acquiesced to the wishes of the other two officers on the Soviet B-59 sub, a full-scale thermo-nuclear war likely would have erupted.
February 26, 1929: Calvin Coolidge signs an executive order establishing the Grand Teton National Park.
February 27, 1964: The Government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.
March 11, 1918: At Fort Riley in Kansas, company cook private Albert Gitchell reports early morning to the camp infirmary with severe cold symptoms. By noon over a hundred others at the base are sick. The Spanish flu outbreak has begun.
March 13, 1901: Former U.S. President Benjamin Harrison dies from pneumonia.
March 14, 1879-Albert Einstein was born (and there will be (is) pi on this pi day)
March 14, 1883: Karl Marx dies from bronchitis and the grippe.
March 14, 1964: A jury in Dallas finds Jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald.
March 16, 1968: The My Lai Massacre
March 16, 1995: Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery.
March 21, 1963: Alcatraz prison in San Francisco was closed permanently.
Alcatraz was closed because it was too costly to run compared to other prisons; its per-prisoner cost was more than 3x the cost of other prisons, and salt water saturation had severely corroded its buildings. Alcatraz had been used to house prisoners from as early as 1859. Alcatraz became a federal prison in August 1934.
March 22, 1894: hockey’s first Stanley Cup was won by the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association.
March 23, 1775: at the Second Virginia Convention in Richmond VA, with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in attendance, one man’s speech is credited with having swung the balance in convincing the convention to pass a resolution delivering Virginian troops for the Revolutionary War.
That man was Patrick Henry, and the closing words of his speech were,
” Give me liberty, or give me death!”
March 23, 1721: Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated six concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt, now commonly called the Brandenburg Concertos.
March 24, 1874: Harry Houdini born in Budapest. He was 2 years old when his family emigrated to the US.
(Hey, like me! I was 2 also.)
March 25, 1911: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire kills 146 in New York City.
March 25, 1655: Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.
March 25, 1811: Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.
March 25, 1949: More than 92,000 kulaks are suddenly deported from the Baltic states to Siberia.
March 25, 31: in the year 31, was the first Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus.
March 26, 1892: Walt Whitman dies at age 72 from bronchial pneumonia.
March 28, 1922: Toronto wins the Stanley Cup Finals.
The Toronto St. Patricks of the NHL beat the Vancouver Millionaires of the PCHA 5-1, for a 3-2 series win.
Paging Leaffan…