| For King Harold and the Saxons, the appearance of a comet in 1066 was a portent of doom; for Duke William and the Normans, the same comet was a blessing from heaven. Later that year, William's army defeated Harold's forces at the Battle of Hastings. William's wife, Queen Matilda, commissioned this tapestry, the famous Bayeux Tapestry, to commemorate her husband's victory. Today we know that the comet was Halley's comet on one of its recurring visits. |
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| Handel had six soloists in this performance, and he composed a couple of new arias and reassigned others. Also, the 1743 performance is said to be the one at which George II stood for the "Hallelujah Chorus," thus initiating a tradition that has persisted to this day. |  |
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| To avoid interference from Lieutenant-Governor Dunmore and his Royal Marines, the Second Virginia Convention met March 20, 1775 inland at Richmond--in what is now called St. John's Church--instead of the Capitol in Williamsburg. Delegate Patrick Henry presented resolutions to raise a militia, and to put Virginia in a posture of defense. Henry's opponents urged caution and patience until the crown replied to Congress' latest petition for reconciliation. By custom, Henry addressed himself to the Convention's president, Peyton Randolph of Williamsburg. Henry's words on March 23 were not transcribed, but no one who heard them forgot their eloquence, or Henry's closing words: "Give me liberty, or give me death!" |
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| Leaving Fort Clatsop, Oregon on March 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery began their journey home. On the way home, Lewis and Clark used four dugout canoes they bought from the Native Americans, plus one that they stole in "retaliation" for a previous theft. Less than a month after leaving Fort Clatsop, they abandoned their canoes because portaging around all the falls proved too difficult. |  |
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| This device is the first "powered" coining press to be used at the United States Mint in Philadelphia. Thonnelier invented the press in France in 1833. It was operated by steam, while earlier presses were operated by hand. Philadelphians Merrick, Agnew, and Tyler imported the press in 1836. When it arrived in Philadelphia, Franklin Peale of the U.S. Mint made improvements to this model. |  |
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| The abbreviation fad began in Boston in the summer of 1838 and spread to New York and New Orleans in 1839. The Boston newspapers began referring satirically to the local swells as OFM, "our first men," and used expressions like NG, "no go," GT, "gone to Texas," and SP, "small potatoes." They're the result of a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s. It didn't really enter the language at large, however, until 1840. That's when Democratic supporters of Martin Van Buren adopted it as the name of their political club, giving OK a double meaning. ("Old Kinderhook" was a native of Kinderhook, New York.) |
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| John William Draper was greatly interested in the chemical effects of light; among other accomplishments, he took the first daguerreotype of the Moon in the winter of 1839-1840 and one of the first human portraits in 1840. Other firsts for Draper include the first stellar spectrum photograph, which he took of Vega in August 1872, the first wide-angle photograph of a comet's tail, and the first spectrum of a comet's head, both of these with Tebbutt's Comet in 1881. In addition, Draper obtained many high-quality photographs of the Moon in 1863, a benchmark spectrum of the Sun in 1873, and spectra of the Orion Nebula, the Moon, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and numerous bright stars. |
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| In 1857, the world’s first passenger safety elevator went into service in a store at 488 Broadway and Broome Street in New York City. The safety elevator invented by Elisha Otis was powered by steam through a series of shafts and belts. As the safety and efficiency of the early elevators continued to improve, space in buildings’ upper floors soon became more desirable, reversing a long-standing trend in commercial and residential leasing. By 1870, Otis Brothers & Company had revenues in excess of $1 million. |
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| Eleazer S. Gardner, of Philadelphia, received a patent for a "Railroad Track" ("Improvement in Tracks for City Railways"); cable street car which ran on overhead cables. |
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| In 1866, the land that comprises the current Berkeley campus was purchased by the private College of California. Because it lacked sufficient funds to operate, it eventually merged with the state-run Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College to form the University of California. The university's charter was signed by California Governor Henry H. Haight on March 23, 1868 and Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California, became its first president. |
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| In 1880 John Stevens of Neenah, Wisconsin submits a patent application for the flour rolling mill calling it the grain-crushing mill. Stevens’s innovation boosted flour production, efficiency by 70% and produced flour of a superior quality at a high price. |
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| President Harrison declared that public lands in the heart of Indian Territory in Oklahoma would be opened to settlers. It was part of the land set aside for native tribes. Whole tribes from other parts of the U.S. had been moved into the area all around the land. No one lived in the large strip smack in the middle of the region. Some groups (called “Boomers”) had simply moved in. Soldiers were sent to move "boomers" off the land. The U.S. bought the unused land from the tribes. It was divided into 160 acre plots. Town sites were laid out. Officials planned to open the borders at noon on April 22, 1889. |
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| A section of their patent application stated: “The objects of our invention are to provide means for maintaining or restoring the equilibrium or lateral balance of the apparatus, to provide means for guiding the machine both vertically and horizontally, and to provide a structure combining lightness, strength, convenience of construction, and certain other advantages which will hereinafter appear.” The patent was granted on May 22, 1903. |
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| Open in 1910, the Los Angeles Motordrome introduced a brand-new concept in the construction of speedways-- a one-mile, steeply banked circular track with a wood surface patterned ofter board bicycle tracks. In fact, when it was built, it was the largest wooden structure of any sort built in America. It operated with varying degrees of success until January 1913, when it was destroyed by fire. |  |
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| Lawrence Luellen and Hugh Moore begin distributing the “Health Kup” and special dispensers through their Individual Drinking Cup Co. In 1908, Luellen invented a cone-shaped paper cup coated with wax and hooked up with Moore a year later. The two then set out to convince water drinkers that sharing tin dippers at public fountains—common at the time—was unsanitary. In 1919, the company sought to distinguish its product from those of rapidly proliferating competitors and found inspiration in the Dixie Doll Co. of New York. Thus, the Health Kup became the Dixie Cup, and the stage was set for some truly exciting deals. The company was renamed the Dixie Cup Co. in 1943 and became a division of American Can in 1957. |
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| The term was originally coined by Jimmy Costas, a fruit shop owner in Lynbrook, as a response to the criticisms he received for selling vegetables but not bananas. The idea caught the public imagination and was the title of a song by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn, released in 1923. |  |
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| Judge Landis frees 74 Cardinal minor leaguers, among them Pete Reiser, in yet another attempt to halt the cover-up he perceived the farm system caused. Larry MacPhail makes a pact with Branch Rickey to take the unknown player and swap him back in the future, but Reiser's ability is too great to hide. |  |
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| In 1940, Edwards created his first radio show, “Truth or Consequences,” which was based on a game he played on his family’s farm as a boy. The program would become a landmark in broadcast history as radio’s No. 1 audience participation show. As its host, Edwards asked contestants humorous questions and made them “pay” the consequences for missed answers by performing unusual and often elaborate and outlandish stunts. Emmy-winning “Truth or Consequences” aired for 38 consecutive years on radio and television. |
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| Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade jumped from his Lancaster at 18,000 feet to escape the holocaust of his blazing bomber, leaving behind his useless parachute that had been torn to shreds by shrapnel. Tail gunners had to stash their 'chutes inside the fuselage, and when Alkemade opened the rear hatch of his turret, he found flames raging inside the plane and his only means of escape a blazing mass of silk. Faced with the choice of falling to his death or burning to a crisp, he rotated the turret and did a back somersault into space, 18,000 feet above Germany. Falling at speeds of up to 120mph, it would have taken him about two minutes to hit the ground. He was fantastically lucky. First, he blacked out during the fall, ensuring his body would not be dangerously rigid and tense on impact. Second, he fell into a dense pine forest, whose branches broke his fall, and then into a deep snowdrift. He survived with nothing worse than a somewhat twisted ankle. Alkemade's case is particularly well-researched because the Germans who found him discovered that his parachute harness had not been used and suspected him of being a spy. |
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| Contestants were required to perform tasks (called stunts) within a certain time frame denoted on a large 60-second clock on the wall that would count down a time limit. If they succeeded, they were said to have “beat the clock.” If they failed, the clock beat them. |  |
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| “West Side Story” was a musical written by Arthur Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (music), and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), and was originally produced, choreographed, and directed by Jerome Robbins. It debuted on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theater on September 26, 1957 and played 732 performances before touring. |  |
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| The US Army used specially trained homing pigeons to carry messages during WWI and WWII. They were considered an undetectable method of communication. Fort Monmouth was the home of the US Army Pigeon Breeding and Training Center from 1917 until 1957. A small capsule would be placed around the leg of the pigeon and a paper message was put into the capsule. The bird would be released to fly to its home loft with the message. Pigeons can fly hundreds of miles in a day. A mile a minute is the average speed. Over 90 % of all messages sent by the US Army using pigeons were received. Pigeons also carried maps, photographs and cameras. The birds are credited with saving thousands of lives. The US Army discontinued using pigeons as message carriers in 1957 due to expedient modern transmission methods. |
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| Hunter was signed to a contract at Warner Brothers and re-named "Tab Hunter" by his first agent, Henry Willson. His good looks got him pegged as a teen idol. He landed a role in the film “Island of Desire” opposite Linda Darnell. Although he believed that he had a mediocre singing voice, he had a 1957 hit record with a cover of the Sonny James song, "Young Love," which was #1 for Hunter for over a month. Hunter's success led Warner Brothers to form Warner Bros Records. |
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| Elvis Aron Presley entered the United States Army at Memphis, Tennessee, on March 24, 1958, and then spent three days at the Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, Reception Station. He left active duty at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on March 5, 1960, and received his discharge from the Army Reserve on March 23, 1964. During his active military career Presley served as a member of two different armor battalions. Between March 28 and September 17, 1958, he belonged to Company A, 2d Medium Tank Battalion, 37th Armor, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. During this assignment he completed basic and advanced military training. Presley's overseas service took place in Germany from October 1, 1958, until March 2, 1960, as a member of the 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32d Armor. |
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| Ruby Nash Curtis had met the Romantics in Akron, Ohio, and took on the role as their lead singer. They subsequently secured a contract with the New York label Kapp and at the suggestion of the company, changed their name to Ruby And The Romantics. By the following year they had taken the evocative "Our Day Will Come" to the top of the US pop chart, earning them a gold disc. Over the next 12 months the group enjoyed a further six hits including the original version of "Hey There Lonely Boy." |
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| The mission's primary goal was to test the new, maneuverable Gemini spacecraft. In space, the crew fired thrusters to change the shape of their orbit, shift their orbital plane slightly, and drop to a lower altitude. Other firsts were achieved on Gemini 3: two people flew aboard an American spacecraft (the Soviet Union launched a three-man crew on Voskhod 1 in 1964, upstaging the two-man Gemini and three-man Apollo programs); the first manned re-entry where the spacecraft was able to produce lift to change its touchdown point.Astronaut John Young became the first man to eat a corned beef sandwich in outer space. Young smuggled the sandwich on board in order to supplement the astronauts’ meals of dehydrated foods, including powdered fruit juice (Tang). |
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| Redding wrote the first verse of the song, under the abbreviated title "Dock of the Bay", at a houseboat in Sausalito, California. He had just come off his famed performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, just days earlier in June 1967. While touring in support of the LPs King & Queen (collaborations with female vocalist Carla Thomas) and his live set Live in Europe, he continued to scribble lines of the song on napkins and hotel paper. In December of that year he joined producer and guitarist Steve Cropper at a recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee. Together, they completed the music and melancholy lyrics of "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay". |
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| "Dark Lady" is about a woman who visits a famous fortune teller. The fortune teller (the "dark lady") tells her to break up with her boyfriend. Later on, the shocked protagonist remembers where she smelt the fortune teller's perfume before: on her bed after a night with her lover. She returns to the dark lady with a gun and finds her beau making love to the fortune teller. In a split decision, she pulls the trigger and kills the dark lady. |
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| In 1981, CBS cut the running time of the show from one hour to a half-hour and moved the show from its 8:00 am timeslot to make way for the 'CBS Morning News.' The series was re-titled 'Wake up with the Captain' and came on at 7:00 am, later moving to 6:30. |  |
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| The early version of the SDI program envisioned nearly perfect defenses against very large missile attacks, which would require highly-capable space-based intercept systems. Many of the weapons concepts required very large electrical power levels, and space nuclear reactors were a leading candidate to meet these requirements. |  |
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| When the band had difficulty coming up with songs for their Wheels Are Turnin' album, they took time off so each member could write alone. Kevin Cronin went to Molokai, Hawaii, during his "time off." There he played around with a song that he wrote 10 years earlier but never finished. When he stopped tinkering with his composition, it had become a song about a person's fear of change -- even though he knows that he MUST change. It was the second of two #1 hits for REO Speedwagon (after "Keep on Lovin' You"). |
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| In 1989, two Utah electrochemists claimed they had produced fusion at room temperature. Martin Fleischmann and Stan Pons announced in Utah how they had sustained a controlled nuclear fusion reaction in a test-tube that generated up to 100 per cent more energy than they put in. There were sporadic sightings of excess heat, which Fleischmann said cannot be accounted for by chemistry alone. However, leading scientists were unable to replicate the work. Most significantly, they found were no hallmarks of nuclear processes, especially none of the subatomic particles called neutrons. Thus, the idea of cold fusion was discredited. |
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| Gretzky set 40 regular-season records, 15 playoff records, 6 All-Star records, won four Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers, and won 9 MVP awards and 10 scoring titles. He is the only player ever to total over 200 points in a season (a feat that he accomplished four times in his career). In addition, he tallied over 100 points a season for 15 NHL seasons, 13 of them consecutively. |  |
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| Dion recorded six albums between 1992 and 1996, when her album Falling Into You took her to a new level of stardom. The recording was a runaway hit, winning Grammys for both Album of the Year and Best Pop Album. 1996 also brought her another honor; she was asked to perform at the opening ceremonies of the Atlanta Olympics. Dion's longest tenure on the pop charts would come the following year, however, when she recorded "My Heart Will Go On," the theme song for James Cameron's blockbuster movie Titanic. "My Heart Will Go On" became omnipresent on the radio as Titanic fever swept the world and when it was featured on her album Let's Talk About Love it helped propel that recording to the top of the charts. |
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| In 1996, the U.S. space shutttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir, for the first time dropping off a U.S. astronaut for an extended stay on the Mir. The astronaut, Shannon Lucid, was the first American woman to live aboard the Russian station (118 days). Lucid, a biochemist, was also the first woman to fly in space five times. The two craft joined up 245 miles (400-km) above Russia. This was the third in a series of dockings intended as preparation for a planned internationally operated space station. |
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| In 2001, the Russian space station, Mir, ended 15 years in orbit by burning up in Earth's atmosphere as the way chosen to end its life. Mir, launched in 1986, had far exceeded its original planned five year lifespan. The Russian government decided in Oct 2000 that its poor condition could no longer justify the expense to maintain its use. A docked Progress tanker had been remotely commanded by mission controllers to fire rockets and lower its orbit and cause re-entry into the atmosphere. The debris that did not burn up during re-entry fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean at the planned target zone between New Zealand and Chile. For safety, airlines had rerouted Pacific flights in anticipation of the event, and ships had been warned earlier. |
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| The Energizer Bunny(R) and retail giant Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. have earned a Guinness World Record for the Largest Bunny Hop. Guinness World Records(TM), certified that the Largest Bunny Hop took place on March 23, 2002 at the Wal-Mart store in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota when 1,501 aspiring record breakers formed a line and bunny hopped for five consecutive minutes, officially breaking the 1999 Walt Disney record of five minutes and 1,241 people. The winning line was measured at approximately 3400 feet. |
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1066 18th recorded perihelion passage
of Halley's Comet
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1743 George Frideric Handel's oratorio `Messiah'
London premiere
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1775 Patrick Henry proclaims "Give me liberty
or give me death"
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1794 Josiah Pierson patents a "cold-header"
(rivet) machine
1806 Lewis & Clark reach Pacific coast
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1836 Coin Press invented by Franklin Beale
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1839 First recorded use of "OK" [oll
korrect] (Boston's Morning Post)
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1840 Draper takes first successful photo of the
Moon (daguerrotype)
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1857 Elisha Otis' first elevator installed (488
Broadway, NYC)
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1858 Streetcar patented (Eleazer A Gardner of
Philadelphia)
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1868 University of California founded (Oakland
CA)
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1880 John Stevens of Neenah, WI patented the device
which was called a grain crushing mill
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1889 President Harrison opens Oklahoma for white
colonization
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1903 Wright brothers obtain airplane patent
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1910 First race at Los Angeles Motordrome (first
US auto speedway)
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1912 Dixie Cup invented
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1923 Frank Silver & Irving Conn release "Yes,
We Have No Bananas"
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1938 Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis frees 74 St
L Cardinals minor leaguers
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1940 First radio broadcast of "Truth or Consequences"
on CBS
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1944 Nicholas Alkemade falls 5,500 meters without
a parachute & lives
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1950 "Beat the Clock" premiered on CBS-TV
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1956 "West Side Story," a musical play
by Leonard Bernstein, was copyrighted
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1957 US army sells last homing pigeons
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1957 Teenage heartthrob Tab Hunter’s song
"Young Love" was number one in the US
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1960 Elvis Presley ends 2-year hitch in US Army
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1962 William DeWitt buys Cincinnati Reds for $4,625,000
1963 "Our Day Will Come" by Ruby &
the Romantics topped the charts
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1965 America's first two-person spaceflight began
as Gemini 3 blasted off from Cape Kennedy
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1968 (Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay" by
Otis Redding topped the charts
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1974 "Dark Lady" by Cher topped the
charts
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1981 CBS Television announced plans to reduce
"Captain Kangaroo" to a 30-minute show
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1983 US President Ronald Reagan introduces "Star
Wars"-plan (SDI)
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1985 "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO
Speedwagon topped the charts
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1989 Two Utah scientists claim they have produced
fusion at room temperatures
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1992 Florida Marlins begin selling tickets
1993 New York Knicks & Phoenix Suns get into
a major brawl
1994 Wayne Gretzky sets NHL record with 802 goals
scored
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1996 "Because You Loved Me" by Celine
Dion topped the charts
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1996 Mir and Atlantis dock
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2001 Mir space space station re-enters atmosphere
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2002 World's largest bunny hop
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