| The Swedes established their colony in present Wilmington, which was not only the first permanent settlement in Delaware, but in the whole Delaware River Valley and North America. The first expedition, consisting of two ships, Kalmar Nyckel (Key of Kalmar) and Vogel Grip (Griffen), under the leadership of Peter Minuit, landed about March 29. The location of the first Swedish settlement was at "The Rocks," on the Christina River, near the foot of Seventh Street. A fort was built called Fort Christina after the young queen of Sweden, and the river was likewise named for her. |
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| On March 29th-30th 1795, Beethoven was invited to his first "Academy" - a charity event for the widows and orphans of musicians. Beethoven performed his Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat, and in this decade also composed piano sonatas, cello sonatas and violin sonatas. His First Symphony was completed in 1800, and his first set of string quartets in 1801. |
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| Vesta is the second most massive object in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of about 530 km and an estimated mass 9% the mass of the entire asteroid belt. Its size and unusually bright surface make Vesta the brightest asteroid, and the only one ever visible to the naked eye from Earth besides Ceres. It is named after the Roman virgin goddess of home and hearth, Vesta |
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| The exact times that Niagara Falls ran dry was not specifically recorded. It however began near midnight on March 2, 1848 and the early morning of March 30th 1848. The full effect of the ice jam upstream at the mouth of the Niagara River at Lake Erie did not take full effect until well into the day of March 30th. The water stopped flowing for approximately 30 - 40 hours before the flow of water at Niagara Falls had returned to normal on the late evening of March 31st and/or early morning hours of April 1, 1848. |
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| By the early 1850s, many Ohioans came to oppose child labor. In 1852, Ohio was one of the first states to implement limits on the number of hours that children could work. The Ohio government also prohibited children younger than twelve from working in mines. |
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| SAlthough Congress incorporated the Lincoln Monument Association in March 1867 to build a memorial to the slain President, no progress was made until 1901 when the McMillan Commission chose West Potomac Park as the site for the memorial. |
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| In 1886, the first batch of Coca Cola was brewed over a fire in a backyard in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. John Pemberton had created the concoction as a cure for "hangover," stomach ache and headache. He advertised it as a "brain tonic and intellectual beverage," and first sold it to the public a few weeks later on May 8. Coke contained cocaine as an ingredient until 1904, when the drug was banned by Congress. |
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| In the so-called 'Race to the South Pole' Scott came second, behind the Norwegian Roald Amundsen; and subsequently died, along with four companions, whilst trying to return to the safety of their base. The South Pole team's last camp was only eleven miles (20 km) from the One Ton supply depot. With them were found their diaries, and their sled still loaded with rock samples. Scott's journal contained the final lines: 'Had we lived I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman', and ending with the words, 'We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. For God's sake, look after our people. R. Scott'. |
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| On March 29, 1927 an estimated crowd of 15,000 watched as Seagrave made two runs over the beach course - one north bound, the other south bound, to eliminate any favourable influence of the wind. He achieved a maximum speed of 207.01 mph and an average speed of 203.792 mph. His time in seconds was 17.66. He was the first man to travel faster than 200 mph on land. |
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| Benny made his radio debut I saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jack Benny talking. There will be a slight pause while you say, 'Who cares?'" With those words, comedian Jack Benny - already a star of vaudeville, Broadway and movies - made his debut on radio, appearing on New York Daily News columnist Ed Sullivan's program on March 29, 1932. By the end of the year, Benny would conquer radio as well, being named "Most Popular Comedian on the Air" over Fred Allen, Ed Wynn, George Burns & Gracie Allen and Eddie Cantor. |
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| The primary mirror for the Goethe Link Observatory was a test blank that had been poured as experimental in development for the 200 inch mirror for the Mt. Palomar Telescope. The visual tests showed the surface of the glass was ranked as one of the most accurately figured mirrors ever made at that time. |
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| "Once again, we present Our Gal Sunday, the story of an orphan girl named Sunday from the little mining town of Silver Creek, Colorado, who in young womanhood married England's richest, most handsome lord, Lord Henry Brinthrope. The story that asks the question: Can this girl from the little mining town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?" "Our Gal Sunday" aired from march 29, 1937 until January 2, 1959. |
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| The V-1 was fired at targets in southeastern England and Belgium, chiefly the cities of London and Antwerp. They were launched from "ski-jump" launch sites along the French (Pas-de-Calais) and Dutch coasts until the sites were overrun by Allied forces. A small number were air launched from German aircraft over the North Sea. The V-1 was later complemented by the more sophisticated V-2 rocket. The last V-1 struck British soil on March 29, 1945, two days after the final V-2 attack. |
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| On June 17, 1950, Julius Rosenberg was arrested on suspicion of espionage after having been named by Sgt. David Greenglass, Ethel's younger brother and a former machinist at Los Alamos, who also confessed to passing secret information to the USSR through a courier, Harry Gold. On August 11, 1950, Ethel was arrested. The trial against the Rosenbergs began on March 6, 1951 and ended march 29, 1951 when the jury found them guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. |
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| The musical opened on Broadway March 29, 1951 and starred Gertrude Lawrence as Anna, and a then mostly unknown Yul Brynner as the King. The production was directed by John Van Druten and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. It ran for 1246 performances and won Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Actress, Best Featured Actor (for Brynner), Best Scenic Design and Best Costume Design. |
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| By 1948, Starr made her "Your Hit Parade" breakthrough with "You Were Only Foolin' (While I Was Falling in Love)." Subsequent hits like "Hoop-Dee-Doo," "Oh, Babe!" and "I'll Never Be Free" framed her in an emerging vein of the popular market that also looked back to traditional country and folk. In 1952, "Wheel of Fortune" became Starr's biggest hit and one of the signature songs of the '50s pop sound. Several years afterwards, "Comes A-Long A-Love" topped the British charts. |
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| "Tequila" was originally released as the B-side of "Train to Nowhere." Disc jockeys flipped the single and played this instead. According to Leo Kulka, who was the second engineer, this song was an afterthought after the band recorded "Train to Nowhere" (the A-side of the record). Some of the musicians had already left the studio when it was brought up that nothing had been recorded for the B-side. The remaining musicians were rounded up and the song was written on the spot. The "Tequila" part of the song was simply a silly attempt to cover up the holes in the song. After all, it was just the B-side. |
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| "Some Like It Hot" is a 1959 comedy film directed by Billy Wilder. It stars Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon, and the supporting cast includes Joe E. Brown and George Raft. The movie was adapted by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond from the story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan. |
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| The District of Columbia has been a unique city since its founding in 1800 as the seat of the new government. When first established, it was a town of 5000, and it was assumed that it would be the center of government, and not a population center. But by 1900, over a quarter of a million people lived within its bounds. Since it is a federal district, however, and not a state, the inhabitants not only had no real local government, they had no vote in the federal government either. |
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| Paar's emotionality made the everyday routine of putting together a ninety-minute program difficult to continue for long. Paar made it clear that he was not planning to continue with the Tonight Show because, as a TV Guide item put it, he was "bone tired" of the grind, and he signed off for the last time on March 29, 1962. |
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| "Dizzy" was a rare Pop song with strings. The Beatles used strings on their 1965 hit "Yesterday," but it wasn't until the Disco era when strings became common in Pop. Roe wrote this with Freddie Weller. Weller went on to become a Country singer after a spell as one of Paul Revere's Raiders. In 1962, Roe had his first, and only other US #1 hit with "Shelia," which he wrote when he was 14. He had anther hit in 1970 with "Jam Up Telly Tight," then started recording Country songs. |
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| In 1974, Mariner 10 took the first close-up pictures of Mercury. It was launched November 3, 1973. On its way to Mercury, Mariner 10 made its first flyby of Venus on February 5, 1974 and discovered evidence of rotating clouds. The mission required more course corrections than any previous mission and was the first spacecraft to use the gravitational pull of one planet to help it reach another planet. In three flybys past Mercury, it mapped about half of the planet's surface. It found a thin atmosphere and a magnetic field. This craft was also the first to use the solar wind as a means of locomotion; when the probe's thruster fuel ran low, scientists used the solar panels as sails to make course corrections. It ended a series of Mariner missions. |
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| "Lady Marmalade" was inspired by New Orleans prostitutes. The French Quarter is the city's red-light district. Bob Crewe wrote this. He's a producer who worked on many songs in the '60s, including hits by The Four Seasons. This became the biggest hit for songwriting/production team Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan. Strangely, it replaced another one of their songs, "My Eyes Adored You" by Frankie Valli, as US #1 in March 1975. |
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| The Disco beat was suggested by their producer, Bob Ezrin. This was completely unexpected from Pink Floyd, who specialized in making records you were supposed to listen to, not dance to. He got the idea for the beat when he was in New York and heard something Nile Rodgers was doing. Pink Floyd rarely released singles that were also on an album. They felt their songs were best appreciated in the context of an album, where the songs and the artwork came together to form a theme. Producer Bob Ezrin convinced them that this could stand on it's own and would not hurt album sales. |
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| The video for the song features Falco dressed as Mozart and wearing a rainbow coloured powdered wig. He passes through an 18th Century audience in a opera house and feels more at home among 20th century leather clad bikers. He was a long time established artist in German speaking territories before this was released, but it was his first song to be a huge international hit. |
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| The team is officially named Ravens after a telephone poll conducted by The Sun. Of 33,288 votes, 21,108 pick Ravens, 5,597 choose Americans and 5,583 select Marauders. |
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1638 First permanent white settlement in Delaware
(Swedish Lutherans)
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1795 Beethoven (24) debuts as pianist in Vienna
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1807 Vesta (asteroid) discovered by Olbers
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1848 Niagara Falls stops flowing for 30 hours
due to an ice jam
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1852 Ohio makes it illegal for children under
18 & women to work more than 10 hours a day
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1867 Congress approves Lincoln Memorial
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1886 Chemist John Pemberton begins to advertise
for Coca-Cola (with cocaine)
More ...
1912 Captain Robert Scott perishes
at the South Pole
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1927 Henry O D Segrave races his Sunbeam to a
record 203.79 mph at Daytona
More ...
1932 Jack Benny made his radio debut
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1936 10,000 watch the 200" mirror blank passing
through Indianapolis
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1937 The radio serial, "Our Gal Sunday",
debuted
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1943 Meat, butter & cheese rationed in US
during WWII (1.7 lbs/week, 4.4 lbs. for GI's)
1945 Last German V-1 (buzz bomb) attack on London
More ...
1951 Julius & Ethel Rosenberg convicted of
espionage
More ...
1951 The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "The
King and I" opened on Broadway
More ...
1952 "Wheel of Fortune" by Kay Starr
topped the charts
More ...
1958 "Tequila" by the Champs topped
the charts
More ...
1959 "Some Like it Hot" with Marilyn
Monroe & Jack Lemmon premieres
More ...
1961 23rd Amendment is ratified, allows Washington
DC residents to vote for President
More ...
1962 Jack Paar's final appearance on the "Tonight
Show"
More ...
1969 "Dizzy" by Tommy Roe topped the
charts
More ...
1974 Mariner 10's, first fly-by of Mercury, returns
photos
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1975 "Lady Marmalade" by Labelle topped
the charts
More ...
1980 "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)"
by Pink Floyd topped the charts
More ...
1984 NFL Baltimore Colts move to Indianapolis
under cover of night
1986 Beatle records officially go on sale in Russia
1986 "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco topped
the charts
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1996 Cleveland Browns choose new name, Baltimore
Ravens
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2000 The Patent and Trademark Office became the
"United States Patent and Trademark Office" and began operations
as a Performance-Based Organization.