| In 1842, physician Dr. Crawford W. Long of Jefferson, Georgia, first used ether as an anesthetic during a minor operation. He placed an ether-soaked towel over the face of James Venable and removed a tumour from his neck. |  |
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| In 239, B.C., was the first recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet by Chinese astronomers in the Shih Chi and Wen Hsien Thung Khao chronicles. Its highly elliptical, 75-year orbit carries it out well beyond the orbit of Neptune and well inside the orbits of Earth and Venus when it swings in around the Sun, travelling in the opposite direction from the revolution of the planets. It was the first comet that was recognized as being periodic. An Englishman, Edmond Halley predicted in 1705 that the comet that appeared over London in 1682 would reappear again in 1759, and that it was the same comet that appeared in 1607 and 1531. |
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| In 1842, physician Dr. Crawford W. Long of Jefferson, Georgia, first used ether as an anesthetic during a minor operation. He placed an ether-soaked towel over the face of James Venable and removed a tumour from his neck. | |
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| In 1858, the first U.S. patent for a combination lead pencil and eraser was issued to Hyman L. Lipman, of Philadelphia, PA. The pencil was made in the usual manner, with one-fourth of its length reserved inside one end to carry a piece of prepared india-rubber, glued in at one edge. Thus cutting one end prepared the lead for writing, while cutting the other end would expose a small piece of india rubber. This eraser was then conveniently available whenever needed, and not subject to being mislaid. Further, the eraser could be sharpened to a finer point to make a more precise erasure of fine lines in a drawing, or cut further down if the end became soiled. |
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| On March 30, 1867, the United States reached an agreement to purchase Alaska from Russia for a price of $7.2 million. The Treaty with Russia was negotiated and signed by Secretary of State William Seward and Russian Minister to the United States Edouard de Stoeckl. The United States Senate ratified the treaty on April 9, 1867, by a vote of 37 to 2.Critics of the deal to purchase Alaska called it "Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox." Opposition to the purchase of Alaska subsided with the Klondike Gold Strike in 1896.Seward's Day, in honor of William H. Seward, is a holiday in Alaska on the last Monday of March which celebrates the United States' purchase of Alaska from Russia. |
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| The U.S. Senate convened as a court to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson during impeachment proceedings. The House of Representatives had already voted to impeach the President. The vote followed bitter opposition by the Radical Republicans in Congress to Johnson's reconstruction policies in the South. However, the effort to remove him failed in the Senate by just one vote and he remained in office. |  |
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| Golf as an organized game in the United States, however, usually is dated from the founding of the St. Andrew's Golf Club at Yonkers, New York, in 1888. Its progenitor was John Reid, a Scot from Dunfermline who became known as “the father of American golf.” |
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| In 1903, regular news service began between New York and London on Marconi's wireless. On March 30, 1903, The Times in London became the first newspaper to establish an ongoing arrangement with the Marconi Telegraph Company for the regular transmission of news between the United States and the UK. Shortly thereafter, the New York Times requested that it be part of the arrangement. Despite extensive teething problems the importance of wireless as a cheap form of communication quickly became obvious. |
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| In 1909, the first significant double-deck bridge in the U.S. was opened to traffic. The Queensboro Bridge is one of the greatest cantilever bridges in the history of American bridge design. A collaboration between the famed bridge engineer Gustav Lindenthal (1850-1935) and architect Henry Hornbostel, the Queensboro’s massive, silver-painted trusses span the East River between 59th Street in Manhattan and Long Island City in Queens. The opening of the Queensboro Bridge was one of, if not the, most important feature to stimulate the continuing development of Long Island City and Queens in general. Before it, Long Island City was isolated and unevenly developed. |
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| In 1950, the invention of the phototransistor was announced. This was a transistor operated by light rather than electric current, invented by Dr. John Northrup Shive of the Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, N.J. It used a tiny chip of germanium, a semiconductor material, but only a single collector wire. The tip of this wire rests in a small dimple ground into one side of the germanium disk. At this point the germanium disk is only three thousandths of an inch thick. Light focussed on the opposite, un-dimpled side of the disk can control the flow of current in the wire, thus making a control device similar in function to a photo-electric cell. |
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| In 1953 Einstein published his most recent equations for a unified field theory as an appendix to the fourth edition of The Meaning of Relativity. The general theory of relativity was developed in defiance of centuries of physics. It consumed Einstein for 11 years—from 1905 to 1916—and in the end was proved triumphantly correct. In the 1930s, when Einstein began his work on a unified field theory, physicists believed that there were only two universal forces that the theory would have to unite: gravity and electromagnetism.They have since learned that there are two other fundamental forces as well, a strong force that binds together atomic nuclei and a weak force that governs radioactive decay. |
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| Woody Guthrie was one of the most famous and influential American folk singers of the 20th century and the composer of standards such as "This Land is Your Land," "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You" and "Tom Joad." "This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs, written by Woody Guthrie in 1940. It was originally written in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." Guthrie considered that song unrealistic and complacent, and was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio, so he wrote a different song, originally called "God Blessed America for Me" |
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| After landing a spot as a regular on Steve Allen's Tonight Show in 1955, he was signed
to a recording contract with Cadence Records. His third single, "Canadian Sunset" (1956) hit the Top Ten, and was soon
followed his only Billboard #1 hit, "Butterfly" (a cover of a Charlie Gracie record on which Williams imitated Elvis
Presley).
Buddy Knox would receive two gold records in 1957, one for "Party Doll" written and sang by Knox and the other for a song that Jimmy Bowen sang and co-wrote with Knox called "I’m Sticking With You". | |
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| Every X-15 flight was an adventure, a high-speed dash that often pushed into unexplored realms of flight. Flights frequently set new records in speed and altitude, as well as records in less-known measurements such as airframe heating and dynamic pressure. With the XLR-99 rocket engine operating at full throttle pilots experienced a minimum of 2 g's acceleration, building to over 4 g's as fuel burned off. |  |
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| "He's So Fine" was produced by The Tokens, who didn't get a recording contract after they hit #1 with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," but did get a production contract. It was the first record under their contract. Carole King played piano on this. |  |
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| “This ... is ... ‘Jeopardy’!” One of television’s best known game shows, "Jeopardy", developed by Merv Griffin, aired on NBC-TV for the first time on this day. Your category: Game Show Hosts: for 200 points. This host never missed one show in 2,500 programs. “Um, who is Art Fleming?” Right you are! |  |
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| In this 1966 television special, Barbara Streisand performed more than 20 songs, each in a different colorful setting, including "Funny Face" "What's New Pussycat?" and "Try to Remember". "Color Me Barbra" was Barbra Streisand's second TV special. |  |
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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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| Denver wrote this on a Spring day in Minnesota when the rain was gently falling. This was originally released as the B-side of "I'd Rather Be a Cowboy." As the Vietnam War came to an end, this track took on a new significance and began to receive airplay on Adult Contemporary radio stations. It was also featured in the 1973 CBS-TV movie Sunshine and its 1974 NBC-TV spin-off series. |  |
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| In 1985-86, Phil Collins career was at it's mountain-top. Quite fittingly, his best album is also from that span, No Jacket Required. It spent nearly 2 months atop the charts. And it spun off a handful of mammoth singles: "Sussudio", "One more night", "Don't lose my number" and "Take me home." |  |
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| Although he didn't seem very enthusiastic at the time, Nicklaus began to play some events on the senior PGA Tour when he turned fifty in 1990. He won 10 of the first 35 seniors tournaments he entered, including eight majors. |  |
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| While touring in support of the album, on March 20, 1990, her bus was struck by a tractor trailer. She suffered a broken vertebrae that required extensive surgery and kept her off the road for over a year. Estefan resurfaced in 1991 with “Into the Light,” again topping the charts with "Coming Out of the Dark," a single inspired by near-fatal accident. |  |
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0239 BC First recorded perihelion
passage of Halley's Comet
More ...
1842 Ether was used as an anaesthetic for first
time by Dr Crawford Long (Jefferson GA)
More ...
1858 Pencil with attached eraser patented (Hyman
L Lipman of Philadelphia)
More ...
1867 US purchases Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000
(2¢ an acre-Seward's Folly)
More ...
1868 U.S. Senate convened as a court to hear charges
against President Andrew Johnson
More ...
1889 John T Reid opens first US golf course (Yonkers
NY)
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1903 Wireless news service
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1909 Queensboro Bridge opens, linking Manhattan
& Queens
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1950 Phototransistor invention announced, Murray
Hill NJ
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1953 Einstein announces revised unified field
theory
More ...
1956 Woody Guthrie's song, "This Land Is
Your Land" was copyrighted
More ...
1957 "Butterfly" by Andy Williams and
"Party Doll" by Buddy Knox topped the charts
More ...
1961 NASA civilian pilot Joseph A Walker takes
X-15 169,600' (51,690 meter)
More ...
1963 "He's So Fine" by the Crystals
topped the charts
More ...
1964 "Jeopardy" aired on NBC-TV
for the first time
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1966 Barbra Streisand stars on "Color Me
Barbra" special on CBS
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1967 Cover picture of Beatles' "Sergeant
Pepper" is photographed
1968 (Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay" by
Otis Redding topped the charts
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1970 USSR wins its 8th straight world hockey championship
1974 "Sunshine on My Shoulders" by John
Denver topped the charts
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1985 "One More Night" by Phil Collins
topped the charts
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1987 Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers"
sells for record £22.5M ($39.7 million)
1990 Jack Nicklaus made his debut in the "Seniors"
golf tournament
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1991 "Coming Out of the Dark" by Gloria
Estefan topped the charts
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