9 March: This Date in History

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<< Mar 08| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY |Mar 10 >>
Events, deaths, births, of MAR 09
[For Mar 09 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Mar 19 — 1700s: Mar 20 — 1800s: Mar 21 — 1900~2099: Mar 22]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 030309 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” MAR 09

• McCarthyism rebuked... • Virginia Woolf's first novel... • Villa attacks Columbus, New Mexico... • US Marines continue to land at Da Nang... • US Army takes over from Marines in Vietnam... • US planes on the way to firebomb Tokyo civilians... • Slave mutineers ruled free... • White savages massacre Amerindians... • Battle of the ironclads... • Finns' heroic last stand on 101st day of Russian aggression... • Great Ukrainian poet and patriot is born... • Dentures... • Chinese puppet emperor... • US forces land in Vera Cruz... • Germany declares war on Portugal... • Mark I computer's inventor is born... • 65th US Treasury secretary is born... • Olds factory burns down... • “Secret admirer” murdered...

On a 09 March:

2002 Rigged presidential election in Zimbabwe.
      First day of presidential elections in Zimbabwe, in which which President Robert Mugabe, head of the ZANU-PF party, tries to add to his already 22 years in power, after a campaign of which the US State Department said the previous day: “The government of Zimbabwe continues its blatant campaign of violence, intimidation and manipulation of the electoral process in an effort to win the poll..It is clear that the government intends to win the election by any means.” And so it does.
      The two-day election is extended to a third day, 11 March, by an order of the High Court, on an appeal of presidential challenger Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change. citing Mugabe's deliberate reduction of the number of polling station in the MDF strongholds, so that some voters were frustrated after waiting in line for up to 20 hours. But Mugabe's government obeys the order only in Harare and there opens the polls 5 hours late. However the High Court rejects the opposition's request to extend the voting into a 4th day.
      On 13 March 2002, it would be announced that Mugabe won with 1'685'212 votes to 1'258'401 for the challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change. Predictably, Tsvangarai calls the election illegitimate, but so do practically all the foreign election observers, except those from South Africa.

2001 Ukraine's President Tuchman, protected by thousands of policemen, conducts a ceremony in memory of national poet Sevchenko. Angry demonstrators protest against Tuchman dictatorial ways.
2001 The price of Intel Corporation common stock (INTC) drops $3.81 to $29.44. It had traded as high as $74.88 (000828) and as low as $6.86 (960311) in the preceding 5 years. The computer chip maker had just lowered revenue estimates for the first quarter by about 25% and said it would cut its work force by 6% percent, or 5000 jobs.
[5-year INTC price graph >]
2001 El Consejo de Ministros aprueba por decreto la suspensión del servicio militar obligatorio en España a partir del 31 Dec 2001.
2000 La filial mejicana del banco español BBVA se fusiona con Bancomer para dar lugar al primer banco de México y uno de los principales de Latinoamérica. La nueva entidad, BBVA-Bancomer, suma unos activos de 36'000 millones de dólares (2,6 billones de pesetas).
1999 La policía francesa detiene en París, en una operación coordinada con la Guardia Civil española, a José Javier Arizkuren "Kantauri", jefe de los comandos de ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) desde 1994, y a otros cinco integrantes de la banda terrorista.
1998 El Grupo de Contacto, organismo que vela por la paz en la antigua Yugoslavia, apoya una misión mediadora liderada por el ex presidente español, Felipe González Márquez, para frenar la violencia en Kosovo.
1998 El criminal general chileno Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, nombrado tres día antes "comandante en jefe benemérito", deja el mando del Ejército, tras 65 años de carrera militar, y estrena su nuevo cargo de senador vitalicio.
1995 El juez Baltasar Garzón decide enviar al Tribunal Supremo la denuncia de Luis Roldán Ibáñez en la que acusa al vicepresidente Narcís Serra i Serra, al ministro García Vargas y a los ex ministros José Barrionuevo Peña y José Luis Corcuera Cuesta de malversación de caudales públicos por el uso irregular de los fondos reservados.
1994 La Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la ONU condena por primera vez formalmente el antisemitismo y la xenofobia.
1994 Termina en Francia el proceso de la sangre contaminada de sida con la absolución del ex primer ministro socialista Laurent Fabius y su ministra de Solidaridad y Asuntos Sociales, Georgine Dufaux.

1994 CompuServe adds Internet access
CompuServe announced it would offer Internet access to its 1.7 million members on this day in 1994. The increasing popularity of the Internet led most online services first to offer, then to emphasize, Web access. Within two years, the Internet (especially the World Wide Web) ended the reign of the online services. While AOL prospered, most other leading online service providers folded or transformed into Internet service providers. In February 1998, WorldCom purchased CompuServe and sold its online subscriber list to America Online.

1993 WordStar targets Apple market
The struggling WordStar International, Inc. purchases a word processing program for Macintosh computers, in an attempt to enter the market for Apple word processing. WordStar, once the market leader in word processing programs, began to lose ground after 1981 when IBM introduced the IBM PC, which used PC-DOS, a new operating system, instead of the previous standard, CP/M. Designed for CP/M, WordStar was slow to port to the new operating system and quickly lost ground to WordPerfect. In 1994, WordStar merged with Spinnaker Software and SoftKey Software Products to create SoftKey International.

1992 España y Croacia establecen relaciones diplomáticas.
1991 Mario Alberto Soares toma posesión como presidente de la República de Portugal en su segundo mandato.
1989 Eastern Airlines files for bankruptcy.
1989 Soviet Union officially submits to jurisdiction of the World Court.
1986 Mario Alberto Soares asume la Presidencia de Portugal.
1984 La ONU aprueba una convención internacional contra la tortura.
1981 Auto de procesamiento contra el teniente general Jaime Milans del Bosch, acusado de delito de rebelión militar.
1980 El PNV (Partido Nacionalista Vasco) gana las elecciones al Parlamento vasco.
1979 First extraterrestrial volcano discovered (on Jupiter's satellite Io)
1975 Work begins on the Alaskan oil pipeline.

1970 US Army takes over from Marines in Vietnam region ^top^
The US Marines turn over control of the five northernmost provinces in South Vietnam to the US Army. The Marines had been responsible for this area since they first arrived in South Vietnam in 1965. The change in responsibility for this area was part of President Richard Nixon's initiative to reduce US troop levels as the South Vietnamese accepted more responsibility for the fighting. After the departure of the 3rd Marine Division from Vietnam in late 1969, the 1st Marine Division was the only marine division left operating in South Vietnam.

1965 US Marines continue to land at Da Nang, Vietnam ^top^
The 3500 Marines of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade under Brig. Gen. Frederick J. Karch continue to land at Da Nang. The Marines had begun disembarking from the USS Henrico, Union, and Vancouver on March 8 and were the first US combat troops in South Vietnam. Among the arrivals on this day were the first US armor in Vietnam--a tank of the 3rd Marine Tank Battalion. More tanks, including those with flame-throwing capability, followed in a few days. There was scattered firing from Viet Cong soldiers hidden ashore as the Marines landed, but no Marines were hit. The Marines were at once assigned to protect the US base at Da Nang, both from the immediate perimeter and from the high ground along a ridge to the west. Many others eventually joined this initial contingent of Marines. During the course of the war, the Marine Corps deployed one corps-level headquarters, two Marine divisions, two additional Marine regimental landing teams and a reinforced Marine aircraft wing, plus a number of battalion-size Marine special landing forces afloat with the 7th Fleet. Present at the beginning of US commitment to the Vietnam War, the Marine Corps was also there at the end. In 1975, Marine Corps elements took part in the final evacuation of South Vietnam as the country fell to the North Vietnamese.

1965 Three white Unitarian ministers, including the Rev. James J. Reeb, were attacked with clubs on the streets of Selma, Alabama, while participating in a civil rights demonstration. Reeb later died in a Birmingham, Alabama hospital.
1961 Sputnik 9 carries Chernushka (dog) into orbit.
1955 Nikita Sergeievich Kruschev es nombrado secretario general del Partido Comunista de la Unión Soviética.

1954 “Red Scare” McCarthy rebuked even by his fellow Republican US Senators. ^top^
      Senate Republicans level criticism at fellow Republican Joseph McCarthy and take action to limit his power. The criticism and actions were indications that McCarthy's glory days as the most famous investigator of communist activity in the United States were coming to an end. A Republican senator from Wisconsin, McCarthy had risen to fame in early 1950 when he stated in a speech that there were over 200 known communists operating in the US Department of State. Various other charges and accusations issued forth from McCarthy in the months and years that followed. Although he was notably unsuccessful in discovering communists at work in the United States, his wild charges and sensational Senate investigations grabbed headlines and his name became one of the most famous in America. Republicans at first embraced McCarthy and his devastating attacks on the Democratic administration of President Harry S. Truman. However, when McCarthy kept up with his charges about communists in the government after the election of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, the party turned against him. Eisenhower himself was particularly disturbed by McCarthy's accusations about communists in the US Army.
      On 09 March 1954, Republican Senator Ralph Flanders (Vermont) verbally blasted McCarthy, charging that he was a "one-man party" intent on "doing his best to shatter that party whose label he wears." Flanders sarcastically declared, "The junior Senator from Wisconsin interests us all, no doubt about that, but also he puzzles some of us. To what party does he belong? Is he a hidden satellite of the Democratic Party, to which he is furnishing so much material for quiet mirth?" In addition to Flanders' speech, Senate Republicans acted to limit McCarthy's ability to conduct hearings and to derail his investigation of the US Army. McCarthy's days as a political force were indeed numbered.
     Also, influential newsman Edward R. Murrow, on his “See it Now” program, criticizes McCarthy.
     During his televised hearings into the US Army later in 1954, the American people got their first look at how McCarthy bullied witnesses and ignored procedure to suit his purposes. By late 1954, the Senate censured him, but he remained in office until his death in 1957. His legacy was immense: during his years in the spotlight, he destroyed careers, created a good deal of hysteria, and helped spread fear of political debate and dissent in the United States.

1945 The Japanese occupiers proclaim the "independence" of Indo-China.

1945 US planes on their way to kill Tokyo civilians by firebombing. ^top^
     US warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan. They are on their way to drop 2000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo, with the intention of killing great numbers of civilians. After they reached their target shortly after midnight on 10 March, some 40 square kilometers in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80'000 and 130'000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history. Early on 09 March, Air Force crews met on the Mariana Islands of Tinian and Saipan for a military briefing. They were planning a low-level bombing attack on Tokyo that would begin that evening, but with a twist: Their planes would be stripped of all guns except for the tail turret. The decrease in weight would increase the speed of each Superfortress bomber-and would also increase its bomb load capacity by 65%, making each plane able to carry more than seven tons. Speed would be crucial, and the crews were warned that if they were shot down, all haste was to be made for the water, which would increase their chances of being picked up by US rescue crews. Should they land within Japanese territory, they could only expect the very worst treatment by civilians, as the mission that night was going to entail the deaths of tens of thousands of those very same civilians. "You're going to deliver the biggest firecracker the Japanese have ever seen," said US Gen. Curtis LeMay.
      The cluster bombing of the downtown Tokyo suburb of Shitamachi had been approved only a few hours earlier. Shitamachi was composed of roughly 750'000 people living in cramped quarters in wooden-frame buildings. Setting ablaze this "paper city" was a kind of experiment in the effects of firebombing; it would also destroy the light industries, called "shadow factories," that produced prefabricated war materials destined for Japanese aircraft factories. The denizens of Shitamachi never had a chance of defending themselves. Their fire brigades were hopelessly undermanned, poorly trained, and poorly equipped. At 17:34, Superfortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian, reaching their target at 00:15. on 10 March.
      334 bombers, flying at a mere 150 meters altitude, dropped their loads, creating a giant bonfire fanned by 30-knot winds that helped raze Shitamachi and spread the flames throughout Tokyo. Masses of panicked and terrified Japanese civilians scrambled to escape the inferno, most unsuccessfully. The human carnage was so great that the blood-red mists and stench of burning flesh that wafted up sickened the bomber pilots, forcing them to grab oxygen masks to keep from vomiting. The raid lasted slightly longer than three hours. "In the black Sumida River, countless bodies were floating, clothed bodies, naked bodies, all black as charcoal. It was unreal," recorded one doctor at the scene. Only 243 American airmen were lost — considered acceptable losses.

1933 The US Congress, called into special session by newly inaugurated President Roosevelt, begins its "hundred days" of enacting New Deal legislation.

1933 The Emergency Banking Act
Freshly inaugurated President Franklin Roosevelt capped off a frantic first week in office by submitting the Emergency Banking Act to Congress. The legislation came but four days after the president declared a "banking holiday" that temporarily shut down the nation’s beleaguered financial institutions. Although a legally dubious legal move, the "holiday" helped halt the recent run on banks that had either bankrupted or badly depleted numerous banks’ holdings. The Banking Act was the next step in Roosevelt’s quick-hit revitalization plan; it gave the federal government considerable control over the nation’s banks, all in the name of returning the institutions to solvency. After little more than a half-hour of debate, the House passed the bill and paved the path for the relatively healthy banks to reopen their doors. And, on March 12 the President lifted the holiday and a handful of banking institutions were cautiously allowed to reenter the fray. Roosevelt’s gambits eased the public’s urge to seize back their deposits and bought the government time to enact legislation, most notably the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, that helped stabilize the nation’s banks.

1932 China’s last emperor becomes Japanese puppet ^top^
Henry Pu Yi, who reigned as the last emperor of China from 1908 to 1912, becomes regent of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, comprising the Rehe province of China and Manchuria. At the age of two, Henry Pu Yi, ascended to the Chinese throne as the last emperor of the Manchu dynasty and reigned for four years under the name of Hsuan T’ung. On October 11, 1911, the dynasty fell to a republican revolution led by Chinese nationalist Sun Yat-sen, and in the next year Pu Yi was forced to abdicate. The new Chinese republican government granted him a large government pension and permitted him to live in Beijing’s Forbidden City until 1924, when he was forced into exile. After 1925, he lived in Japanese-occupied Tianjin, and in 1932, with the creation of Manchukuo by the Japanese authorities, he became regent of the puppet state. Two years later, he was enthroned as K’ang Te, the sole emperor of Manchukuo. Despite guerilla resistance against his puppet regime, he held the emperor’s title until 1945, when he was captured by Soviet troops. In 1946, Pu Yi testified before the Tokyo war crimes tribunal that he had been the unwilling tool of the Japanese and not, as they claimed, an instrument of Manchurian self-determination. Manchuria and the Rehe province were returned to China, and in 1950, Pu Yi was handed over to the Chinese Communists, who imprisoned him at Shenyang until 1959, when Chinese leader Mao Zedong granted him amnesty.

1932 Eamon De Valera becomes president of Ireland — Constitución del Gobierno del Estado libre de Irlanda, presidido por Eamon de Valera.
1924 Italy annexes Fiume.
1923 Su enfermedad obliga a Lenin a abandonar definitivamente el poder en la URSS.
1917 Manifestación obrera en San Petersburgo, contra la que los cosacos se resisten a cargar. Alborea la revolución rusa.

1916 Germany declares war on Portugal. ^top^
On 07 August 1914, President de Arriaga of Portugal had declared his support for the Allies. At this time, Portugal had over 33'000 men in its army. By November 1914, Portuguese troops were involved in skirmishes with German troops on the frontier between Mozambique and German East Africa. However, this did not provoke a full-scale declaration of war.
In February, 1916, the Portuguese government ordered its navy to seize German ships in its harbors. Germany responded by declaring war on Portugal. About 100'000 Portuguese eventually fought with the Allies on the Western Front and in Mozambique. The army suffered 21'000 casualties, including over 7000 dead.

1865 Union General Sherman's "army group" occupies Fayetteville, North Carolina
1865 Battle of Kinston (Wise's Fork), North Carolina continues.
1864 US Grant promoted to Lieutenant General and appointed commander of Union Army
1862 Siege of New Madrid, Missouri continues

1862 Battle of the Ironclads ^top^
During the American Civil War, the CSS Virginia, a captured and rebuilt Union steam frigate formerly known as the Merrimack, engages the USS Monitor in the first battle between iron-fortified naval vessels in history. The Confederate navy’s innovative addition of iron plates to the captured USS Merrimack steam frigate temporarily made it an unstoppable force in the disputed waters of the Civil War, encouraged the Union navy to construct its own ironclad, the USS Monitor. On 08 March 1862, the Virginia attacked a Union squadron of wooden-hulled vessels in Hampton Roads off the Virginia coast. The USS Congress, a frigate, and the USS Cumberland, a sailing sloop, were easily sunk by the Virginia, which suffered no noticeable damage. Late that night, the USS Monitor arrived in the area, and despite its unassuming appearance, with its deck nearly at the water level, the Monitor would prove a formidable match for the Confederate ironclad. The next day, the two vessels engaged each other, and both the Monitor and the Virginia suffered direct hits which failed to penetrate their iron shells. Finally after four hours, a cannon blast from the Virginia hit the Monitor’s pilothouse, temporarily blinding ship’s captain, Union Lieutenant John L. Worden. The Virginia was thus allowed to escape to Norfolk, Virginia, and the Battle of the Ironclads ended in a draw. Two months later, the Virginia was trapped in Norfolk by advancing Union forces, and its Confederate crew blew up the innovative vessel rather than allow it to fall into Union hands.

1861 Confederate currency authorized — $50, $100, $500, $1000.
1860 First Japanese ambassador to US arrives in San Francisco en route to Washington.

1847 US forces land at Vera Cruz ^top^
      During the Mexican-American War, US forces under General Winfield Scott invade Mexico three miles south of Vera Cruz. Encountering little resistance from the Mexicans massed in the fortified city of Vera Cruz, by nightfall the last of Scott's 10'000 men have come ashore without the loss of a single life. It is the largest amphibious landing in US history until World War II.
      The Mexican-American War began with a dispute over the US government's 1845 annexation of Texas. In January of 1846, President James K. Polk, a strong advocate of westward expansion, ordered General Zachary Taylor to occupy disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers. Mexican troops attacked Taylor's forces, and on 13 May 1846, Congress approved a declaration of war against Mexico.
      On 09 March 1847, General Scott's forces landed near Vera Cruz, and by 29 March, with very few American casualties, had taken the fortified city and its massive fortress, San Juan de Ulua. On 09 April, Scott began a devastating march to Mexico City, ending on 14 September, when triumphant US forces entered the Mexican capital and raised the American flag over the Hall of Montezuma.
      On 02 February 1848, representatives from the US and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, formally ending the Mexican War, recognizing Texas as part of the United States, and extending the boundaries of the United States west to the Pacific Ocean.

1841 US Supreme Court rules on slave ship mutiny ^top^
      At the end of a historic case, the US Supreme Court rules, with only one dissent, that the African slaves who seized control of the Amistad slave ship had been illegally forced into slavery, and thus are free under American law.
      In 1807, the US Congress had joined with Great Britain in abolishing the African slave trade, although the trading of slaves within the US was not prohibited. Despite the international ban on the import of African slaves, Spain and Portugal continued to transport and accept captive Africans to their American colonies until the 1860s.
      On June 28, 1839, fifty-three slaves recently captured in Africa left Havana, Cuba, aboard the Amistad schooner for a life of slavery on a sugar plantation at Puerto Principe. Three days later, Sengbe Pieh, a Membe African known as Cinque [drawing >], freed himself and the other slaves and planned a mutiny. Early in the morning of July 2, in the midst of a storm, the Africans rose up against their captors and, using sugar cane knives found in the hold, killed the captain of the vessel and a crewmember. Two other crewmembers were either thrown overboard or escaped, and Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montes, the two Cubans who had purchased the slaves, were captured.
      Cinque ordered the Cubans to sail the Amistad east back to Africa. During the day Ruiz and Montes complied, but at night they would turn the vessel in a northerly direction, toward US waters.
      After almost nearly two difficult months at sea, during which time over a dozen Africans perished, the so-called "black schooner" was spotted by the first American vessels. On August 26, the USS Washington, a US Navy brig, seized the Amistad off the coast of Long Island, New York, and escorted it to New London, Connecticut. Ruiz and Montes were freed and the Africans were imprisoned pending an investigation of the Amistad revolt. The two Cubans demanded the return of their supposedly Cuban-born slaves, while the Spanish government called for the Africans' extradition to Cuba to stand trial for piracy and murder.
      In opposition to both groups, American abolitionists advocated the return of the illegally bought slaves to Africa. The story of the Amistad mutiny garnered widespread attention, and US abolitionists succeeded in winning a trial in a US court. Before a federal district court in Connecticut, Cinque, who was taught English by his new American friends, testified on his own behalf.
      On 13 January 1840, Judge Andrew Judson ruled that the Africans were illegally enslaved, that they would not be returned to Cuba to stand trial for piracy and murder, and that they should be granted free passage back to Africa. The Spanish authorities and US President Martin Van Buren appealed the decision but another federal district court upheld Judson's findings.
      President Van Buren, in opposition to the abolitionist faction in Congress, appealed the decision again and on 22 February 1841, the US Supreme Court began hearing the Amistad case. US Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, who served as the sixth president of the United States from 1825 to 1829, joined the Africans' defense team. In Congress, Adams had been an eloquent opponent of slavery, and before the nation's highest court he presented a coherent argument for the release of Cinque and the thirty-four other survivors of the Amistad.
      On 09 March 1841, Justice Story delivers the decision of the Supreme Court that the Africans had been illegally enslaved and had thus exercised a natural right to fight for their freedom. In November, with the financial assistance of their abolitionist allies, the Amistad Africans departed America aboard the Gentleman on a voyage back to West Africa. Some of the Africans helped establish a Christian mission in Sierra Leone, but most, like Cinque, returned to their homelands in the African interior.
      One of the survivors, who was a child when taken aboard the Amistad as a slave, eventually returned to the United States. Originally named Margru, she studied at Ohio's integrated and coeducational Oberlin College in the late 1840s, before returning to Sierra Leone as evangelical missionary Sara Margru Kinson. [Amistad Timeline]

1839 Se firman dos tratados entre México y Francia que ponen fin a la Guerra de los Pasteles.
1820 Fernando VII jura la Constitución de 1812, obligado por el pueblo de Madrid. El rey vuelve a suprimir la Inquisición.
1780 Declaración rusa relativa a la neutralidad armada, para limitar la intrusión de la marina británica en los mares europeos.
1678 Rendición de Gante, defendida heroicamente por 500 españoles frente a 40'000 franceses.
1500 Zarpa de Lisboa la flota mandada por el portugués Pedro Alvarez Cabral con rumbo a la India, pero que descubrió el Brasil.
1497 Nicolaus Copernicus first recorded astronomical observation.
1496 Jews are expelled from Carintha Austria.

0435 First day of the 10th baktun. ^top^

10 baktun / 0 katun / 0 tun / 0 winal / 0 k'in // 07 - ahaw // 18 - dzip / g6

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Deaths which occurred on a March 09:
2002 Elkana Gobi, 20, Israeli corporal, from Neveh Dekalim, intentionally run over by an Israeli army jeep, in the evening. Near the Kissufim junction in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians had fired at the car where Gody and another Israeli were traveling, the passengers went out of the car to return fire. Israeli soldiers driving a military patrol jeep mistook the Israelis for Palestinian gunmen and ran over Gobi.
2002 Samer Awis, Fatah activist, by a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter in Ramallah, which was possibly intended for his brother Abed al-Karim Awis, one of the heads of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
2002: Limor Ben-Shoham, 27; Livnat Dvash, 28; Tali Eliyahu, 26; Dan Imani, 23; Orit Ozerov, 28; Avraham Haim Rahamim, 28; all 6 of Jerusalem; and Nir Borochov, 22; and Uri Felix, 25, both of Givat Ze'ev; Natanel Kochavi, 31, of Kiryat Ata; Baruch Lerner, 29, of Eli; Danit Dagan, 25, of Tel-Aviv; and suicide bomber Fuad Horani, an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade resident in the Al Arroub refugee camp south of Bethlehem in the West Bank, at 22:30 in the Moment garden café in the Rehavia neighborhood in the center of Jerusalem, at the corner of Ben-Maimon Street across Aza Street from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's residence. 54 persons are injured.
2002 Avia Malka, 9-month, from South Africa; Israel Yihye, 27, of Bnei Brak; and two Palestinian gunmen of Al-Aqsa Brigades, who, at 20:30, throw hand grenades and fire guns in the Jeremy Hotel in Netanya at people leaving after a traditional Shabbat hatan pre-wedding celebration. Israeli border policemen pursue and shoot the fleeing gunmen. Next to their bodies is found Yihye killed, possibly by police gunfire.
2002 Rana Jayousi, 21, and her baby about to be born, Palestinians, after being stopped by the Israeli soldiers at the Tolkarem roadblock, West Bank, and prevented to proceed to the hospital and ordered to return home.
2001 Stanko Miladinovic, Serbian police officer, by mortar shell fired by Ethnic Albanian guerillan into a police outpost in village of Lucane, near Kosovo, at 09:40.
2001 Iñaki Totorika Vega, agente de la Ertzaintza, asesinado en Hernani (Guipúzcoa) mediante una bomba colocada por ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) en el maletero de su vehículo.
1997 Christopher Wallace “Biggie Smalls” “The Notorious B.I.G.”, a “gangster-rapper”, shot at a stoplight in Los Angeles, weeks before the scheduled release of his album Life After Death, possibly in retaliation for the murder of rival Tupac Shakur 6 months earlier.

1995 Scott Amedure, 32, murdered by Jonathan Schmitz, 24. ^top^
     Schmitz had agreed to appear on a secret admirers segment of the Jenny Jones TV show. At the taping of the show (which was never broadcast) on 06 March 1995, Schmitz found out that his secret admirer was not a woman, but his friend and neighbor Amedure, an unemployed homosexual man, who told the audience about a fantasy that involved Schmitz, some whipped cream, strawberries and champagne, he became embarrassed and, his lawyers would later say, enraged. Three days after the taping, on 09 March 1995, Schmitz receives an anonymous, sexually suggestive note on his doorstep and assumed it came from Amedure. Schmitz purchases a 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition, goes to Amedure's mobile home, and fires two shots at close range into Amedure's chest. A few minutes later, Schmitz dials 911 from a pay phone at a gas station near his sister's house. He says "I just walked in the room and killed him."
     On 07 May 1999, at the conclusion of a civil “wrongful-death” death suit, a Michigan jury would find the producers of the "The Jenny Jones Show" negligent and responsible for the events that led to the murder and award Amedure's family $6500 in funeral and burial expenses, $5 million for Amedure's pain and suffering, and $10 million each for loss of companionship and compensation. One of the nine jurors sided with the defendants, but eight jurors were enough for a verdict in favor of the Amedure family.
The 1996 criminal trial.
     In a criminal trial, Schmitz was charged with first-degree murder and committing a felony with a firearm. To convict him of first-degree murder, prosecutors had to prove that the murder was premeditated, which would mandate a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The jury was allowed to consider lesser charges, such as second-degree murder or manslaughter.
     Though Schmitz may have been embarrassed by the Jenny Jones taping, it did not justify his killing Amedure, the state argued. Schmitz drove to one store to purchase a shotgun, drove to another for ammunition, and drove to Amedure's home before firing the fatal shots. That demonstrates premeditation, prosecutors said. Prosecutors contended that when Schmitz went to Amedure's mobile home, Schmitz became violent. They say that a police report indicating an upturned chair at the crime scene shows that Amedure was trying to defend himself. The State had an oral confession and a videotaped confession. In a pretrial hearing, however, the judge ruled that both confessions were inadmissible because the oral confession was made without Schmitz being read his Miranda rights and the videotaped confession was made while his right to counsel was being violated.
     Schmitz's attorneys argued the defense of diminished capacity. They claimed Schmitz lacked the mental state required to have committed premeditated murder when he shot Amedure. According to the defense's theory, Schmitz simply snapped after finding the note on his doorstep. Lawyers attributed Schmitz' reaction to Grave's disease -- a thyroid gland disorder that can cause irrational and violent behavior -- and manic depression.
     On 12 November 1996, the jury dismissed first-degree murder (premeditated), and found Jon Schmitz guilty of second-degree murder (intentional but not premeditated) and illegal possession of a firearm in commission of a felony. On 04 December 1996, he was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison, with parole possible after 20 years.
      However this conviction would be overturned by the the Michigan Court of Appeals in September 1998, ruling that the judge had mishandled the three-day jury selection process. The defense wanted to remove a juror on the last day, but the prosecution objected since the defense had no objection the previous day. The judge sided with the prosecution, but the state appeals court ruled that the defense should have the right to remove a juror at any time.
The 1999 criminal re-trial.
     On 26 August 1999, after three hours of deliberations, jurors in the retrial find Jonathan Schmitz guilty of second-degree murder. The twelve-member jury, composed of seven women and five men, concluded that Amedure was not to blame for his own slaying, as the defense had argued throughout the trial. The three-day delay between the taping of the show and the killing seems to have convinced the jurors of the guilt of Schmitz.
     On 14 September 1999, Jonathan Schmitz would receive the maximum sentence, as in the first trial, 25-to-50-year in prison.

1992 Menachim Begin, 78, Israeli prime minister 1977-1983.
1989 Robert Mapplethorpe, fotógrafo estadounidense.
1988 Kurt Georg Kiesinger, ex canciller de la RFA.
1977 One person killed by a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims who invade three buildings in Washington DC, taking more than 130 hostages. The siege ended two days later.
1943 Otto Freundlich, born in Germany in 1878, painter and sculptor active in France. — Ascension (1929, 2 m high bronze sculpture)

1940 Day 101 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland. ^top^
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
Rear Line breached by two enemy divisions north of Viborg but main defensive line again in Finnish hands by midnight.
       The Soviet Union is continuing its massive offensive against the Finnish backline positions. An attack in the morning by two Soviet divisions shatters the Finnish backline defences in Tali. The defending Finnish battalion loses 44 per cent of its strength in the savage engagement. Despite their heavy losses, the Finns still attempt a counterattack towards Tali at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, but without success. Tali village falls to the enemy.
      In the evening the Finnish troops regroup in defensive formations on a line cutting through the southern head of Lake Leitimojärvi and the eastern head of Lake Kärstilänjärvi. Some of the men are in a state of panic. Divisional staff is forced to ask for additional military policemen to pick up deserters from the front line.
      In Taipale, the Finnish troops manage to evacuate the Terenttilä stronghold without the Russians realising what is going on.
      The Finnish force in Viipurinlahti bay withdraws from Lihaniemi promontory and Hapenensaari and Piispansaari islands. On the western side of the bay the Soviet troops sever the new trunk road from Viipuri to Säkkijärvi.
      In the Kollaa sector in Ladoga Karelia the enemy offensive continues unabated, with strongholds changing hands several times during the course of the day.
      One of Finland's leading gymnasts, Reserve Lieutenant Martti 'Make' Uosikkinen is killed in Kollaa.
      By midnight the entire main defensive line is once again in Finnish hands.
      Approximately 70 Finnish aircraft strafe enemy troops and columns in Viipurinlahti bay. In an ensuing dogfight, the Finns shoot down three enemy fighters. One Finnish plane is lost and three damaged.
      Finnish pilots spot over 400 enemy trucks carrying infantry, and over 50 assault tanks on the roads to the south of Lake Suvanto on the eastern Isthmus.
      The Finnish Government convenes at 5 o'clock in the afternoon to consider the telegrams sent by the delegation at the Moscow peace talks. The assembled ministers are shocked by the proposed loss of access to Lake Ladoga and the cession of the district of Salla in Lapland. The session is interrupted by an important telephone call from Commander-in-Chief Mannerheim, and reconvenes at 10 p.m.
      The Government is able to draw on an assessment of the military situation prepared by General Heinrichs, commander of the Army of the Isthmus. Heinrichs' pessimistic assessment forces the Commander-in-Chief to conclude that there is no alternative but to accept the Soviet Union's peace terms.

Keskiyöllä päälinja on taas kauttaaltaan suomalaisten hallussa Talvisodan 101. päivä, 09.maaliskuuta.1940 ^top^
      Neuvostoliiton suurhyökkäys jatkuu Suomen taka-asemaa vastaan. Aamulla kahden neuvosto-divisioonan voimin tekemä hyökkäys lyö hajalle suomalaisten taka-aseman puolustuksen Talissa. Ankaran taistelun jälkeen suomalaispataljoona kärsii 44 prosentin tappiot. Iltapäivällä klo 14 suomalaiset vielä yrittävät vastahyökkäystä Talin suuntaan, tuloksetta. Talin kylä joutuu vihollisen haltuun.
      Illalla joukot saadaan ryhmitetyksi puolustukseen Leitimojärven eteläpään - Kärstilänjärven itäpään tasalle. Osa miehistä on pakokauhun vallassa. Divisioonan esikunta joutuu pyytämään lisää sotapoliiseja etulinjasta karanneiden pidättämiseksi.
      Taipaleessa tyhjennetään Terenttilän tukikohta venäläisten huomaamatta.
      Viipurinlahdella suomalaiset vetäytyvät Lihaniemestä, Hapenensaaresta ja Piispan-saaresta.
      Länsirannalla neuvostojoukot katkaisevat Viipurin-Säkkijärven uuden maantien.
      Kollaan suunnalla vihollinen jatkaa hyökkäystään ja tukikohdat vaihtavat päivän aikana useasti omistajaa.BR>       Yksi maamme parhaita voimistelijoita, reservin luutnantti Martti "Make"Uosikkinen kaatuu Kollaalla.
      Keskiyöllä päälinja on taas kauttaaltaan suomalaisten hallussa.
      Lentorykmentti tekee konekivääri-hyökkäyksiä noin 70 koneella vihollisen joukkoja ja kolonnia vastaan Viipurinlahdella. Syntyneessä ilmataistelussa ammutaan alas kolme vihollishävittäjää. Yksi oma kone tuhoutuu ja kolme vaurioituu.
      Suomalaiset lentäjät havaitsevat yhteensä yli 400 vihollisen kuorma-autoa kuljettamassa jalkaväkeä sekä yli 50 hyökkäysvaunua Suvannon etelänpuoleisilla teillä.
      Hallitus kokoontuu klo 17 pohtimaan rauhanvaltuuskunnan lähettämiä sähkeitä. Rauhanehdoissa tyrmistyttävät yhteyden menettäminen Laatokkaan ja Sallan alueen luovuttaminen. Istunto keskeytyy ylipäällikkö Mannerheimin tärkeään puhelinviestiin. Hallitus kokoontuu uudelleen klo 22.
      Hallituksella on käytettävänään Kannaksen armeijan komentajan, kenraali Heinrichsin laatima sotilallinen tilannekatsaus. Pessimistinen tilannetiedotus pakottaa ylipäällikön muodostamaan oman kantansa: rauhanehtoihin on suostuttava.

Vid midnatt är hela huvudlinjen igen under kontroll Vinterkrigets 101 dag, den 09 mars 1940 ^top^
     Sovjetunionens storoffensiv mot Finlands bakre ställning fortsätter. På morgonen splittrar två ryska divisioner det finska försvaret av den bakre ställningen i Tali. Efter en förbittrad kamp lider den finska bataljonen förluster på 44 procent. Kl. 14 på eftermiddagen försöker finnarna än en gång gå till motattack i riktning Tali, men utan resultat. Tali by faller i fiendens händer.
      På kvällen lyckas man gruppera trupperna för försvar på sektorn mellan Leitimojärvis södra ända och Kärstilänjärvis östra ända.
      En del av soldaterna grips av panik. Staben för divisionen måste be om extra militärpoliser för att ta fast soldater som rymt från den främre linjen.
      I Taipale tömmer man basen i Terenttilä utan att ryssarna märker det.
      I Viborgska viken retirerar finnarna från Lihaniemi, Hapenensaari och Piispansaari.
      På västkusten skär de ryska trupperna av den nya landsvägen mellan Viborg och Säkkijärvi.
      Vid Kollaa fortsätter fienden att anfalla och baserna byter flera gången ägare under dagen.
      En av Finlands främsta gymnaster, reservlöjtnant Martti "Make"Uosikkinen stupar i Kollaa.
      Vid midnatt är huvudlinjen igen i sin helhet i finnarnas besittning.
      Ett flygregemente på ungefär 70 plan beskjuter fiendens trupper och kolonn i Viborgska viken med maskingevär. Det uppstår en luftstrid där finnarna skjuter ner tre fientliga jaktplan. En av de egna planen förstörs och tre skadas.
      Finska piloter upptäcker sammanlagt drygt 400 fientliga lastbilar som transporterar infanteri och över 50 stridsvagnar på vägarna söder om Suvanto.
      Regeringen sammanträder kl. 17 för att behandla telegrammen som kommit in från fredsdelegationen. De mest upprörande punkterna i fredsvillkoren är att vårt land skulle vara tvunget att klippa av förbindelsen till Ladoga och överlåta området kring Salla åt Sovjetunionen. Sessionen avbryts av ett viktigt telefonmeddelande till överbefälhavare Mannerheim. Regeringen sammanträder på nytt kl. 22.
      Regeringen tar del av den militära lägesrapporten som sammanställts av kommendören för armén på Näset, general Heinrichs. Den pessimistiska lägesrapporten tvingar överbefälhavaren att ta ställning: Finland måste godkänna fredsvillkoren.

1925 Willard Leroy Metcalf, US painter born on 01 July 1858. — LINKS — Le Sillon — Child in Sunlight

1916: 17 US persons, and dozens of Villa's soldiers who killed them on US soil. ^top^
      to demonstrate that Venustiano Carranza does not control northern Mexico, Mexican guerrillas under the command of Francisco "Pancho" Villa crossed the US-Mexican border in January 1916 and execute 16 US persons at Santa Isabel. In In the early morning of 9 March, in a new incursion, Villa's troops attack the small border town of Columbus, New Mexico. Seventeen Americans are killed in the raid, and the center of town is burned. It was unclear whether Villa personally participated in the attack, but President Woodrow Wilson ordered the US Army into Mexico to capture the rebel leader dead or alive.
      Before he invaded the United States, Pancho Villa was already known to Americans for his exploits during the Mexican Revolution. In 1909 Villa joined Francisco Madero's uprising against the dictator of Mexico, Porfirio Díaz. During the rebellion, Villa, who lacked a formal education but had learned to read and write, displayed his talents as soldier and organizer. Combined with his intimate knowledge of the land and the people of northern Mexico, these gifts enabled him to place at Madero's disposal a division of trained soldiers under his command. After the success of the revolution with Diaz's 25 May 1911 resignation, Villa remained in the irregular army.
      Villa led the famous División del Norte, with its brilliant cavalry, Los Dorados, and won control of northern Mexico after a series of audacious attacks. In 1914, following the resignation of Mexican leader Victoriano Huerta, Pancho Villa and his former revolutionary ally Venustiano Carranza battled each other in a struggle for succession. By the end of 1915, Villa had been driven north into the mountains, and the US government recognized General Carranza as the president of Mexico. In January 1916, to protest President Woodrow Wilson's support for Carranza, Villa executed 16 US citizens at Santa Isabel in northern Mexico. Then, in early March, he ordered the raid on Columbus. Cavalry from the nearby Camp Furlong US Army outpost pursued the Mexicans, killing several dozen rebels on US soil and in Mexico before turning back.
      On 15 March, under orders from President Wilson, US Brigadier General John J. Pershing launched a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture Villa and disperse his rebels. The expedition eventually involved some 10'000 US soldiers and personnel. It was the first US military operation to employ mechanized vehicles, including automobiles and airplanes. For 11 months, Pershing failed to capture the elusive revolutionary, who was aided by his intimate knowledge of the terrain of northern Mexico and his popular support from the people there. Meanwhile, resentment over the US intrusion into Mexican territory led to a diplomatic crisis with the government in Mexico City. On June 21, the crisis escalated into violence when Mexican government troops attacked a detachment of the 10th Cavalry at Carrizal, Mexico, leaving 12 US dead, 10 wounded, and 24 captured. The Mexicans suffered more than 30 dead. If not for the critical situation in Europe, war might have been declared. In January 1917, having failed in their mission to capture Villa, and under continued pressure from the Mexican government, the Americans were ordered home. Villa continued his guerrilla activities in northern Mexico until Adolfo de la Huerta took power over the government and drafted a reformist constitution. Villa entered into an amicable agreement with Huerta and agreed to retire from politics. In 1920, the government pardoned Villa, but three years later he was assassinated at his ranch in Parral.
     Angered over American support of his rivals for the control of Mexico, the peasant-born revolutionary leader Pancho Villa attacks the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. In 1913, a bloody civil war in Mexico brought the ruthless general Victoriano Huerta to power. American President Woodrow Wilson despised the new regime, referring to it as a "government of butchers," and provided active military support to a challenger, Venustiano Carranza. Unfortunately, when Carranza won power in 1914, he also proved a disappointment and Wilson supported yet another rebel leader, Pancho Villa. A wily, peasant-born leader, Villa joined with Emiliano Zapata to keep the spirit of rebellion alive in Mexico and harass the Carranza government. A year later, though, Wilson decided Carranza had made enough steps towards democratic reform to merit official American support, and the president abandoned Villa.
      Outraged, Villa turned against the United States. In January 1916, he kidnapped 18 Americans from a Mexican train and slaughtered them. A few weeks later, on this day in 1916, Villa led an army of about 1500 guerillas across the border to stage a brutal raid against the small US town of Columbus, New Mexico. Villa and his men killed 19 persons and left the town in flames.
      Now determined to destroy the rebel he had once supported, Wilson ordered General John Pershing to lead 6000 US soldiers into Mexico and capture Villa. Reluctantly, Carranza agreed to allow the US to invade Mexican territory. For nearly two years, Pershing and his soldiers chased the elusive Villa on horseback, in automobiles, and with airplanes. The US troops had several bloody skirmishes with the rebels, but Pershing was never able to find and engage Villa. Finally losing patience with the US military presence in his nation, Carranza withdrew permission for the occupation. Pershing returned home in early 1917, and three months later left for Europe as the head of the US Expeditionary Force of World War I. Though Pershing never captured Villa, his efforts did convince Villa never again to attack American citizens or territory. After helping remove Carranza from power in 1920, Villa agreed to retire from politics. His enemies assassinated him in 1923. The resentment engendered in Mexico by the efforts against Pancho Villa, however, did not fade with his death, and Mexico-US relations remained strained for decades to come.

1904 Erskine Nicol, British painter born on 03 July 1825.

1901 Olds factory burns down. ^top^

     A fire destroys the Olds Motor Works factory in Detroit, Michigan. Legend holds that Olds employee James Brady pushed a Regular Runabout, affectionately called the Curved Dash, out of the building to safety. Over the course of the previous year, Olds had developed over eleven models for cars, all of which varied greatly in price and design.

      He had reportedly not decided which Olds models on which to focus the company’s production capability, but, as the first destroyed all but one prototype, fate decided that the Runabout would be the first major production Olds. The Runabout, a small buggy with lightweight wheels and a curved dashboard powered by a one-cylinder engine not dissimilar from today’s lawnmower engines, became the Olds Motor Company’s primary automobile. The Runabout could reach 30 km/h.

     Olds later viewed the fire as a miracle, a sign that the Runabout would make his fortune. He expressed his enthusiasm for the little car, “My horseless carriage is no passing fad. It never kicks, never bites, never tires on long runs, never sweats in hot weather, and doesn’t require care when not in use. It eats only when it’s on the road. And no road is too tough for the Olds Runabout.”

      In preparation for his success, Olds contracted other companies for parts to comprise his Runabout and in doing so he revolutionized the automobile industry. Previously, all cars had been built from start to finish in one site. Olds’s methods allowed for an assembly line in which parts were produced outside his factory and systematically assembled in his own factories. Among Olds subcontracted partners were the Dodge Brothers, Henry Leland who founded Lincoln and Cadillac, and Fred Fisher whose family produced bodies for GM. The Olds Runabout sold for $650.

1895 Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, escritor austríaco, con cuyo nombre se asocia la palabra masoquismo.
1888 Guillermo I, rey de Prusia.
1885 Louis Haghe, Belgian artist born on 17 March 1806.
1869 Héctor Berlioz, compositor francés.
1851 Hans Christian Ørsted, físico danés, descubridor del electromagnetismo.
1820 Hermanus Numan, Dutch artist born in 1744.

1782: 39 children, 29 women, and 28 men, Amerindians in the Gnadenhütten Massacre. ^top^
     It is the cold-blooded murder of 96 Ohio Amerindians, mostly Delawares (= Lenapes), by an American Revolutionary War officer, Captain David Williamson, and his militia at Gnadenhütten Village south of what is now New Philadelphia, Ohio. The Amerindians, who had been converted by Moravian Brethren and were peaceful Christians, were under suspicion because of their neutrality in the war. Williamson and his 90 volunteers, seeking revenge for Amerindian raids on frontier settlements, pretended friendship and disarmed the tribe; on the following morning they slaughtered the villagers in cold blood. Two scalped boys escaped to relate the incident.
     In 1782, the village of Gnadenhütten had about 100 Christian Amerindians, mostly Delawares, there to gather crops from their fields. Although the Amerindians professed and practiced neutrality, the British, Americans, and other Amerindians did not trust those living at Gnadenhütten. The leader of the mission, David Zeisberger, had been tried by the British for treason. He had been cleared of the charges in a British court While the Amerindians were harvesting the corn, some white settlers were attacked. Other settlers blamed those at Gnadenhütten for the violence. The settlers organized and went to Gnadenhütten where they claimed to find clothing from the murdered whites. The Amerindians were confined to their church while the settlers voted on their fate. Less than 20 of the approximately 100 whites voted against the murder of the Amerindians. When the Amerindians learned of their fate, they spent the night praying and signing hymns.
      In the morning, 9 March, the Amerindians are led from the church in pairs and their skulls are crushed with mallets. In all, 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children are murdered.

1748 Joseph Christophe (or Christophle), French artist born in 1662.
1719 Peeter van Bredael (or Breda), Flemish artist born on 29 July 1629.
1692 Willelm (or Guilliam) van Heusch, Dutch artist born in 1638.
1688 Claude Mellan, French engraver born on 23 May 1598. — LINKS — Self-Portrait (engraving, 1635) — 49 other engravings at FAMSF
1680 Dirck Dirckszoon Bontepaert Santvoort (or Zantvoort), Dutch artist born in 1610.
1661 Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the chief minister of France. This leaves king Louis XIV in full control. — político y cardenal que rigió los destinos de Francia.

Births which occurred on a March 09:
1994 Dubreil, mathematician.
1993 Zorn, mathematician.
1963 El Museo Picasso se inaugura en Barcelona.
1949 Isabel Tocino Biscarolasaga, política española.
1948 Emma Bonino, política italiana, comisaria de la UE.
1943 Bobby Fischer US, world chess champion (1972-75)
1942 Krawtchouk, mathematician.
1934 Yuri Gagarin, Russian colonel, test pilot, first man in space (a 108-minute trip with a 89-minute orbit on 12 April 1961). He died on 27 March 1968 in the crash of the new aircraft he was test-flying..
1931 León Febres Cordero, político ecuatoriano.
1931 Sleszynski, mathematician.

1925 G. William Miller, 65th US Secretary of the Treasury. ^top^
Born in Sapulpa, Oklahoma in 1925, Miller did a stint in the military before heading to practice corporate law in New York City. Miller’s run up the ladder of the private sector continued when he made vice president of Textron, Inc., in 1957. In 1960, Miller was named president of Textron and later in the decade became the company’s CEO.
However, in 1974, Miller crossed over into the public sector and joined the Federal Reserve Board. Though he had risen to the top of the fed in 1978, Miller was not done job-hopping: in 1979, he accepted President Jimmy Carter’s nomination to become treasury secretary. Miller held the post until early 1981, when Republican challenger Ronald Reagan swept Carter from office.

1923 James Buckley (Sen-R-NY)

1913 The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf's first novel, goes to publisher. ^top^
      Virginia Woolf, 31, delivers the manuscript of her first novel, The Voyage Out, to her publisher. Coincidentally, this date is also the 21st birthday of Woolf's future lover, Vita Sackville-West, whom Woolf would not meet until 1925.
      Woolf, born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London on 25 January 1882, grew up surrounded by intellectuals. Her father was a writer and philosopher, and her mother was a British aristocrat. In 1902, Virginia's father died, and she took a house with her sister and two brothers in the Bloomsbury district in London near the British Museum. The family developed close friendships with other intellectuals and writers, including writer E.M. Forster, economist J.M. Keyes, and biographer Lytton Strachey. Their group came to be known as the Bloomsbury Group, a leisured set known later for their intellectual and sexual nonconformism: Many of the group, including Woolf herself, were bisexual or homosexual. Woolf became a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and also took odd jobs to support herself until she inherited a comfortable income from an aunt.
      Virginia married writer and social reformer Leonard Woolf in 1912. The couple established the Hogarth Press in their dining room several years later. In addition to Virginia Woolf's later novels, the press also published T.S. Eliot and translations of Chekhov and Dostoevsky.
      Woolf published her ground-breaking novel, Mrs. Dalloway, in 1925. Its stream-of-consciousness structure deeply influenced later writers. That same year, she fell in love with poet Sackville-West, who was married to the bisexual diplomat and author Harold Nichols. The affair produced Woolf's most whimsical work, Orlando. Woolf wrote several more novels as well as social and literary criticism. However, she was given to depressive spells and battled mental illness all her life. On 28 March 1941, fearful for her own mental state and afraid of the raging World War II, she filled her pockets with rocks and drowned herself. [Hence my answer to the question, title of a 1962 play by Edward Albee (born 12 Mar 1948): “Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?” — “Herself.”]
WOOLF ONLINE: Monday or Tuesday — Monday or Tuesday — Night and Day — Night and Day — The Voyage Out

1907 Mircea Eliade, historiador y etnólogo rumano.

1900 Howard Hathaway Aiken, inventor of the Mark I computer. ^top^
Howard Aiken, a Harvard researcher, needed a way to solve nonlinear differential equations for his thesis work and therefore proposed a large-scale digital calculator. Previously, complex calculations were usually performed by dozens of human calculators-most often women-who spent their entire workweek doing math problems. With the support of IBM, Aiken developed the first fully automatic calculating machine. The Mark I was 15.5 m long and 60 cm wide, and it was powered by a fifteen-meter-long mechanical shaft attached to a five-horsepower electric motor. The machine included more than half a million parts and hundreds of kilometers of wiring. It could store seventy numbers and perform three additions or subtractions per second, and it weighed five tons. Aiken's work was heavily influenced by the theories and proposals of English mathematician Charles Babbage and the writings of Babbage's protege, Ada Lovelace, daughter of the poet Byron.

1890 Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov Soviet foreign minister (UN)
1881 Ernest Bevin, político británico.
1879 Otto Hahn, químico alemán, descubridor de la posibilidad de desintegración del átomo de uranio.
1874 John Duncan Ferguson, British artist who died on 30 January 1961.
1871 S. Granville Redmond, US painter who died in 1935 — Flowers Under the Oaks — California Oaks and Poppies
1873 Royal Canadian Mounted Police founded
1866 Bour, mathematician.
1856 Thomas William Roberts, British Australian painter who died in 1931. — MORE ON ROBERTS AT ART “4” MARCH — LINKS — (Studio) — (The Bridge) — (Busy Street) — (By the Shore) — (Woman by the Pond) [the preceding titles are not given, so I made them up] — Bailed Up — Louis Buvelot (drawing)
1833 Jacques Français, mathematician.
1831 La Légion Etrangère se crea en Francia.

1822 Artificial teeth, patented by Charles Graham of NY. ^top^
      Replacements for decayed or lost teeth have been produced for millennia. The Etruscans made skillfully designed false teeth out of ivory and bone, secured by gold bridgework, as early as 700 B.C. Unfortunately, this level of sophistication for false teeth was not regained until the 1800s.
      During medieval times, the practice of dentistry was largely confined to tooth extraction; replacement was seldom considered. Gaps between teeth were expected, even among the rich and powerful. Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) filled the holes in her mouth with cloth to improve her appearance in public.
      When false teeth were installed, they were hand-carved and tied in place with silk threads. If not enough natural teeth remained, anchoring false ones was difficult. People who wore full sets of dentures had to remove them when they wanted to eat. Upper and lower plates fit poorly and were held together with steel springs; disconcertingly, the set of teeth could spring suddenly out of the wearer's mouth. Even George Washington (1732-1799) suffered terribly from tooth loss and ill-fitting dentures. The major obstacles to progress were finding suitable materials for false teeth, making accurate measurements of patient's mouth, and getting the teeth to stay in place. These problems began to be solved during the 1700s.
      Since antiquity, the most common material for false teeth was animal bone or ivory, especially from elephants or hippopotami. Human teeth were also used, pulled from the dead or sold by poor people from their own mouths. These kinds of false teeth soon rotted, turning brown and rancid. Rich people preferred teeth of silver, gold, mother of pearl, or agate. In 1774 the French pharmacist Duchateau enlisted the help of the prominent dentist Dubois de Chemant to design hard-baked, rot-proof porcelain dentures. De Chemant patented his improved version of these "Mineral Paste Teeth" in 1789 and took them with him when he emigrated to England shortly afterward. The single porcelain tooth held in place by an imbedded platinum pin was invented in 1808 by the Italian dentist Giuseppangelo Fonzi. Inspired by his dislike of handling dead people's teeth, Claudius Ash of London, England, invented an improved porcelain tooth around 1837.
      Porcelain teeth came to the United States in 1817 via the French dentist A. A. Planteau. The famous artist Charles Peale (1741-1847) began baking mineral teeth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1822. Commercial manufacture of porcelain teeth in the United States was begun, also in Philadelphia, around 1825 by Samuel Stockton. In 1844 Stockton's nephew founded the S.S. White Company, which greatly improved the design of artificial teeth and marketed them on a large scale.
      Fit and comfort, too, gradually improved. The German Philip Pfaff (1715-1767) introduced plaster of pairs impressions of the patient's mouth in 1756. Daniel Evans of Philadelphia also devised a method of accurate mouth measurement in 1836. The real breakthrough came with Charles Goodyear's discovery of vulcanized rubber in 1839. This cheap, easy-to-work material could be molded to fit the mouth and made a good base to hold false teeth. Well-mounted dentures could now be made cheaply. The timing was fortuitous. Horace Wells (1815-1848) had just introduced painless tooth extraction using nitrous oxide. The number of people having teeth removed skyrocketed, creating a great demand for good, affordable dentures, which Goodyear's invention made possible. After 1870, another cheap base, celluloid, was tried in place of rubber, but it too had drawbacks. Today dentures are either plastic or ceramic.

1814 (25 February Julian) Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko, Ukraine's national poet. ^top^ [self-portrait >] Born in Morintsy, Ukraine, Russian Empire, Taras Shevchenko would become the foremost Ukrainian poet of the 19th century and a major figure of the Ukrainian national revival, as well as an accomplished painter. &n bsp; Born a serf, Shevchenko was freed in 1838 while a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art. His first collection of poems, entitled Kobzar (1840; "The Bard"), expressed the historicism and the folkloristic interests of the Ukrainian Romantics, but his poetry soon moved away from nostalgia for Cossack life to a more somber portrayal of Ukrainian history, particularly in the long poem "The Haidamaks" (1841). When the secret Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius was suppressed in 1847, Shevchenko was punished by exile and compulsory military service for writing the poems "The Dream," "The Caucasus," and "The Epistle," which satirized the oppression of Ukraine by Russia and prophesied a revolution. Though forbidden to write or paint, Shevchenko clandestinely wrote a few lyric poems during the first years of his exile. He had a revival of creativity after his release in 1857; his later poetry treats historical and moral issues, both Ukrainian and universal. Shevchenko died on 10 March (26 February Julian) 1861, in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. SHEVCHENKO ONLINE: (in Ukrainian): Gaidamaky — Kavkaz — Son "Gori moi visokii..." — Son "Na panshchini pshenitsyu zhala..." — Son "U vsyakogo svoya dolya..." — Selected Works (in English translations): Selected poems
My Friendly Epistle To the Dead, the Living, and to Those Yet Unborn, My Countrymen all Who Live in Ukraine and Outside Ukraine, If a man say, I Love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar — 1 John iv. 20 (In Ukrainian: I Mertvym I Zhyvym...)
Day dawns, then comes the twilight gray, The limit of the livelong day; For weary people sleep seems best And all God's creatures go to rest. I, only, grieve like one accursed, Through all the hours both last and first, Sad at the crossroads, day and night, With no one there to see my plight; No one can see me, no one knows me; All men are deaf, no ears disclose me; Men stand and trade their mutual chains And barter truth for filthy gains, Committing shame against the Lord By harnessing for black reward People in yokes and sowing evil In fields commissioned by the Devil... And what will sprout? You soon will see What kind of harvest there will be! Come to your senses, ruthless ones, O stupid children, Folly's sons! And bring that peaceful paradise, Your own Ukraine, before your eyes; Then let your heart, in love sincere, Embrace her mighty ruin here! Break then your chains, in love unite, Nor seek in foreign lands the sight Of things not even found above, Still less in lands that strangers love... Then in your own house you will see True justice, strength, and liberty!	Gain knowledge, brothers! Think and read, And to your neighbors' gifts pay heed, -- Yet do not thus neglect your own: For he who is forgetful shown Of his own mother, graceless elf, Is punished by our God Himself. Strangers will turn from such as he And grudge him hospitality -- Nay, his own children grow estranged; Though one so evil may have ranged The whole wide earth, he shall not find A home to give him peace of mind. Sadly I weep when I recall The unforgotten deeds of all Our ancestors: their toilsome deeds! Could I forget their pangs and needs, I, as my price, would than suppress Half of my own life's happiness...	Such is our glory, sad and plain, The glory of our own Ukraine! I would advise you so to read That you may see, in very deed, No dream but all the wrongs of old That burial mounds might here unfold Before your eyes in martyred hosts, That you might ask those grisly ghosts: Who were the tortured ones, in fact, And why, and when, were they so racked?... Then 0 my brothers, as a start, Come, clasp your brothers to your heart, -- So let your mother smile with joy And dry her tears without annoy. Blest be your children in these lands By touch of your toil-hardened hands, And, duly washed, kissed let them be With lips that speak of liberty! Then all the shame of days of old, Forgotten, shall no more be told; Then shall our day of hope arrive, Ukrainian glory shall revive, No twilight but the dawn shall render And break forth into novel splendor.... Brother, embrace! Your hopes possess, I beg you in all eagerness! Viunishcha, December 14, 1845

1809 Johan Hendrik Louis Meyer, Dutch artist who died on 31 March 1866.
1791 First use of ether as anesthetic, by US surgeon George Hayward.
1749 Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, conde de Mirabeau, político francés.
1734 Francisco Bayeu y Subías, Spanish painter who died on 04 August 1795. — cuñado de Goya. — LINKS — Olympus: The Fall of the Giants — Saint James being visited by the Virgin with a Statue of the Madonna of the Pillar
1750 Johann-Friedrich-August Tischbein, German painter specialized in Portraits, who died on 21 June 1812 — LINKS — William V, Prince of Orange-Nassau
1621 Egbert Lievensz van der Poel, Dutch painter who died on 19 July 1664. — LINKS
1454 Amerigo Vespucci explorer, This could be Vespucciland !

Holidays Belize : Baron Bliss Day / Ukraine : Taras Shevchenko (Ukrainian poet) Day (2/25 OS) (1814) / World : Amerigo Vespucci Day (1451) / Memphis, Tenn : Cotton Carnival (held for 5 days) / New Mexico : Arbor Day ( Friday )

Religious Observances Ang, RC : St. Gregory, bishop of Nyssa / RC : St Frances of Rome, patron of motorists, housewives / Santas Francisca Romana y Catalina de Bolonia; san Niseno.
Ash Wednesday in 2011, 2095 (latest possible date).

Thought for the day: “Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.” — Howard Aiken [and even so, there's always the Heimlich maneuver]

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Some inventions that have not yet made the big time:
1) Inflatable dart board. 2) Glow-in-the-dark sunglasses. 3) A book on how to read. 4) Solar-powered flashlight.

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