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Post by dreamer on Mar 27, 2012 4:31:56 GMT -5
March 27thAmerican Revolution Jefferson elected to the Continental Congress, 1775 Automotive Toyota founder dies, 1952 Civil War Lincoln, Sherman and Grant meet, 1865 Cold War TV Marti begins broadcasting to Cuba, 1990 Crime Fingerprint evidence is used to solve a British murder case, 1905 Disaster Jumbo jets collide at Canary Islands airport, 1977 General Interest Japanese cherry trees planted along the Potomac, 1912 Khrushchev becomes Soviet premier, 1958 Earthquake rocks Alaska, 1964 FDA approves Viagra, 1998 Hollywood Marlon Brando declines Best Actor Oscar, 1973 Literary Poet Louis Simpson born, 1923 Music Pattie Boyd and Eric Clapton are married, 1979 Old West Mexicans execute defenders of Goliad, 1836 Presidential Jackson appoints John Eaton as secretary of war and starts scandal, 1829 Sports March Madness is born, 1939 Vietnam War South Vietnamese forces conduct combat operations in Cambodia, 1965 Bombing of Cambodia to continue, 1973 World War I Bessarabia annexed by Romania, 1918 World War II Germans launch last of their V-2s, 1945 ******************** 1912: Japanese cherry trees planted along the PotomacIn Washington, D.C., Helen Taft, wife of President William Taft, and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, plant two Yoshina cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac River, near the Jefferson Memorial. The event was held in celebration of a gift, by the Japanese government, of 3,020 cherry trees to the U.S. government. The planting of Japanese cherry trees along the Potomac was first proposed by socialite Eliza Scidmore, who raised money for the endeavor. Helen Taft had lived in Japan while her husband was president of the Philippine Commission, and knowing the beauty of cherry blossoms she embraced Scidmore's idea. After learning of the first lady's interest, the Japanese consul in New York suggested making a gift of the trees to the U.S. government from the city of Tokyo. In January 1910, 2,000 Japanese cherry trees arrived in Washington from Japan but had fallen prey to disease during the journey. In response, a private Japanese citizen donated the funds to transport a new batch of trees, and 3,020 specimens were taken from the famous collection on the bank of the Arakawa River in Adachi Ward, a suburb of Tokyo. In March 1912, the trees arrived in Washington, and on March 27 the first two trees were planted along the Potomac River's Tidal Basin in a formal ceremony. The rest of the trees were then planted along the basin, in East Potomac Park, and on the White House grounds. The blossoming trees proved immediately popular with visitors to Washington's Mall area, and in 1934 city commissioners sponsored a three-day celebration of the late March blossoming of the trees, which grew into the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. After World War II, cuttings from Washington's cherry trees were sent back to Japan to restore the Tokyo collection that was decimated by American bombing attacks during the war. www.history.com/this-day-in-history
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Post by dreamer on Mar 28, 2012 5:05:16 GMT -5
March 28thAmerican Revolution British Parliament adopts the Coercive Acts, 1774 Automotive Land cleared for Ford's Willow Run plant, 1941 Civil War Yankess turn back Rebels at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, 1862 Cold War Acheson-Lilienthal Report released, 1946 Crime Funeral held for the man behind the guillotine, 1814 Duke lacrosse team suspended following sexual assault allegations, 2006 Disaster Reactor overheats at Three Mile Island, 1979 General Interest Spanish Civil War ends, 1939 Eisenhower dies, 1969 Nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, 1979 Hollywood Fairbanks and Pickford marry, 1920 Literary Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian novelist, is born, 1936 Music W.C. Handy—the "Father of the Blues"—dies, 1958 Old West De Anza founds San Francisco, 1776 Presidential Congress censures Jackson, 1834 Sports Baltimore Colts move to Indianapolis, 1984 Vietnam War Diem's popular support questioned, 1961 American pacifists arrive in Haiphong, 1967 World War I First American citizen killed during WWI, 1915 World War II Cunningham leads fateful British strike at Italians, 1941 ******************** 1979: Nuclear accident at Three Mile IslandAt 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, the worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island fails to close. Cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the core began to dangerously overheat. The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was built in 1974 on a sandbar on Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River, just 10 miles downstream from the state capitol in Harrisburg. In 1978, a second state-of-the-art reactor began operating on Three Mile Island, which was lauded for generating affordable and reliable energy in a time of energy crises. After the cooling water began to drain out of the broken pressure valve on the morning of March 28, 1979, emergency cooling pumps automatically went into operation. Left alone, these safety devices would have prevented the development of a larger crisis. However, human operators in the control room misread confusing and contradictory readings and shut off the emergency water system. The reactor was also shut down, but residual heat from the fission process was still being released. By early morning, the core had heated to over 4,000 degrees, just 1,000 degrees short of meltdown. In the meltdown scenario, the core melts, and deadly radiation drifts across the countryside, fatally sickening a potentially great number of people. As the plant operators struggled to understand what had happened, the contaminated water was releasing radioactive gases throughout the plant. The radiation levels, though not immediately life-threatening, were dangerous, and the core cooked further as the contaminated water was contained and precautions were taken to protect the operators. Shortly after 8 a.m., word of the accident leaked to the outside world. The plant's parent company, Metropolitan Edison, downplayed the crisis and claimed that no radiation had been detected off plant grounds, but the same day inspectors detected slightly increased levels of radiation nearby as a result of the contaminated water leak. Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh considered calling an evacuation. Finally, at about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they needed to get water moving through the core again and restarted the pumps. The temperature began to drop, and pressure in the reactor was reduced. The reactor had come within less than an hour of a complete meltdown. More than half the core was destroyed or molten, but it had not broken its protective shell, and no radiation was escaping. The crisis was apparently over. Two days later, however, on March 30, a bubble of highly flammable hydrogen gas was discovered within the reactor building. The bubble of gas was created two days before when exposed core materials reacted with super-heated steam. On March 28, some of this gas had exploded, releasing a small amount of radiation into the atmosphere. At that time, plant operators had not registered the explosion, which sounded like a ventilation door closing. After the radiation leak was discovered on March 30, residents were advised to stay indoors. Experts were uncertain if the hydrogen bubble would create further meltdown or possibly a giant explosion, and as a precaution Governor Thornburgh advised "pregnant women and pre-school age children to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice." This led to the panic the governor had hoped to avoid; within days, more than 100,000 people had fled surrounding towns. On April 1, President Jimmy Carter arrived at Three Mile Island to inspect the plant. Carter, a trained nuclear engineer, had helped dismantle a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor while serving in the U.S. Navy. His visit achieved its aim of calming local residents and the nation. That afternoon, experts agreed that the hydrogen bubble was not in danger of exploding. Slowly, the hydrogen was bled from the system as the reactor cooled. At the height of the crisis, plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but no one outside Three Mile Island had their health adversely affected by the accident. Nonetheless, the incident greatly eroded the public's faith in nuclear power. The unharmed Unit-1 reactor at Three Mile Island, which was shut down during the crisis, did not resume operation until 1985. Cleanup continued on Unit-2 until 1990, but it was too damaged to be rendered usable again. In the more than two decades since the accident at Three Mile Island, not a single new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States. www.history.com/this-day-in-history
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Post by dreamer on Mar 29, 2012 5:21:10 GMT -5
March 29th American Revolution Putnam named commander of New York troops, 1776 Automotive White House ousts GM chief, 2009 Civil War Appomattox campaign begins, 1865 Cold War Rosenbergs convicted of espionage, 1951 Crime The Mad Bomber strikes in New York, 1951 Disaster Earthquake and volcano do double damage in Mexico, 1982 General Interest British victory at Kambula, 1879 U.S. withdraws from Vietnam, 1973 Mariner 10 visits Mercury, 1974 Hollywood Miramax chiefs part ways with Disney, 2005 Literary Writer Mary Wollstonecraft marries William Godwin, 1797 Music Tom Jones is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, 2006 Old West Congress authorizes survey of Cumberland Road, 1806 Presidential John Tyler is born, 1790 Herbert Hoover has telephone installed in Oval Office, 1929 Sports Tar Heels win NCAA basketball championship, 1982 Vietnam War Calley found guilty of My Lai murders, 1971 Last U.S. troops depart South Vietnam, 1973 World War I Swedish prime minister resigns over WWI policy, 1917 World War II Patton takes Frankfurt, 1945 ******************** 1973: U.S. withdraws from VietnamTwo months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam as Hanoi frees the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America's direct eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end. In Saigon, some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees remained behind to aid South Vietnam in conducting what looked to be a fierce and ongoing war with communist North Vietnam. In 1961, after two decades of indirect military aid, U.S. President John F. Kennedy sent the first large force of U.S. military personnel to Vietnam to bolster the ineffectual autocratic regime of South Vietnam against the communist North. Three years later, with the South Vietnamese government crumbling, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered limited bombing raids on North Vietnam, and Congress authorized the use of U.S. troops. By 1965, North Vietnamese offensives left President Johnson with two choices: escalate U.S. involvement or withdraw. Johnson ordered the former, and troop levels soon jumped to more than 300,000 as U.S. air forces commenced the largest bombing campaign in history. During the next few years, the extended length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes, such as the massacre at My Lai, helped turn many in the United States against the Vietnam War. The communists' Tet Offensive of 1968 crushed U.S. hopes of an imminent end to the conflict and galvanized U.S. opposition to the war. In response, Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not seek reelection, citing what he perceived to be his responsibility in creating a perilous national division over Vietnam. He also authorized the beginning of peace talks. In the spring of 1969, as protests against the war escalated in the United States, U.S. troop strength in the war-torn country reached its peak at nearly 550,000 men. Richard Nixon, the new U.S. president, began U.S. troop withdrawal and "Vietnamization" of the war effort that year, but he intensified bombing. Large U.S. troop withdrawals continued in the early 1970s as President Nixon expanded air and ground operations into Cambodia and Laos in attempts to block enemy supply routes along Vietnam's borders. This expansion of the war, which accomplished few positive results, led to new waves of protests in the United States and elsewhere. Finally, in January 1973, representatives of the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Vietcong signed a peace agreement in Paris, ending the direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. Its key provisions included a cease-fire throughout Vietnam, the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the release of prisoners of war, and the reunification of North and South Vietnam through peaceful means. The South Vietnamese government was to remain in place until new elections were held, and North Vietnamese forces in the South were not to advance further nor be reinforced. In reality, however, the agreement was little more than a face-saving gesture by the U.S. government. Even before the last American troops departed on March 29, the communists violated the cease-fire, and by early 1974 full-scale war had resumed. At the end of 1974, South Vietnamese authorities reported that 80,000 of their soldiers and civilians had been killed in fighting during the year, making it the most costly of the Vietnam War. On April 30, 1975, the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to communist forces. North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, accepting the surrender of South Vietnam later in the day, remarked, "You have nothing to fear; between Vietnamese there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been defeated." The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in U.S. history and cost 58,000 American lives. As many as two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed. www.history.com/this-day-in-history
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Post by dreamer on Mar 30, 2012 5:46:58 GMT -5
March 30thAmerican Revolution King George endorses New England Restraining Act, 1775 Automotive President Obama announces auto industry shakeup, 2009 Civil War Confederate General Samuel Bell Maxey is born, 1825 Cold War Henry Wallace criticizes Truman's Cold War policies, 1948 Crime Ronald Reagan is shot by John Hinckley, Jr., 1981 Disaster Oil workers drown in North Sea, 1980 General Interest Allies capture Paris, 1814 Violence disrupts first Kansas election, 1855 Seward's Folly, 1867 15th Amendment adopted, 1870 President Reagan shot, 1981 Hollywood Obsessed Jodie Foster fan John Hinckley Jr. shoots President Reagan, 1981 Literary Anna Sewell, author of Black Beauty, is born, 1820 Music John Denver has his first #1 hit with "Sunshine On My Shoulders", 1974 Old West "Sockless" Simpson rallies populist farmers, 1891 Presidential Reagan is shot, 1981 Sports Bill Bradley scores 58 points for Princeton, 1965 Vietnam War Bomb explodes outside U.S. Embassy in Saigon, 1965 North Vietnamese launch Nguyen Hue Offensive, 1972 World War I Allied troops halt Germans at Moreuil Wood, 1918 World War II Japanese set up puppet regime at Nanking, 1940 ******************** 1981:President Reagan shotOn March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by a deranged drifter named John Hinckley Jr. The president had just finished addressing a labor meeting at the Washington Hilton Hotel and was walking with his entourage to his limousine when Hinckley, standing among a group of reporters, fired six shots at the president, hitting Reagan and three of his attendants. White House Press Secretary James Brady was shot in the head and critically wounded, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy was shot in the side, and District of Columbia policeman Thomas Delahaney was shot in the neck. After firing the shots, Hinckley was overpowered and pinned against a wall, and President Reagan, apparently unaware that he'd been shot, was shoved into his limousine by a Secret Service agent and rushed to the hospital. The president was shot in the left lung, and the .22 caliber bullet just missed his heart. In an impressive feat for a 70-year-old man with a collapsed lung, he walked into George Washington University Hospital under his own power. As he was treated and prepared for surgery, he was in good spirits and quipped to his wife, Nancy, ''Honey, I forgot to duck,'' and to his surgeons, "Please tell me you're Republicans." Reagan's surgery lasted two hours, and he was listed in stable and good condition afterward. The next day, the president resumed some of his executive duties and signed a piece of legislation from his hospital bed. On April 11, he returned to the White House. Reagan's popularity soared after the assassination attempt, and at the end of April he was given a hero's welcome by Congress. In August, this same Congress passed his controversial economic program, with several Democrats breaking ranks to back Reagan's plan. By this time, Reagan claimed to be fully recovered from the assassination attempt. In private, however, he would continue to feel the effects of the nearly fatal gunshot wound for years. Of the victims of the assassination attempt, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and D.C. policeman Thomas Delahaney eventually recovered. James Brady, who nearly died after being shot in the eye, suffered permanent brain damage. He later became an advocate of gun control, and in 1993 Congress passed the "Brady Bill," which established a five-day waiting period and background checks for prospective gun buyers. President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law. After being arrested on March 30, 1981, 25-year-old John Hinckley was booked on federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president. He had previously been arrested in Tennessee on weapons charges. In June 1982, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. In the trial, Hinckley's defense attorneys argued that their client was ill with narcissistic personality disorder, citing medical evidence, and had a pathological obsession with the 1976 film Taxi Driver, in which the main character attempts to assassinate a fictional senator. His lawyers claimed that Hinckley saw the movie more than a dozen times, was obsessed with the lead actress, Jodie Foster, and had attempted to reenact the events of the film in his own life. Thus the movie, not Hinckley, they argued, was the actual planning force behind the events that occurred on March 30, 1981. The verdict of "not guilty by reason of insanity" aroused widespread public criticism, and many were shocked that a would-be presidential assassin could avoid been held accountable for his crime. However, because of his obvious threat to society, he was placed in St. Elizabeth's Hospital, a mental institution. In the late 1990s, Hinckley's attorney began arguing that his mental illness was in remission and thus had a right to return to a normal life. Beginning in August 1999, he was allowed supervised day trips off the hospital grounds and later was allowed to visit his parents once a week unsupervised. The Secret Service voluntarily monitors him during these outings. If his mental illness remains in remission, he may one day be released. www.history.com/this-day-in-history
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Post by dreamer on Mar 31, 2012 6:15:07 GMT -5
March 31stAmerican Revolution Abigail Adams urges husband to "remember the ladies", 1776 Automotive Knute Rockne, Studebaker namesake, dies, 1931 Civil War North and South skirmish near Dinwiddie Court House, 1865 Cold War Warsaw Pact ends, 1991 Crime Evidence of murder is uncovered in New Mexico, 1999 Disaster Mississippi River reaches peak flood level, 1973 General Interest Jews to be expelled from Spain, 1492 Treaty of Kanagawa signed with Japan, 1854 Eiffel Tower opens, 1889 Dalai Lama begins exile, 1959 Hollywood The Matrix released, 1999 Literary First installment of The Pickwick Papers, Dickens' first novel, 1836 Music Oklahoma! premieres on Broadway, 1943 Old West Western novelist Vardis Fisher born, 1895 Presidential Abigail Adams asks her husband to "remember the ladies", 1776 Sports Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden wins 10th national title, 1975 Longest strike in Major League Baseball history ends, 1995 Vietnam War Johnson publicly denies actions contemplated in Vietnam, 1965 Johnson announces bombing halt, 1968 Fighting intensifies with North Vietnamese offensive, 1972 World War I The First Moroccan Crisis, 1905 World War II Germany's Atlantis launches, 1940 ******************** 1889: Eiffel Tower opensOn March 31, 1889, the Eiffel Tower is dedicated in Paris in a ceremony presided over by Gustave Eiffel, the tower's designer, and attended by French Prime Minister Pierre Tirard, a handful of other dignitaries, and 200 construction workers. In 1889, to honor of the centenary of the French Revolution, the French government planned an international exposition and announced a design competition for a monument to be built on the Champ-de-Mars in central Paris. Out of more than 100 designs submitted, the Centennial Committee chose Eiffel's plan of an open-lattice wrought-iron tower that would reach almost 1,000 feet above Paris and be the world's tallest man-made structure. Eiffel, a noted bridge builder, was a master of metal construction and designed the framework of the Statue of Liberty that had recently been erected in New York Harbor. Eiffel's tower was greeted with skepticism from critics who argued that it would be structurally unsound, and indignation from others who thought it would be an eyesore in the heart of Paris. Unperturbed, Eiffel completed his great tower under budget in just two years. Only one worker lost his life during construction, which at the time was a remarkably low casualty number for a project of that magnitude. The light, airy structure was by all accounts a technological wonder and within a few decades came to be regarded as an architectural masterpiece. The Eiffel Tower is 984 feet tall and consists of an iron framework supported on four masonry piers, from which rise four columns that unite to form a single vertical tower. Platforms, each with an observation deck, are at three levels. Elevators ascend the piers on a curve, and Eiffel contracted the Otis Elevator Company of the United States to design the tower's famous glass-cage elevators. The elevators were not completed by March 31, 1889, however, so Gustave Eiffel ascended the tower's stairs with a few hardy companions and raised an enormous French tricolor on the structure's flagpole. Fireworks were then set off from the second platform. Eiffel and his party descended, and the architect addressed the guests and about 200 workers. In early May, the Paris International Exposition opened, and the tower served as the entrance gateway to the giant fair. The Eiffel Tower remained the world's tallest man-made structure until the completion of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930. Incredibly, the Eiffel Tower was almost demolished when the International Exposition's 20-year lease on the land expired in 1909, but its value as an antenna for radio transmission saved it. It remains largely unchanged today and is one of the world's premier tourist attractions. www.history.com/this-day-in-history
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