March 25......

March 25 is the 84th (85th in leap years) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 281 days remaining in the year on this date.

Best Liberal Quote of the Day: On African Americans "It comes as a great shock...to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance...has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to Gary cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you." — James Baldwin

Stupidest Quote from the Right for the Day: On Anti-Semitism "Whether the Holocaust is real or not, the Jews clearly have a motive for fostering the idea that it occurred. Not only do the have a motive, but they have the means with the media domination they now hold" — David Duke, former head of the Ku Klux Klan and elected as a Republican to the Louisiana state legislature

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

EVENTS

● 1 - Roman Church historian Dionysius Exiguus (ca.500_550), in calculating his history of the Christian Church, took this day as the supposed date of the Annunciation. March 25th afterward became the first day of the calendar year, until the Gregorian Calendar Reform of 1753 changed the day to January 1st.

● 31 - 1st Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus

● 421 - Friday at 12 Prime Minister: city of Venice founded

● 708 - Constantine is consecrated Pope.

● 752 - Stephen ends his reign as Catholic Pope (or 26th)

● 1133 - William the Conqueror orders 1st Domesday Survey of England

● 1306 - Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scotland.

● 1409 - The Council of Pisa opens.

● 1533 - During one of his recorded "Table Talks," German reformer Martin Luther declared: 'That the Creator himself comes to us and becomes our ransom - this is the reason for our rejoicing.'

● 1571 - Catholic Italian businessman Roberto Ridolfi leaves England

● 1581 - Portuguese Cortes calls Philip II king of Portugal

● 1584 - First American colonists set sail from England. Bad things follow.

● 1584 - Sir Walter Raleigh renews Humphrey Gilbert's patent to explore North America

● 1598 - Cornelis de Houtman's fleet departs for East-Indies

● 1609 - Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Co.

● 1634 - The Catholic Church gained a foothold in colonial America when the ships "Dove" and "Ark" arrived in Maryland with 128 Catholic colonists, selected by Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore. The colony was under the leadership of Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore's brother.

● 1647 - Cape of Good Hope; tour ship Haerlem stranded in Tafel Bay

● 1655 - Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christian Huygens.

● 1655 - Civil war between Catholics and Puritans in Maryland ends. Protestants take control of Maryland at the Battle of the Severn.

● 1669 - Mount Etna in Sicily erupts, destroying Nicolosi, killing 20,000

● 1700 - England, France & Netherlands ratify 2nd Extermination treaty

● 1753 - Voltaire leaves the court of Frederik II of Prussia

● 1774 - English Parliament passes Boston Port Bill

● 1776 - Continental Congress authorizes a medal for General George Washington

● 1802 - The Treaty of Amiens is signed as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace" between France and United Kingdom.

● 1807 - The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.

● 1807 - The Swansea and Mumbles Railway, then known as the Oystermouth Railway, became the first passenger carrying railway in the world.

● 1807 - George Canning becomes British minister of Foreign affairs

● 1811 - Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for his publication of the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.

● 1813 - 1st US flag flown in battle on the Pacific, frigate Essex

● 1814 - Netherlands Bank established

● 1817 - Tsar Alexander I recommends formation of Society of Israeli Christians

● 1820 - Greece freedom revolt against anti Ottoman attack

● 1821 - Greece declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire, beginning the Greek War of Independence.

● 1826 - Birth of Maatilda Joslyn Gage, women's rights lecturer and suffrage historian.

● 1847 - Pope Pius IX encyclical "On aid for Ireland"

● 1856 - A E Burnside patents Burnside carbine

● 1857 - Frederick Laggenheim takes 1st photo of a solar eclipse

● 1863 - 1st Army Medal of Honor awarded

● 1863 - Skirmish at Brentwood TN

● 1864 - Battle of Paducah KY (Forrest's raid)

● 1865 - The "Claywater Meteorite" explodes just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin. Fragments having a combined mass of 1.5 kg are recovered.

● 1865 - Battle of Bluff Spring FL

● 1865 - Battle of Mobile AL (Spanish Fort, Fort Morgan, Fort Blakely)

● 1865 - SS General Lyon at Cape Hatteras catches fire & sinks, killing 400

● 1865 - American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman from the Union in a bloody battle.

● 1872 - Toronto printers strike for the nine-hour day -- the first major strike in Canada.

● 1873 - Birth of Rudolf Rocker, an anarcho-syndicalist theorist, organizer, anti-fascist. A Gentile, he became involved in the Jewish anarchist movement.

● 1877 - Birth of Jean-Baptiste Knockaert (1857-1957), Tourcoing (northern). French anarcho-syndicalist, communist, then free thinker.

● 1879 - Japan invaded the kingdom of Liuqiu (Ryukyu) Islands, formerly a vassal of China.

● 1881 - Bela Bartok, the Hungarian pianist who was one of the most important composers of the 20th century , was born.

● 1888 - Socialist leader Domela Nieuwenhuis elected to Dutch 2nd chamber

● 1894 - Coxey's army of the unemployed begins march on Washington, D.C., demanding economic reform. Coxey, a well-to-do businessman who was a Populist and quite untypical of his class in other ways, proposed a plan of federal work relief on public roads to be financed by an issue of Treasury notes -- thus ending the depression of 1893 by means of monetary inflation and work relief for the unemployed. When Congress refused to pass this bill, Coxey stated, "We will send a petition to Washington with boots on." Thus Coxey's Army marched peacefully from Ohio to Washington, D.C., where they were cheered by crowds, but Coxey and his lieutenants were arrested by police and about 50 people were beaten or trampled.

● 1895 - Italian troops invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia)

● 1900 - US Socialist Party is formed at Indianapolis

● 1901 - It was reported in Washington, DC, that Cubans were beginning to fear annexation.

● 1901 - 55 die as Rock Island train derailed near Marshalltown IA

● 1902 - Irving W Colburn patents sheet glass drawing machine

● 1902 - In Russia, 567 students were found guilty of "political disaffection." 95 students were exiled to Siberia.

● 1904 - E.D. Morel and Roger Casement formed the Congo Reform Association in Liverpool.

● 1905 - Russia received Japan's terms for peace.

● 1905 - Rebel battle flags captured during war are returned to South

● 1907 - Nicaraguan troops took Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.

● 1908 - Wilhelm II paid an official visit to Italy's king in Venice.

● 1908 - Clube Atletico Mineiro, Founded in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

● 1909 - In Russia, revolutionary Popova was arrested on 300 murder charges.

● 1911 - Triangle Shirt Waist Company, occupying the top floors of a ten story building in New York, is consumed by fire. 147 people, mostly immigrant women and young girls working in sweatshop conditions, lost their lives. Approximately 50 died as they leapt from windows to the street; the others were burned or trampled to death, desperately trying to escape via stairway exits illegally locked to prevent "the interruption of work." Company owners are charged with seven counts of manslaughter -- but will be found not guilty. The incident is a turning point in labor laws -- especially concerning health and safety. For the past three days the company, along with other warehouse owners, had grouped together to fight the Fire Commissioner's order that fire sprinklers be installed. After today's fire, a memorial parade will draw 100,000 people to Broadway.

● 1912 - Members of the anarchist Bonnet Gang take part in an attack in which two people are killed.

● 1913 - Great Dayton Flood

● 1915 - Australia - Sisterhood of International Peace founded.

● 1915 - 1st submarine disaster; a US F-4 sank off Hawaii, killing 21

● 1915 - German U boat torpedoes Netherlands merchant ship Medea

● 1916 - Ishi dies, last of his California-based Yahi Yana, his Native American tribe in Northern California. Captured in 1911, he had escaped from settlers who exterminated the rest of the Yahis, along with the elk they had hunted, only to spend his last years in captivity, studied by anthropoligists as a freakish curiosity.

● 1918 - French composer Claude Debussy died in Paris.

● 1918 - The Belarusian People's Republic was established.

● 1919 - The Paris Peace Commission adopted a plan to protect nations from the influx of foreign labor.

● 1920 - Greek Independence Day

● 1923 - British government grants Trans-Jordan autonomy

● 1924 - Greek parliament selects Admiral Paul Koundouriótis as premier

● 1924 - Greece proclaims itself a republic.

● 1931 - Black American activist Ida B. Wells dies, Chicago.

● 1931 - The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.

● 1931 - Fifty people were killed in riots that broke out in India. Gandhi was one of many people assaulted.

● 1934 - Birth of feminist icon and, in her later years, Clinton and Democratic Party apologist Gloria Steinem.

● 1935 - 1st Belgium government of Van Zealand resigns

● 1937 - Italy & Yugoslavia sign no-attack treaty (Pact of Belgrade)

● 1939 - Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII.

● 1939 - Birth of Toni Cade Bambara, New York. African American writer, civil rights activist, and teacher.

● 1940 - The U.S. agreed to give Britain and France access to all American warplanes.

● 1941 - The first paprika mill was incorporated in Dollon, SC.

● 1941 - Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers.

● 1942 - 700 Jews of Polish Lvov-district reach Belzec Concentration camp

● 1942 - Birth of Aretha Franklin.

● 1943 - 97% of all Dutch physicians strike againt Nazi registration

● 1944 - Germany troop executes 335 residents of Rome

● 1944 - RAF Sergeant Nickolas Alkemade survives a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet without a parachute

● 1945 - US 1st army breaks out bridgehead near Remagen

● 1945 - US 4th Armored division arrives at Hanau & Aschaffenburg

● 1945 - US Northern Tractor Flotilla departs Ulithi to Okinawa

● 1947 - Agreement of Linggadjati ratified in Batavia

● 1947 - An explosion in a coalmine in Centralia, Illinois kills 111.

● 1949 - The extensive deportation campaign was conducted in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Soviet authorities deported more than 92,000 people from Baltics to remote areas of the Soviet Union.

● 1949 - SS police chief Rauter request for a pardon, denied

● 1950 - Ski jumpers soar over Hampstead Heath; Norway comes to North London for a ski-jumping competition complete with imported snow.

● 1951 - American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot reflected in his journal: 'When it comes time to die, make sure that all you have to do is die.'

● 1951 - E Purcell & EM Ewen detect 21-cm radiation at Harvard physics lab

● 1953 - A group of 22 Southern Baptist military personnel, stationed at Rapid City, met to form the Calvary Baptist Church , the first Southern Baptist congregation established in South Dakota.

● 1953 - The USS Missouri fired on targets at Kojo, North Korea.

● 1954 - Pope Pius XII encyclical "Sacra virginitas" (On consecrated virginity)

● 1954 - RCA manufactures 1st color TV set (12½" screen at $1,000)

● 1955 - East Germany granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR

● 1955 - U.S. Customs confiscate 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" as they enter the U.S. It will then be published by City Lights publishers in San Francisco, leading to the arrest of publisher (and prominent poet) Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Customs also seized and destroyed another shipment of Ginsberg's poetry sent from Canada in the 60s.

● 1956 - At the conclusion of Alan Freed's 3-day Rock 'n' Roll Show at the Stage Theater in Hartford, Connecticut, police arrest 11 teens and pull the theater's license to operate. Hartford Institute of Living psychiatrist Dr. Francis J. Braceland to testify at license hearings that rock and roll is - "a communicable disease with music appealing to adolescent insecurity and driving teenagers to do outlandish things...It's cannibalistic and tribalistic." No wonder we like it.

● 1957 - The European Economic Community is established (West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg).

● 1958 - Canada's Avro Arrow makes it debut flight.

● 1958 - West German parliament desires German atomic weapons

● 1959 - French President De Gaulle acknowledges Oder-Neisse boundary

● 1960 - Julia Bertrand (1877-1960) dies. French teacher, militant anarchist, feminist and free thinker.

● 1960 - 1st guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut)

● 1960 - Italian government Tambroni forms

● 1961 - Explorer 10 launched into elongated Earth orbit (177/181,000 km)

● 1961 - Sputnik 10 carries a dog into Earth orbit; later recovered

● 1962 - French OAS-leader ex-General Jouhaud arrested

● 1964 - Britain sets memorial for the late President John F Kennedy

● 1964 - Egypt ends state of siege (1952-64)

● 1965 - West German Bondsdag extends war crimes retribution

● 1965 - After a weeks-long struggle against local police, the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, ends triumphantly with a 50,000 person demonstration in Montgomery. Afterwards, a white organizer, Viola Liuzzo, 39, is murdered by Klansmen while driving demonstrators between Selma and Montgomery. She had come to Selma from Michigan to join the protest, a housewife with five kids who grew up in the South, moved to Detroit and married a Teamsters business agent. Contrary to the "Mississippi Burning" mythonlogy, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI tried to discredit and smear her. Three Klansmen were arrested and eventually did time for "violating Viola Liuzzo's civil rights" by blowing her brains out.

● 1965 - One-time radical Max Eastman dies, Barbados.

● 1966 - Demonstrations & Vietnam War protests today through the 27th. Twenty- five thousand march down Fifth Ave. In New York City; other protests occur in seven U.S. cities and seven foreign cities.

● 1966 - US Supreme court rules "poll tax" unconstitutional

● 1967 - Martin Luther King, Jr., leads 2,000 anti-war marchers through Chicago.

● 1967 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR

● 1968 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

● 1969 - Andes Pact signed in Peru

● 1969 - Pakistan General Agha Mohammed Jagja Khan succeeds Ayub Chan as President

● 1969 - During their honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono hold their first Bed-In for Peace in the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (until March 31).

● 1970 - First U.S. postal strike ends after one week.

● 1970 - Concorde makes its 1st supersonic flight (700 MPH/1,127 KPH)

● 1971 - Pakistani army invades East Bengal.

● 1971 - European council accepts Mansholt plan laying off 5 million farmers

● 1971 - Bangladesh Liberation War: Beginning of Operation Searchlight of Pakistan Army against East Pakistani civilians.

● 1972 - Thirty thousand in Children's March for Survival, Washington, D.C., protesting welfare cuts.

● 1972 - London March of Shame protests British Army's gunning down of Northern Ireland civilians. London, England.

● 1975 - National Front rallies against Europe; Members of an extreme right-wing UK party, flanked by 2,000 police officers, march through north London protesting against integration with Europe.

● 1975 - King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (1964-75) was shot to death by a nephew. The nephew, with a history of mental illness, was beheaded the following June.

● 1976 - Argentine military junta bans leftist political parties

● 1979 - The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.

● 1981 - The U.S. Embassy in San Salvador was damaged when gunmen attacked using rocket propelled grenades and machine guns.

● 1982 - East German border guards ordered to shoot persons attempting to escape to the West.

● 1985 - Britain will go to Moscow Olympics; The British Olympic Association votes by a large majority to defy government requests and send athletes to the Olympic Games in Moscow.

● 1985 - Edwin Meese III becomes US Attorney General

● 1986 - Supreme Court rules Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes

● 1986 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan ordered emergency aid for the Honduran army. U.S. helicopters took Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border.

● 1987 - Supreme Court rules women/minorities may get jobs if less qualified

● 1988 - NASA launches space vehicle S-206

● 1988 - The Candle demonstration in Bratislava was the first mass demonstration of the 1980s against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

● 1988 - Robert E. Chambers Jr. pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. The case was known as New York City's "preppie murder case."

● 1990 - El Salvador - A new city, Segundo Montes, is started by campesinos who lived for nine years as exiles in Honduras.

● 1990 - Estonia voted for independence from the Soviet Union.

● 1990 - In the Bronx, New York City, a fire at an illegal social club called "Happy Land" kills 87 people.

● 1991 - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched a major counter-offensive to recapture key towns from Kurds in northern Iraq.

● 1992 - Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returned to Earth from the Mir space station after a 10-month stay, during which his native country, the Soviet Union, ceased to exist.

● 1993 - President de Klerk admitted that South Africa had built six nuclear bombs, but said that they had since been dismantled.

● 1994 - Last group of U.S. soldiers leaves Somalia as civil war intensifies.

● 1995 - Mike Tyson is released from the Indiana Youth Center after serving three years for a rape conviction.

● 1995 - Ward Cunningham opens the first wiki, the WikiWikiWeb.

● 1996 - An 81-day-long standoff between the anti-government group Montana Freemen and law enforcement near Jordan, Montana, begins.

● 1996 - The Labour Party is founded in Turkey.

● 1996 - The EU's Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (BSE).

● 1996 - Comet C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake) approaches within 0.1018 astronomical units (AUs) of Earth

● 1996 - US issues newly-redesigned $100 bill

● 1998 - President Bill Clinton acknowledged during his Africa tour that ''we did not act quickly enough'' to stop the slaughter of 1 million Rwandans four years earlier.

● 1998 - A cancer patient was the first known to die under Oregon's doctor-assisted suicide law.

● 1998 - The FCC nets $578.6 million at auction for licenses for new wireless technology.

● 1998 - Quinn Pletcher was found guilty on charges of extortion. He had threatened to kill Bill Gates unless he was paid $5 million.

● 1999 - Enron energy traders allegedly route 2,900 megawatts of electricity destined to California to Silver Peak, Nevada, population 200.

● 2000 - Trimble narrowly wins leadership challenge; David Trimble narrowly beats off a challenge to his leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party.

● 2002 - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) dismissed complaints against Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network broadcast of a Victoria's Secret fashion show in November 2001.

● 2002 - A powerful earthquake rocked Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, killing as many as 1,000 people.

● 2003 - The former mayor of Waterbury, Conn., Philip Giordano, was convicted of violating the civil rights of two preteen girls by sexually abusing them.

● 2004 - The U.S. Senate voted (61-38) on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 1997) to make it a separate crime to harm a fetus during the commission of a violent federal crime.

● 2004 - Air Holland files for bankruptcy in response to unproven allegations of cannabis abuse by their pilots.

● 2006 - The Capitol Hill massacre, where gunman kills six people before taking his own life at a party in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, one of the largest crime scenes the city has ever had.

● 2006 - Protesters demanding a re-election in Belarus following the rigged Belarusian presidential election, 2006 clash with riot police. Opposition leader Aleksander Kozulin was among several protesters arrested.

BIRTHS

● 1252 - Conradin, Duke of Swabia (d. 1268)

● 1297 - Andronicus III Palaeologus, Eastern Roman Emperor (d. 1341)

● 1297 - Arnost of Pardubice, Archbishop of Prague (d. 1364)

● 1345 - Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt (d. 1369)

● 1347 - Catherine of Siena, Italian saint (d. 1380)

● 1404 (baptism) - John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, English military leader (d. 1444)

● 1479 - Vasili III, Grand Prince of Moscow (d. 1533)

● 1539 - Christopher Clavius, German mathematician (d. 1612)

● 1541 - Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1587)

● 1593 - Jean de Brébeuf, French Jesuit missionary (d. 1649)

● 1643 - Louis Moréri, French encylopedist (d. 1680)

● 1661 - Paul de Rapin, French historian (d. 1725)

● 1699 - Johann Adolph Hasse, German composer (d. 1783)

● 1767 - Joachim Murat, King of Naples (d. 1815)

● 1800 - Heinrich von Dechsen, German geologist (d. 1889)

● 1826 - Matilda Gage, American women's rights advocate (d. 1898)

● 1827 - Stephen Luce, American founder and first president of the Naval War College (d. 1917)

● 1840 - Myles Keogh, U.S. Soldier in U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment & Irish Soldier of Fortune (d. 1876)

● 1863 - Simon Flexner, American pathologist (d. 1946)

● 1867 - Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor, (d. 1957)

● 1868 - William Lockwood, English cricketer (d. 1932)

● 1873 - Rudolf Rocker, German anarchist (d. 1958)

● 1877 - Walter Little, Canadian politician (d. 1961)

● 1879 - William Knudsen, Danish-born American industrialist; president of General Motors (1937-1940) (d. 1948)

● 1881 - Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer (d. 1945)

● 1881 - Mary Gladys Webb, English writer (d. 1927)

● 1884 - Georges Imbert, Alsatian chemist (d. 1950)

● 1886 - Athenagoras, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 1972)

● 1888 - Gerald Murphy, American expatriate; befriended, with wife, writers and artists in Paris in the 1920's (d. 1964)

● 1892 - Andy Clyde, American actor (d. 1967)

● 1899 - Burt Munro, New Zealand motorcycle racer (d. 1978)

● 1901 - Ed Begley, American actor (d. 1970)

● 1903 - Nahum Norbert Glatzer, Jewish-American scholar (d. 1990)

● 1906 - A.J.P. Taylor, British historian (d. 1990)

● 1908 - Helmut Käutner, German actor and director (d. 1980)

● 1908 - Sir David Lean, English film director (d. 1991)

● 1911 - Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967)

● 1914 - Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize laureate

● 1918 - Howard Cosell, American sports reporter (d. 1995)

● 1920 - Patrick Troughton, British actor (d. 1987)

● 1920 - Arthur Wint, Jamaican runner

● 1921 - Simone Signoret, French actress (d. 1985)

● 1921 - Nancy Kelly, American actress (d. 1995)

● 1922 - Eileen Ford, model agency executive

● 1925 - Flannery O'Connor, American author (d. 1964)

● 1926 - László Papp, Hungarian boxer (d. 2003)

● 1926 - Jaime Sabines, Mexican poet (d. 1999)

● 1926(32? NYT) - Gene Shalit, American film critic (''Today'')

● 1928 - Jim Lovell, American astronaut

● 1929 - Wim van Est, Dutch cyclist (d. 2003)

● 1932 - Penelope Gilliatt, English writer of essays, short stories, screenplays and novels (d. 1993)

● 1934 - Gloria Steinem, American author

● 1935 - Flash Elorde, Filipino boxer

● 1938 - Hoyt Axton, American musician and actor (d. 1999)

● 1939 - Toni Cade Bambara, American author (d. 1995)

● 1940 - Anita Bryant, American entertainer

● 1942 - Aretha Franklin, American singer

● 1942 - Richard O'Brien, English actor and writer

● 1943 - Paul Michael Glaser, American actor (''Starsky and Hutch'')

● 1946 - Bonnie Bedelia, American actress

● 1946 - Maurice Krafft, French vulcanologist (d. 1991)

● 1946 - Cliff Balsam, English footballer

● 1946 - Gerard John Schaefer, American serial killer (d. 1995)

● 1947 - Elton John, English singer and songwriter

● 1948 - Bonnie Bedelia, Actress

● 1949 - Nick Lowe, British singer

● 1952 - Antanas Mockus, Colombian mathematician

● 1953 - Mary Gross, Actress, comedian

● 1955 - Daniel Boulud, French chef and restaurateur

● 1956 - Matthew Garber, British actor (d. 1977)

● 1958 - John Ensign, U.S. senator, R-NV.

● 1958 - James McDaniel, Actor

● 1958 - Ray Tanner, USC baseball coach

● 1960 - Brenda Strong, Actress (''Desperate Housewives'')

● 1960 - Idy Chan Yuk-Lin, Hong Kong actress

● 1960 - Steve Norman, British saxophonist (Spandau Ballet)

● 1961 - John Stockwell, Actor, writer, director

● 1962 - Marcia Cross, American actress (''Desperate Housewives'')

● 1964 - Lisa Gay Hamilton, American actress

● 1964 - Ken Wregget, Canadian hockey player

● 1964 - Alex Solis, Panamanian jockey

● 1965 - Sarah Jessica Parker, American actress (''Sex and the City'')

● 1965 - Stefka Kostadinova, Bulgarian high jumper

● 1966 - Tom Glavine, baseball player

● 1966 - Anton Rogan, Irish footballer

● 1966 - Jeff Healey, Canadian guitarist

● 1966 - Tatjana Patitz, German supermodel

● 1967 - Matthew Barney, American media artist

● 1967 - Debi Thomas, American figure skater

● 1969 - Dale Davis, American basketball player

● 1969 - Cathy Dennis, English singer, songwriter, record producer and actress

● 1970 - Kari Matchett, Canadian actress

● 1971 - Sheryl Swoopes, Basketball player

● 1971 - Cammi Granato, American hockey player

● 1973 - Anthony Barness, English footballer

● 1974 - Lark Voorhies, American actress

● 1975 - Melanie Blatt, Singer (All Saints)

● 1975 - Ladislav Benysek, Czech ice hockey player

● 1976 - Juvenile, American rapper

● 1976 - Wladimir Klitschko, Ukrainian boxer

● 1976 - Francis Bellew, Irish Gaelic footballer

● 1976 - Gigi Leung, Hong Kong singer/actress

● 1976 - Cha Tae-hyun, South Korean actor, TV personality, and singer

● 1979 - Natasha Yi, American supermodel

● 1982 - Danica Patrick, American race car driver

● 1982 - Sean Faris, American actor and model

● 1982 - Álvaro Saborío, Costa Rican footballer

● 1984 - Yuriy Leonovich, Ukrainian-American cellist

● 1984 - Katharine McPhee, American Idol contestant ("American Idol")

● 1986 - Kyle Lowry, American basketball player

● 1987 - Nobunari Oda, Japanese figure skater

● 1989 - Alyson Michalka, American actress

DEATHS

● 752 - Pope-elect Stephen (died before taking office)

● 1223 - Afonso II of Portugal (b. 1185)

● 1345 - Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, English politician (b. 1281)

● 1458 - Marqués de Santillana, Spanish poet (b. 1398)

● 1558 - Marcos de Niza, French Franciscan explorer

● 1603 - Ikoma Chikamasa, Japanese warlord (b. 1526)

● 1609 - Olaus Martini, Swedish Archbishop of Uppsala (b. 1557)

● 1620 - Johannes Nucius, German composer

● 1625 - Giambattista Marini, Italian poet (b. 1569)

● 1712 - Nehemiah Grew, English naturalist (b. 1641)

● 1736 - Nicholas Hawksmoor, British architect

● 1738 - Turlough O'Carolan, Irish harper and composer (b. 1670)

● 1751 - Frederick I of Sweden (b. 1676)

● 1801 - Novalis, German poet (b. 1772)

● 1818 - Caspar Wessel, Danish mathematician (b. 1745)

● 1860 - James Braid, Scottish surgeon (b. 1795)

● 1914 - Frédéric Mistral, French poet, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1830)

● 1918 - Claude Debussy, French composer (b. 1862)

● 1951 - Eddie Collins, baseball player (b. 1887)

● 1957 - Max Ophüls, German-born director and writer (b. 1902)

● 1958 - Tom Brown, American musician (b. 1888)

● 1969 - Max Eastman, American writer (b. 1883)

● 1969 - Billy Cotton, British bandleader & entertainer (b. 1889)

● 1975 - Faisal of Saudi Arabia (b. 1906)

● 1980 - Roland Barthes, French literary critic and writer (b. 1915)

● 1980 - Milton H. Erickson, American psychiatrist (b. 1901)

● 1980 - Walter Susskind, Czech conductor (b. 1913)

● 1980 - James Wright, American poet (b. 1927)

● 1988 - Robert Joffrey, dancer, teacher, and choreographer (b. 1930)

● 1992 - Nancy Walker, American actress (b. 1922)

● 1994 - Max Petitpierre, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1899)

● 1995 - James Coleman, American sociologist (b. 1926)

● 1995 - Krešimir Ćosić, Croatian basketball player (b. 1948)

● 1996 - John Snagge, British radio personality (b. 1904)

● 1999 - Cal Ripken, Sr., baseball manager (b. 1936)

● 2000 - Helen Martin, American actress (b. 1909)

● 2002 - Kenneth Wolstenholme, British football commentator (b. 1920)

● 2006 - Buck Owens, American singer and television personality (b. 1929)

● 2006 - Rocío Dúrcal, Spanish singer and actress (b. 1944)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Dula
● St. Dysmas, the 'Good Murderer'
● St. Harold
● St. Hermenland
● St. Humbert
● St. Izaak
● St. James Bird, Blessed
● St. Lucy Filippini
● St. Pelagius of Laodicea
● St. Quirinus
● St. Robert of Bury St. Edmunds

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for March 12 (Civil Date: March 25)
● St. Theophanes the Confessor of Sigriane.
● Righteous Aaron, brother of Moses the God-seer.
● Righteous Phineas, grandson of Aaron.
● St. Gregory the Dialogist, pope of Rome.
● St. Simeon the New Theologian.
● Holy Abba Cyrus.
● Repose of Schemamonk Anthony the Gorge-dweller of Zelenchug Monastery in Kuban (1908).

● Christian:
● St. Margaret Clitherow, English martyr

● In Christianity, March 25 is typically celebrated as the day of the Annunciation so long as it does not coincide with a Sunday or during Holy Week.

● Eastern (Byzantine) Catholic Church: Annunciation of the Theotokos (Mother of God)

● This Feast is always celebrated on March 25 in the Eastern Church, as it is the beginning of God's plan of salvation through Christ being announced to the world.

● Traditional date of the death (circa 33), of Jesus (b. circa 1 BC in traditional dating).

● Historic start of the new year (Lady Day) in England, Wales, Ireland, and the future United States until the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in September 1752. (The year 1752 began on 25 March; the year 1753 began on 1 January.)

● The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Lady Day) - this date is nine months before Christmas Day, and is based on the traditional date in Catholicism of a 1 BC - Annunciation of the Virgin Mary and conception of Jesus.

● One of the four Irish Quarter days in the Irish calendar.

● As the day falls close to the vernal equinox, similar to the way Christmas falls near the winter solstice, both days are regarded as one of the Quarter Days to Christians in the British Isles.

● Freedom Day in Belarus

● International Waffle Day in Sweden.

● England : New Year's Day 1155-1752

● Greece : Independence Day (1821)

● Maryland : Maryland Day (1634)

● US : Pecan Day

● These Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
● Alaska: Seward Day (1867) - (Monday)
● US Virgin Island: Transfer Day (1917) - (Monday)

IN FICTION

● 3021 TA - The passing of Sauron and destruction of the One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Many fans celebrate this day by throwing parties.

● 1300 - Dante descends to the Inferno in The Divine Comedy.


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:

On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

Quotes of the Day taken from "The Best Liberal Quotes Ever: Why the Left Is Right" Compiled by William P. Martin 2004

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