A bit of March 8th history…

1531 - Henry VIII recognized as supreme head of Church of England by the Convocation of Canterbury

1817 - The NY Stock Exchange is founded

1913 - Internal Revenue Service (IRS) begins to levy and collect income taxes

1934 - Edwin Hubble photo shows as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars (pictured)

1964 - Malcolm X resigns from the Nation of Islam

2014 - Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with 239 people loses contact and disappears, prompting the most expensive search effort in history and one of the most enduring mysteries 

On June 6, 2025 at 01:01AM, some big things happened. Click the date to read more.

A bit of March 12th history…

1642 - Abel Tasman is 1st European to sight New Zealand

1894 - Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for 1st time

1912 - Girl Guides (Girl Scouts) forms by Juliette Gordon Low (pictured)

1980 - Jury finds John Wayne Gacy guilty of murdering 33 in Chicago

2011 - A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan’s earthquake 

On June 5, 2025 at 01:00AM, some big things happened. Click the date to read more.

A bit of March 9th history…

1500 - Pedro Cabral departs Lisbon, Portugal for an expedition to India that will also claim Brazil for Portugal

1522 - Martin Luther begins preaching his “Invocavit Sermons” in Germany, reminding citizens to trust God’s word rather than violence and thus helping bring a close the Revolutionary stage of the Reformation

1776 - Adam Smith publishes influential economics book “The Wealth of Nations”

1945 - 334 US B-29 superfortresses attack Tokyo with 120,000 firebombs; deadliest air raid of WWII

1959 - Barbie makes her debut at the American Toy Fair in NY (pictured)

1998 - Dr Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment signs the unknown rapper Eminem

2007 - The US Justice Department releases an internal audit that found that the FBI had acted illegally in its use of the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens 

On June 4, 2025 at 01:01AM, some big things happened. Click the date to read more.

A bit of March 13th history…

1781 - William Hershel sees what he thinks is a comet, but is actually the discovery of the planet Uranus

1852 - Uncle Sam cartoon figure made its debut in NY Lantern weekly (pictured)

1868 - Senate begins US President Johnson’s impeachment trial

1943 - Nazi’s liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Krakow; Oskar Schindler with advance information, save his workers by keeping them in his factory overnight

1991 - Exxon pays $1 billion in fines and clean up of Valdez oil spill 

On June 3, 2025 at 01:01AM, some big things happened. Click the date to read more.

A bit of July 2nd history…

1890 - US Congress passes the Sherman Antitrust Law

1901 - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rob a train for $40,000 in Montana

1937 - Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappear flying over the Pacific Ocean in route to Howland Island

1962 - Sam Walton opens his first Walmart store in Arkansas

1964 - Lyndon Johnson Signs Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law

1976 - Formal reunification of North and South Vietnam

2001 - AbioCor, a self-contained artificial heart is created (pictured)

2012 - GlaxoSmithKline sttles the largest healthcare fraud case in history for $3 billion

2015 - BP agrees to compensate US government and gulf states $18.7 billion for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill 

A bit of March2nd history…

1836 - Republic of Texas declares its independence from Mexico

1877 - US Electoral Commission declares Hayes winner of the presidential election with an electoral vote of 185-184 against Tilden

1888 - The Convention of Constantinople signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through Suez Canal during war and peace

1965 - “The Sound of Music” is released (pictured)

1974 - Grand jury concludes US President Nixon is involved in Watergate cover-up

1983 - Compact Disc (CD) recordings introduced

2014 - President Vladimir Putin receives unanimous approval from Russia’s parliament to send troops to the Ukraine 

On May 16, 2025 at 01:01AM, some big things happened. Click the date to read more.

A bit of June 28th history…

1762 - Russian Tsarina Catherine II seizes power, declaring herself sovereign ruler of Russia

1820 - The tomato is proven non-poisonous by Col Robert Gibbon by eating a tomato on courthouse steps in New Jersey

1870 - US Congress creates federal holidays (New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas), initially only applicable to federal employees

1894 - Labor Day established

1902 - US buys concession to build Panama Canal from France for $40 million

1914 - Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo by Serb nationalist Princip; cause of WWI

1919 - Treaty of Versailles, ending WWI and establishing League of Nations, is signed in France

1964 - Organization for Afro-American Unity formed in NY by Malcolm X

1969 - Police carry out an early morning raid on gay bar Stonewall Inn in NY; patrons riot against police for 3 days; beginning of modern LGBT rights movement (pictured) 

A bit of July 1st history…

1200 - Chinese are credited with inventing the 1st sunglasses (however, if you read one of my earlier posts on the history of sunglasses, the Inuit actually had them 1st in 2000 bc) (pictured)

1858 - The joint reading of Darwin and Wallace’s papers on evolution to the Linnean Society

1862 - US Internal Revenue Law imposes 1st federal taxes on inheritance, tobacco, and incomes over $600

1863 - Battle of Gettysburg begins; Lee’s northward advance halted

1867 - Dominion of Canada is formed comprising the Provences of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec

1905 - Einstein introduces his Theory of Special Relativity

1908 - SOS distress signal becomes worldwide standard call for help

1944 - Bretton Woods Conference starts - leads to establishment of IMF and the World Bank

1966 - Medicare goes into effect

1979 - Sony introduces the walkman 

A bit of March 4th history…

1801 - Thomas Jefferson is 1st US President to be inaugurated in Washington DC

1861 - Abe Lincoln is inaugurated as 16th President of US

1902 - American Automobile Association (AAA) founded

1922 - 1st vampire film, Nosferatu, premiers (pictured)

1933 - FDR is inaugurated as 33rd President, pledges to pull US out of Depression “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”

1966 - John Lennon says “We (the Beatles) are more popular than Jesus”

1998 - The US Supreme Court rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex 

On May 6, 2025 at 01:01AM, some big things happened. Click the date to read more.

A bit of July 11th history…

1533 - Pope Clement VII excommunicates England’s King Henry VIII

1804 - Vice President of the US Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel (pictured)

1892 - US patent office says Joseph Swan rather than Thomas Edison invented the electric light carbon for the incandescent lamp

1955 - US Congress authorizes all US currency to say “In God We Trust”

1977 - US Medal of Freedom awarded posthumously to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

2018 - Oldest stone tools outside Africa discovered in Western China, estimated 2.12 million years old made by hominids