196 BC – Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt
1513 – Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida
1625 – Charles I, King Of England, Scotland and Ireland, ascends English throne
1668 – English king Charles II gives Bombay to East India Company
1790 – The modern shoestring (string and shoe holes) invented in England. An aglet (the Latin word for “needle.”) is the small plastic or fiber tube that binds the end of a shoelace (or similar cord) to prevent fraying and to allow the lace to be passed through an eyelet or other opening. Before shoestrings, shoes were commonly fastened with buckles.
1794 – US Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
1841 – First steam fire engine tested in New York City
1855 – Abraham Gesner patents kerosene, a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum and widely used as a fuel in industry as well as households. Also known as paraffin, lamp oil and coal oil.
1860 – M L Byrn patents “covered gimlet screw with a ‘T’ handle” AKA ‘corkscrew’
1863 – President Davis calls for this to be a day of fasting and prayer
1912 – First Japanese cherry blossom trees planted in Washignton D.C.
1931 – Charlie Chaplin receives France’s distinguished Legion of Honor
1933 – Japan leaves League of Nations
1945 – Iwo Jima occupied, after 22,000 Japanese and 6,000 US solders killed
1958 – Havana Hilton opens
1958 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party
1964 – Earthquake strikes Alaska, 8.4 on Richter scale, 118 die
1966 – Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in US, Europe and Australia
1973 – 45th Academy Awards – “Godfather”, Marlon Brando turns down Oscar for best actor in support of Native American Indians
1977 – 583 die in aviation’s worst disaster KLM-Pan Am 747 crash on the Canary Islands
Birthdays
972 – King Robert II of France (d. 1031)
1712 – Claude Bourgelat, French veterinary surgeon (d. 1779) Born in Lyon, he left the bar to devote his efforts to find a remedy of a plague that was affecting France’s cattle herds in the late 1700s. He was the founder of a veterinary school in Lyon around 1761. It was cattle plague, known by its German name, Rinderpest.
1809 – Georges Eugene Haussmann, Paris France. Chosen by Napoleon III, he was responsible for creating the new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris
1813 – Nathaniel Currier, lithographer (Currier & Ives)
1845 – Wilhelm Rontgen, Lennep, Rhine Province, discovered X-rays for which he received the Nobel in 1901
1863 – Henry Royce, automobile founder (Rolls-Royce)
1879 – Edward Steichen, pioneer in American photography. He had a three-legged dog named Tripod.
1886 – Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, Architect
” A chair is a very difficult object.
A skyscraper is almost easier.
That is why Chippendale is famous”
1924 – Sarah L Vaughan, Newark NJ, jazz singer
1952 – Maria Schneider, Paris, actress who stared with Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris
1963 – Quentin Tarantino, director (Pulp Fiction)
Deaths
1625 – James I Stuart, king of Scotland, dies at 58
1850 – Wilhelm Bear, German banker/astronomer (Moon Map), dies at 53
1968 – Yuri Gagarin, First man to orbit Earth dies in a test plane crash at the age 34.
1972 – Maurits C Escher, Dutch lithograph carver, dies at 73
1998 – Ferry Porsche, Austrian automobile manufacturer (b. 1909)
2006 – Lyn Nofziger, American journalist and political advisor to Ronald Reagan (b. 1924)
2012 – Hilton Kramer, American art critic, dies from heart failure at 84
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com Wikipedia and other internet searches
Letters
A Musical Note
Johann Sebastian Bach
To the editor:
Regarding the Day in History entry (BroadsheetDAILY Friday March 24) : “1721 – Johann Sebastian Bach opens his Brandenburg Concerts.”
Bach presented a collection of six orchestral works to the Margrave of Brandenburg on this date in the hopes of currying favor, i.e. a pecuniary emolument.
Neither Bach nor the Margrave mounted performances of these works. Indeed, they sat on the proverbial shelf for 127 years before anyone took particular notice of them. That being said, the works were scored for the instrumentation that Bach had at his disposal at Cöthen, so it is possible they may have been written over several months or years and performed there, although no records survive to support such musings.
Indeed, if may be said that Bach closed the Brandenburg Concerto scores for the last time on or just prior to this day in 1721.
Kindest regards,
Jim Hopkins