1350 – Orvieto city says it will behead and burn Jewish-Christian couples
1365 – University of Vienna founded
1664 – New Jersey becomes a British colony
1755 – First steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine
1849 – First gold seekers arrive in Nicaragua en route to California
1850 – First US $20 gold piece issued
1888 – Second day of the Great blizzard of ’88
In March of 1888 New York City was slammed by one of the most devastating blizzards in recorded history. From March 11th to 15th the Northeast, from Maryland to Maine was buried underneath a fifty-inch blanket of snow. In New York City, more than 200 perished in the extreme cold. In the icy darkness of night fires raged as helpless volunteers watched from afar, their teams trapped in the deep drifts that formed in the howling winds. Railroads were shut down and people confined to their houses for up to a week.
Following the storm, New York began placing its telegraph and telephone infrastructure underground to prevent future destruction. Drifts across the New York–New Haven rail line took eight days to clear The weather preceding the blizzard was unseasonably mild with heavy rains that turned to snow as temperatures dropped rapidly. New York’s Central Park Observatory reported a low temperature of 6 °F (−14 °C), and a daytime average of 9 °F (−13 °C) on March 13
1904 – Andrew Carnegie establishes Carnegie Hero Fund
1930 – Mohandas Gandhi begins 200m march protesting British salt tax
1933 – FDR conducts his first “fireside chat”
1945 – New York is first to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment
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.
Birthdays
1479 – Giuliano de’ Medici, monarch of Florence
1831 – Clement Studebaker, automobile pioneer (Studebaker)
1890 – Vaslav Nijinsky, Ukrainian/US ballet dancer (Petroesjka)
1915 – Alberto Burri, Italian physician/sculptor/abstract painter
1918 – Elaine de Kooning, American artist (d. 1989)
1922 – Jack Kerouac, Beat writer (On the Road, Mexico Blues)
1928 – Edward Albee, Washington, DC, playwright (Virgina Woolfe, Zoo Story)
1931 – William “Buckwheat” Thomas, actor (Little Rascals)
1939 – Barbara Feldon, Pitts Pa, actress (Agent 99-Get Smart)
1946 – Liza Minnelli, Hollywood CA, singer/actress (Sterile Cuckoo, Cabaret)
1947 – Mitt Romney, 70th Governor of Massachusetts
1948 – James Taylor, Boston MA, vocalist/guitarist (Up on the Roof)
Deaths
1834 – Karl W Feuerbach, mathematician (Circle of Feuerbach), dies at 33
1942 – Robert Bosch, German industrialist (b. 1861)
1945 – Anne Frank, diarist, killed in Belsen Camp aged 15
1955 – Charlie “Bird” Parker, jazz saxophonist, dies at 34 in NYC
2005 – Bill Cameron, Canadian journalist (b. 1943)
2008 – Lazare Ponticelli, the last “poilu”, French foot soldier of World War One, dies at 110 (b. 1897)
