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Events
, deaths, births, of MAR 26

[For Mar 26 Julian go to Gregorian date:
1583~1699: Apr 051700s: Apr 061800s: Apr 071900~2099: Apr 08]
ALTERNATE SITES    ALL FOR 20040326      ANY DAY  OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY     ART “4” MAR 26    wikipedia
• Jews shipped to death camp... • Battle of Iwo Jima ends... • Battle of Gaza... • Israel–Egypt peace... • Cult members found dead... • Israeli baby killed by Palestinians... • Rerun appears in Peanuts... • Dormitory fire kills 58 boys… • McCarthy: “Lattimore is a Soviet spy”... • Salk announces polio vaccine... • Steam riverboat heads for Montana... • Hue falls to the Communists... • Walt Whitman dies... • Tennessee Army gets new commander... • Change of CEOs at Intel... • New CEO at IBM... • Torpedo riders attack... • Cadillac and Lincoln founder dies... • Three–day Pope dies... • Hewlett–Packard co–founder dies... • Palm–top licensed... • H&R Block IPO...
On a March 26:
2003 The 4th Ohio District Court of Appeals upholds the Athens County Municipal Court for dismissing in June 2002 the charges against Jeremy Gilchrist, 23, which were brought by zealous Athens, Ohio, city prosecutors, based on this statute:
Ohio Revised Code 2921.32.1. No person shall knowingly cause or attempt to cause physical harm to a police dog or horse in either of the following,if the dog or horse is assisting a police officer in doing his official duties or the dog or horse is not assisting the officer but the offender has actual knowledge that the dog/horse is a police dog or police horse. This statute also covers handicapped assistance dogs. A violation of this statute where death results it is a Felony of the 4th degree( 6 months to 18 months in jail and a $5000 fine ). Serious physical harm to the dog/horse it's a Felony of the 5th degree (6 months to 12 months and $2500 fine ). Physical harm is a Misdemeanor of the 1st degree (no time to 6 months & $1000 fine). If no harm is involved it is a Misdemeanor of the 2nd degree (no time to 90 days & $750 fine)
     In September 2001 Gilchrist, with some friends, happened to walk by, about 10 meters from a police car from which police dog Pepsie barked. Gilchist, trying to be funny, barked back. This, according to human police officers, made the dog "work himself up into a frenzy." The court rules that Gilchrist was within his right of free speech.
2002 Magnitude 6.3 earthquake at 12:46 local (03:45:48 UT) with its epicenter at 23º32'N 123º55'E, 33 km deep, in the ocean, 100 km SSW of of Ishigaki-jima, Ryukyu Islands, Japan.
2001: 58¢ theft may cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.       ^top^
     It was not the crime of the century when a man allegedly stole 58 cents from a car in rural New Jersey, but his trial and incarceration could end up costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
      Over protests from a taxpayers' advocacy group and civil libertarians, prosecutors are pressing for a prison sentence of between five and 10 years for a drifter accused of stealing the money in Greenwich, New Jersey, in 1999. In drifter Michael Monroe's defense, his attorney said he slid his hand through a slightly open window of the car to give more air to a Rottweiler dog that had been left inside by its owner. It had already cost taxpayers $16'000 to keep Monroe in prison before his trial starts on 26 March 2001 in Warren County Superior Court, local officials said.
      "That's a waste of taxpayers' money for a crime that wasn't life-threatening," said Sam Perelli, state chairman of United Taxpayers of New Jersey. "For 58 cents it seems kind of crazy to prosecute him and use this kind of massive expenditure to incarcerate this man."
      If he receives the maximum prison sentence, local officials said the tab for his confinement would be about $270,000. "Ten years is a long time to put a man in prison for a burglary that only got him 58 cents," said Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
      Prosecutors alleged Monroe, 50, stole the money on 6 June 1999, by sliding his hand through a slightly open window of the car while it was parked in a supermarket lot. Car owner David Laman said he left the window open to let in air for his dog. When Laman returned to the lot, he said he saw Monroe in the front seat. Monroe then got out and drove away in his own car.
2000 Russia's second democratic presidential elections. Former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, already in power, is elected, having cynically boosted his popularity by a war against the independence of little Chechnya. — El primer ministro y presidente en funciones de Rusia, Vladimir Putin, logra la mayoría absoluta en las presidenciales rusas.
1999 Dr. Jack Kevorkian is convicted, in Pontiac, Michigan., of second-degree murder and delivery of a controlled substance for giving a patient with Lou Gehrig's disease, who wanted to end his sufferings, a lethal injection, an action videotaped and broadcast on the television program “60 Minutes”..
1999 Computer virus ''Melissa'' begins infecting computers.
1998 Change of CEOs at Intel.       ^top^
      Andy Grove announces that he is stepping down as the CEO of the computer chip giant, Intel Corp. During his eleven-year run as the company's chief executive, Grove deployed tough-minded business tactics to propel Intel to the front of the crowded computer chip field. As a number of Wall Street analysts noted in the wake of the announcement, Grove made the crucial call not to share Intel's "intellectual rights" with "other suppliers." Still, the departure of one of the company's leaders, as well as one of its founding fathers, didn't dampen Wall Street's enthusiasm for Intel's stock. Though some analysts forecast a rocky transition for the company, investors' spirits were buoyed by the strong track record of Grove's successor, Intel President and Chief Operating Officer, Craig Barrett. In fact, Barrett's ascent to the top spot was considered something of a fait accompli: Intel reportedly spent the past few years been grooming him to replace Grove. Nor did it hurt that Grove, Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1997, planned to stay on as the company's chairman.
1997 Heaven’s Gate cult members found dead       ^top^
      Following an anonymous tip, police enter a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, an exclusive suburb of San Diego, California, and discover thirty-nine victims of a mass suicide. The deceased, made up of twenty-one women and eighteen men of varying ages, were all found lying peaceably in matching dark clothes and Nike sneakers, and had no noticeable signs of blood or trauma.
      It is later revealed that the men and women were members of "Heaven’s Gate," a religious cult that believed that by committing suicide they could leave their bodily "containers" and enter an alien spacecraft hidden behind the Hale-Bopp comet. The cult was led by Marshall M. Applewhite, a music professor who, after surviving a near-death experience in 1972, was recruited into the cult by one of his nurses, Bonnie Lu Nettles. In 1975, together with Nettles, Applewhite persuaded a group of twenty people from Oregon to abandon their families and possessions and move to eastern Colorado, where an extra-terrestrial spacecraft would take them into the "Kingdom of Heaven." Nettles, who called herself "Ti," and Applewhite, who took the name of "Do," explained that their human bodies were merely containers that would be abandoned in favor of a higher physical existence. As the spacecraft never arrived, membership in Heaven’s Gate diminished, and, in 1985, Bonnie Lu Nettles, Applewhite’s "sexless partner," died.
      However, during the early 1990s, the cult resurfaced as Applewhite began recruiting new members to ascend with him to the heavenly kingdom. Soon after the 1995 discovery of the comet Hale-Bopp, the Heaven’s Gate members became convinced that an alien spacecraft was on its way to earth, hidden behind the comet in order to prevent human detection. In October 1996, Applewhite rented a large home in Rancho Santa Fe, explaining to the owner that his group was made up of Christian-based angels sent to earth. He advocated sexual abstinence, and several male cult members followed his example by undergoing castration operations.
      In 1997, as part of its 4000-year orbit of the sun, the comet Hale-Bopp passed near the earth in one of the most impressive astronomical events of the twentieth century. In late March 1997, as Hale-Bopp reached its closest distance to earth, Applewhite and thirty-eight of his followers drank a lethal mixture of phenobarbital and vodka and then settled to die over several days, hoping to leave their bodily containers, enter the alien spacecraft, and pass through Heaven’s Gate into a higher existence.
1996 Amid public fears of mad cow disease, British farmers demand that their government order the destruction of old cattle, but Prime Minister John Major refuses, and blames the crisis on his political opponents.
1996 HR Block announces CompuServe IPO.       ^top^
      A day after CompuServe's WOW service for families started, H&R Block announces its plans to sell off a large stake of CompuServe in a public offering. The IPO in April sold off about 17 percent of the company. Block's plans to rid itself completely of CompuServe, however, would be stymied by the failure of the WOW service and the increasing struggles of proprietary online services to hold onto their membership despite the growing appeal of the World Wide Web. In February 1998, H&R Block sold the company to WorldCom, which then sold most of CompuServe's Internet businesses to America Online.
1995 Nace la Europa sin fronteras para siete países comunitarios: España, Portugal, Alemania, Francia, Bélgica, Luxemburgo y Holanda. Unos 215 millones de personas pueden viajar por el "espacio Schengen" sin controles fronterizos.
1993 Apple names palm-top computer licensees.       ^top^
      In an attempt to make the Apple Newton the global standard for palm-top computing, Apple announces that it has licensed its Newton technology to five companies, including Sharp and Motorola. The move represented a departure from Apple's traditional policy of hoarding its technological secrets. Some industry observers had blamed Apple's decline in market share on its refusal to license its Macintosh personal computer to clone makers and theorized that the new licensing arrangements for the Newton sought to avoid mistakes of the past. Unfortunately, the Newton never caught on, and the standard for handheld computing was later set by 3Comm's PalmPilot.
1993 Lou Gerstner named CEO of IBM.       ^top^
      Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., was officially named chairman and chief executive of IBM, effective April 1. Gerstner, former president of American Express and chairman of R.J.R. Nabisco, was the first chairman to come from outside IBM. IBM's stock price had dropped by 50 percent in the previous year and lost more than $70 billion in value since the mid-1980s. Gerstner's lack of technical expertise proved no barrier in creating a successful turnaround over the next five years.
1991 A divided US Supreme Court rules that criminal defendants whose coerced confessions were improperly used as evidence are not always entitled to new trials.
1991 El presidente de Malí, Moussa Traore, es derrocado por un Consejo Nacional de Reconciliación, que suspende la Constitución y disuelve el Parlamento.
1991 Victoria mayoritaria en las elecciones municipales de los candidatos afines al presidente de Corea del Sur, Roh Tae Woo, en las primeras elecciones democráticas desde hace 30 años.
1991 Uruguay, Argentina, Brasil y Paraguay firman un Tratado para crear el Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR).
1990 Namibia declara su independencia de Suráfrica.
1989 first free elections in USSR; 190 M votes cast; Boris Yeltsin is elected to the Soviet Parliament, defeating Communist Party candidate Yevgeny Brakov, manager of the Zavod Imieni Likhacheva, manufacuterers of the ZIL car.
1984 The Ford Escort is named the best-selling car in the world for the third year in a row. The Escort was the result of Ford’s attempt to design a "world car," a car that could be sold with minor variations all over the world. It was Ford’s first successful sub-compact car and its features have become standard for cars in that class all over the world. The Escort was one of the first successes of Ford’s dramatic resurgence in the 1980s.
1979 Israel-Egyptian peace agreement signed       ^top^
      In a ceremony at the White House, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign the Camp David Accords, the first peace agreement between the state of Israel and one of its Arab neighbors.
      Less than two years earlier, in an unprecedented move for an Arab leader, Sadat traveled to Jerusalem, Israel, to seek a permanent peace settlement with Egypt’s Jewish neighbor after decades of conflict. Sadat’s visit, in which he met with Begin and spoke before Israel’s parliament, was met with outrage in most of the Arab world. Despite criticism from Egypt’s regional allies, Sadat continued to pursue peace with Begin, and, in 1978, the two leaders met again in the United States, where they negotiated an agreement with US President Jimmy Carter at Camp David, Maryland.
      For their gestures of peace, the two Middle Eastern leaders were jointly awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize for Peace. On 26 March 1979, in Washington DC, Sadat and Begin formally sign the Camp David Accords. The historic treaty ends three decades of war and establishes the groundwork for diplomatic and commercial relations.
      However, Sadat’s peace efforts were not so highly acclaimed in the Arab world--Egypt was suspended from the Arab League and, on October 6, 1981, Sadat was assassinated by Muslim extremists in Cairo. Nevertheless, the peace process continued without Sadat, and, in 1982, Egypt formally established diplomatic relations with Israel.
1975 Hue falls to the communists.       ^top^
      The city of Hue, in northernmost South Vietnam, falls to the North Vietnamese. Hue was the most recent major city in South Vietnam to fall to the communists during their new offensive. The offensive had started in December 1974, when the North Vietnamese had launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located north of Saigon along the Cambodian border. The communists overran the provincial capital of Phuoc Binh on January 6, 1975. President Richard Nixon had repeatedly promised South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu that the United States would come to the aid of South Vietnam if North Vietnam committed a major violation of the Peace Accords. However, by the time the communists had taken Phuoc Long, Nixon had already resigned from office and his successor, Gerald Ford, was unable to convince a hostile Congress to make good on Nixon's promises to Saigon.
      This situation emboldened the North Vietnamese, who launched a campaign in March 1975 to take the provincial capital of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands. The South Vietnamese defenders there fought very poorly and were overwhelmed by the North Vietnamese attackers. Once again, the United States did nothing. President Thieu ordered his forces in the Highlands to withdraw to more defensible positions to the south. What started out as a reasonably orderly withdrawal degenerated into a panic that spread throughout the South Vietnamese armed forces. They abandoned Pleiku and Kontum in the Highlands with very little fighting and the North Vietnamese pressed the attack from the west and north. In quick succession, Quang Tri and Hue fell. The communists then seized Da Nang, the second largest city in South Vietnam. Many South Vietnamese, both military and civilian, died in the general chaos while attempting to escape from the airport, docks, and beaches. By this time, the South Vietnamese forces were in flight all over the northern half of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese continued to attack south along the coast, overrunning city after city, methodically defeating the South Vietnamese forces. By April 27, the North Vietnamese had completely encircled Saigon and began to maneuver for their final assault, which became known as the "Ho Chi Minh Campaign." By the morning of April 30, it was all over. As the North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, the Vietnam War came to an end.
Rerun1973 Rerun's first run in the Peanuts cartoon       ^top^
      Rerun Van Pelt is often mistaken for Linus even though he's his little brother. He can always be recognized in his trademark overalls. Rerun is more skeptical than his brother, much harder to convince, and always gets around Lucy where Linus gives in. His only fear is being the passenger on one of his mother's bicycle-riding errands. Somehow, Rerun is the only witness to her riding into grates and potholes. Luckily, he always wears a helmet. Rerun also longs for a dog of his own, but since his parent won't let him have one, he tries to "borrow" Snoopy from Charlie Brown. Snoopy won't have any part of it unless Rerun brings cookies.
Rerun's first run
1971 East Pakistan proclaims its independence (from West Pakistan), taking the name Bangladesh.
1969 A group called Women Strike for Peace demonstrates in Washington DC, in the first large antiwar demonstration since President Richard Nixon's inauguration in January. The antiwar movement had initially given Nixon a chance to make good on his campaign promises to end the war in Vietnam. However, it became increasingly clear that Nixon had no quick solution. As the fighting dragged on, antiwar sentiment against the president and his handling of the war mounted steadily during his term in office.
1967 El papa Pablo VI promulga la encíclica Populorum progressio. [English, Español, Français, Italiano, Português]
1956 Las últimas tropas francesas en Vietnam abandonan Saigón.
1953 Dr. Jonas Salk announces vaccine against polio.       ^top^
      American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. In 1952 — an epidemic year for polio — there were 58'000 new cases reported in the United States, and more than 3,000 died from the disease. For promising eventually to eradicate the disease, which is known as "infant paralysis" because it mainly affects children, Dr. Salk was celebrated as the great doctor-benefactor of his time. Polio, a disease that has affected humanity throughout recorded history, attacks the nervous system and can cause varying degrees of paralysis. Since the virus is easily transmitted, epidemics were commonplace in the first decades of the 20th century.
      The first major polio epidemic in the United States occurred in Vermont in the summer of 1894, and by the 20th century thousands were affected every year. In the first decades of the 20th century, treatments were limited to quarantines and the infamous "iron lung," a metal coffin-like contraption that aided respiration. Although children, and especially infants, were among the worst affected, adults were also often afflicted, including future president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in 1921 was stricken with polio at the age of 39 and was left partially paralyzed. Roosevelt later transformed his estate in Warm Springs, Georgia, into a recovery retreat for polio victims and was instrumental in raising funds for polio-related research and the treatment of polio patients. Salk, born in New York City in 1914, first conducted research on viruses in the 1930s when he was a medical student at New York University, and during World War II helped develop flu vaccines.
      In 1947, he became head of a research laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh and in 1948 was awarded a grant to study the polio virus and develop a possible vaccine. By 1950, he had an early version of his polio vaccine. Salk's procedure, first attempted unsuccessfully by American Maurice Brodie in the 1930s, was to kill several strains of the virus and then inject the benign viruses into a healthy person's bloodstream. The person's immune system would then create antibodies designed to resist future exposure to poliomyelitis. Salk conducted the first human trials on former polio patients and on himself and his family, and by 1953 was ready to announce his findings. This occurred on the CBS national radio network on the evening of 25 March and two days later in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Salk became an immediate celebrity. In 1954, clinical trials using the Salk vaccine and a placebo began on nearly two million American schoolchildren. In April 1955, it was announced that the vaccine was effective and safe, and a nationwide inoculation campaign began. New polio cases dropped to under 6000 in 1957, the first year after the vaccine was widely available. In 1962, an oral vaccine developed by Polish-American researcher Albert Sabin became available, greatly facilitating distribution of the polio vaccine. Today, there are just a handful of polio cases in the United States every year, and most of these are "imported" by Americans from developing nations where polio is still a problem. Among other honors, Jonas Salk was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. He died in La Jolla, California, in 1995.
1950 McCarthy charges that Lattimore is a Soviet spy       ^top^
      During a radio broadcast dealing with a Senate investigation into communists in the US Department of State, news is leaked that Senator Joseph McCarthy has charged Professor Owen Lattimore with being a top spy for the Soviet Union. Lattimore soon became a central figure in the Red Scare hysteria created by McCarthy's reckless charges and accusations. McCarthy had achieved instant fame in February 1950 when he stated in a speech that he had a list of over 200 "known communists" in the Department of State. When pressed for details, however, McCarthy was evasive. When the Senate demanded that he produce evidence to support his claim, McCarthy gave a rambling and nearly incoherent presentation. Nevertheless, the senator from Wisconsin maintained his claim and insisted that he had definitive evidence on at least one person who had worked for the State Department--it soon became clear that Lattimore was that person.
      Lattimore was a scholar of Chinese history who taught at Johns Hopkins University. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him as a special representative to the Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai-Shek. Lattimore also served in the Office of War Information. His troubles began after the war, when it became apparent that Chiang's government would fall to the communist forces of Mao Zedong. When China fell to the communists in 1949, shocked Americans looked for scapegoats to blame for the debacle. Individuals such as Lattimore, who had been unremitting in their criticism of Chiang's regime, were easy targets. In March 1950, Senator McCarthy was being pressed hard to produce the "known communists" he had spoken of in his February speech. He turned his attention to those in the Department of State who had been involved in Chinese affairs, and Lattimore's name naturally arose.
      Soon, McCarthy was charging that Lattimore was the top Soviet spy in the United States. Lattimore angrily denied it and hearings before a congressional committee cleared him of all charges. McCarthy did not give up, however. In 1951-1952, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee revisited the accusations against Lattimore. During his testimony, the scholar admitted that his 1950 testimony contained some minor inaccuracies. This was enough for the Subcommittee to charge Lattimore with perjury. These charges were also eventually dropped for lack of evidence, but Lattimore's career had already been severely damaged. In 1963, he left the United States to teach and write in Great Britain. He returned some years later and died in 1989. He was just one of the many victims of McCarthy's reckless witch-hunts--as with all of McCarthy's "communists," no evidence ever surfaced to support his charges against Lattimore.
1945 Battle for Iwo Jima ends       ^top^
      During World War II, the last few hundred Japanese defenders of Iwo Jima are killed in a final suicide attack against the US forces who invaded the strategic island five weeks before.
      On February 19, 1945, after three days of heavy naval and aerial bombardment, the first wave of US Marines storm Iwo Jima, a tiny Pacific island located in bomber-range of the Japanese home islands. The Japanese garrison on the island numbered only 22,000 men, but their commander, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who had been expecting an Allied invasion for eight months, had used the time to construct an intricate and deadly system of underground tunnels, fortifications, and artillery that withstood the initial Allied bombardment.
      By the evening of the first day, the 30'000 US Marines commanded by General Holland Smith had managed to establish a beachhead. Over the next few days, the Marines advanced inch by inch under heavy fire from entrenched Japanese artillery and suffered suicidal charges from the Japanese infantry. While the Japanese kamikaze flyers slammed into the Allied naval fleet around Iwo Jima, the Marines on the island continued their bloody northern advance across the island, responding to Kuribayashi’s lethal defenses with remarkable endurance.
      On February 23, 1945, the Twenty-Eighth Marine Division took the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island’s only peak and most strategic position. The image of the soldiers raising the American flag on this peak, taken by photographer Joseph Rosenthal, is one of the most famous photographs of World War II. By March 3, US forces controlled all three airfields on the island, and, by March 26, the last Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima had been wiped out. Six thousand Americans died taking Iwo Jima and 17'200 were wounded. Almost all of the 22'000 Japanese defenders perished.
1942 First Jews boarded on trains for Auschwitz       ^top^
      From various concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Europe, Nazi S.S. officers board the first Jews on trains that will take them to Auschwitz, an extermination camp where three million people perished during World War II.
      The Auschwitz concentration camp, located near the provincial Polish town of Oshwiecim, was founded in June 1940, and initially held Polish and German political prisoners. In October 1941, the camp was supplemented by a much larger complex made up of wooden barracks, which within weeks was receiving the first Russian prisoners of war from the eastern front. In March 1942, this complex, known as Birkenau, was converted into a massive extermination camp designed to carry out Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s "final solution"--the extermination of all European Jews. Birkenau was designed to house over 100'000 prisoners and was equipped with four gas chambers, each with its own crematoria.
      Jews sent to Birkenau who were considered incapable of working--infants, elderly people, pregnant women, the disabled, and the sick--were immediately gassed, while the others, making up a minority of the new arrivals, were sent to work details. Forced to toil in horrendous conditions, the prisoners would work until, exhausted by fatigue, hunger, and deprivation, they too were sent to the gas chambers.
      In October 1942, a third complex, the brutal Monowitz labor camp, was opened at Auschwitz. By 1945, some two million Jews, hundreds of thousands of Roman Gypsies, thousands of Polish political prisoners, and an unknown number of Russian prisoners of war had perished at Auschwitz. Weeks before Soviet liberation, an additional 134'000 Jews were evacuated, and it is estimated that about 80'000 of these prisoners died or were killed during forced death marches to other Nazi camps. By January 17, 1945, the last able inmates left Auschwitz and the camp's Nazi SS officers executed hundreds of the remaining prisoners, hastily attempted to destroy evidence of their atrocities, and then evacuated.
      On January 27, the first Soviet tanks and troops advanced into Auschwitz. As the Russians explored the three main camps comprising Auschwitz, they found approximately 8000 survivors--individuals too sick and hungry to participate in the death marches forced on the other surviving prisoners by the Nazis days before the camp’s liberation. Although the Nazis had made efforts to destroy the evidence of their atrocities before their departure, the massive scale of the genocide committed at Auschwitz was too great to hide and the remains of the camp’s extermination facilities--and of its victims--were documented by the Russians for the whole world to see. /TD>
1941 Italians attack British with manned torpedoes.       ^top^
     Italy attacks the British fleet at Suda Bay, Crete, using detachable warheads to sink a British cruiser. This was the first time manned torpedoes had been employed in naval warfare, adding a new weapon to the world's navies' arsenals. The manned torpedo, also known as the "Chariot," was unique. Primarily used to attack enemy ships still in harbor, the Chariots needed "pilots" to "drive" them to their targets. Sitting astride the torpedo on a vehicle that would transport them both, the pilot would guide the missile as close to the target as possible, then ride the vehicle back, usually to a submarine. The Chariot was an enormous advantage; before its development, the closest weapon to the Chariot was the Japanese Kaiten--a human torpedo, or suicide bomb, which had obvious drawbacks. The first successful use of the Chariot was by the Italian navy, although they referred to their version as Maiali, or "Pigs."
      On 26 March, six Italian motorboats, commanded by Italian naval commander Lt. Luigi Faggioni, entered Suda Bay in Crete and planted their Maiali along a British convoy in harbor there. The cruiser York was so severely damaged by the blast that it had to be beached. The manned torpedo proved to be the most effective weapon in the Italian naval arsenal, used successfully against the British again in December 1941 at Alexandria, Algiers. Italian torpedoes sank the British battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, as well as one tanker. They were also used against merchant ships at Gibraltar and elsewhere. The British avenged themselves against the Italians, though, by sinking the new Italian cruiser Ulpio Traiano in the port of Palermo, Sicily, in early January 1943. An 8,500-ton ocean liner was also damaged in the same attack. After the Italian surrender, Britain, and later Germany, continued to use the manned torpedo. In fact, Germany succeeded in sinking two British minesweepers off Normandy Beach in July 1944, using their Neger torpedoes.
1930 US Congress appropriates $50'000 for Inter-American highway
1913 Bulgaria captures Adrianople, ending the first Balkan War. — Guerra de los Balcanes: los búlgaros asaltan y toman la ciudad de Andrianópolis a los turcos.
1913 Se redacta el plan de Guadalupe, acuerdo que, tras el asesinato del presidente Francisco Ignacio Madero, tomaron en la hacienda de Guadalupe (Coahuila) los revolucionarios mexicanos constitucionalistas.
1899 El arqueólogo alemán Robert Koldewey descubre las murallas de la antiguaBabilonia.
1885 Louis Riel's forces defeat Canadian forces at Duck Lake, Sask
1872 Largest Calif quake (along a 160-km line)
1871 Paris Commune seizes power.
1865 Siege at Spanish Fort, Alabama continues
1864 McPherson takes over the Army of the Tennessee.       ^top^
      General James B. McPherson assumes command of the Union Army of the Tennessee after William T. Sherman is elevated to commander of the Division of the Mississippi, the overall leader in the West. McPherson was born in Ohio in 1828. He graduated first in his class from West Point in 1853. He joined the engineering corps as a second lieutenant, and he spent the prewar years in New York City and Alcatraz Island in California. When the war began, McPherson was transferred to the East and promoted to captain. He was disappointed when he was assigned to command the forts of Boston Harbor, as the young officer yearned for combat. McPherson contacted General Henry Halleck, commander of the Department of the Missouri and a former acquaintance in California. Halleck summoned him to St. Louis, where McPherson helped set up recruiting stations and inspecting defenses in the state.
      McPherson was transferred to General Ulysses S. Grant's command on 01 February 1862, just as Grant was launching an expedition against Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. McPherson's work in analyzing the defenses of Fort Donelson earned him the respect of Grant, and McPherson's star rose rapidly after the Battle of Shiloh. McPherson fought with distinction, and he was promoted to colonel. Two weeks later, he became a brigadier general. After his actions at the Battle of Corinth, Mississippi, in October 1862, McPherson was again promoted, this time to major general. In December, he capped an amazing year by taking command of the XVII Corps in Grant's Army of the Tennessee.
      McPherson served as corps commander throughout 1863, ably leading his men at Vicksburg and Chattanooga. Grant's promotion to general-in-chief of all Union forces created a chain reaction of promotions. Grant left for Washington and Sherman assumed command in the West while McPherson inherited the Army of the Tennessee. This force was not an independent command, as it was one of three armies under Sherman's command during the Atlanta campaign of 1864. When the campaign reached Atlanta in July 1864 after three hard months of fighting, McPherson was charged with attacking Confederate forces on the northeast side of Atlanta. At the Battle of Peachtree Creek on 22 July 1864, McPherson was directing operations when he and his staff emerged from a grove of trees directly in front of the Confederate line. They were ordered to surrender but McPherson turned his horse and attempted to escape. He was mortally wounded, becoming the highest-ranking Union general killed in the war.
1863 West Virginia votes for gradual emancipation of slaves in the state (which had split from rebel Virginia so as to remain in the Union)..
1862 Engagement at Apache Canyon, New Mexico Territory
1859 first sighting of Vulcan, a planet thought to orbit inside Mercury.
1848 Se produce un levantamiento en Madrid, repercusión del movimiento revolucionario de París, que fue sofocado por la policía y el ejército del gobierno de Ramón María Narváez y Campos.
1832 Furrier's steam riverboat heads for Montana.       ^top^
      The American Fur Company adopts the latest in transportation technology to its business, dispatching the company's new steamboat Yellowstone to pick up furs in Montana. A decade earlier, John Jacob Astor had formed the Western Department of his American Fur Company to begin exploiting the fur trade in the western reaches of the continent. In 1828, Astor established a large trading post called Fort Union at the strategically important point where the Yellowstone River merged with the Missouri. Located near what would later be the Montana-North Dakota state line, Fort Union allowed Astor to dominate the fur trade of the northern plains and Rockies. With ruthless efficiency, Astor's American Fur Company steadily undercut and eliminated its competitors. The company had the financial resources to invest in competitive advantages that smaller companies like the Rocky Mountain Fur Company could not afford. Far from being a rustic backwoods operation, Astor's company was one of the most modern and progressive corporations of its day.
      In 1830, Astor saw an opportunity to use a new technology to further consolidate his stranglehold over the western fur trade: the steamboat. The paddle-wheel steamboat New Orleans had begun regular service on the lower Mississippi only 18 years earlier. During the 1820s, steamboats occasionally ventured as far north on the Missouri as Council Bluffs. Now the American Fur Company boldly proposed to extend regular steam service all the way up to its Fort Union trading post at the mouth of the Yellowstone. The company hired a Louisville shipyard to build a boat specially designed for the treacherous currents of the Missouri. Christened the Yellowstone, it was a sturdy craft with a large cargo deck to carry furs and trade goods. It had a high wheelhouse from which the pilot could see to avoid the many snags and shoals of the Missouri. Departing from St. Louis on this day, the Yellowstone reached Fort Union in June, where the craft attracted the marveling admiration of Anglo traders and Indians alike. Thereafter, The Yellowstone and a fleet of similarly designed steamboats regularly traveled to Fort Union-when the water level was not too low or the rivers frozen. While the American Fur Company modernized with steamboats, its less affluent competitors continued to rely on small, man-powered keelboats to move their furs and trade goods. By the mid-1830s, boats like the Yellowstone had helped Astor eliminate lesser fur companies and the American Fur Company enjoyed a virtual monopoly over the Far Western fur trade.
1804 The Louisiana Purchase is divided into the Territory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana.
1804 US Congress orders removal of Indians east of Mississippi to Louisiana
1799 Napoléon captures Jaffa Palestine
1790 US Congress allows naturalization of alien free white persons.
1766 Leopoldo Gregorio marqués de Esquilache es destituido a causa del “motín de Esquilache” iniciado tres días antes.
1712 El rey de España Felipe V, en aras de la paz, pacta con Inglaterra la concesión de ventajas comerciales en América, entre otras, condiciones privilegiadas para sus barcos en Cádiz, asiento de esclavos durante treinta años y un territorio en el Río de la Plata "para guardar y refrescar" a los esclavos negros antes de venderlos.
1668 Bombay, India transferred to England.
1244 El rey de Aragón Jaime I y el infante castellano Alfonso firman el tratado de Almizra.
0752 Stephen (II) III is unanimously elected and consecrated Pope, Stephen II having just died three days after his election, and not consecrated (therefore not counted as Pope by some, hence the ambiguity in numbering the later Popes Stephen).
0717 Quinientos diecinueve nobles proclaman a Pelayo, hijo de Favila, primer rey de Asturias.
0631 Los nobles hispanos, acaudillados por Sisenando, con la ayuda del rey franco Dagoberto derrotan y deponen al rey godo hispánico Suintila.
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Devastated marketDeaths which occurred on a March 26:

2003 Some 30 Iraqi civilians, by two misguided US cruise missiles which explode in Baghdad, Iraq, in a market [photo >] in the working class Shaab neighborhood. Some 45 are injured. (a sandstorm is covering much of Iraq)

Moynahan
2003 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, [< 26 Nov 1995 photo], from complications of ruptured appendix. Born on 16 March 1927, shoeshine boy, stevedore, bartender, Ph.D. in international relations, professor of education at Harvard, US Senator (D - NY) from 1977 to 2001. Author of 18 books, including Beyond the Melting Pot (1963), On the Law of Nations (1990), Pandaemonium: Ethnicity in International Politics (1993), Miles to Go: A Personal History of Social Policy (Oct 1996), Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding: Community Action in the War on Poverty — Family and Nation — Came the Revolution: Argument in the Reagan Era — Loyalties — Coping: Essays on the Practice of Government — A Dangerous Place — Counting Our Blessings: Reflections on the Future of America — The Politics of a Guaranteed Income: The Nixon Administration and the Family Assistance Plan — Secrecy..


2002 Major Cengiz Soytunc, Turkish, and Catherine Berreux, Swiss
, observers from the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, shot by a Palestinian policeman with an AK-47 (seen by the 3rd, surviving, observer) while driving on a road used mostly by Jewish settlers, the Trans-Judean highway, west of the Halhul bridge, north-west of Hebron, at about 20:30. The two were the first members of the force to be killed in the West Bank. A third observer is slightly wounded. The peace force, made up of unarmed observers from Scandinavian and European countries, was set up under a 1997 agreement dividing Hebron into Palestinian- and Israeli-controlled zones. The city was divided because about 450 Israeli settlers live in three enclaves in the center of the city, among some 130'000 Palestinians. The observers, recognizable by their clearly marked white cars, make periodic reports about violations of the truce. Settlers charge that the observers are biased against them, while Palestinians say that the settlers, among the most militant in the West Bank, constantly harass the local Palestinians.

Shavhevet and parents2001 Shalhevet Pas, 10 months old, shot in the head by Palestinian sniper while held by her father Yitzhak Pas (or Pass), who is wounded in the legs, in front of their home in the heavily guarded Avraham Avinu enclave where some 500 Jewish setters live surrounded by the 130'000 Palestinians in Hebron. The Israelis responded by indiscriminate shelling of nearby Palestinian homes and by imposing a complete curfew on all Palestinians in Hebron. The baby is the youngest of the 435 victims (356 Palestinians, 60 Israeli Jews, 19 others) of the al-Aqsa intifada sparked by Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000.
     Shalhevet Pas is the youngest victim of six months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting - in one of Hebron's Jewish enclaves. The Israeli baby was shot in the head as she was sitting in a stroller pushed by her father, Yitzhak Pass, who was wounded in the chest and leg by gunfire from a nearby hill in the Palestinian-controlled part of Hebron. Pas, his wife and baby daughter had just gotten out of their van and entered the Avraham Avinu enclave. They were near a playground when the shots were fired. Eyewitnesses and army commanders said the shots were carefully aimed, not a random spray of bullets. After the shooting, the Israeli military told Palestinian civilians to leave the Abu Sneineh area of Hebron, from where the snipers had fired. Israelis troops then fired tank shells at Abu Sneineh, wounding seven Palestinians. Thick smoke rose from a building hit by an Israeli shell. [photo: Shalhevet Pass with her parents, Yitzhak and Oriyah >]
     Sudki Zaro would be arrested on 16 August 2002 by the Israeli Army as having been the sniper. However Tanzim militant Mahmoud Mahmed Mahmoud Amrou, 26, would be arrested in early December 2002 and, under interrogation by the Shin Bet, confess to being the sniper, saying that he had acted on orders from Fatah commander, Marwan Zaloum (who was later killed by Israel troops).
     On 17 July 2003, Yitzak Pas, together with his brother-in-law Matityahu Shvu, would be arrested by the Shin Bet for reasons kept secret beyond “suspicion of security crimes against Palestinians”.
2001: 58 boys in fire of half-locked school dormitory.       ^top^
     Fire swept through a crowded secondary school dormitory early Monday, killing 58 boys and seriously injuring another 28. It was at Kyanguli Secondary School near Machakos, a farming town 50 km southeast of , Nairobi.
      130 boys between the ages of 15 and 19 had been sleeping in the building. A padlock on one of the two doors and iron bars on the windows prevented escape through those routes
      Officials at the provincial school for boys smelled gasoline in the dormitory the day before, checked it but found nothing.
      Gasoline had been spread throughout the other building, and it started burning in the center of the dormitory.
      Student-teacher hostility could be a possible motive. There had been plans for a student protest against conditions in school. Some boys were seen by others going to the dormitory with gasoline in small jerrycans.
      The dormitory is built of blocks of volcanic material. The corrugated iron roof, which had been supported by wooden thrusts, collapsed shortly after the fire broke out. There are 48 bunk beds in each of the two dorms in a building that measures about 40 by 15 meters. It seems that 96 beds accommodated 130 boys.
      Qne of the dormitory's two doors was always kept open; the other was padlocked. Those who managed to escape the fire did so through the open door. The flames in the middle of the building prevented those at the other end where the door was locked from getting to the open door.
      The fire was reported at 01:40, 20 minutes after it had broken out. The fire brigade had not been summoned, and police using the school's garden hoses as well as the heavy rain eventually put out the fire.
      Most of Kenya's secondary school students attend boarding schools, either government-run or private. Disputes over mishandling of school funds, lack of facilities, and quality of food and accommodation are common. It is not uncommon for boarding school students to wreck buildings and classrooms to protest corruption among school officials whom they accuse of stealing money.
      In March 1998, more than 20 girls burned to death in a secondary school fire near Mombasa, Kenya. They had been locked inside the school by the management. On 5 March 2001, a fire caused by an overturned kerosene lantern killed 23 girls sleeping in the locked dormitory of a school in northern Nigeria.
2000 Alex Comfort, 80, Oxfordshire, England, author of The Joy of Sex.
1996 Edmund Muskie, in Washington, D.C., former US Secretary of State. He was born on 28 March 1914.
1996 David Packard, (Hewlett's partner).       ^top^
      Engineer David Packard and his partner William Hewlett set up their electronics company in Packard's garage in 1939, just as Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs would do in the 1970s. The company, Hewlett-Packard, became the world's largest producer of electrical testing and measurement equipment. Later, the company became an important manufacturer of computers and printers. President Richard Nixon appointed Packard deputy defense secretary in 1968. Packard resigned in 1971 and returned to Hewlett-Packard as chairman of the board, a position he held until 1993. He continued to advise the White House on defense procurement and management issues throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
1984 Ahmed Sekou-Touré, político y presidente de Guinea-Conakry.
1980 Roland Barthes, lingüista y escritor francés.
1966 Wheeler, mathematician.
1959 Raymond Chandler, escritor estadounidense.
1945 David Lloyd George, político inglés.
1933 Kürschák, mathematician.
1932 Henry Martyn Leland, 89, founder of Cadillac and Lincoln, in Detroit.       ^top^
      Leland was born in Vermont, the eighth child of New England farmer Leander Barton Leland and his wife Zilpha Tifft Leland. He began his industrial career as an apprentice engineer at Knowles Loom Works in Worcester, Massachusetts. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Leland began work at the US Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. After the war, Leland served as an engineer and mechanic in a series of manufacturing firms in New England. He distinguished himself as a tireless worker and an exacting supervisor only satisfied with his own high standard of quality. Leland was real New Englander, a Presbyterian stickler with good manners and a titan’s work ethic. He moved to Detroit to run a company with his old partner Charles Norton that was to be financed by Detroit lumber mogul Robert Faulconer. After running successfully for a few years as a supplier of various machine-shop products, Leland and Falconer gained entrance into the automobile industry at the request of Ransom Olds. Olds needed a supplier of transmissions for his Olds Runabouts. Leland wasn’t the only major player in the automotive industry to get his start with Olds. Olds also hired the Dodge brothers to manufacture the bodies for his cars.
      After a successful run supplying Olds transmissions, Leland was asked by the Detroit Automobile Company to appraise their holdings, which they were preparing to liquidate. Leland surprised them by recommending that they hang on to their facilities; he offered to run their car company for them and revealed to them an engine design he had come up with which produced three times the horsepower of Olds’ engines. The Cadillac Car Company was born, named after Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the founder of Detroit. The first Cadillacs came on the market as low-priced cars, but soon, due to Leland’s high standards, the car was marketed as a luxury item. The car company that became a symbol of excess and ostentation in the 1950s began as the product of a puritanical perfectionist. Cadillac distinguished itself further by becoming the first car company to introduce a self-starting mechanism. Charles Kettering invented the system at the urging of Leland, who was said to be distraught over the death of a friend caused when an errant crank-shaft broke the man’s arm and jaw
      . In 1908 William Durant and GM bought the Cadillac Motor Car Company for $4.4 million in cash. Leland continued to run Cadillac and it became GM’s most successful marque. Eventually Leland and Durant fell out over GM’s participation in World War I. Leland had been to Europe just before the war and become convinced that the war was inevitable and that it would decide the future of Western Civilization. Durant’s disinterest in the war cause infuriated Leland so much that he quit. He went on to found Lincoln, which he named after the man he admired most and for whom he had cast his first vote as a twenty-one year old in 1864, Abraham Lincoln. Leland was never able to escape financial trouble with Lincoln and he ended up selling the company to Henry Ford. Ford eventually ran Leland out of the business, most likely as a result of some personal jealousy on Ford’s part. Nevertheless Leland was responsible for creating the luxury marques for America’s two largest automotive manufacturers.
1917 Thousands of British, Turkish, and German soldiers, in the Battle of Gaza.       ^top^
    After occupying El Arish in Sinai in December 1916, the ANZAC mounted division led British forces up to the Palestine border. With his forces needed elsewhere, General Archibald Murray, Commander in Chief of the British Forces in the Middle East, postponed making further advances.
      General Friedrich Kressenstein, commander of the Turkish Expeditionary Force, occupied the coastal fortress of Gaza, blocking the main route into Palestine. General Murray was determined to take Gaza and sent General Dobell, commander of the Eastern Forces, in March 1917. Kressenstein had 18'000 men but was outnumbered 2 to 1 by Dobell's forces.
      General Dobell massed the main bulk of his men 8 km from Gaza. Undetected in a dense sea fog, Dobell's cavalry was able to cut off the town's rear on 26 March. The main infantry attack that followed was less successful. A Turkish counterattack and water shortages forced Dobell to order his men to retreat. General Dobell lost 4000 men against about 2400 Turkish and German casualties. Dobell estimated that the Turks lost three times that number and at the time the battle was reported as a British victory.
      In June 1917, General Edmund Allenby was transferred from the command of the Third Army in France to become commander of the British Forces in Palestine. Lieutenant-General Harry Chauvel was given command of the Desert Mounted Troops and the infantry divisions were allotted to Lieutenant-General Philip Chetwode (XX Corps) and Major General Edward Bulfin (XXI Corps).
      The British plan was for a preliminary operation against Beersheba to enable them to take the higher ground. Once established at Beersheba the forces would be deployed to roll-up the Turkish flank. Chetwode and XX Corps and the Desert Mounted Corps formed the main striking force, whereas Bulfin and XXI Corps would make the attack on Gaza itself.
      On the night of 30 October, over 40'000 British soldiers moved into position for the attack on Beersheba. It was hoped that the diversionary attack would encourage the Turks to reinforce their right at expense of their left and make it easier for the XX Corps. Gaza was also bombarded by French and British ships offshore.
      The first phase of the assault on Beersheba began early on 31 October. By late afternoon the British forces had driven the Turks back into Gaza. At 16:30 Brigadier Grant led two cavalry regiments against the eastern defences of the town. Although faced with Turkish machine-guns, the cavalry managed to gallop into Beersheba. The Turks were captured before their plans to destroy the wells and evacuate the town could take place.
      The main attack against the Turkish left took place on 06 November. Although the Turkish trenches ran for thirteen kilometers all British objectives were taken by mid-afternoon. That evening the Turks began to retreat. When XXI arrived on the morning of 7th November, Gaza had been abandoned.
      General Allenby's victory at Gaza had unlocked the defences of the Turks. In the weeks that followed, the Turks retreated 120 km and on 09 December the allied forces took Jerusalem. Although a clear victory, between October and December 1917, the British and Empire forces lost 19'702 men during the campaign in the Middle East.
1917 Ferdinand Meyer-Wismar, German artist born on 14 January 1833.
1911 Sara Kupla, from a fractured right leg (plus probably some internal injuries) she suffered the previous afternoon while escaping from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which claimed 145 lives before hers.
1907 Léon Richet , French artist born in 1847.
1901 Virgilio Tojetti, Italian artist born on 15 March 1851.
1902 Cecil John Rhodes, político británico y sudafricano.
1900 Isaac Mayer Wise, Bohemian-born (29 March 1819) US rabbi; organized Reform Jewish institutions in US. [That was Wise.]
1892 Walter Whitman, US poet, journalist, and essayist, in Camden, NJ.       ^top^
     Born on 31 May 1819, Walt Whitman was raised in Brooklyn. At the age of twelve Whitman began to learn the printer's trade. Largely self-taught, he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible. Whitman worked as a printer in New York City until a devastating fire in the printing district demolished the industry. In 1836, at the age of 17, he began his career as teacher in the one-room school houses of Long Island. He continued to teach until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career. He founded a weekly newspaper, Long-Islander, and later edited a number of Brooklyn and New York papers. In 1848, Whitman left the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to become editor of the New Orleans Crescent. It was in New Orleans that he experienced at first hand the viciousness of slavery in the slave markets of that city. On his return to Brooklyn in the fall of 1848, he founded a "free soil" newspaper, the Brooklyn Freeman, and continued to develop his unique style of poetry.
      In 1855, he self-published a slim volume of poems called Leaves of Grass, which carried his picture but not his name. With this book, Whitman hoped to become a truly American poet, as envisioned in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "The Poet" (1843). Whitman spent much time in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island, attending cultural events, taking long walks, and sometimes riding on coaches and ferries as an excuse to talk with people.
      In 1856, the second edition of Leaves of Grass included his "Sundown Poem," later called "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." In 1862, Whitman's brother was wounded at Fredericksburg, and Whitman went to care for him. He spent the rest of the war comforting both Union and Confederate soldiers. Some of Whitman's poems were inspired by his Civil War experience as a hospital volunteer in Washington. Although a staunch supporter of the Union cause, Whitman comforted dying soldiers of both sides, as described in one of the poet's wartime newspaper dispatches: "I stayed a long time by the bedside of a new patient.... In an adjoining ward I found his brother...It was in the same battle both were hit. One was a strong Unionist, the other Secesh; both fought for their respective sides, both badly wounded, and both brought together after a separation of four years. Each died for his cause."
     His poem "Oh Captain, My Captain," mourned Lincoln's assassination. Whitman worked for several government departments after the war until he suffered a stroke in 1873. He spent the rest of his life in Camden, New Jersey, and continued to issue revised editions of Leaves of Grass until shortly before his death (on the 18th birthday of Robert Frost)
(other poetry: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, Passage to India)
WHITMAN ONLINE: Leaves of GrassLeaves of Grass (multiple editions) — Leaves of Grass (1855) — Leaves of Grass (1881-82) — Leaves of Grass (1891-92) — Leaves of Grass (post-1855) — Leaves of Grass (post-1855) — Prose WorksSelected Works
1891 Herman Frederik Carel Ten Kate, Dutch artist born on 16 February 1822. — [Son of Nine Kate? Father of Eleven Kate? Or did his parents name all their children the same except for a number?]
1870 Pierre Raymond Quinsac Monvoisin, French painter born on 03 August 1794. — more with links to images.
1827 Ludwig van Beethoven, composer, in Vienna.
1804 Lazare Bruandet, French artist born on 03 July 1755. — more
1638 Stevaerts Palamedes I, Dutch artist born in 1607.
1350 Alfonso XI, rey de Castilla y León.
0752 Pope Stephen II (exact date uncertain: give or take a day or two), of apoplexy, only 3 days after his election.       ^top^
      On the death of pope Saint Zachary, Stephen, a Roman cardinal-priest of Saint Chrysogonus, was unanimously elected to succeed him (about 23 March 752); but on the third day after his election, whilst transacting some domestic affairs, Stephen is struck with apoplexy, and expires on the next day. As he died before his consecration, earlier writers do not appear to have included him in the list of the popes or in the Liber Pontificalis. But, in accordance with the long standing practice of the Roman Church, he is now generally counted among them. This divergent practice has introduced confusion into the way of counting the Popes Stephen. His successor, who also took the name Stephen, is called both Stephen II and Stephen III. Hence, the succession of Stephens is somewhat irregular.

Births which occurred on a March 26:
1993 Los Diarios 1992 de Ernst Junger que él publica coincidiendo con su 98 cumpleaños.
1952 Pedro José Ramírez, periodista y escritor español.
1943 Robert Upshur “Bob” Woodward, Washington Post journalist who, together with Carl Bernstein, uncovered the Watergate story (from the 17 June 1972 burglary) that resulted in the 08 Aug 1974 resignation of US President Nixon. Author of Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate 1974-1999 and Maestro: a behind-the-scenes look at Greenspan's 13-year tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve. — co-author with Bernstein of The Final Days and All the President's Men. — Premio Pulitzer en 1973 por su trabajo sobre el "Watergate".
1942 Erica Jong, escritora estadounidense.
1930 Sandra Day O'Connor first woman US Supreme Court Justice (1981- )
1914 William Westmoreland, US Army General: head of US forces in Vietnam War. He was never even indicted as a war criminal.
1913 Paul Erdös, mathematician. He died in 1996.
1911 Tennessee (Thomas) Williams Columbus Miss, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright (A Streetcar Named Desire [1948], Cat on a Hot Tin Roof [1955]; The Glass Menagerie, Night of the Iguana, Summer and Smoke). He died on 25 February 1983.
1911 Bernard Katz, biofísico británico de origen alemán, Premio Nobel de Medicina en 1970.
1905 Viktor Frankl, científico austriaco, padre de la logoterapia.
1904 Joseph Campbell, US editor and author of many works on mythology. He died on 31 October 1987.
1903 du Val, mathematician.
1893 James Conant, US educator and scientist who died on 11 February 1978.
1893 Palmiro Togliatti, politician who led the Italian Communist Party for nearly 40 years, making it the biggest in the “free world”. He died on 21 August 1964. The Soviet Union then renamed Tolyatti the city of Novy Stavropol, where a Fiat factory (the largest automobile factory in the USSR) had been placed in 1970. (Old Stavropol had to be moved when its site was flooded in 1957 by the 5200 sq.km reservoir of the V.I.Lenin dam and hydroelectric station at Zhigulyovsk, on the Volga immediately below Stavropol).
1885 First commercial film for movies is manufactured by the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company in Rochester, New York.
1880 Duncan Hines US, author of restaurant guides, traveler, cake mix maker
1875 Syngman Rhee, first president of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). He died on 19 July 1965.
1875 Max Abraham, mathematician.
1874 Robert Frost SF, four-time Pulitzer prize-winning poet (Birches, Mending Wall, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Road Not Taken). He read his The Gift Outright at inauguration of John F. Kennedy. Frost died on 29 January 1963. — FROST ONLINE: A Boy's WillA Boy's WillMiscellaneous Poems to 1920Mountain IntervalNorth of BostonNorth of Boston.
1871 Serafín Alvarez Quintero, dramaturgo español.
1864 Alexei Georgevich Jawlensky, Russian German Expressionist painter and printmaker, active in Germany, who died on 15 March 1941. MORE ON JAWLENSKY AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.
1859 Alfred Edward Housman, English scholar and poet (A Shropshire Lad, Last Poems, More Poems, Collected Poems, Manuscript Poems). Housman died on 30 April 1936. — HOUSMAN ONLINE: A Shropshire Lad, A Shropshire Lad, A Shropshire Lad
1859 Hurwitz, mathematician.
1850 Edward Bellamy, US writer who died on 22 May 1898. Bellamy is mostly known as the author of the utopian novel Looking Backward: 2000-1887, which portrays a seemingly contradictory balance between individualism and community. Bellamy argued that his vision of the future must be implemented quickly by the nationalization of railroads, telegraphs, and similar means of movement and control. Bellamy's novel is almost a fictionization of Laurence Gronlund's The Cooperative Commonwealth (1884), and also shows influences of Ismar Thiusen's The Diothas, or A Look Far Ahead (1882) and August Bebel's Woman in the Past, Present, and Future. Other books of Bellamy are Six to One (1878), The Duke of Stockbridge (1879), Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880), Miss Ludington's Sister: a romance of immortality (1884), Equality (1897), Other Stories (1898) — BELLAMY ONLINE: Looking Backward: 2000-1887Looking Backward: 2000-1887 Looking Backward: 2000-1887 Looking Backward: 2000-1887
1848 Andreev, mathematician.
1842 Arthur B. Parton, US artist who died on 07 March 1914. — links to images.
1840 Gustave Achille Guillaumet, French artist who died on 14 March 1887.
1840 George Smith, English Assyriologist. During several expeditions to the site of ancient Nineveh, (1873–1874), Smith unearthed over 3000 cuneiform tablets, including one which told the story of an ancient deluge, similar to Noah's Flood.
1830 Theodore van Schuz, German artist who died on 17 June 1900.
1830 The Book of Mormon is first published by Joseph Smith, 24. He said that he derived it from golden plates he had discovered with the aid of the angel Moroni, Smith maintained that the plates were written in "Reformed Egyptian" which he had translated with the aid of "Urim and Thummim" two stones through which he had viewed the writings.
1817 Herman Haupt, US civil engineer and inventor who died on 14 December 1905.
1794 Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, German painter who died on 24 March 1872. MORE ON SCHNORR AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.
1773 Nathaniel Bowditch, mathematician, astronomer, author, polyglot
1692 Jean Restout, French Neo-classical painter, specialized in historical subjects, who died on 01 January 1768. MORE ON RESTOUT AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.
1516 Conrad Gesner, Zürich, Switzerland, scholar in Greek and Latin, mountain climber (Mount Pilatus, 1555), physician, best known as a naturalist author of systematic compilations of information on animal and plants (with abundant woodcuts). Gesner died on 13 December 1565. One of the 18 families in the flowering plant order Scrophulariales is named for him: Gesneriaceae. Author of: Pandectarium sive Partitionum universalium...libri xxi (first 19 books: 1548 — book 21, on medicine: 1549 — book 21, on theology: not published) — Historiae animalium (5 books: 1551, 1554, 1555, 1556, 1587) — Mithridates: De differentis linguis (about some 130 languages).

Holidays   Bangladesh : Independence Day (1971) / Hampshire, England : Tichborne Dole (1150) / Hawaii : Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianole Day/Regatta Day / Lesotho, Spain : Arbor Day/Fiesta del Arbol (1895) / Taiwan : Birthday of Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy

Religious Observances Christian : St Braulio of Aragon  /  RC : St Ludger, bishop, confessor / Santos Braulio, Félix, Casiano y Teodoro; santas Eugenia y Tecla.
Holy Thursday in 1891, 1959, 1964, 1970, 2043, 2054, 2065, 2111, 2116, 2122.
Easter Sunday in 1967, 1978, 1989, 2062, 2073, 2084, 2119.

Thought for the day: “STOP BEATING AROUND THE BUSH, BEAT ON THE BUSH !”
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