Lost and Found – March 31st Edition

What to remember about March 31st…

• 1492  Royal edict in Spain declares that all Jews unwilling to convert to Christianity will be expelled from the country
• 1776  Abigail Adams writes to her husband to urge that Continental Congress “remember the ladies” when writing their Declaration of Independence; urges recognition of rights of women
• 1854  Commodore Perry signs Treaty of Kanagawa with Japanese government opening ports to American trade and establishment of U.S. Consulate
• 1889  Dedication ceremony for the Eiffel Tower in Paris; built in honor of the centenary of the French Revolution
• 1917  U.S. government purchases islands of Dutch West Indies for $25 million; remains American territory called U.S. Virgin Islands
• 1959  14th Dalai Lama flees communist China and is granted asylum in India
• 1985  In Madison Square Gardens in New York City, WWE holds the first WrestleMania event
• 1991  Soviet military commanders relinquish command of allied forces; Warsaw Pact dissolves after 36 years
• 1992  America’s last active battleship the USS Missouri is decommissioned
• 2005  Terri Schaivo dies 13 days after feeding tube is removed; after 15 years in a vegetative state, SCOTUS allows medical treatment to end

Lost and Found – March 30th Edition

What to remember about March 30th…

• 1822  United States merges East Florida with West Florida to create the Florida Territory; William Pope Duval becomes 1st governor
• 1867  United States Secretary of State William H. Seward concludes purchase of Alaska from Russia for roughly 2 cents per acre or $7.2 million
• 1870  Texas readmitted to the Union following the Civil War and Reconstruction
• 1944  Britain dispatches 795 aircraft for bombing run on Nuremberg; 95 planes downed are the single greatest loss for Bomber Command in the war
• 1972  North Vietnamese forces move South across the DMZ beginning the Easter Offensive
• 1981  President Ronald Reagan is shot outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by John Hinckley, Jr.; 2 others wounded
• 1982  Space Shuttle Columbia lands after 8-day mission STS-3; 1st and only shuttle landing at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico

Lost and Found – March 29th Edition

What to remember about March 29th…

• 1790  Future 10th President John Tyler is born in Virginia (d. 1862); gains the office when William Harrison died 1-month into his presidency
• 1865  Beginning new phase, Union forces move to take Petersburg, Virginia; this Appomattox campaign will lead to the end of the Civil War
• 1867  American baseball pitcher Denton True “Cy” Young is born on Ohio (d. 1955); award in his name recognizes previous season’s best pitcher
• 1929  Herbert Hoover has 1st phone installed in the Oval Office; phones installed in other parts of White House in 1878 by President Hayes
• 1951  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets; they will be executed in 1953
• 1961  23rd Amendment to the Constitution is ratified; residents of Washington, D.C. allowed to vote in presidential elections
• 1971  Army Lt. William Calley is convicted of murder by court-martial for massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai
• 1973  Last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam in fulfillment of President Nixon’s campaign promise; Paris peace treaty signed just 2 months earlier
• 1992  New York Times article quotes presidential candidate Bill Clinton saying “I didn’t inhale it, and never tried it again.” regarding marijuana
• 2009  Obama administration forces General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner to resign; $13.4 billion bailout gives government control

Lost and Found – March 28th Edition

What to remember about March 28th…

• 1834  President Andrew Jackson is censured by Congress for refusing to provide documents requested by lawmakers
• 1862  Union forces halt Confederate invasion of New Mexico at Battle of Glorieta Pass; hopes of capturing western gold mines are foiled
• 1910  Near Martigues, France, Henri Fabre becomes first person to successfully fly a seaplane
• 1969  34th President Dwight D. Eisenhower dies in Washington, D.C. (b. 1890)
• 1979  Pressure valve fails at Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania; human error overrides safety systems causing worst nuclear accident in U.S. history
• 1990  President George H. W. Bush posthumously awards Congressional Gold Medal to African-American Olympian Jesse Owens
• 2006  In tragic rush to judgement, Duke University lacrosse team is suspended after rape allegations arise from off-campus party

Lost and Found – March 27th Edition

What to remember about March 27th…

• 1775  Future President Thomas Jefferson is elected to be a representative to the second Continental Congress
• 1814  Future President Andrew Jackson leads 39th Infantry to defeat the “Red Stick” Creek at Battle of Horseshoe Bend; British allies in War of 1812
• 1836  After becoming surrounded, band of Texans surrender to Mexican Army at Goliad; 417 are executed as rebels instead of being taken as prisoners of war
• 1865  President Lincoln travels to Virginia to plot final strategies of the war with generals Grant and Sherman; discuss surrender terms for Lee’s army
• 1912  Wives of President Taft and Japanese Ambassador plant in Washington, D.C. the first 2 of 3020 cherry trees gifted to America by Japan
• 1915  “Typhoid Mary” is placed into lifetime quarantine; Marry Mallon is 1st identified healthy carrier of a disease found in United States
• 1945  With only 1 launch site remaining, Germany fires its last wave of V-2 missiles against Britain and Belgium; almost 200 killed
• 1990  United States begins broadcasting news and information to Cuba with TV Marti; brings wider audience than existing Radio Marti programs
• 1998  FDA approves prescription drug Viagra; “little blue pill” is 1st medicine approved to treat male impotence
• 2007  American chemist and Nobel Laureate Paul Christian Lauterbur dies in 2007 (b. 1929); work led to development of MRI technology

Lost and Found – March 26th Edition

What to remember about March 26th…

• 1776  South Carolina is 1st to break with Britain; takes the lead by declaring independence and by approving new constitution and government
• 1830  In Palmyra, New York, Book of Mormon goes on sale for first time
• 1874  American poet Robert Frost is born in San Francisco, California (d. 1963); winner of 4 Pulitzer Prizes
• 1953  American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces that he has discovered a vaccine against polio; within just a few years, the number of nationwide new polio cases drops from 58,000 to 6,000
• 1979  Camp David Accords signed by Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem; 1st peace treaty between the neighbors
• 1982  Official groundbreaking for Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
• 1987 After one of his victims escapes, torture chamber of serial killer and cannibal Gary Heidnik is discovered in Philadelphia, his depravity is an inspiration for Thomas Harris’ Buffalo Bill character in Silence of the Lambs novel
• 1997  Bodies of 39 Heaven’s Gate cultists found in California after committing group suicide in anticipation of arrival of aliens with Hale-Bopp comet
• 1999  Jury in Michigan finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering lethal dose of medication in “assisted suicide”
• 2011  Former Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro dies of cancer in Massachusetts (b. 1935); 1st woman to be a Vice Presidential candidate

Lost and Found – March 25th Edition

What to remember about March 25th…

Medal of Honor Day – 152nd Anniversary of the first awarding of the Medal

• 1634  Settlers land on Maryland’s western shore to found 1st settlement; mixed Catholic and Protestant group names town St. Mary’s
• 1774  British Parliament passes Boston Port Act closing port and demanding more than $1 million (adjusted) for tea dumped during Boston Tea Party
• 1865  Last major attack of the war by Confederate forces is a failed attempt by General Lee to free his forces from encirclement at Petersburg, Virginia
• 1933  USS Sequoia is commissioned as presidential yacht for Herbert Hoover; she will serve 44 years and 8 presidents
• 1994  After 15-month mission, final U.S. troops leave Somalia; the war-torn and impoverished nation is little better off than when they arrived
• 1996  81 members of the Freemen begin standoff with federal law enforcement over the foreclosure of their “Justus Township” farm in Montana

Lost and Found – March 24th Edition

What to remember about March 24th…

• 1765  British Parliament passes quartering act requiring colonies to provide accommodations for troops; authorizes use of private homes as barracks
• 1834  American explorer, conservationist, and abolitionist John Wesley Powell is born in Mount Morris, New York (d. 1902)
• 1944  76 Allied prisoners break out od German POW camp Stalag Luft III; event immortalized in 1963 film The Great Escape starring Steve McQueen
• 1958  Elvis Presley is inducted into the United States Army; earlier deferment allowed him to avoid service in Korea
• 1965  At University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, anti-war activists and academics hold the 1st “teach-in”; movement will soon spread to other campuses
• 1989  Supertanker Exxon Valdez runs aground off Prince William Sound in Alaska; drunken captain causes largest oil spill in U.S. history
• 1996  Astronaut Shannon Lucid becomes 1st American female to live aboard a space station when she joins the crew of Russian Mir
• 1999 NATO aircraft begin 78 days of bombings in effort to end ethnic warfare in Yugoslavia

Lost and Found – March 23rd Edition

What to remember about March 23rd…

• 1775  Patrick Henry gives passionate speech at Virginia Convention declaring “give me liberty or give me death!”
• 1806  After wintering near Pacific coast, Lewis and Clark expedition begins return leg of their journey of exploration
• 1918  118-foot long German super cannon fired 74 miles into city of Paris
• 1919  Benito Mussolini leaves Italian Socialist Party and founds fascist movement
• 1933  German Reichstag passes act making Adolf Hitler dictator
• 1944  German troops massacre 300 Italian civilians over partisan attacks
• 1961  American intelligence gathering plane is shot down over Laos; 1st aerial losses of Vietnam War
• 1965  NASA launches Gemini 3; America’s 1st 2-man space mission
• 1983  President Reagan gives a speech announcing development of anti-missile technology; Strategic Defense Initiative “Star Wars” program born
• 2001  Russian Mir space station returns to Earth in a controlled re-entry; splashes down on Pacific off the coast of Fiji
• 2010  President Obama signs Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA); “Obamacare” becomes law

Lost and Found – March 22nd Edition

What to remember about March 22nd…

• 1622  In Jamestown massacre, Algonquian Indians kill 347 English settlers around the settlement; a third of the colony’s population is lost
• 1723  Founding Father and delegate to Continental Congress Charles Carrol is born in Annapolis, Maryland (d. 1783)
• 1871  North Carolina Governor William Woods Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment
• 1908  American author Louis Dearborn L’Amour is born in Jamestown, North Dakota; one of the world’s favorites he penned over 100 novels
• 1945  The Arab League is formed when Charter approved by Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, and Yemen
• 1972  Congress sends the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification; effort fails to gain required number of state passages in time allotted
• 1984  McMartin preschool staff are charged with ritual, satanic abuse of children; charges dropped when accusations revealed as false
• 1997  Comet Hale-Bopp has its closest approach to Earth