Paradise Driver

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Today is Sunday, March 7th.

The 67th day of 2004.

There are 299 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for his telephone.



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On this date:



In 1638, Controversial colonial churchwoman Anne Hutchinson, 47, and nineteen other exiles from the Massachusetts Bay Colony settled in Rhode Island, at the site of modern Portsmouth.



In 1778, Captain James Cook first sights the Oregon Coast at Yaquina Bay, near the current site of Newport, Oregon.



In 1782, Ohio Territory militiamen began a two_day massacre of the Moravian Indian town of Gnadenhutten (modern New Philadelphia, Ohio). In all, 96 Christian Indians of the Delaware tribe were slaughtered, in retaliation for Indian raids made elsewhere in the Ohio Territory.



In 1849, horticulturist Luther Burbank was born in Lancaster, Mass.



In 1850, in a three-hour speech to the U.S. Senate, Daniel Webster endorsed the Compromise of 1850 as a means of preserving the Union.



In 1875, composer Maurice Ravel was born in Cibourne, France.



In 1896, Gilbert & Sullivan's last operette "Grand Duke" premieres in London



In 1901 The bluebonnet is adopted as the state flower of Texas.



In 1911, the United States sent 20,000 troops to the Mexican border as a precaution in the wake of the Mexican Revolution.



In 1926, the first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation took place, between New York and London.



In 1933, The board game "Monopoly" was invented.



In 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pac.



In 1939, Guy Lombardo & Royal Canadians 1st record "Auld Lang Syne"



In 1945, during World War II, U.S. forces crossed the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany, using the damaged but still usable Ludendorff Bridge.



In 1955, "Peter Pan", starring Mary Martin, was presented as a television special for the first time.



In 1959, Melvin C. Garlow becomes the first pilot to fly over a million miles (1.61 M km) in a jet airplane.



In 1961, The 100th episode of "The Rifleman" aired.



In 1965, a march by civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, Ala., by state troopers and a sheriff's posse.



In 1967, Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa begins 8-year jail sentence at Lewisburg Federal Prison for defrauding the union & jury tampering (commuted Dec 23, 1971)



In 1968, The first human in space, Yuri Aleksayevich Gagarin, was killed in a plane crash at the age of 31.



In 1974, "Monitor" (US Civil War Ship) restored at Cape Hatteras NC



In 1975, The final episode of "The Odd Couple" aired on ABC.



In 1975, the Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present.



In 1981, anti-government guerrillas in Colombia executed kidnapped American Bible translator Chester Allen Bitterman, whom they accused of being a CIA agent.



In 1983, TNN (The Nashville Network) began broadcasting.



In 1986, The final episode of "Different Strokes" was aired.



In 1987, Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight titleholder when he beat James Smith in a decision during a 12-round fight in Las Vegas, NV.



Ten years ago (1994):



The Supreme Court ruled that a parody that pokes fun at an original work can be considered "fair use" that doesn't require permission from the copyright holder.



The U.S. Navy issued its first permanent orders assigning women to regular duty on a combat ship - in this case, the USS Eisenhower.



Five years ago (1999):



Movie director Stanley Kubrick, whose films included "Dr. Strangelove," "A Clockwork Orange" and "2001: A Space Odyssey," died in Hertfordshire, England, at age 70.



One year ago (2003):



Virtually every musical on Broadway shut down as musicians went on strike, and actors and stagehands said they wouldn't cross their picket lines; the walkout lasted four days.



Today's Birthdays:



Photographer Lord Snowdon is 74.



TV personality Willard Scott is 70.



Auto racer Janet Guthrie is 66.



Actor Daniel J. Travanti (Capt. Frank Furillo-Hill St Blues) is 64.



Fallen evangelist Tammy Faye Baker Messner is 62.



Walt Disney Company chairman Michael Eisner is 62.



Rock musician Chris White (The Zombies) is 61.



Actor John Heard is 58.



Rock singer Peter Wolf is 58.



Rock musician Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum) is 58.



Singer Peggy March is 56.



Football Hall-of-Famer Franco Harris is 54.



Football Hall-of-Famer Lynn Swann is 52.



Rhythm and blues singer-musician Ernie Isley (The Isley Brothers) is 52.



Actor Bryan Cranston is 48.



Tennis Hall-of-Famer Ivan Lendl is 44.



Actor Bill Brochtrup is 41.



Opera singer Denyce Graves is 40.



Singer-actress Taylor Dayne is 39.



Rock musician Randy Guss (Toad the Wet Sprocket) is 37.



Actress Rachel Weisz is 33.



Rock singer Hugo Ferreira (Tantric) is 30.



Actress Laura Prepon is 24.



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Thought for Today:

"More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones." -

- St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582).

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