Paradise Driver

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Today is Monday, March 8th.

The 68th day of 2004.

There are 298 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 8, 1854, U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry made his second landing in Japan; within a month, he concluded a treaty with the Japanese.



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On this date:



In 1702, England's Queen Anne ascended the throne upon the death of King William III.



In 1790, George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address.



In 1841, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the "Great Dissenter," was born in Boston.



In 1862, The Confederate ironclad warship Virginia (formerly the Merrimack) sinks the Union Cumberland and Congress at Hampton Roads, Virginia.



In 1874, the 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore, died in Buffalo, N.Y.



In 1880, U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes declared that the United States would have jurisdiction over any canal built across the isthmus of Panama.



In 1894, A dog license law is enacted in New York State. It’s the first animal control law in the United States.



In 1897, Reno, Nevada, was incorporated as a city. It became the state's only town of notable size, then 4,500.



In 1907, The British House of Commons turned down a women's suffrage bill.



In 1910, Baroness de Laroche of France becomes the first woman to obtain a pilot’s license.



In 1917, Russia's "February Revolution" (so called because of the Old Style calendar being used by Russians at the time) began with rioting and strikes in St. Petersburg.



In 1930, the 27th president of the United States, William Howard Taft, died in Washington.



In 1930, Babe Ruth signs a contract worth $80,000 with the New York Yankees. GM Ed Barrow, wrongly predicts "No one will ever be paid more than Ruth"



In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi starts civil disobedience in India



In 1934, Edwin Hubble photo shows as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars



In 1941, Martial law was proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.



In 1942, Japanese forces captured Rangoon, Burma, during World War II.



In 1945, Phyllis Mae Daley received a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She became the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II.



In 1946, 1st helicopter licensed for commercial use (New York NY)



In 1948, The U.S. Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutional.



In 1959, Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx make their final television appearance together.



In 1962, The Beatles perform for the first time on the BBC in Great Britain.



In 1964, The Dave Clark 5 made their first appearance on the "Ed Sullivan Show".



In 1965, the United States landed about 3,500 Marines in South Vietnam.



In 1972, the Goodyear blimp was first flown.



In 1973, The Eisenhower Tunnel, the highest in the world and the longest in the U.S., is opened through the continental divide.



In 1977, the U.S. Army announces it has conducted 239 open-air tests of germ warfare.



In 1982, The U.S. accused the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas.



In 1983, IBM released PC DOS version 2.0.



In 1985, A Lebanese intelligence unit exploded a car bomb in west Beirut that killed 80 and wounded 200.



In 1985 The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reported that 407,700 Americans were millionaires. That was more than double the total from just five years before.



In 1986, four French television crew members were abducted in west Beirut; a caller claimed Islamic Jihad was responsible. (All four were eventually released.)



In 1988, In Fort Campbell, KY, 17 U.S. soldiers were killed when two Army helicopters collided in midair.



In 1993, "Beavis and Butthead" premiered on MTV.



In 2000, Intel Corporation unveiled its 1GHz chip.



Ten years ago (1994):



President Clinton announced the appointment of Washington attorney Lloyd Cutler as senior counsel, replacing Bernard Nussbaum.



The Defense Department announced a smoking ban for workplaces ranging from the Pentagon to battle tanks.



Five years ago (1999):



The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.



New York Yankees baseball star Joe DiMaggio died in Hollywood, Fla., at age 84.



President Clinton began a tour of Central America.



One year ago (2003):



The militant Islamic group Hamas vowed revenge after one of its founding members and three bodyguards were killed in an Israeli helicopter attack in Gaza; the Israeli army promised to strike the militants again.



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Today's Birthdays:



Actress Sue Ane Langdon is 68.



Baseball player-turned-author Jim Bouton is 65.



Actress Susan Clark (Webster) is 64.



Actress Lynn Redgrave is 61.



Actor-director-musician Micky Dolenz (The Monkees) is 59.



Lyricist Carole Bayer Sager is 58.



Baseball player Jim Rice is 51.



Singer Gary Numan is 46.



Actor Aidan Quinn is 45.



Country musician Jimmy Dormire (Confederate Railroad) is 44.



Actress Camryn Manheim is 43.



Model/actress Kathy Ireland is 41.



Actor Leon is 41.



Rock singer Shawn Mullins (The Thorns) is 36.



Actress Andrea Parker is 35.



Actor Boris Kodjoe is 31.



Actor Freddie Prinze Jr. is 28.



Actor James Van Der Beek is 27.



Rhythm and blues singer Kameelah Williams (702) is 26.



Pop musicians David, Bob and Clint Moffatt are 20.



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Thought for Today:

"We do not acquire humility. There is humility in us - only we humiliate ourselves before false gods." -

- Simone Weil, French philosopher (1909-1943).

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