Paradise Driver

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Today is Saturday, March 13th.

The 73rd day of 2004

There are 293 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 13, 1964, in a case that sparked outrage over urban apathy, 38 residents of a Queens, N.Y., neighborhood failed to respond to the cries of Catherine "Kitty" Genovese, 28, as she was being stabbed to death. (Winston Moseley later confessed to killing Genovese; he is serving life in prison.)



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On this date:



In 607, the 12th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.



In 1519, Cortez lands in Mexico.



In 1639, Harvard University was named for clergyman John Harvard.



In 1644, Rhode Island becomes a separate colony



In 1759, 27th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.



In 1781, the planet Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel.



In 1852, The New York Lantern publishes the first cartoon showing the character "Uncle Sam," based on a real U.S. officer who served in the war of 1812, Samuel Wilson.



In 1855, American astronomer Percival Lowell was born in Boston, MA. In 1894 he founded and became director of the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona. He died in 1916.



In 1861, Jefferson Davis signed a bill authorizing slaves to be used as soldiers for the Confederacy.



In 1868, the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the U.S. Senate.



In 1877, (some sources say 1887), Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine, a teenager, received a patent for earmuffs.



In 1881, Alexander II, emperor of Russia, is assassinated by a bomb thrown into his carriage by a member of a revolutionary group, the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will).



In 1884, Standard Time was adopted throughout the United States.



In 1884, In Illinois, the Chicago Live Stock Exchange was chartered.



In 1901, the 23rd president of the United States, Benjamin Harrison, died in Indianapolis.



In 1901, Andrew Carnegie announced that he was retiring from business and that he would spend the rest of his days giving away his fortune. His net worth was estimated at $300 million.



In 1906, American suffragist Susan B. Anthony died in Rochester, N.Y.



In 1911, the Founder of Scientology, Dianetics, and the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard was born.



In 1918, Women were scheduled to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York due to a shortage of men due to wartime.



In 1919, the National Restaurant Association was founded.



In 1925, Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signs legislation that prohibits the teaching of evolution within the state’s public school system.



In 1930, Scientist Clyde Tombaugh announces his discovery of the planet Pluto at the Lowell Observatory.



In 1933, banks began to reopen after a "holiday" declared by Franklin President Roosevelt.



In 1934, John Dillinger and his gang robbed the First National Bank in Iowa. "Baby Face" Nelson was waiting outside in a getaway car. When a woman customer ran out of the bank and said "They're robbing the bank", Nelson responded "You're telling me".



In 1935, Three-thousand-year-old archives were found in Jerusalem confirming some biblical history.



In 1942, Julia Flikke of the Nurse Corps becomes the first woman colonel in the United States Army.



In 1944, Britain announced that all travel between Ireland and the U.K. was suspended because the Irish government would not expel Axis-power diplomats within its borders.



In 1948, Honda Motors Opens.



In 1961, The Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, age 79, marries Jacqueline Roque, age 37.



In 1961, "Ken" Doll was created by Mattel. He has been "Barbie's" boyfriend ever since. Ken, whose full name is Ken Carson, has not let the couple's age difference come between them: Barbie is two years older. (For the record, her full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.)



In 1969, the Apollo 9 astronauts splashed down, ending a mission that included the successful testing of the Lunar Module.



In 1970, Digital Equipment Corp introduced the PDP-11 minicomputer.



In 1972, "The Merv Griffin Show" debuted in syndication for Metromedia Television.



In 1974, By a vote of 54-33, the United States Senate passes a law to restore the death penalty.



In 1974, The 150th episode of "Adam-12" aired on NBC.



In 1974, Oil producing Arab countries agreed to lift their five-month embargo on petroleum sales to the U.S.; during the embargo, gasoline prices in the U.S. rose 300 percent, a ban was imposed upon Sunday gasoline sales, and odd-even rationing was also put into effect. The embargo was in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel during the October 1973 Middle-East war.



In 1986, The Phillipine government confirmed it had discovered a bank account containing $800 million, in the name of exiled President Ferdinand Marcos and within days, hundreds of millions more were discovered. When the presidential palace was opened to the public, the people saw many expensive possessions including hundreds of pairs of shoes owned by First Lady Imelda Marcos.



In 1988, yielding to student protests, the Board of Trustees of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., a liberal arts college for the hearing-impaired, chose I. King Jordan to become the school's first deaf president.



In 1992, the U.S. House of Representatives, trying to weather a politically embarrassing firestorm, voted unanimously to publicly identify 355 current and former members who had overdrawn their accounts at the House bank.



In 1995, The first United Nations World Summit on Social Development concluded in Copenhagen, Denmark.



In 1996, a gunman burst into an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and opened fire on a class of kindergartners, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.



In 1997, Sister Nirmala was chosen by India's Missionaries of Charity to succeed Mother Teresa as leader of the Catholic order.



In 1998, Sgt. Maj. Gene McKinney, at one time the U.S. Army's top enlisted man, was acquitted of pressuring military women for sex. He was convicted of trying to persuade the chief accuser to lie. He was reprimanded and had his rank reduced.



In 2001, Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national who was arrested with a carload of explosives just before New Year's Eve 1999, went on trial in Los Angeles on charges of plotting to bomb Seattle and other U.S. cities during the millennium celebrations. (He was convicted of terrorism the following month.)



Ten years ago (1994):



A South African diplomat took over as leader of Bophuthatswana as the black homeland's president, Lucas Mangope, was deposed.



The Israeli Cabinet outlawed two Jewish extremist groups, Kach and Kahane Lives, branding them terrorist organizations.



Five years ago (1999):



Serb government forces destroyed more than 25 ethnic Albanian homes in Kosovo, apparently in retaliation for the killing of Serb civilians in the area.



Evander Holyfield, the WBA and IBF champion, and Lennox Lewis, the WBC champion, kept their respective titles after fighting to a controversial draw in New York.



Playwright Garson Kanin died in New York at age 86.



One year ago (2003):



Forced into a diplomatic retreat, U.S. officials said President Bush might delay a vote on his troubled United Nations resolution or even drop it — and fight Iraq without the international body's backing.



Japan sent a destroyer to the Sea of Japan amid reports that North Korea was planning to test an intermediate-range ballistic missile.



The Senate voted 64-33 to ban a procedure that critics called partial birth abortion.



Norwegian Robert Sorlie won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race in nine days, 15 hours, 47 minutes.



A report in the journal "Nature" reported that scientists had found 350,000-year-old human footprints in Italy. The 56 prints were made by three early, upright-walking humans that were descending the side of a volcano.



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Today's Birthdays:



Country singer Jan Howard is 74.



Opera singer Rosalind Elias is 73.



Songwriter Mike Stoller is 71.



Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka is 65.



Actor William H. Macy is 54.



Actress Deborah Raffin is 51.



Comedian Robin Duke is 50.



Actress Dana Delany is 48.



Rock musician Adam Clayton (U2) is 44.



Jazz musician Terence Blanchard is 42.



Actor Christopher Collet is 36.



Actress Annabeth Gish is 33.



Actress Tracy Wells is 33.



Rapper Khujo (Goodie Mob) is 32.



Singer Glenn Lewis is 29.



Actor Danny Masterson is 28.



Actor Emile Hirsch is 19.



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Thought for Today:

"We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them." -

— Livy, Roman historian (64 or 59 B.C.-A.D. 17)

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