Paradise Driver

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Today is Wednesday, March 24th.

The 84th day of 2004.

There are 282 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 24, 1765, Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers.



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On this date:



In 1629, The first game law was passed in the American colonies, by Virginia.



In 1664, Roger Williams was granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island.



In 1837, Canada gives blacks the right to vote.



In 1868, The Metropolitan Life Insurance Co forms.



In 1874, Magician/Illusionist Harry Houdini was born in Budapest, Hungary. He died October 31st, 1926 at the age of 52.



In 1882, German scientist Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis.



In 1883, Long-distance telephone service was inaugurated between Chicago and New York.



In 1887, Actor, Director, Comedian, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was born in Conkling, MN. He died June 29th., 1933, at the age of 46.



In 1898, The first US automobile was sold. Alexander Winton sold the first automobile that he built in Cleveland to mining engineer Robert Allison for $1000.



In 1900, Mayor Van Wyck of New York breaks ground for a subway tunnel that will link Manhattan and Brooklyn.



In 1909, Outlaw Clyde Barrow (Bonnie & Clyde) was born. He died May 23, 1934 at the age of 25.



In 1920, The first United States coast guard air station is established at Morehead City, North Carolina.



In 1923, The Twin Cities are the first cities in the world to have the noiseless roller-bearing street cars.



In 1924, Greece became a republic.



In 1926, Safeway Stores is incorporated by M.B. Skaggs.



In 1930, TV/Movie actor Steve McQueen was born in Beech Grove, IN. He died November 7, 1980, at the age of 50.



In 1930, the recently discovered ninth planet is given the name Pluto.



In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill granting future independence to the Philippines.



In 1935, Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour goes national on NBC Radio Network. He was later convicted for being a Nazi spy and for sending coded messages to German submarines by making sage quips at the end of the show.



In 1938, The U.S. asked that all powers help refugees fleeing from the Nazis.



In 1940, The New York City NBC station W2XBS became the first to televise religious services.



In 1944, in occupied Rome, the Nazis executed more than 300 civilians in reprisal for an attack by Italian partisans the day before that killed 32 German soldiers.



In 1944, The greatest mass escape of World War II occurred at Stalag Luft III when 76 allied airmen tunneled out. Only three made it home.



In 1945, 600 transports and 1300 gliders stretching for over 300 miles carry the First Allied Airborne Army, comprised of 40,000 British and American paratroopers (17th Airborne Div.), across the Rhine near Wesel, Germany in Operation Varsity, the largest one-day airborne drop in history.



In 1946, The Soviet Union announced that it was withdrawing its troops from Iran.



In 1947, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. donates the East River site in N.Y. to the United Nations.



In 1947, The United States Congress proposes limiting the presidency to two terms.



In 1955, the Tennessee Williams play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" opened on Broadway.



In 1955, the first seagoing oil drill rig was placed in service.



In 1958, rock-and-roll singer Elvis Presley was inducted into the Army in Memphis, Tenn.



In 1960, A United States appeals court rules that the novel, Lady Chatterly’s Lover, is not obscene and can be sent through the mail.



In 1965, white civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo of Detroit was shot and killed on a road near Selma, Ala.



In 1966, the Selective Service announces college deferments based on performance.



In 1967, The first "Teach-in" after the bombing of North Vietnam was held at the University of Michigan.



In 1972, Great Britain imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland.



In 1976, the president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by her country's military.



In 1980, one of El Salvador's most respected Roman Catholic Church leaders, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, was shot to death by gunmen as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador.



In 1981, ABC's nightly Iran Hostage crisis program "America Held Hostage, Day #XXX" renamed "Nightline with Ted Koppel"



In 1986, NASA publishes "Strategy for Safely Returning the Space Shuttle to Flight Status"



In 1988, Former national security aides Oliver L. North and John M. Poindexter and businessmen Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim pleaded innocent to Iran-Contra charges.



In 1989, the nation's worst oil spill occurred as the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound and began leaking 11 million gallons of crude.



In 1993, Ezer Weizman was elected Israel's seventh president.



In 1993, South African President F.W. de Klerk admitted for the first time that his country had built six nuclear bombs, but that the weapons had been dismantled.



In 1994, 10 years ago, A 36-inch underground natural gas pipeline ruptured and exploded in Edison, New Jersey, sending shock waves throughout the area. The disaster left a crater over 120 feet wide and 40 feet deep. One hundred were injured and one related death was reported.



In 1998, A former FBI agent said papers found in James Earl Ray's car supports a conspiracy theory in the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.



In 1998, In Jonesboro, Arkansas, two boys, ages 11 and 13, pull a fire alarm at Westside Middle School and open fire on students from nearby woods. Four students and one teacher are killed in the ambush.



In 2002, Thieves stole five 17th century paintings from the Frans Hals Museum in the Dutch city of Haarlem. The paintings were worth about $2.6 million. The paintings were works by Jan Steen, Cornelis Bega, Adriaan van Ostade and Cornelis Dusart.



Ten years ago (1994):



President Clinton held a news conference in which he acknowledged he had significantly overstated the loss in his Whitewater land investment and promised to release late 1970s tax returns to answer questions on the land deal.



Five years ago (1999):



NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it had ever attacked a sovereign country.



Thirty-nine people were killed when fire erupted in the Mont Blanc tunnel in France and burned for two days.



In Kenya, at least 31 people were killed when a passenger train derailed. Hundreds were injured.



The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that Boeing 737 rudder problems caused two fatal airline crashes and nearly triggered a third.



One year ago (2003):



Iraqi state television showed two men said to have been the U.S. crew of an Apache helicopter forced down during heavy fighting in central Iraq. (Chief Warrant Officer David Williams and Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Junior spent three weeks in captivity before they were released along with five other POWs.)



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Today's Birthdays:



Animator Joseph Barbera is 93.



Fashion and costume designer Bob Mackie is 64.



Actor R. Lee Ermey is 60.



Movie director Curtis Hanson is 59.



Rock musician Lee Oskar is 56.



Rock musician Dougie Thomson (Supertramp) is 53.



Comedian Louie Anderson is 51.



Actress Donna Pescow is 50.



Actor Robert Carradine is 50.



Actress Kelly LeBrock is 44.



Rhythm and blues DJ Rodney "Kool Kollie" Terry (Ghostown DJs) is 43.



TV personality Star Jones ("The View") is 42.



Actress Annabella Sciorra is 40.



Rock singer-musician Sharon Corr (The Corrs) is 34.



Actress Lara Flynn Boyle is 34.



Rapper P.A. Pasemaster Mase (De La Soul) is 34.



Actress Alyson Hannigan ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") is 30.



Actress Keisha Castle-Hughes ("The Whale Rider") is 14.



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Thought for Today:

"Not to be able to grow old is just as ridiculous as to be unable to outgrow childhood." -

- Carl G. Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961).

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