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Today is Sunday, March 14th.

The 74th day of 2004.

There are 292 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 14, 1743, the first recorded town meeting in America was held, at Faneuil Hall in Boston.



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On this date:



In 1629, a royal charter established the Massachusetts Bay colony.



In 1644, England granted a patent for Providence Plantations (now Rhode Island).



In 1794, Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin, an invention that revolutionized America's cotton industry.



In 1879, American physicist and Nobel laureate, Alebert Einstein, was born in Ulm, Gemany. Best known as the creator of the "special" and "general theories of relativity" and for his bold hypothesis concerning the particle nature of light. He is perhaps the most well-known scientist of the 20th century. He died in 1955.



In 1883, Karl Marx, a Prussian political theorist, economist, and sociologist whose ideas formed the basis of communism, died in London, England, at the age of 65.



In 1891, The submarine Monarc laid telephone cable along the English Channel bed to prepare for the first telephone links across the Channel.



In 1891, the International Copyright Act was approved.



In 1900, Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act.



In 1900, In Holland, Botanist Hugo de Vries rediscovered "Mendel's laws of heredity".



In 1903, The United States Senate ratifies the Hay-Herran Treaty, which guarantees the U.S. the right to build a canal at Panama.



In 1904, The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the government's claim that the Northern Securities Company was an illegal merger between the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railway companies.



In 1914, Henry Ford announced the new continuous motion method to assemble cars.



In 1918, The first seagoing ship made of concrete was launched at Redwood City, CA, near San Francisco. The ship was named "Faith" and those who launched her had plenty of that. They had faith that the vessel wouldn't sink. It didn't. "Faith" cost $750,000 to build.



In 1923, Warren G. Harding became the first president to file an income tax report.



In 1935, Donald Duck makes his first appearance in the Mickey Mouse daily newspaper comic strip.



In 1936, Adolf Hitler told a crowd of 300,000 that Germany's only judge is God and itself.



In 1939, the republic of Czechoslovakia was dissolved, opening the way for Nazi occupation.



In 1943, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane while in office.



In 1943, Aaron Copland's orchestral work "Fanfare for the Common Man" premiered in New York, with George Szell conducting.



In 1945, In Germany, a 22,000 pound "Grand Slam" bomb was dropped by the Royal Air Force Dambuster Squad on the Beilefeld railway viaduct. It was the heaviest bomb used during World War II.



In 1947, Moscow announced that 890,532 German POWs were held in the U.S.S.R.



In 1950, The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) begins its “10 Most Wanted Fugitives” program.



In 1951, during the Korean War, United Nations forces recaptured Seoul.



In 1954, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were married. They were only married about 9 months.



In 1955, Elvis Presley was interviewed on Jimmy Dean's "Town & Country Jubliee" television show. Elvis did not perform.



In 1964, a jury in Dallas found Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President Kennedy.



In 1965, Israel's cabinet formally approved establishment of diplomatic relations with West Germany.



In 1965, Petula Clark made her American TV debut on CBS' "Ed Sullivan Show."



In 1967, the body of President Kennedy was moved from a temporary grave to a permanent memorial site at Arlington National Cemetery.



In 1968, The final episode of "Batman" aired on ABC.



In 1989, Imported assault guns were banned in the U.S. under President George H. W. Bush.



In 1991, a British court reversed the convictions of the Birmingham Six, who had spent 16 years in prison for an Irish Republican Army bombing, and ordered them released.



In 1995, American astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to enter space aboard a Russian rocket.



In 1996, U.S. President Bill Clinton committed $100 million for an anti-terrorism pact with Israel to track down and root out Islamic militants.



In 1998, An earthquake left 10,000 homeless in southeastern Iran.



In 1998, Carolina farmers began assessing damage to their frost-bitten peach and strawberry crops as a result of three days of freezing weather. A third hard freeze overnight ruined tiny peaches emerging on early blooming trees in North and South Carolina orchards.



In 1998, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Ariel Sharon told an Israeli television station that Israel would try again to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal.



Ten years ago (1994):



Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell, a longtime friend of President and Mrs. Clinton, resigned because of controversy over billings he'd charged while in private law practice.



Secretary of State Warren Christopher wrapped up three days of meetings with Chinese leaders, who rejected attempts to link their human rights record with preferred trade status.



Apple introduces the Power Macintosh.



Five years ago (1999):



The Clinton administration conceded the Chinese had gained from technology allegedly stolen from a federal nuclear weapons lab but insisted the government responded decisively; Republicans disagreed and pressed for a comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward China.



One year ago (2003):



U.S. President George W. Bush extended a waiver of sanctions against Pakistan. The sanctions were removed due to President Pervez Musharraf siding with the United States after the terrorist attacks against the U.S. on September 11, 2001.



Actor Robert Blake was released from jail on $1.5 million bail, 11 months after he was arrested on charges of murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley.



Christopher Boyce, whose Cold War spying was immortalized on film in "The Falcon and the Snowman," was released from a halfway house in San Francisco after about a quarter-century in prison.



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Today's Birthdays:



Former astronaut Frank Borman is 76.



Singer Phil Phillips is 73.



Actor Michael Caine is 71.



Composer-conductor Quincy Jones is 71.



Former astronaut Eugene Cernan is 70.



Movie director Wolfgang Petersen is 63.



Country singer Michael Martin Murphey is 59.



Rock musician Walt Parazaider (Chicago) is 59.



Actor Steve Kanaly is 58.



Comedian Billy Crystal is 56.



Country singer Jann Browne is 50.



Actor Adrian Zmed is 50.



Prince Albert of Monaco is 46.



Actress Penny Johnson Jerald is 43.



Producer-director-writer Kevin Williamson is 39.



Actress Megan Follows is 36.



Actress Elise Neal is 34.



Rock musician Derrick (Jimmie's Chicken Shack) is 32.



Actor Jake Fogelnest is 25.



Actor Chris Klein is 25.



Actress Kate Maberly is 22.



Singer-musician Taylor Hanson (Hanson) is 21.



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Thought for Today:

"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity." -

- George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born playwright (1856-1950).

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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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Today is Friday, March 12th.

The 72nd day of 2004.

There are 294 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 12, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt delivered the first of his radio "fireside chats," telling Americans what was being done to deal with the nation's economic crisis.



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On this date:



In 1496, Jews were expelled from Syria.



In 1664, New Jersey became a British colony as King Charles II granted land in the New World to his brother James, the Duke of York.



In 1755, In North Arlington, NJ, the steam engine was used for the first time.



In 1789, The United States Post Office is established.



In 1809, Britain signed a treaty with Persia [today's Iran] forcing the French to leave the country.



In 1850, the first $20 gold piece was issued.



In 1890, Russian dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky was born.



In 1894, Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time.



In 1912, Capt Albert Berry performed the first parachute jump from an airplane.



In 1912, Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Guides, which later became the Girl Scouts of America.



In 1913, Canberra became the capital of Australia.



In 1922, Writer and leading chronicler (On the Road) of the 1950's "beat generation," Jean-Louis (Jack) Kerouac was born in Lowell, MA. He died on October 21, 1969, at his home in St. Petersburg, FL at the age of 47.



In 1925, Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen died.



In 1928, at three minutes before midnight, the St. Francis Dam 50 miles north of Los Angeles suddenly collapsed, sending a 78-foot-high wall of water crashing on a 54-mile path of destruction through communities along the Santa Clara River Valley of Ventura County and onward to the Pacific Ocean. Over 450 people lost their lives in the catastrophe, the second worst natural disaster in California history; only the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire killed more people.



In 1930, Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi began a 200-mile march to protest a British tax on salt.



In 1938, the "Anschluss" took place as German troops entered Austria.



In 1939, Pope Pius XII was formally crowned in ceremonies at the Vatican.



In 1945, Anne Frank, the Jewish teen-ager who kept a diary of her wartime experiences, died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. She was 15.



In 1945, The British Empire celebrates its first "British Empire Day" which they rename "Commonwealth Day" in 1958.



In 1947, President Truman established what became known as the "Truman Doctrine" to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.



In 1951, "Dennis the Menace," created by cartoonist Hank Ketcham, made its syndicated debut in 16 newspapers.



In 1959, The U.S. House of Representatives joins the Senate in approving the statehood of Hawaii.



In 1963, the House of Representatives voted to grant former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill honorary U.S. citizenship.



In 1969, Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman in London.



In 1972, Hockey legend Gordie Howe retires from the NHL after twenty-six seasons.



In 1974, "Wonder Woman" debuted on ABC-TV. The show later went to NBC-TV.



In 1980, A jury finds John Wayne Gacy guilty of murdering thirty-three people in Chicago.



In 1985, Former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announced that he planned to drop Secret Service protection and hire his own bodyguards in an effort to lower the deficit by $3 million.



In 1987, a federal judge in Washington dismissed lawsuits by Lt. Col. Oliver North seeking to stop an independent counsel's investigation of his role in the Iran-Contra affair.



In 1987, "Les Miserables" opened on Broadway.



In 1989, About 2,500 veterans and supporters marched at the Art Institute of Chicago to demand that officials remove an American flag placed on the floor as part of an exhibit.



In 1989, Prime Minister Sadiq al Mahdi of Sudan formed a new cabinet to end civil war.



In 1990, Exxon pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay $100 million fine in a $1.1 billion settlement of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Years after millions of barrels of oil fouled Prince William Sound in Alaska, the area still has not recovered.



In 1992, Mauritius became a republic but remained a member of the British Commonwealth.



In 1993, In the U.S., the Pentagon called for the closure of 31 major military bases.



In 1993, Janet Reno was sworn in as the nation's first female attorney general.



In 1993, Several bombs were set off in Bombay, India. About 300 were killed and hundreds more were injured.



In 1997, Police in Los Angeles arrested Mikail Markhasev for the shooting of Bill Cosby's 27-year-old son, Ennis. Markhasev was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.



In 1998, Astronomers cancelled a warning that a mile-wide asteroid might collide with Earth saying that calculations had been off by 600,000 miles.



In 2001, A U.S. Navy jet mistakenly dropped a bomb on a group of military personnel at a bombing range in Kuwait, killing five Americans and one New Zealander.



In 2002, The U.N. Security Council approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution that endorsed a Palestinian state for the first time.



In 2002, In Houston, Andrea Yates was convicted of murdering her five children in the family bathtub.



In 2002, U.S. homeland security chief Tom Ridge unveiled a color-coded system for terror warnings.



In 2002, Conoco and Phillips Petroleum stockholders approved a proposed merger worth $15.6 billion.



Ten years ago (1994):



The Church of England ordained its first women priests.



Secretary of State Warren Christopher held discussions with Chinese leaders in Beijing that were marked by blunt exchanges on human rights.



A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell of the Loch Ness monster was confirmed to be a hoax. The photo was taken of a toy submarine with a head and neck attached.



Five years ago (1999):



Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO.



Violinist Yehudi Menuhin died in Berlin at age 82.



One year ago (2003):



Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who'd vanished from her bedroom nine months earlier, was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb with two drifters.



Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was assassinated.



The U.S. Air Force announced that it would resume reconnaissance flights off the coast of North Korea. The flights had stopped on March 2 after an encounter with four armed North Korean jets.



Author Howard Fast died in Greenwich, Conn., at age 88.



Actress Lynne Thigpen died in Los Angeles at age 54.



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Today's Birthdays:



Former astronaut Wally Schirra is 81.



Playwright Edward Albee is 76.



Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young is 72.



Broadcast journalist Lloyd Dobyns is 68.



Singer Al Jarreau is 64.



Actress Barbara Feldon (Agent 99 - "Get Smart") is 63



Actress-singer Liza Minnelli is 58.



Singer-songwriter James Taylor is 56.



Rock singer-musician Bill Payne (Little Feat) is 55.



Actor Jon Provost ("Lassie") is 54.



Author Carl Hiaasen is 51.



XXX-rated actor Ron Jeremy is 51.



Actor Jerry Levine is 47.



Rock musician Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) is 47.



Singer Marlon Jackson (The Jackson Five) is 47.



Actor Courtney B. Vance is 44.



Actor Titus Welliver is 43.



Former baseball player Darryl Strawberry is 42.



Actress Julia Campbell is 41.



Actor Aaron Eckhart is 36.



Rock musician Graham Coxon is 35.



Actor Samm Levine is 22.



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Thought for Today:

"Ill luck, you know, seldom comes alone." -

- Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish novelist, dramatist and poet (1547-1616).

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Today is Thursday, March 11th.

The 71st day of 2004.

There are 295 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



Fifty years ago, on March 11, 1954, the U.S. Army charged that Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., and his subcommittee's chief counsel, Roy Cohn, had exerted pressure to obtain favored treatment for Pvt. G. David Schine, a former consultant to the subcommittee. (The confrontation culminated in the famous Senate Army-McCarthy hearings.)



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On this date:



In 1302, The characters Romeo Monteveccio and Juliet Cappelleto were married this day according to William Shakespeare.



In 1619, Margaret and Philippa Flower were burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft in Lincoln, England. Known as the flower sisters, the two women, along with their mother, Joan, had cast spells upon various members of their employer's family. Joan didn't help things during the trial when she picked up a piece of bread and said "May this cake choke me if I am guilty." Then she took a bite of the bread and dropped dead.



In 1789, Benjamin Banneker with L'Enfant begin to lay out Washington DC.



In 1791, Samuel Mulliken of Philadelphia, PA became the first person to receive more than one patent from the U.S. Patent Office.



In 1810, Emperor Napoleon of France was married by proxy to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.



In 1811, The wedding of President Madison's sister-in-law is the first to be held in the White House.



In 1824, the Bureau Of Indian Affairs was created in the U.S. War Dept.



In 1847, John 'Johnny Appleseed' Chapman died in Allen County, Indiana. This day became known as Johnny Appleseed Day.



In 1850, the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first medical school entirely for women, is incorporated.



In 1861, the Confederate convention in Montgomery, Ala., adopted a constitution.



In 1865, General William T. Sherman takes Fayetteville, North Carolina, and destroys the arsenal there.



In 1888, the famous "Blizzard of '88" struck the northeastern United States, resulting in some 400 deaths.



In 1903, American accordion player and orchestra leader, Lawrence Welk, was born in Strasburg, North Dakota. He died on May 17, 1992, in Santa Monica, California, of pneumonia.



In 1907, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt induced California to revoke its anti-Japanese legislation.



In 1918, The so-called Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 arrived in the United States. By 1920, the virus had killed as many as 22 million people worldwide, 500,000 in the United States alone.



In 1927, the Flatheads Gang was responsible for the first armored car robbery which took place near Pittsburgh, PA. It was reported that $104,250 was taken in the heist.



In 1927, Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens the famous Roxy Theatre in New York City.



In 1930, former President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.



In 1935, Hermann Goering officially created the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force.



In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis.



In 1942, as Japanese forces continued to advance in the Pacific during World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia, vowing: "I shall return." (He kept that promise nearly three years later.)



In 1947, The DuMont network aired "Movies For Small Fry." It was network television's first successful children's program.



In 1953, first woman doctor commissioned in regular army - F. M. Adams



In 1958, an American B-47 bomber accidentally drops an unarmed atom bomb on a South Carolina farm. The bomb's conventional explosives injure six, level a farm house, and produce a thirty-five-foot-deep crater.



In 1959, the Lorraine Hansberry drama "A Raisin in the Sun" opened at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater. It is the first play by an African-American woman to run on Broadway.



In 1965, the Rev. James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, died after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Ala.



In 1966, Three men were convicted of the murder of Malcolm X.



In 1969, Levi-Strauss starts selling the popular bell-bottomed style jeans.



In 1977, more than 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims were freed after ambassadors from three Islamic nations joined the negotiations.



In 1978, Bobby Hull joins hockey great Gordy Howe in the record books by scoring his 1,000th career goal.



In 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.



In 1986, 1 million days since traditional foundation of Rome, 4/21/753 BC.



In 1986, Popsicle announced its plan to end the traditional twin-stick frozen treat for a flatter, one-stick model.



In 1988, A cease-fire was declared in the war between Iran and Iraq.



In 1990, Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union. It was the first Soviet republic to break away from Communist control.



In 1990, In Chile, Patricio Aylwin was sworn in as the first democratically elected president since 1973.



In 1991, In South Africa a curfew was imposed on black townships after fighting between political gangs had left 49 dead.



In 1992, Former U.S. President Nixon said that the Bush administration was not giving enough economic aid to Russia.



In 1993, Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become the first female attorney general.



In 1993, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty refusing to open sites for inspection.



In 1994, In Chile, Eduardo Frei was sworn in as President. It was the first peaceful transfer of power in Chile since 1970.



In 1997, An explosion at a nuclear waste reprocessing plant caused 35 workers to be exposed to low levels of radioactivity. The incident was the worst in Japan's history.



In 1998, The International Astronomical Union issued an alert that said that a mile-wide asteroid could come very close to, and possibly hit, Earth on Oct. 26, 2028. The next day NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that there was no chance the asteroid would hit Earth.



In 2001, Masked Zapatista rebels urged passage of an Indian rights bill after riding triumphantly into the heart of Mexico's capital in a march supported by the president and welcomed by 75,000 cheering supporters.



In 2002, Two columns of light soared skyward from Ground Zero in New York City as a temporary memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks.



Ten years ago (1994):



Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Beijing, the mood of his trip already soured by a fresh government crackdown on Chinese dissidents.



Five years ago (1999):



The House voted 219-191 to conditionally support President Clinton's plan to send U.S. troops to Kosovo if a peace agreement were reached.



U.S. President Bill Clinton completed a four-day, four-nation visit to Central America.



One year ago (2003):



A U.S. Army helicopter crashed near Fort Drum in upstate New York, killing 11 soldiers.



Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey's governing party, was named prime minister.



After a four-day walkout that cost the city $10 million, Broadway musicians settled the first strike on the Great White Way in nearly 30 years.



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Today's Birthdays:



Actor Terence Alexander is 81.



Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is 73.



ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson is 70.



Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is 68.



Musician Flaco Jimenez is 65.



Actress Tricia O'Neil is 59.



Rock singer-musician Mark Stein (Vanilla Fudge) is 57.



Singer Bobby McFerrin ("Don't Worry, Be Happy" Grammy 1989) is 54.



Movie director Jerry Zucker is 54.



Actress Susan Richardson is 52.



Singer Nina Hagen is 49.



Country singer Jimmy Fortune (The Statler Brothers) is 49.



Singer Cheryl Lynn is 47.



Actress Alex Kingston is 41.



Actor Wallace Langham is 39.



Singer Lisa Loeb is 36.



Singer Pete Droge is 35.



Rock musician Rami Jaffee (Wallflowers) is 35.



Actor Johnny Knoxville is 33.



Rock singer-musicians Benji and Joel Madden (Good Charlotte) are 25.



Actor David Anders is 23.



Actress Thora Birch is 22.



Actor Anton Yelchin is 15.



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Thought for Today:

"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." -

- Bertholt Brecht, German poet and dramatist (1898-1956).

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Today is Wednesday, March 10th.

The 70th day of 2004.

There are 296 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 10, 1876, the first successful voice transmission over Alexander Graham Bell's telephone took place in Boston as his assistant heard Bell say, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you."



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On this date:



In 1496, Christopher Columbus concluded his second visit to the Western Hemisphere as he left Hispaniola for Spain.



In 1629, England's King Charles I dissolved Parliament; he did not call it back for 11 years.



In 1785, Thomas Jefferson was appointed minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.



In 1848, the Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war with Mexico.



In 1849, Abraham Lincoln applies for a patent. He is the first United States president to do so.



In 1862, The first paper money in the United States is issued.



In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant became commander of the Union armies in the Civil War.



In 1880, the Salvation Army arrived in the United States from England.



In 1912, China becomes a republic after the Manchu Ching Dynasty is overthrown.



In 1940, W2XBS-TV in New York City aired the first televised opera as it presented scenes from "I Pagliacci".



In 1945, American B-29 bombers attack Tokyo, killing an estimated 100,000 people.



In 1947, The Big Four met in Moscow to discuss the future of Germany.



In 1949, Nazi wartime broadcaster Mildred E. Gillars, also known as "Axis Sally," was convicted in Washington, D.C., of treason. (She served 12 years in prison.)



In 1956, Julie Andrews, at the age of 23, made her TV debut in "High Tor" with Bing Crosby and Nancy Olson.



In 1965, "The Odd Couple," starring Walter Matthau and Art Carney, opens on Broadway. The play later goes on to become a hit television series.



In 1969, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tenn., to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (Ray later repudiated that plea, maintaining his innocence until his death.)



In 1971, The U.S. Senate approves an amendment to lower the voting age from 21 to 18.



In 1971, Indira Gandhi's Congress Party wins a landslide victory in the Indian general election.



In 1978, CBS began airing the series "The Incredible Hulk."



In 1980, "Scarsdale Diet" author Dr. Herman Tarnower was shot to death in Purchase, N.Y. (Jean Harris, convicted of murder, served nearly 12 years in prison before being released in January 1993.)



In 1982, The United States bans Libyan oil imports due to their continued support of terrorism.



In 1985, Konstantin U. Chernenko, Soviet leader for just 13 months, died at age 73.



In 1997, The series "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" began airing.



In 1998, U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf begin receiving the first vaccinations against anthrax.



In 2001, The 500th episode of "Saturday Night Live" aired on NBC.



In 2002, The Associated Press reported that the Pentagon informed the U.S. Congress in January that it was making contingency plans for the possible use of nuclear weapons against countries that threaten the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction, including Iraq and North Korea.



Ten years ago (1994):



White House officials began testifying before a federal grand jury about the Whitewater controversy.



Five years ago (1999):



During a visit to Guatemala, President Clinton acknowledged the U.S. role in Central America's "dark and painful period" of civil wars and repression.



One year ago (2003):



North Korea test-fired a short-range missile. The event was one of several in a patter of unusual military maneuvers



Facing almost certain defeat, the United States and Britain delayed a vote in the U.N. Security Council to give Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to disarm.



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Today's Birthdays:



Talk show host Ralph Emery is 71.



Bluegrass/country singer-musician Norman Blake is 66.



Actor Chuck Norris is 64.



Playwright David Rabe is 64.



Singer Dean Torrence (Jan and Dean) is 64.



Actress Katharine Houghton is 59.



Rock musician Tom Scholz (Boston) is 57.



The 19th prime minister of Canada (1993) and first woman to hold the office, Avril Phaedra Campbell is 57.



Actress Shannon Tweed is 47.



Actress Sharon Stone is 46.



Rock musician Gail Greenwood is 44.



Rock musician Jeff Ament (Pearl Jam) is 41.



Britain's Prince Edward is 40.



Actress Jasmine Guy is 40.



Singer Edie Brickell is 38.



Actor Stephen Mailer is 38.



Actress Paget Brewster is 35.



Country singer Daryle Singletary is 33.



Rapper-producer Timbaland is 32.



Actor Cristian de la Fuente is 30.



Actress Bree Turner is 27.



Olympic gold-medal gymnast Shannon Miller is 27.



Actress Emily Osment is 12.



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Thought for Today:

"We must not waste life in devising means. It is better to plan less and do more." -

— William Ellery Channing, American clergyman (1780-1842).

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Today is Tuesday, March 9th.

The 69th day of 2004.

There are 297 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



Fifty years ago, on March 9, 1954, CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow critically reviewed Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy's anti-Communism campaign on an episode of "See It Now."



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On this date:



In 1661, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the chief minister of France, died, leaving King Louis XIV in full control.



In 1788, Connecticut becomes the fifth United State.



In 1793, Jean Pierre Blanchard made the first balloon flight in North America. The event was witnessed by U.S. President George Washington.



In 1796, the future emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, married Josephine de Beauharnais. (The couple divorced in 1809.)



In 1820, The U.S. Congress passed the Land Act, which paved the way for westward expansion of North America.



In 1832, Abraham Lincoln announced that he would run for a political office for the first time. He was unsuccessful in his run for a seat in the Illinois state legislature.



In 1847, In the Mexican War, a United States amphibious expedition under the command of General Winfield Scott lands near the Mexican fortress city of Veracruz.



In 1862, during the Civil War, the ironclads Monitor and Virginia (formerly Merrimac) clashed for five hours to a draw at Hampton Roads, Va.



In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was commissioned as commander of all the Union armies



In 1867, The United States agrees to purchase the 1,524,640 sq km/586,400 sq mi Alaska Territory from Russia for $7,200,000.



In 1905, In Egypt, U.S. archeologist Davies discovered the royal tombs of Tua and Yua.



In 1916, Mexican raiders led by Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, N.M., killing more than a dozen people.



In 1919, In Cairo, Egypt, protest demonstrations erupted because of the British expulsion of the Wafd Party nationalist leader Saad Zaglul and three others.



In 1929, Eric Krenz becomes the first athlete to toss the discus over 160 feet.



In 1933, Congress, called into special session by President Franklin Roosevelt, began its "hundred days" of enacting New Deal legislation.



In 1934, Soviet cosmonaut and the first human to fly in space, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born. He died in a plane crash in 1968.



In 1936, The German press warned that all Jews who vote in the upcoming elections would be arrested.



In 1942, the construction of the Alaska Highway begins. It is completed 8 months, 1523 miles, 233 bridges, 5 mountain ranges, and $115 million later by 18,000 workers.



In 1945, during World War II, U.S. B-29 bombers launched incendiary bomb attacks against Japan.



In 1946, The A.F.L. accused Juan Peron of using the army to establish a dictatorship over Argentine labor.



In 1954, In New York, the first local color television commercials air on WNBT-TV [now WNBC-TV].



In 1954, WMUR TV channel 9 in Manchester NH (ABC) begins broadcasting.



In 1956, British authorities arrested and deported Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus. He was accused of supporting terrorists.



In 1957, Egyptian leader Nasser barred U.N. plans to share the tolls for the use of the Suez Canal.



In 1962, US advisors in South-Vietnam join the fight.



In 1964, The first Ford Mustang rolls off the Ford assembly line.



In 1964, the Supreme Court, in its New York Times v. Sullivan decision, ruled that public officials who charged libel could not recover damages for defamatory statements related to their official duties unless they proved actual malice on the part of the news organization.



In 1967, Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Russian dictator Josef Stalin, defects to the United States.



In 1969 "The Smothers Brothers' Comedy Hour" was canceled by CBS-TV.



In 1974, 30 years ago, the last Japanese soldier, a guerrilla operating in the Philippines, surrenders, 29 years after WW II.



In 1975, work began on the Alaskan oil pipeline.



In 1976, The first female cadets are accepted for admission to West Point Military Academy.



In 1977, about a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims invaded three buildings in Washington, D.C., killing one person and taking more than 130 hostages. The siege ended two days later.



In 1981, Dan Rather made his debut as principal anchorman of "The CBS Evening News."



In 1986, U.S. Navy divers found the crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger along with the remains of the astronauts.



In 1989, In the U.S., President Bush urged for a mandatory death penalty in drug-related killings.



In 1993, Rodney King testified at the federal trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of violating his civil rights.



In 1996, TV/Movie/Stage/Radio Actor, Comedian, Author, Vaudevillan, Singer, George Burns died. He had turned 100 years old on January 20th, 1996.



In 2000, In Norway, the coalition government of Kjell Magne Bondevik resigned as a result of an environmental dispute.



Ten years ago (1994):



The U.N. Human Rights Commission condemned anti-Semitism, putting the world body on record for the first time as opposing discrimination against Jews.



Five years ago (1999):



RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., the food-and-tobacco conglomerate, announced it was getting out of the cigarette business.



One year ago (2003):



Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a seat in the Turkish parliament, clearing way for him to become prime minister.



The film musical "Chicago" tap-danced away with a haul of movie honors at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, including best ensemble cast and the lead-actress prize for star Renee Zellweger.



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Today's Birthdays:



Author Mickey Spillane is 86.



Singer-actress (Dorothy) Keely Smith is 72.



Singer Lloyd Price is 71.



Actress Joyce Van Patten is 70.



Actor-comedian Marty Ingels is 68.



Country singer Mickey Gilley is 68.



Singer Mark Lindsay (Paul Revere and the Raiders) is 62.



TV personality Charles Gibson is 61.



Chess player Bobby Fischer is 61.



Actress Trish Van Devere is 59.



Rock musician Robin Trower is 59.



Singer Jeffrey Osborne is 56.



Country musician Jimmie Fadden (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) is 56.



Actress Jaime Lyn Bauer is 55.



Magazine editor Michael Kinsley is 53.



Newscaster Faith Daniels is 47.



Actor(?), star witness in O.J. Simpson trial, Kato (Brian) Kaelin is 45.



Actress Linda Fiorentino is 44.



Actress Juliette Binoche is 40.



Rock musician Robert Sledge (Ben Folds Five) is 36.



Rapper C-Murder is 33.



Actor Emmanuel Lewis is 33.



Actress Jean Louisa Kelly is 32.



Actor Kerr Smith is 32.



Rapper Chingy is 24.



Actress Brittany Snow is 18.



Rapper Bow Wow is 17.



Actor Luis Armand Garcia is 12.



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Thought for Today:

"We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular." -

- Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (1908-1965), on "See It Now," March 9, 1954.

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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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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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Today is Saturday, March 6th.

The 66th day of 2004.

There are 300 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 6, 1857, in its Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in federal court.



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On this date:



In 1475, Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and poet Michelangelo Buonarroti (Michelangelo) was born.



In 1806, English poet, political thinker, and feminist Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England. She died in 1861.



In 1808, At Harvard University, the first college orchestra was founded.



In 1820, The Missouri Compromise is enacted by the U.S. Congress. It admits Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibits slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase Territory.



In 1834, the city of York in Upper Canada was incorporated as Toronto.



In 1836, The thirteen-day siege of the Alamo by Santa Anna and his army ended. The Mexican army of three thousand men defeated the 189 Texas volunteers.



In 1853, Verdi's opera "La Traviata" premiered in Venice, Italy.



In 1906, Comedian and actor Lou Costello (Louis Francis Cristillo)(Abbott & Costello) was born in Paterson, NJ. He died March 3, 1959 in East Los Angeles, CA.



In 1930, Clarence Birdseye, food expert, industrialist, and inventor, introduces prepackaged, quick-frozen food to American consumers.



In 1932, Composer and band leader John Philip Sousa died at the age of 77.



In 1933, a nationwide bank holiday declared by President Franklin Roosevelt went into effect.



In 1935, retired Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. died in Washington.



In 1944, U.S. heavy bombers staged the first American raid on Berlin during World War II.



In 1945, The Dutch Resistance hijacked a truck in Apledoorn, Holland. The following week the German SS executed 263 Dutch in retaliation.



In 1957, the former British African colonies of the Gold Coast and Togoland became the independent state of Ghana.



In 1960, The United States announces that it will deploy 3,500 troops to Vietnam.



In 1966, Barry Sadlers' "Ballad of the Green Berets" becomes #1 (13 weeks)



In 1967, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his plan to establish a draft lottery.



In 1973, U.S. President Richard Nixon imposed price controls on oil and gas.



In 1978, The 100th episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man" aired.



In 1978, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt shot & crippled by a sniper in Georgia



In 1980, Islamic militants in Tehran said that they would turn over American hostages to the Revolutionary Council.



In 1981, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as principal anchorman of "The CBS Evening News."



In 1981, U.S. President Reagan announced a plan to cut 37,000 federal jobs.



In 1983, in a case that drew much notoriety, a woman in New Bedford, Mass., reported being gang-raped atop a pool table in a tavern called Big Dan's; four men were later convicted of the attack. This incident was the basis for the 1988 movie The Accused starring Kelly McGillis and Jodie Foster (who won an "Oscar" for her performance).



In 1985, Yul Brynner appears in his 4,500th performance of "King & I"



In 1986, The 100th episode of "Simon & Simon" aired on CBS.



In 1987, 189 people died when the British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized off the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.



In 1988, 3 IRA suspects were killed in Gibraltar by SAS officers



In 1988, The first episode of "In the Heat of the Night" aired.



In 1990, An SR-71 Blackbird sets a transcontinental record, flying 2,404 miles in 1:08:17



In 1990, In Afghanistan, an attempted coup to remove President Najibullah from office failed.



In 1992, The last episode of "The Cosby Show" aired. The show had been on since September of 1984.



In 1997, A gunman stole "Tete de Femme," a million-dollar Picasso portrait, from a London gallery. The painting was recovered a week later.



In 1997, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II launched the first official royal Web site.



In 1998, A Connecticut state lottery accountant gunned down three supervisors and the lottery chief before killing himself.



Ten years ago (1994):



Two top Clinton administration officials, Vice President Al Gore and White House adviser George Stephanopoulos, appeared on the Sunday TV talk shows to blame Republican sniping for much of the furor over Whitewater.



Greek actress-turned-politician Melina Mercouri died in New York.



Five years ago (1999):



The emir of Bahrain (Sheik Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa), a key Western ally who had ruled for nearly four decades, died shortly after a meeting with Defense Secretary William Cohen; he was 65.



One year ago:



A somber President Bush readied the nation for war against Saddam Hussein, hurling some of his harshest invectives yet at the Iraqi leader during a prime-time news conference.



The United States ratified a treaty on cutting active U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear warheads by two-thirds.



Democrats blocked President Bush's nomination of Miguel Estrada to a federal appeals court.



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Today's Birthdays:



TV personality Ed McMahon is 81.



Conductor Sarah Caldwell is 80.



Former FBI and CIA director William Webster is 80.



Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is 78.



Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman to travel in space) is 67.



Country singer Doug Dillard is 67.



Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., is 65.



Actress-writer Joanna Miles is 64.



Actor Ben Murphy is 62.



Opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is 60.



Singer Mary Wilson (The Supremes) is 60.



Rock musician Hugh Grundy (The Zombies) is 59.



Rock singer-musician David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) is 58.



Actor-director Rob Reiner is 57.



Olympic gold medalist (high jump - 1968 ) Dick Fosbury (the "Fosbury Flop") is 57.



Singer Kiki Dee is 57.



Rock singer-musician Phil Alvin (The Blasters) is 51.



Actor Tom Arnold is 45.



Actor D.L. Hughley is 40.



Country songwriter Skip Ewing is 40.



Actress Yvette Wilson is 40.



Actress Connie Britton is 36.



Actress Moira Kelly is 36.



Actress Amy Pietz is 35.



Basketball player Shaquille O'Neal is 32.



Country musician Shan Farmer (Ricochet) is 30.



Rapper Bubba Sparxxx is 27.



Actor Jimmy Galeota is 18.



Actor Eli Marienthal is 18.



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Thought for Today:

"To have doubted one's own first principles, is the mark of a civilized man." -

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court justice (1841-1935).

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Today is Friday, March 5th.

The 65th day of 2004.

There are 301 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre took place as British soldiers who'd been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people and wounding six. Among the victims is Crispus Attucks, a seaman of African American descent.



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On this date:



In 1496, English King Henry VII hires John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) to explore.



In 1558, Smoking tobacco introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes.



In 1616, Copernicus' "de Revolutionibus" placed on Catholic Forbidden index.



In 1623, 1st American temperance law enacted, Virginia.



In 1750, King Richard III was performed in New York City. It was the first Shakespearean play to be presented in America.



In 1836 Mexico attacks the Alamo.



In 1836, Samuel Colt manufactures 1st pistol, 34-caliber "Texas" model



In 1868, the Senate was organized into a Court of Impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson.



In 1877, Mary Clemmer used the term "First Lady" to describe Lucy Hayes. It was the first time the term was used to describe a current President's wife.



In 1907, 1st radio broadcast of a musical composition aired.



In 1908, British actor Sir Rex Harrison was born. He was knighted in 1989. He died in 1990.



In 1910, In Philadelphia, PA, 60,000 people left their jobs to show support for striking transit workers.



In 1918, The Soviets move the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.



In 1922, Annie Oakley shoots 98 out of 100 clay pigeons, breaking the existing women's trap-shooting record.



In 1924, The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Corporation becomes IBM.



In 1933, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a four-day bank holiday in order to stop large amounts of money from being withdrawn from banks.



In 1933, in German parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote, enabling it to join with the Nationalists to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag.



In 1943, Germany called fifteen and sixteen year olds for military service due to war losses.



In 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the European Continent.”



In 1953, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died at age 73 after 29 years in power.



In 1953, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev died in Moscow at age 61.



In 1955, Elvis Presley's 1st TV appearance on "Louisiana Hayride" show.



In 1956, The United States Supreme Court affirms the ban on segregation in public schools.



In 1956, The motion picture King Kong is shown on television for the first time.



In 1960, Elvis Presley ends 2-year hitch in US Army.



In 1963, country music performers Patsy Cline, "Cowboy" Copas and "Hawkshaw" Hawkins died in a plane crash near Camden, Tenn.



In 1970, a nuclear nonproliferation treaty went into effect after 43 nations ratified it.



In 1976, British £ falls below $2 for 1st time



In 1982, comedian John Belushi was found dead of a drug overdose in a rented bungalow in Hollywood; he was 33.



In 1984, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities had the right to display the Nativity scene as part of their Christmas display.



In 1986, in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad issued a statement saying it had "executed" French hostage Michel Seurat, who had been abducted almost a year earlier.



In 1993, Cuban President Fidel Castro said that Hillary Clinton is "a beautiful woman."



In 1993, Sprinter Ben Johnson was banned from racing for life by the Amateur Athletic Association after testing positive for banned performance-enhancing substances for a second time.



In 1995, The graves of czar Nicholas & family are found in St Petersburg, Russia.



In 1997 North Korea and South Korea met for first time in 25 years for peace talks.



In 1998, NASA announced that an orbiting craft had found enough water on the moon to support a human colony and rocket fueling station.



In 1998, It was announced that Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins would lead crew of Columbia on a mission to launch a large X-ray telescope. She was the first woman to command a space shuttle mission.



In 2001, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney underwent an angioplasty for a partially blocked artery after going to a hospital with chest pains.



In 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush imposed tariffs up to 30 percent on steel imports.



Ten years ago (1994):



White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum resigned in the wake of turmoil over the Clinton administration's handling of questions related to Whitewater.



A jury in Pensacola, Fla., convicted anti-abortion activist Michael F. Griffin of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Dr. David Gunn; Griffin was sentenced to life in prison.



Five years ago (1999):



Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema met at the White House with President Clinton, a day after a military jury in North Carolina acquitted a Marine pilot in the Italian cable car accident that killed 20 people; D'Alema demanded justice, while Clinton expressed profound regret.



Actor Richard Kiley died in Warwick, N.Y., at age 76.



One year ago (2003):



In a blunt warning to the United States and Britain, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Russia said they would block any attempt to get U.N. approval for war against Iraq.



Thousands of students nationwide walked out of classes to protest a possible war.



A suicide bus bombing in Haifa, Israel, killed 14 Israelis and an American teenager.



A Kuwaiti policeman was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 2002 attack that wounded two U.S. soldiers on a Kuwaiti desert highway.



Comedian George Miller died in Los Angeles at age 61.



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Today's Birthdays:



Actor James Noble is 82.



Actor James B. Sikking ("Hill Street Blues") is 70.



Actor Dean Stockwell is 68.



Actor Fred Williamson is 66.



Actress Samantha Eggar is 65.



Actor Michael Warren ("Hill Street Blues") is 58.



Actor Eddie Hodges is 57.



Singer Eddy Grant is 56.



Violinist Eugene Fodor is 54.



Rock musician Alan Clark (Dire Straits) is 52.



Actress-comedian Marsha Warfield ("Night Court") is 50.



Magician Penn Jillette is 49.



Rock singer Charlie Reid is 42.



Rock singer Craig Reid is 42.



Rock musician John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Peppers) is 34.



Singer Rome is 34.



Actor Kevin Connolly is 30.



Actress Jolene Blalock ("Enterprise") is 29.



Model Niki Taylor is 29.



Actress Eva Mendes is 26.



Actor Jake Lloyd (young "Anakin Skywalker", Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace) is 15.



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Thought for Today:

"If you don't have enemies, you don't have character." -

- Paul Newman, American actor.

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Today is Thursday, March 4th.

The 64th day of 2004.

There are 302 days left in the year.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On March 4, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated president, pledging to lead the country out of the Great Depression. “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” (The start of President Roosevelt's first administration brought with it the first woman to serve in the Cabinet: Labor Secretary Frances Perkins.)



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On this date:



In 1193, Saladin, the Muslim warrior who opposed the Crusades, died.



In 1634, Samuel Cole opened the first tavern in Boston, MA.



In 1681, King Charles II of England grants Quaker landowner William Penn a vast tract of land between New York and Maryland, including the last uncommitted piece of the Atlantic seaboard south of Massachusetts.



In 1766, The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, which had caused bitter and violent opposition in the U.S. colonies.



In 1789, the Constitution of the United States went into effect as the first Federal Congress met in New York. (The lawmakers then adjourned for lack of a quorum.)



In 1791, Vermont became the 14th state.



In 1837, the Illinois state legislature granted a city charter to Chicago.



In 1849, The US had no President. Polk's term ended on a Sunday, Taylor couldn't be sworn-in, Senator David Atchison's (pres pro tem) term had ended March 3rd.



In 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president.



In 1861, The Confederate States of America adopted the "Stars and Bars" flag.



In 1877, Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premieres at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia.



In 1888, American football player and coach at the University of Notre Dame, Knute Kenneth Rockne was born in Voss, Norway. He led Notre Dame to three national collegiate championships (1924, 1929, 1930). In his 13 years as head coach, Notre Dame won 105 games, lost 12, and tied 5, and scored 2847 points while conceding only 667 points to its opponents. He died in 1931.



In 1902, the American Automobile Association (Triple A) was founded in Chicago.



In 1908, The New York board of education banned the act of whipping students in school.



In 1913, Department of Commerce & Labor split into separate departments



In 1917, Jeanette Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the House of Representatives.



In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge's inauguration was broadcast live on 21 radio stations nationwide.



In 1936, The airship Hindenburg makes its 1st flight.



In 1944, The U.S. Eighth Air Force launched the first American bombing raid against the Berlin, Germany.



In 1950, Walt Disney’s Cinderella was released.



In 1952, actors Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis were married in San Fernando Valley, Calif.



In 1955, The first radio facsimile transmission is sent across the continent.



In 1960, Lucille Ball files for divorce from Desi Arnaz



In 1966, London's "Evening Standard" newspaper published an interview with Beatle John Lennon in which he remarked: 'Christianity will... vanish and shrink... We're more popular than Jesus Christ right now.' The quote touched off a storm of international protest, resulting in burnings and boycotts of the Beatles' records.



In 1968, Joe Frazier defeats Buster Mathis for the heavyweight boxing championship title.



In 1977, The first CRAY super-computer is shipped to Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico.



In 1978, The Chicago Daily News, founded in 1875, publishes its last issue.



In 1979, The 100th episode of "The Waltons" aired.



In 1979, The 200th episode of "All in the Family" aired.



In 1981, a jury in Salt Lake City convicted Joseph Paul Franklin, an avowed racist, of violating the civil rights of two black men who were shot to death.



In 1986, "Today" debuted in London as England’s newest, national, daily newspaper.



In 1987, President Reagan addressed the nation on the Iran-Contra affair, acknowledging his overtures to Iran had "deteriorated" into an arms-for-hostages deal.



In 1989, Time, Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. announced a plan to merge.



In 1989, Actress Phoebe Cates marries actor Kevin Kline



In 1991, Sheik Saad al-Jaber al-Sabah, the prime minister of Kuwait, returned to his country for the first time since Iraq's invasion.



In 1993, Authorities announced the arrest of Mohammad Salameh. He was later convicted for his role in the World Trade Center Bombing in New York City.



In 1997, U.S. President Clinton barred federal spending on human cloning.



In 1998, Microsoft repaired software that apparently allowed hackers to shut down computers in government and university offices nationwide.



In 1998, The U.S. Supreme Court said that federal law banned on-the-job sexual harassment even when both parties are the same sex.



In 2002, Canada banned human embryo cloning but permitted government-funded scientists to use embryos left over from fertility treatment or abortions.



Ten years ago (1994):



In New York, four extremists were convicted of the World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than 1,000.



Bosnia's Croats and Moslems signed an agreement to form a federation in a loose economic union with Croatia.



The space shuttle Columbia blasted off on a two-week mission.



Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell announced he would not seek re-election.



Actor-comedian John Candy died in Durango, Mexico, at age 43.



Five years ago (1999):



Outraging Italian authorities, a military jury in North Carolina cleared a Marine pilot of charges he was flying recklessly when his jet sliced through a ski gondola cable in the Alps, sending 20 people plunging to their deaths.



Retired Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who wrote the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide, died in Arlington, Va., at age 90.



Monica Lewinsky's book about her affair with U.S. President Clinton went on sale in the U.S.



One year ago (2003):



The Army's oldest armored division, "Old Ironsides," got orders to head for the Persian Gulf as the total of U.S. land, sea and air forces arrayed against Iraq or preparing to go neared 300,000.



A bomb in a backpack killed 22 at an airport terminal in the southern Philippines.



In the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, at least 9 people were killed and 52 were injured when a bus fell into a deep gorge.



The deployment of Patriot missile systems began in Israel. The systems were put in place to back up the Arrow missile systems already in place. The Patriot systems were manned by U.S. soldiers.



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Today's Birthdays:



Folk singer Miriam Makeba is 72.



Actress-singer Barbara McNair is 70.



Actress Paula Prentiss is 65.



Movie director Adrian Lyne is 63.



Singer Bobby Womack is 60.



Rock musician Chris Squire (Yes) is 56.



Singer Shakin' Stevens is 56.



Singer Chris Rea is 53.



Actor Ronn Moss is 52.



Actress Kay Lenz is 51.



Musician Emilio Estefan is 51.



Movie director Scott Hicks is 51.



Actress Catherine O'Hara is 50.



Actress Patricia Heaton is 46.



Actress Kelly Lynch is 45.



Actor Mykelti Williamson is 44.



Actor Steven Weber is 43.



Rock musician Jason Newsted is 41.



Actress Stacy Edwards is 39.



Rapper Grand Puba is 38.



Rock musician Patrick Hannan (The Sundays) is 38.



Rock singer Evan Dando (Lemonheads) is 37.



Actress Patsy Kensit is 36.



Chastity Bono is 35.



Actor Nick Stabile is 34.



Rock musician Fergal Lawler (The Cranberries) is 33.



Country singer Jason Sellers is 33.



Jazz musician Jason Marsalis is 27.



Actress Jenna Boyd is 11.



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Thought for Today:

"The world fears a new experience more than it fears anything. Because a new experience displaces so many old experiences." -

- D.H. Lawrence, English author (1885-1930).

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