March 5

It’s Multiple Personality Day

ON THIS DAY…
1558 Smoking tobacco was introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes
1616 Cardinal Robert Bellarmine declares the Copernican theory “false and erroneous”; his decree states that no one can either teach or believe the theory that the earth revolves around the sun
1623 The first alcohol temperance law in the colonies was enacted in Virginia
1624 In the American colony of Virginia, the upper class was exempted from whipping by legislation
1735 Handel’s Organ Concerto in B flat major, Op 4 No 2 was performed for the first time
1750 Richard III was performed in New York City; it was the first of Shakespeare’s plays to be presented in America
1770 “The Boston Massacre” took place when British troops fired on a crowd in Boston killing four people; two British troops were later convicted of manslaughter
1842 The Florida legislature passes a resolution urging rewards for Indian scalps
1868 The stapler is patented in Birmingham, England, by C.H. Gould
1868 The US Senate was organized into a court of impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson
1872 George Westinghouse Jr., patented the railroad air brake which is now also used in big trucks, buses and amusement park rides
1904 Nikola Tesla, in Electrical World and Engineer, describes the process of ball lightning formation
1912 Italian forces are the first to use airships for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance behind Turkish lines
1917 The Poor Little Rich Girl starring Mary Pickford opens in the US
1918 The Soviets moved the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow
1922 Anne Oakley broke all existing records for women’s trap shooting; she hit 98 out of 100 targets
1924 Frank Caruana of Buffalo, NY, became the first bowler to roll two perfect games in a row
1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a four-day bank holiday in order to stop large amounts of money from being withdrawn from banks
1933 The Nazi Party won 44% of the vote in German parliamentary elections
1936 The Spitfire made its first flight from Eastleigh aerodrome, Southampton, England
1937 The United States officially apologizes to Nazi Germany for New York Mayor LaGuardia’s reference to Adolf Hitler as a “brown-shirted fanatic”
1940 Members of Soviet politburo sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs, known also as the Katyn massacre
1943 Universal Pictures’ Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man featuring Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr. and Dwight Frye opens in the US
1946 Winston Churchill uses the phrase “Iron Curtain” in his speech at Westminster College, MO
1954 The Donald Duck short Donald’s Diary, also featuring Daisy Duck and Donald’s nephews Huey, Dewey & Louie, is released
1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon opens in the US
1956 The US Supreme Court affirmed the ban on segregation in public schools
1960 Elvis Presley was honorably discharged from the Army
1969 The magazine Creem was published for the first time
1976 British pound falls below $2 US for the first time
1984 The US Supreme Court ruled that cities had the right to display the Nativity scene as part of their Christmas display
1993 Runner 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
1999 Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels opens in the US
2002 MTV began airing The Osbournes; the reality television show followed the daily activities of rock musician Ozzy Osbourne and his family
2004 Martha Stewart was found guilty of lying about the reason for selling 3,298 shares of ImClone Systems stock, conspiracy, making false statement and obstruction of justice

BORN:
1512 Gerardus Mercator, cartographer whose most important innovation was a map embodying what was later known as the Mercator projection, on which parallels and meridians are rendered as straight lines spaced so as to produce at any point an accurate ratio of latitude to longitude
1574 William Oughtred, mathematician and Episcopal minister who invented the earliest form of the slide rule, two identical linear or circular logarithmic scales held together and adjusted by hand
1817 Sir Austen Henry Layard, archaeologist whose excavations in Mesopotamia revealed the palaces of the great Assyrian kings, Sennacherib and Assurbanipal, yielding much evidence of both the antiquity and the cultural achievement of the ancient civilizations
1830 Sir C. Wyville Thomson, naturalist who was one of the first marine biologists to describe life in the ocean depths
1853 Howard Pyle, illustrator and writer (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates)
1908 Sir Rex Harrison, Academy Award-winning actor (My Fair Lady, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Doctor Dolittle)
1927 Jack Cassidy, Tony Award-winning actor (She Loves Me), who also appeared as a guest on numerous TV shows, father of David and Shaun
1931 Fred Othon Aristidès, French comics artist and comic book creator who is best known for his series Philémon
1934 Nicholas Smith, actor (Are You Being Served?, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit)
1936 Dean Stockwell, actor (Battlestar Galactica, Quantum Leap, Dune, Compulsion)
1938 Fred Williamson, Oakland Raiders/Kansas City Chiefs football star-actor (MASH, Three the Hard Way, From Dusk Till Dawn)
1939 Samantha Eggar, actress (Doctor Dolittle, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The Brood, The Astronaut’s Wife)
1942 Mike Resnick, five-time Hugo Award-winning science fiction author (Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge, The Goddess of Ganymede, Lucifer Jones)
1946 Murray Head, actor-singer-brother of Anthony Stewart Head (The Family Way, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Heartbeat)
1955 Penn Jillett, magician-actor (Penn & Teller Get Killed, Car 54, Where Are You?, Hackers, Toy Story, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
1959 David Fury, two-time Emmy Award-winning producer (24, Lost), writer-director (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Pinky and the Brain)
1974 Matt Lucas, BAFTA Award-winning actor-producer (Little Britain, Casanova, Shooting Stars, Catterick)
1974 Eva Mendes, actress (Urban Legends: Final Cut, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Ghost Rider, Will Eisner’s The Spirit)
1975 Jolene Blalock, actress (Star Trek: Enterprise, Shadow Puppets, Starship Troopers 3: Marauder)
1989 Jake Lloyd, actor (Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Jingle All the Way, The Pretender)

DIED:
1953 Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee from 1922 until his death at age 74
1963 Patsy Cline, singer (“I Fall to Pieces”, “Walking After Midnight”, “Crazy”) is killed in an airplane crash at 30
1980 Jay Silverheels, actor (The Lone Ranger, Drums Across the River, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing), dies at 67
1982 John Belushi, Emmy Award-winning writer, actor (Saturday Night Live, National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Blues Brothers), dies of drug overdose at 33
1984 William Powell, actor (The Thin Man, Mister Roberts, My Man Godfrey, The Kennel Murder Case), dies at 91
1995 Vivian Stanshall, musician (Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band), dies at 51
1996 Whit Bissell, actor (The Time Tunnel, Seven Days in May, Hud, Birdman of Alcatraz), dies at 86
1999 Richard Kiley, actor (Blackboard Jungle, The Power of the Resurrection, The Little Prince, The Thorn Birds, Jurassic Park), dies at 76