March 1

It’s National Pig Day and Peanut Butter Lovers’ Day

ON THIS DAY…
1498 Vasco de Gama landed at what is now Mozambique on his way to India
1565 The city of Rio de Janeiro is founded
1642 Georgeana, Massachusetts (now known as York, Maine) becomes the first incorporated city in the New World
1781 In America, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation
1790 The US Congress authorized the first US census
1803 Ohio became the 17th US state
1845 President Tyler signed the congressional resolution to annex the Republic of Texas
1864 Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first black woman to receive an American medical degree, from the New England Female Medical College in Boston
1867 Nebraska becomes the 37th U.S. state; Lancaster, Nebraska is renamed Lincoln and becomes the state capital
1869 Postage stamps with scenes were issued for the first time
1872 Yellowstone becomes the world’s first national park
1873 E. Remington and Sons of Ilion, NY, began the manufacturing the first practical typewriter
1912 Captain Albert Berry made the first parachute jump from a moving airplane
1921 Harry Houdini patented a diver’s suit
1932 The 22-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped
1936 Hoover Dam is completed
1937 In Connecticut, the first permanent automobile license plates were issued
1941 The first FM Radio station opened in Nashville, TN
1949 Joe Louis, announced that he was retiring from boxing as world heavyweight boxing champion
1954 The hydrogen bomb code-named “Bravo” was exploded in a test over the Bikini Atoll of the Pacific Ocean; with explosive power of about 20 megatons of TNT it was the most powerful of all US thermonuclear bomb tests. Radioactivity made the islands an unsafe wasteland, preventing the evacuated indigenous people from returning for many decades to follow
1961 The Peace Corps was established by President Kennedy
1968 Johnny Cash and June Carter were married
1968 Pirate Radio Atlantis South, offshore England, began broadcasting test transmissions
1969 Mickey Mantle announced his retirement from major league baseball
1970 Direct-dialed transatlantic phone calls were made possible between the US and Britain by the combined efforts of AT&T and the British Post Office, which also then handled the British telephone system
1973 The animated film Charlotte’s Web featuring the voices of Debbie Reynolds, Paul Lynde and Henry Gibson opens in the US
1975 Color television transmissions begin in Australia
1978 Graverobbers stole Charlie Chaplin’s coffin from a Swiss cemetery
1985 Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo premieres in New York City
1992 Bosnia and Herzegovina declares its independence from Yugoslavia

BORN:
1611 John Pell, mathematician who introduced the division sign (obelus, ÷) into England
1810 Frédéric Chopin, virtuoso pianist and piano composer of the Romantic period (Étude Op. 10 No.12, “Minute Waltz)
1880 Sir Isaac Shoenberg, electrical engineer and principal inventor of the first high-definition television system, as used by the British Broadcasting Corporation for the world’s first public high-definition telecast
1904 Glenn Miller, one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1942, leading one of the best known “Big Bands” (“In the Mood”, “Tuxedo Junction”, “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, “Moonlight Serenade”, “Little Brown Jug”, “Pennsylvania 6-5000”)
1910 David Niven, Academy Award-winning actor (Separate Tables, The Pink Panther, Murder by Death, Casino Royale (1967), The Guns of Navarone)
1918 Roger Delgado, character actor (Doctor Who, In Search of the Castaways, The Mummy’s Shroud, Antony and Cleopatra)
1924 Donald Kent “Deke” Slayton, one of the original “Mercury Seven” NASA astronauts, he would serve as NASA’s Director of Flight Crew Operations and was responsible for all crew assignments at NASA from November 1963 until March 1972
1926 Robert Clary, actor and Holocaust survivor (Hogan’s Heroes, Thief of Damascus, Days of Our Lives, The Hindenburg)
1928 Seymour Papert, computer scientist who invented the Logo computer programming language, an educational computer programming language for children
1935 Robert Conrad, actor (Hawaiian Eye, Wild, Wild West, Baa Baa, Black Sheep, Jingle All the Way)
1944 Roger Daltry, lead singer for The Who, actor (Tommy, Lisztomania, McVicar, Highlander: The Series)
1945 Dirk Benedict, actor (SSSSSSS, Battlestar Galactica, Scavenger Hunt, The A-Team)
1954 Ron Howard, Academy Award-winning director/producer (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Night Shift, Grand Theft Auto)
1954 Catherine Bach, actress (The Dukes of Hazzard, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Cannonball Run II)
1956 Timothy Daly, actor (Private Practice, The Nine, Superman: The Animated Series, Wings)
1967 George Eads, actor (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Monte Walsh)
1969 Javier Bardem, Academy Award-winning actor (No Country for Old Men, Love in the Time of Cholera, Before Night Falls)
1973 Jack Davenport, actor (Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Swingtown, Coupling, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ultraviolet)

DIED:
1911 Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff, physical chemist and first winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for work on rates of reaction, chemical equilibrium, and osmotic pressure, dies at 58
1957 Harry E. Soref, inventor of the laminated steel padlock, and founder of Master Lock Company, dies at 69
1984 Jackie Coogan, actor (The Kid, Oliver Twist (1922), High School Confidential!, The Addams Family), dies at 69
1988 Joe Besser, actor-comedian-Stooge (Africa Screams, The Abbott and Costello Show), dies at 80
1991 Edwin Herbert Land, inventor and physicist whose one-step process for developing and printing photographs culminated in a revolution in photography unparalleled since the advent of roll film, dies at 81