Sunday, March 20

This Day In History

• 1602   The Dutch East India Company was established. During its 196-year history, it became one of the world's most powerful companies.
• 1727   English physicist/astronomer Sir Isaac Newton died in London at age 84.
• 1852   Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic book was published. "Uncle Tom’s Cabin"
• 1854   Republican Party founded
• 1865   A plan by John Wilkes Booth to abduct President Abraham Lincoln was foiled when Lincoln changed plans and failed to appear at the Soldier’s Home near Washington, DC.
• 1891   The first computing scale company was incorporated in Dayton, OH.
• 1897   The first five-man basketball team intercollegiate basketball game to use five players per team was held. Yale beat Pennsylvania by a score of 32-10 in New Haven, CT.
• 1911   The National Squash Tennis Association was formed in New York City.
• 1914   The first international figure skating championship was held in New Haven, CT.
• 1936   Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded "Christopher Columbus" on Victor Records in, where else, Chicago, IL.
• 1948   Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra were featured in the first televised symphonic concert.
• 1969   Beatle John Lennon married Yoko Ono at the Rock of Gibraltar
• 1985   Libby Riddles became the first woman to Win the Iditarod, winning the $50,000 top prize in the 1,135-mile Anchorage-to-Nome dog race, completing the course in 18 days, twenty minutes and seventeen seconds. Another woman, Susan Butcher, won the next three Iditarod trail-sled dog races. The first race was run in 1973. The annual race commemorates the emergency during a 1925 diphtheria epidemic when medical supplies had to be rushed to Nome by dog sled.
• 1995   Nerve Gas Attack On Tokyo Subway
• 2003   Ground troops entered Iraq and a second round of air strikes against Baghdad was launched.

Happy Birthday To

• 1906   Ozzie (Oswald George) Nelson (bandleader, actor: The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; married to actress, Harriet Nelson; parents of David and Ricky; died June 3, 1975)
• 1922   Carl Reiner (writer: The Man with Two Brains; actor: The Dick Van Dyke Show, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; director: Fatal Instinct, The Jerk, Oh! God; comedian: Your Show of Shows; Rob Reiner’s dad)
• 1928   Fred Rogers (TV host: Mr. Rogers Neighborhood; died Feb 27, 2003)