March 24th is

International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for Dignity of Victims

Chocolate Covered Raisins Day

Red Nose Day *

World Tuberculosis Day *

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MORE! Matilda Joslyn Gage, Isabel Perón and Halle Berry, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Argentina – Truth and Justice Day * 

Northern Mariana Islands –
Commonwealth Covenant Day

Uganda – Tree Planting Day

United States – Mountain View CA:
Women in Tech Festival
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On This Day in HISTORY

1401 – Turko-Mongol Amir Temür, called Tamerlane (Temür the Lame), the last of the great nomadic conquerors of the Eurasian Steppe, sacks Damascus, and massacres most of the city’s inhabitants, but deports its artisans to Samarkand, Temür’s capital

1494 – Georgius Agricola born, German scientist, the ‘father of mineralogy’

1603 – James VI of Scotland becomes James I of England and Ireland, upon the death of Elizabeth I

1663 – The Province of Carolina (modern-day North Carolina) is granted by charter to eight Lords Proprietor in reward for their assistance in restoring Charles II of England to the throne

1707 – The Acts of Union 1707 are signed, officially uniting the Kingdoms and parliaments of England and Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain

1721 – Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated six concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt, now referred to as the Brandenburg Concertos

1755 – Rufus King born, American politician and diplomat; delegate for New York to the Continental Congress; Constitutional Convention participant and signer; U.S. senator from NY; U.S. Minister to Great Britain

1765 – Great Britain passes the Quartering Act, which requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops and pay for their housing and food; since the French and Indian Wars had ended, the colonists resented being expected to pay for the maintenance of a large number of troops in peacetime

1820 – Fanny Crosby born, American poet, author, lyricist and composer, wrote over 8,000 hymns and gospel songs including “Blessed Assurance”

1826 – Matilda Joslyn Gage born, American abolitionist, suffragist, freethinker; author of Woman, Church and State, one of the first books to argue that Christianity is a primary impediment to the progress of women

1827 – Candace Thurber Wheeler born, American interior and textile designer, author, entrepeneur; instrumental in opening interior design to women, the development of art classes for women, and the formation of Decorative Art societies across the country

1829 –British Parliament passes the Roman Catholic Relief Act, permitting Catholics to sit in Parliament, after a vigorous campaign in Ireland to overturn all the laws that discriminated against Catholics

1832 – In Hiram, Ohio, a group of men beat, then tar and feather, Mormon leader  Joseph Smith; the mob is angered by the ‘United Order,’ an early Mormon practice, layer abandoned, of communal property and living, and the missionaries trying to gain converts

1834 – John Wesley Powell born, American geologist, explorer of the American West

1834 – William Morris born, leader of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, designer, craftsman, writer and typographer

1837 – Canada gives African Canadian men the right to vote

1854 – Slavery is abolished in Venezuela

1869 – The last of  Riwha Titokowaru’s Māori forces surrender to the British government of New Zealand, ending his uprising over incursions on traditional tribal lands by settlers

1869 – Émile Fabre born, French playwright, administrator of the Comédie-Française

1874 – Harry Houdini born, one of the greatest magicians and escape artists

1882 – Robert Koch, German doctor and scientist, ‘the Father of  Bacteriology’ presents his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in a lecture regarded as one of the most important in medical history, leading to adoption of new scientific procedures. In the 1880s, Tuberculosis is the cause of the death for one out of every seven human beings –
World Tuberculosis Day * is a reminder of the 1.8 million TB-related deaths in 2016 – it is still one of the top ten causes of death worldwide

1886 – Edward Weston born, American photographer

1890 – Agnes Macphail born, Canadian politician, first woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons

1896 – Russian physicist A. S. Popov makes the first radio signal transmission in history

1897 – William Reich born, controversial Austrian psychoanalyst

1899 – Dorothy Constance Stratton born, educator and director of SPARS, the United States Coast Guard Women’s Reserve during WWII

1900 – Mayor of New York City Robert Anderson Van Wyck breaks ground for a new underground “Rapid Transit Railroad” that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn

1907 – The first issue of the Georgian Bolshevik newspaper Dro is published

1913 – The Palace Theatre opens in New York City, the ‘home of vaudeville’

1919 – Lawrence Ferlinghetti born, American poet, liberal activist and co-founder of San Francisco’s City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, a gathering place for the city’s literati; the City Lights ‘Pocket Poet’ series introduced poets like Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Patchen and Gregory Corso

1921 – The 1921 Women’s Olympiad begins in Monte Carlo, first international women’s sports event

1926 – Dario Fo born, Italian playwright-director-designer, left-wing activist; Mistero Buffo; won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature

1927 – Nanking Incident: Foreign warships bombard Nanjing, China, in defense of the foreign citizens within the city

1934 – United States Congress passes the Tydings–McDuffie Act, allowing the Philippines to become a self-governing commonwealth.

1935 – Carol Kaye born, American bass player, one of the most prolific bass guitarists in history with an estimated 10,000 recording sessions

1946 – The British Cabinet Mission arrives in India to discuss plans for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership

1949 – At the Academy Awards, Lawrence Olivier wins Best Actor for Hamlet; Walter  and John Huston become first father-and-son team to win, for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

1955 – The Tennessee Williams play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens on Broadway; it will win the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

1958 – Rock ‘n’ roll idol Elvis Presley is drafted in the U.S. Army

1959 – The Party of the African Federation is launched by Léopold Sédar Senghor and Modibo Keïta

1965 – NASA spacecraft Ranger 9, equipped to convert its signals into a form suitable for showing on domestic television, brings images of the Moon into ordinary homes before crash landing.

1970 – Sharon Corr born,  Irish singer-songwriter- musician, co-founder with her siblings of The Corrs

1973 – Pink Floyd’s album Dark Side of the Moon is released

1976 – In Argentina, the armed forces overthrow the constitutional government of President Isabel Perón and start a 7-year dictatorial period self-styled the National Reorganization Process. Since 2006, a public holiday, Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice *

1980 – El Salvador: Archbishop Óscar Romero is assassinated while celebrating Mass in San Salvador

1989 – One of the worst oil spills in the U.S. when the supertanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and leaks 11 million gallons of crude

1993 – Discovery of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9

1999 – Kosovo War: NATO commences aerial bombardment against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country

2002 – Halle Berry becomes the first African-American woman to win a Best Actress Oscar, for Monster’s Ball

2003 – The Arab League votes 21–1 in favor of a resolution demanding the immediate and unconditional removal of U.S. and British soldiers from Iraq

2008 – Bhutan officially becomes a democracy, with its first-ever general election

2015 – Red Nose Day * is launched by Comic Relief Inc., a telethon to raise money for children in need; it raises over $21 million during its debut
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Visuals

• World TB Day logo
• Red Nose Day logo
• International flags
• Turko-Mongol Amir Temür
• James I of England and Ireland, painted by Daniel Mytens
• Fanny Crosby, blind quote
• Matilda Joslyn Gage, divine origin quote
• Candace Thurber Wheeler, biography, The Art and Enterprise of American Design
• John Wesley Powell, Grand Canyon quote
• William Morris, useful-beautiful quote
• Harry Houdini, last performance poster
• Edward Weston, Dunes
• The Palace Theatre, New York City
• Lawrence Ferlinghetti, freedom of speech quote
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Broadway poster

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