March 11th is

Eat Your Noodles Day

National Promposal Day

Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day

World Plumbing Day *

Worship of Tools Day

__________________________________________

MORE! Wanda Gág, Hanna Bergas and Lorraine Hansberry, click

__________________________________________

WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Orthodox Christianity – Ash Monday/Clean Monday: Cyprus, Greece, Russia

Australia –
South Australia: Adelaide Cup Day
Australian Capital Territory: Canberra Day
Tasmania and Northern Territory –
Eight Hours Day/Labour Day

Belize (formerly British Honduras) – Baron Bliss Holiday
(left trust fund to benefit British Honduran citizens)

British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, Tuvalu, and
Turks and Caicos Islands – Commonwealth Day

Lesotho –
King Moshoeshoe I Anniversary

Lithuania –
Independence Restoration Day

New Zealand – Taranaki:
Provincial Anniversary Day

__________________________________________

On This Day in HISTORY

222 – Emperor Elagabalus, who became emperor at age 14 during a previous revolt, is assassinated, along with his mother, Julia Soaemias, by the Praetorian Guard because of  his attempts to replace Jupiter with the Syrian god Elagabal as the head of the Roman pantheon, and his bisexual excesses. Their mutilated bodies are dragged through the streets of Rome before being thrown into the Tiber

1279 – Mary of Woodstock born, 7th named daughter of Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile. She became a nun at Amesbury Priory, at the request of her grandmother, dedicated at age seven, and formally veiled at age 12. Her parents granted her ₤100 per year, and she received double the normal clothing allowance and special entitlements to wine from the Priory’s stores, as well as private quarters. In 1292, she was also given the right to forty oaks from royal forests and twenty tuns of wine (a tun is a large barrel – sizes varied, but probably about 252 gallons per tun) per year from Southampton, and later, the management of Grove Priory in Bedfordshire. In spite of the papal decretal by Pope Boniface VIII, requiring the claustration (strict enclosure away from the secular world) of nuns, Mary had “a retinue of up to 24 horses” who traveled with her, and she regularly attended court, even running up considerable dice gambling debts there, which her father paid. The English Dominican friar, Nicholas Trevet, dedicated his Chronicles to her, which became an important source for several popular works of the period

1302 – In Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet are married on this day

Romeo and Juliet – by Raphael Tuck c. 1900

1641 – Members of the Guaraní people join together to fight Portuguese bandeirantes, who were mercenary slavers and fortune hunters, at the Battle of Mbororé (now the town of Panambi in Argentina). These Guaraní were living in Jesuit ‘Indian reductions’ (settlements designed to organize and exploit the labor of native inhabitants while “civilizing” and converting them to Christianity.) The bandeirantes were preying on the settlements, often burning them to the ground, because the Guaraní had been trained in various skills by the Jesuits, which made them much more valuable to the slavers. Raids became increasingly aggressive, forcing the abandonment or relocation of some villages, and capturing about 5000 Guaraní. The forced march to São Paulo and mistreatment of the captives by the raiders resulted in only 1200 of them reaching the capital to be auctioned into slavery. The Jesuits sought and got royal charters from the Spanish crown and Papal Bulls condemning the slavers, as well as the Spanish King’s permission to arm and train the Guaraní. The Guaraní defeated the bandeirantes at Mbororé, and would have some success in fighting other battles against them. But the Guaraní would be much less successful against a new enemy, smallpox, which would kill over 42,000 of them in epidemics between 1732 and 1765

1665 – A new legal code is approved for the Dutch and English towns of  New York  guaranteeing all Protestants the right to continue religious observances unhindered

1702 – The Daily Courant, England’s first national daily newspaper begins publication

1708 – Queen Anne withholds Royal Assent from the Scottish Militia Bill, fearing an armed Scottish military would not be loyal to the British crown; this is the last bill to be refused Royal Assent, now considered a formality

1784 – The Treaty of Mangalore is signed between Tipu Sultan of the Kingdom of Mysore and the Commissioner for the British East India Company, ending the Second Anglo-Mysore War, which had been fought to a stalemate. British East India Company stock took a nosedive, and quickly led to the British Government bringing the company’s rule in India under government control, with ‘Pitt’s India Act’ effective August 13, 1784

1785 – John McLean born, U.S. Supreme Court justice (1829-1861); one of the two justices who dissented in the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857 (Slavery was capitalized in the original text, as below)

1791 – Samuel Mulliken patents a threshing machine for corn and grain; he becomes the first person to receive more than one U.S. patent

1815 – Anna Bockholtz, German coloratura soprano, teacher and composer; noted for her vocal range, and performances in operas by Mozart, Beethoven and Bellini; became in 1846 a “Membre Solo de la Sociètè du Conservatoire de Paris.” She performed mostly in Germany, Austria and Paris, and composed several songs with piano accompaniment

Anna Bochkoltz – A Ehrlich Sängerinnen 1895

1818 – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus, is published

1822 – Joseph Bertrand born, French mathematician; thermodynamics, statistical probability and theory of curves and surfaces

1824 – U.S. Secretary of War John C. Calhoun creates Bureau of Indian Affairs as a War Department division, without authorization from Congress; he appoints former Superintendent of Indian Trade, Thomas L. McKenney as bureau chief, but McKinney soon finds he has all the work while all the authority rests with Secretary Calhoun

1836 – Charles Eastlake born, British architect and furniture designer, leading exponent of Modern Gothic; his furniture designs became known as the Eastlake style, which also became the name of his architectural vision

1843 – ‘Pearl Rivers’ born as Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson, southern American author, journalist and poet

1845 – The Flagstaff War: Unhappy with translational differences regarding the Treaty of Waitangi, chiefs Hone Heke and Kawiti, with Māori tribe members, chop down the British flagpole for a fourth time and drive settlers out of Kororareka, New Zealand

1848 – Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin become the first Prime Ministers of the Province of Canada to be democratically elected under a system of responsible government

1851 –Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi premieres in Venice

1854 – Jane Meade Welch born, American journalist, music critic, and lecturer-author on American history; first woman in Buffalo NY to be a professional journalist; the first American woman to lecture at Cambridge University

1860 – Thomas Hastings born, American architect; his firm designs the New York Public Library, and he designs the Arlington Cemetery Tomb of the Unknowns

1861 – American Civil War: The Confederate States Constitution is adopted, including Article IV, Section 3(3): “The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several states; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form states to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states.”

1862 – American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln removes Gen. George B. McClellan as general-in-chief of the Union armies

1872 – K. C. Groom born as Kathleen Clarice Groom, British novelist and short-story writer who also used other variations on her name as pen names, including Mrs. Sydney Groom and Clarice Klein; noted for The Mystery of Mr Bernard Brown, Phantom Fortune and The Recoil

1879 – Shō Tai formally abdicates his position as King of Ryūkyū (1848-1879), under orders from Tokyo, formally ending the Ryukyu Kingdom, which had been annexed by Japan as the Ryukyu Domain in 1872 (now the Okinawa Prefecture)

1893 – Wanda Gág born, American artist, illustrator and author; noted for writing and illustrating the children’s book Millions of Cats, which won the 1928 Newbery award, and is the oldest American picture book still in print; her 1927 article, These Modern Women: A Hotbed of Feminists, was published in The Nation; she illustrated covers for the leftist magazines The New Masses and The Liberator

1898 – Dorothy Gish born, American theatre and silent film actress; in the early days of silent film she also wrote and directed. While her sister Lillian was famous as a dramatic actress, Dorothy was better known as a comedian, and her films for Triangle and Mutual were very popular and financially successful, often covering the higher costs of D.W. Griffith’s expensive epic productions. Lillian Gish said in her autobiography, “I couldn’t make people laugh, but Dorothy could make them laugh and cry, so therefore she was the better actress than I was.” Sadly, many of Dorothy Gish’s films, especially the early ones, have been lost

1900 – British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury rejects the peace overtures offered from the Boer leader Paul Kruger

1900 – Hanna Bergas born, German Jewish teacher; under the Nazi regime, she was fired from her job and barred from teaching in public schools; she was hired to work in a private school, and moved with the school’s founder, Anna Essinger, and most of the school’s staff to Kent, England in 1939, where the school was re-established. Bergas and three others from the school ran a reception camp at the seaside town of Dovercourt for mostly Jewish, and unaccompanied, refugee children in the Kindertransports, helping the children to adjust to life in a new country

Dovercourt camp

1901 – Britain rejects an amended treaty to the canal agreement with Nicaragua

1901 – U.S. Steel formed when J.P. Morgan buys Carnegie Steel, making Andrew Carnegie the world’s richest man

1903 – Dorothy Schiff born, American newspaper owner and publisher, philanthropist and reformer, buys the New York Post in 1939 and becomes its publisher in 1942

1904 – After 30 years of drilling, the north tunnel under the Hudson River is holed through, linking Jersey City NJ, and New York NY

1904 – Hilde Bruch born, escaped from Nazi Germany in 1933 to England and then America, pioneer and leading expert in eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa

1905 – The Paris Métro subway system officially inaugurated

1907 – U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt induces California to revoke its anti-Japanese legislation

1907 – Anarchist kills Bulgarian Premier Nicolas Petkov

1909 – John Melville Burgess born, first African American diocesan bishop in the Episcopal Church

1911 – Edward R. Dudley born, member of the NAACP legal team 1943-1945; appointed as Minister to Liberia by President Truman in 1948, and promoted to Ambassador to Liberia on March 18, 1949, serving as ambassador until 1953; appointed as NY City Domestic Relations judge in 1955; justice of the NY State Supreme Court (1964-1985)

1917 – Robert L. Carter born, civil rights activist, attorney and judge; worked as legal assistant to Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1944; general counsel for the NAACP (1956-1968) winning 21 of 22 cases he argues or co-argues before the U.S. Supreme Court; appointment as a judge of U.S. District Court in 1972

1921 – Charlotte Friend born, microbiologist; in the 1950s at Sloan-Kettering Institute she discovered a link between defective maturation and tumor growth in mice, discoveries critical in establishing the role of viruses in some cancers

1922 – Vinette J. Carroll born, director and actress; the first African American woman to direct a show on Broadway in 1972, Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope, which was nominated for four Tony Awards, including her nomination for Best Director of a Musical; she was nominated again for a Best Director Tony for Your Arms Too Short to Box with God in 1976

Vinette Carroll,  from a rare film appearance in Up the Down Staircase

1925 – Margaret Oakley Dayhoff born, American physical chemist and pioneer in bioinformatics; professor at Georgetown University Medical Center, and research biochemist at the National Biomedical Research Foundation, where she developed the application of mathematics and computational methods to biochemisty, including the creation of protein and nucleic acid databases; tools to interrogate the databases, and one of the first substitution matrices, point accepted mutations (PAM); develops one-letter code for amino acids, an attempt to reduce data file size describing amino acid sequences in an era of punch-card computing

1926 – Ralph Abernathy born, American pastor, Civil Rights movement leader; Montgomery Improvement Association, Montgomery Bus Boycott, co-founder Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC president after ML King assassination)

1927 – Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens the famous Roxy Theatre in New York City

1927 – Freda Meissner-Blau born, Austrian politician, founder of the Austrian Green Party, and a leading figure in the Austrian Anti-Nuclear and environmental movements; Elected to the Austrian National Council (Parliament – 1986-1988). In 1995, she co-chaired the first International Human Rights Tribunal in Vienna, condemning the Republic of Austria in all seven cases that were brought forward by the LGBT community for the persecution of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons in Austria between 1945 and 1995. Austria abolished its LGBT discrimination laws by 2005

1929 – Kermit D. Moore born, African American cellist, composer and conductor

1930 – U.S. President Howard Taft becomes the first U.S. president buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington VA

1935 – The German Air Force becomes an official department of the Third Reich

1941 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, which provides war supplies to the Allies

1946 – Pravda denounces Winston Churchill as anti-Soviet and a warmonger

1949 – Griselda Pollock born in South Africa; after a childhood in Canada, she moved to Britain in her teens, and went on to be a highly influential cultural analyst and scholar of modern and contemporary art, and a very respected feminist theorist in art history and gender studies

1950 – Bobby McFerrin born, African American jazz vocalist and songwriter; 10-time Grammy winner

1952 – Douglas Adams, beloved British author and dramatist; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

1959 – Fred M’membe born, Zambian journalist and newspaper editor; founder of Zambia’s first independent paper, Zambia Post. M’membe was arrested and prosecuted several times by the Zambia government for his reporting. In 1995, he was the third recipient of the Media Institute of Southern Africa’s Press Freedom Award, and was also  given the International Press Freedom Award. He was accused of being an ally of Zambia’s controversial President Michael Sata (2011-2014), who died in London in October, 2014, while receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness

1959 – Lorraine Hansberry’s drama A Raisin in the Sun opens at New York’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre

1969 – Levi-Strauss starts selling bell-bottomed jeans

1985 – Mikhail Gorbachev is named the new chairman of the Soviet Communist Party

1986 – Popsicle announces its twin-stick frozen treat is changing to a one-stick model

1988 – Cease-fire declared in the war between Iran and Iraq

1990 – Lithuania declares its independence from the USSR, the first Soviet republic to break from Communist control

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

1992 – Former U.S. President Nixon says the Bush administration is not giving enough economic aid to Russia

1993 – Janet Reno is unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the first woman attorney general

1993 – North Korea withdraws from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty refusing to open sites for inspection

1994 – In Chile, Eduardo Frei is sworn in as President, the first peaceful transfer of power in Chile since 1970

2002 – Two columns of light are pointed skyward from ground zero in New York as a temporary memorial to the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

2006 – Michelle Bachelet Jeria is elected as first female president of Chile

2010 – World Plumbing Day * is launched, sponsored by the World Plumbing Council

2011 – Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signs measure eliminating most union rights for public employees, after three weeks of protests against it

2015 – The Texas state legislature names Phil Collins an honorary Texan as a “thank you” for donating his extensive collection of Alamo and Texas Revolution-related artifacts to the Alamo, part of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park,  a UNESCO World Heritage Site

2016 – National Promposal Day is launched to encourage high schools to ask their prospective date for the prom early; inspiring stories are shared on social media: #MyUltimatePromposal

__________________________________________