March 24th is

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

World Tuberculosis Day *

Chocolate Covered Raisins Day

National Agriculture Day

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MORE! Matilda Joslyn Gage, Dorothy Height and Anita Allen, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Argentina – Truth and Justice Day

Netherlands – Utrecht:
CATCH Music Festival

Northern Mariana Islands –
Commonwealth Covenant Day

Uganda – Tree Planting Day

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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’

1551 – End of the War of Rough Wooing: after Henry VIII declared his supremacy over the Church of England by the “divine right of kings” the French were besieging the English garrison at Boulogne, and the Auld Alliance (old alliance) between Scotland and France posed a threat if the Scots were to aid a French invasion of England through Scotland. So he sent an invading army to Scotland, attempting to force a betrothal between his 6-year-old son Edward and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, to forge a new alliance between England and Scotland. When 9-year-old Edward became king three years later, the war was continued by the Lord Protector of the Realm, the Duke of Somerset, who was also a member of the Regency Council. But when Somerset was removed from power, replaced by the Duke of Northumberland, he wanted to end the extraordinarily expensive costs of both the war with France and the campaign against the Scots, so he negotiated peace with the French in 1550, and then the peace treaty with the Scots, which called for a joint commission to agree on the exact boundary between Scotland and England, ending the War of Rough Wooing

Mary, Queen of Scots (about age 7), by François Clouet – circa 1549
Edward VI  (about age 6), by Hans Holbein

1579 – Tirso de Molina born, Spanish Baroque dramatist, poet and Roman Catholic monk; known for writing El Burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest), the play in which the character Don Juan first appears

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

James I of England, by Daniel Mytens

1617 – James I of England and Ireland instructs the Church of England to collect funds to build churches and schools for Indians in the Virginia colony to educate and convert them

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, although blinded in infancy, becomes an American missionary, poet, author, lyricist and composer, who writes over 8,000 hymns and gospel songs including “Blessed Assurance”; one of the first women to speak before Congress, reciting a poem in support of education for the blind in 1843

1826 – Matilda Joslyn Gage born, American abolitionist, suffragist and women’s rights speaker, freethinker and author of many articles and books, including Woman’s Rights Catechism, Woman as Inventor and Woman, Church and State; founder and first president (1890-1989) of the Woman’s National Liberal Union

1827 – Candace Thurber Wheeler born, American interior and textile designer, 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, later abandoned, of communal property and living, and missionaries actively trying to gain converts from the Christians in the immediate vicinity

1834 – John Wesley Powell born, American geologist and 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

1855 – Olive Schreiner born, South African author, anti-war activist, free thinker, and feminist; best known for her novel The Story of an African Farm, published under the pen name ‘Ralph Iron’ in 1883, and dealing not only with the elemental nature of life on the colonial frontier, but also with agnosticism, the professional aspirations of women, existential independence, and individualism. She also wrote A Track to the Water’s Edge, Thoughts on South Africa, and From Man To Man Or Perhaps Only, published after her death, with the ending only sketched out, which begins with white women’s confinement to domesticity in late 19th century South Africa and England, but expands to include black women and girls as the central character struggles to re-create herself and educate her children against the racism and sexism of the time

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 – World Tuberculosis Day * – Robert Koch, German doctor and scientist, ‘the Father of  Bacteriology’ presents his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, in a lecture regarded as one of the most important in medical history, leading to adoption of new scientific procedures. At the time, one in seven of all human beings would die from tuberculosis; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), TB is still the 9th leading cause of death globally

1886 – Edward Weston born, American photographer

Dunes, cover from an Edward Weston exhibition book

1890 – Agnes Macphail born, Canadian progressive politician, newspaper correspondent and columnist; first woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons (1921-1940); a strong voice for rural issues, penal reform for women prisoners, senior pensions and workers’ rights; sponsor of the first equal-pay legislation in Ontario; advocate for more women in politics: “Most women think politics aren’t lady-like. Well, I’m no lady. I’m a human being.”

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

1897 – William Reich born, Austrian psychologist

1899 – Dorothy C. Stratton born, educator and director of SPARS, the U.S. 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

1905 – Pura Santillan-Castrence born, essayist, newspaper columnist, feminist and diplomat, one of the first women in the Philippines to gain prominence writing in the English language; served as Chief of the Translation Section of the Philippine Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the WWII Japanese occupation of the country; after the war, she worked in the Philippine embassy in Bonn, West Germany, and then became the Assistant Secretary for Cultural Affairs;  As I See It: Filipinos and the Philippines

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

1912 – Dorothy Height born, African American civil rights and women’s rights activist; president of the National Council of Negro Women (1957-1997); awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, and a Congressional Gold Medal in 2004

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, and their ‘Pocket Poet’ series introduced poets like Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Patchen and Gregory Corso

1920 – Mary Stolz born, American author, primarily of books for children and young adults; 1962 and 1966 Newbery Honors for Belling the Tiger and The Noonday Friends

1921 – The 1921 Women’s Olympiad begins in Monte Carlo, the first international  women’s sports event. Since women were being excluded from international sports competitions, Alice Milliat of France founded the Federation Feminine Sportive de France in 1917. She went on to organize the 1921 games; five nations took part – France, Great Britain, Italy, Norway and Switzerland, competing in ten track and field events, and several other sports. The IOC objected to FSFI’s use of the word ‘Olympiad’ in the title of their championships. FSFI agreed to drop the word in exchange for the IOC holding ten events for women in the 1928 Olympic Games, but the IOC only included five women’s events in the 1928 games

1922 – Onna White born, dancer and choreographer, nominated for 8 Tony Awards, and recipient of a rare Academy Honorary Award for her choreography in the 1968 film version of the musical Oliver!

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, which grants the Philippines the right 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

1947 – Chris O. Gregoire born, American lawyer and Democratic politician; second woman Governor of Washington state (2005-2013); Washington State Attorney General (1993-2005); cancer survivor; advocate for healthcare, biomedical research and life sciences

1949 – Tabitha King born, American sci-fi/fantasy/horror author and literacy advocate

1953 – Anita L. Allen born, African American Professor of Law and Vice Provost for Faculty  at the University of Pennsylvania Law School; senior fellow in the former bioethics department of UP’s Perelman School of Medicine; collaborating faculty member in Africana studies and women’s studies; appointed in 2010 to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues

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.

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 known as Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice is held on this day

1980 – El Salvador: Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador is murdered while celebrating Mass, by a assassin who was almost certainly under orders from pro-government death squad leader Roberto D’Aubuisson, after Romero had again publicly denounced human rights violations; Romero was an outspoken advocate for the poor and marginalized, speaking out against social injustice, poverty, assassination and torture (see also entry for 2011)

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

1991 – Mali General Strike: the Alliance for Democracy in Mali (ADEMA), an opposition group led by Alpha Oumar Konaré and Abdourahmane Baba Toure, says that government troops killed nearly 150 people in three days of pro-democracy protests

1993 – Discovery of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9

1993 – South African President FW de Klerk announces to Parliament that South Africa had constructed six nuclear fission devices, but said they had been dismantled by the end of 1989, and that South Africa has never conducted a clandestine nuclear test

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

2011 – The first International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for Dignity of Victims * designated in 2010 by the UN General Assembly, which chose March 24 to honor Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador, shot to death on March 24, after denouncing human rights violations, by a pro-government death squad assassin (see also entry for 1980)

2015 – Clean-up continues after the demolition of the house in Newton, Connecticut where Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother before heading for Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed 20 children and six adults before committing suicide. The bank which became owner of the property had donated it to the city, and town officials voted unanimously to demolish the house _________________________________________