March 28th is

Barnum & Bailey Day *

Black Forest Cake Day

National Triglycerides Day *

Something on a Stick Day

Weed Appreciation Day *

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MORE! Clara Lemlich, Laura Chinchilla and Iris Chang, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Chile – Santiago: Lollapalooza Chile
(Music Festival through March 31)

Czech Republic and Slovakia –
Teachers’ Day *

Japan – Sen no Rikyū Commemoration
(Tea Ceremony Schools honor Rikyū as
Master of the Way of Tea)

Scotland – Glasgow: Aye Write! Festival
(Book Festival through March 31)

Tibet – Serfs’ Emancipation Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

193 – Roman Emperor Pertinax is assassinated by the Praetorian Guards, who then sell the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus

845 – Paris is sacked by a fleet of Viking raiders who sail up the River Seine; Charles the Bald pays the huge sum of 7,000 livres (5,670 pounds) in silver to get them to leave

931 – Liu Chengyou born, named Emperor Yin posthumously, last emperor of the Later Han dynasty, who ruled from 948 to 951, when he was killed in the confusion as the army of General Guo Wei attacked the capital, after the teenaged emperor had Guo Wei’s entire family executed

1097 ? – Atsïz born, the Sunni Muslim Shah of Khwarezm from 1127 to 1156. Khwarezm covered most of what is now Turkey, and parts of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan

1416 – Rao Jodha Rathore born, ruler of Mandore (now part of the Indian state of Rajasthan) from 1427 to 1489; noted for founding the city of Jodhpur in 1459

Mehrangarh Fortress at Jodhpur, started in 1459

1566 – The foundation stone of Valletta, Malta’s capital city, is laid by Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

1592 – Teachers’ Day * in the Czech Republic and Slovakia honors Jan Amos Konesky aka Comenius, Moravian teacher born this day; believes in education for girls as well as boys, opposes corporal punishment, introduces books in the children’s native language instead of Latin, adds pictures to books for children, emphasizes logical thinking over rote memorizing

1613 – Borjigit Bumbutai born, of the Khorchin Mongol Borjigit clan, one of the five consorts of Emperor Hong Taiji of the Qing dynasty; during the reign of her grandson, the Kangxi Emperor, whom she had raised after his mother died,  she had significant influence in the imperial court and was respected for her political wisdom and insight. Honored as Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang

1658 – The Dutch East India Company ship, Amersfoort, dropped anchor in Table Bay, bringing the first shipment of 174 slaves to South Africa, beginning almost 200 years of the slave trade at Kaapkolonie (the Dutch Cape Colony)

1708 – Hannah Glasse born, English cookery author; noted for The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, a bestseller which was originally published anonymously but remained in print well into the 19th century. It contained the first known curry recipe written in English. She also coined the name Yorkshire pudding. Her other books, The Servants’ Directory, and The Compleat Confectioner, were not as successful, and her dressmaking enterprise after her husband died ran deeply into debt. She went bankrupt in 1754 and was forced to sell the copyright of The Art of Cookery to a booksellers’ syndicate, which held the rights for the next fifty years

1743 – Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova born, Russian courtier, academic, author and art patron; major figure of the Russian Enlightment, and part of the coup d’etat that put Empress Catherine the Great on the throne in 1762. She was the first woman in the world to head a national academy of sciences and helped to found the Russian Academy, where she oversaw the compilation of a Russian dictionary. She wrote drama, edited a monthly magazine, and also maintained a volumnious correspondence with notable figures of the day, including British actor-manager David Garrick and Benjamin Franklin, who invited her to become the first woman member of the American Philosophical Society, and also the only woman member for its first 80 years

Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova by Dimitri Levitsky 1784

1774 – British Parliament passes the Coercive Acts against Massachusetts, closing the port of Boston until damages are paid for the Boston Tea Party; restriction of Massachusetts town meetings; changes the governor’s council to appointees; makes British officials immune from criminal prosecution in Massachusetts; makes colonists responsible for costs of housing and quartering British troops on demand, even in peacetime – if no other housing is available, they must take troops into their homes

1776 – Juan Bautista de Anza finds the site which will be the Presidio of San Francisco

The Presidio, 1843 sketch by a Swedish visitor

1794 – Formal opening of the Louvre in Paris

1796 – Bethel African Methodist Church of Philadelphia is the first U.S. black church

1799 – Slavery is abolished in New York state

1802 – Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers discovers the 2 Pallas asteroid

1819 – Sir Joseph William Bazalgette born, British civil engineer; designed London’s main sewer system

1834 – A first: the U.S. Congress censors President Andrew Jackson for refusing to turn over documents relating to the running battle between the President and Congress over the Bank of the United States, dismantled by Jackson, who vetoes legislation to renew its charter, but Congress musters votes to overturn the veto; Jackson then orders the Treasury to disperse all federal funds to individual state banks, and refuses the Senate’s demand to see his cabinet’s papers; Both Houses join in censuring Jackson for assuming power not conferred on the president by the Constitution

1845 – Mexico drops diplomatic relations with the U.S. over annexation of Texas and subsequent border dispute

1854 – Crimean War: Britain and France declare war on Russia

1866 – First hospital-based ambulance goes into service in Cincinnati OH

1873 – Anne Douglas Sedgwick born in America, British author; Tante and The Little French Girl 

1881 – Barnum & Bailey Day * – P.T. Barnum merges his show with James A. Bailey’s circus

1886 – Clara Lemlich born, American labor organizer, leader of the Uprising of 20,000, the shirtwaist workers strike in New York’s garment industry in 1909

1890 – Paul Whiteman born, American bandleader, composer and violinist

1895 – Ángela Ruiz Robles born, Spanish teacher and inventor; wanting to lighten the weight of textbooks carried by her students, she made a device out of a series of text and illustrations on reels, all under a sheet of magnifying glass with a light for reading in the dark, with spoken descriptions of each topic, mechanical precursor to the electronic book

1904 – Isabel Cuchí Coll born, journalist and author, director of the “Sociedad de Autores Puertorriqueños” (Society of Puerto Rican Authors)

1906 – Dorothy Knowles born in South Africa, British academic and expert on French theatre, author of French Drama of Inter-War Years 1918-39 and The Censor, the Drama and the Film, which was against censorship; also a pioneer and champion in British women’s fencing, and founder of the Liverpool University fencing club (1936)

1910 – Henri Fabre’s seaplane makes first takeoff from water in France

1912 – Marina Raskova born, Russian navigator, instrumental in the formation of combat regiments of women who were pilots, support staff and engineers

1917 – Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv and Jaffa by Turkish authorities

1917 – Puccini’s La Rondine premieres in Monte Carlo

1922 – Grace Hartigan born, American Abstract Expressionist painter of the ‘New York School’; noted for her exploration of what she called ‘empty rituals’ including a series based on mannequins dressed in bridal gowns

Grace Hartigan – LIFE Magazine May 1957

1924 – Byrd Baylor born, American novelist, essayist, author of children’s books and text for picture books, including four Caldecott Honor books: The Desert is Theirs; Hawk, I’m Your Brother; When Clay Sings and The Way to Start a Day

1924 – Natoo Babenia born in South Africa, political activist against British rule in India and the Apatheid regime in South Africa; member of the  African National Congress  (ANC), South African Communist Party (SACP) and Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK). He served sixteen years as a prisoner on Robben Island. Noted for Memoirs of a Saboteur: Reflections on my political activity in India and South Africa 

1927 – Vina Mazumdar born, Indian academic, feminist and major figure in India’s women’s movement; pioneer in women’s studies programs in India; secretary of the first Committee on the Status of Women in India that brought out the first report on the condition of women in the country, Towards Equality (1974); founding director of the Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS), an autonomous organisation established in 1980, under the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR); Memories of a Rolling Stone

1927 – Marianne Fredriksson born, Swedish author and journalist; noted for The Book of Eve; Simon and the Oaks and According to Mary Magdalene

1930 – Turkish cities Constantinople and Angora change names to Istanbul and Ankara

1931 – Guatemala becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty

1935 – Robert Goddard uses gyroscopes to control a rocket

1939 – Madrid falls to Francisco Franco, ending the Spanish Civil War

1944 – Astrid Lindgren begins writing Pippi Longstocking

1959 – Eleven After Tibet uprising, China dissolves Tibet’s government and installs Panchen Lama

1959 – Laura Chinchilla born, Costa Rican politician; first woman President of Costa Rica (2010-2014); Vice President and Minister of Justice (2006-20o8); National Assembly Deputy for San José (2002-2006)

1963 – Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds premieres in New York.

1968 – “Whiskey On A Sunday” is recorded by the Irish Rovers

1968 – Iris Chang born, daughter of Taiwanese emigrants, American journalist and historical nonfiction author; Thread of the Silkworm, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II and The Chinese in America

1969 – Greek poet and diplomat Giorgos/George Seferis makes a speech on BBC radio against the military junta in control of Greece: “…It has been almost two years now that a regime has been imposed on us which is totally inimical to the ideals for which our world — and our people so resplendently — fought during the last world war.…I am a man without any political affiliation, and I can therefore speak without fear or passion. I see ahead of me the precipice toward which the oppression that has shrouded the country is leading us. This anomaly must stop. It is a national imperative…”

1970 – Jennifer Weiner born, American screenwriter, television producer and novelist; In Her Shoes; vocal critic of gender bias in both the publishing industry and the media

1971 – Christianne Meneses Jacobs born, Nicaraguan writer, publisher, editor and bi-lingual teacher; her family came to America when she was 17 years old. She is co-founder in 2005 with her husband of Iguana, a Spanish language educational magazine for children ages 7-12, which would the 2009 Multicultural Children’s Publication Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education, and ¡YO SÉ! (I Know!), a Spanish language children’s magazine featuring pop culture and young Latinos making a difference in society, which debuted in 2008

1977 – Lauren Weisberger, American author; best known for her 2003 bestseller, The Devil Wears Prada, largely based on her 10-month experience as an assistant to Vogue magazine editor-in-chief Anna Wintour

1979 – Twelve days after the premiere of the nuclear disaster movie The China Syndrome, there is a major nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, in Middletown, Pennsylvania

1979 – The World Campaign against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa is launched in Oslo, Norway, supported by the UN Special Committee against Apartheid. Abdul Samd Minty was the initiative’s director

1986 – Lady Gaga born as Stefani Germanotta, American singer-songwriter, one of the best-selling music artists in history. Also known for her philanthropy and activism, including donating the proceeds from her January 2010 Radio City Music Hall concert as well as that day’s profits from her online store to the Haitian reconstruction relief fund, a total of $500,000, and donated $1.5 million from sales of a bracelet she designed to the Japan relief fund after the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.  She is also a member of Artists Against Fracking, donated $1 million to the American Red Cross for victims of Hurricane Sandy, and has raised over $202 million to fight HIV and AIDS. Her music was banned by the Chinese government as the work of a ‘hostile foreign force’ after she appeared with the Dalai Lama at the 2016 U.S. Conference of Mayors to talk about the power of kindness and compassion

1989 – For the first time, the America’s Cup sailing trophy is won in a courtroom instead of on the water – New Zealand beats Stars and Stripes in a New York courtroom

1990 – Jesse Owens is posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal

2000 – Weed Appreciation Day * is launched to point out the usefulness of weeds in our gardens like dandelions (entirely edible for wildlife and humans) and milkweed, which is a favorite of the threatened Monarch butterfly

2006 – Over two million union members, students and the unemployed take to the streets all over France protesting the government’s proposed Contrat Première Embauche (First Employment Contract law), which would extend the “trial period” for employees under age 26 to two years, during which they could be dismissed without cause

2013 – Pope Francis becomes the first Pope to wash the feet of women in the Maundy Thursday service

2018 – National Triglycerides Day * is founded to encourage people to learn about this key factor in heart health, and to find out about their triglyceride numbers

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