March 29th is

Lemon Chiffon Cake Day

Mom & Pop Business Owner’s Day

Niagara Falls Runs Dry Day *

Smoke and Mirrors Day

Vietnam War Veterans Day *

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MORE! Pearl Bailey, Tina Monzon-Palma and Lara Logan, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Central African Republic – Barthelemy Boganda Day
(first Prime Minister, C.A.R. as autonomous territory)

Chile – Day of the Young Combatant

Madagascar – Martyrs’ Day
(1947 Rebellion Commemoration)

South Africa – Cape Town:
Cape Town International Jazz Festival

Taiwan – Spring Youth Day
(2^nd Guangzhou Uprising)

United Kingdom – London:
The London Coffee Festival (through March 31)

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On This Day in HISTORY

502 – King Gundobad issues a new legal code, Lex Burgundionum, at Lyon that makes Gallo-Romans and Burgundians subject to the same laws; covers marriage, inheritance and weregild, a form of restitution for injury or death of a loved one and for theft or damage of property in early Germanic society – as Christianity spread, it was replaced by capital punishment, and almost entirely gone by the 12^th century throughout the Holy Roman Empire

1001 – Sokkate born, king of the Pagan dynasty in Myanmar’s (Burma) Irrawaddy Valley. His reign, from 1038 to 1044, ended when he was killed in single combat, challenged by Anawrahta, who succeeded him, and founded the Pagan Empire, becoming the first King of Burma (1044-1077)

1430 – The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad II captures Thessalonica from the Republic of Venice

1461 – Edward of York defeats the army raised by Queen Margaret (of Anjou), wife of the mentally unstable Henry VI of the House of Lancaster, at the Battle of Towton to become King Edward IV of England

The Opening Barrage, by Graham Turner

1549 – Brazil’s first capital, Salvador da Bahia, is founded by Portuguese settlers under Tomé de Sousa, Brazil’s first governor-general

1561 – Santorio Santorio born, Italian physician; pioneer in use of precision instruments in medicine

1632 – Treaty of Saint-Germain is signed, returning Quebec to French control after the English seize it in 1629

1638 – Swedish Lutherans found the first white settlement in Delaware

1673 – King Charles II accepts the Test Act, excluding Roman Catholics from public functions by requiring oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and a declaration against transubstantiation by all men in any civil or military office

1675 – King Charles II and John Flamsteed lay the foundation stone of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London

Flamsteed House, Royal Observatory, by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd

1679 – King Charles II accepts the Habeas Corpus Act of (English) Parliament, which defines and strengthens the ancient prerogative of the writ of habeas corpus (Latin – ‘you have the body’) stopping unlawful detention; in criminal matters other than treason and felonies, it gives prisoners or third parties acting on their behalf the right to challenge their detention by demanding from the Lord Chancellor, Justices of the King’s Bench, or Barons of the Exchequer a judicial review of their imprisonment, and forbids jailers from moving prisoners to evade the writ – if they disobey, jailers face severe fines, paid to the prisoner. Though amended, the act is on the statute book to this day

1792 – King Gustav III of Sweden dies, after being shot in the back at a midnight masquerade ball at Stockholm’s Royal Opera 13 days earlier. The Act of Union and Security in 1789 had significantly increased monarchical authority, and abolished most of the old privileges of the nobility, which made Gustav very unpopular with the nobles.  A group of conspirators plotted to assassinate the King and reform the constitution. Gustav received a note at dinner before the ball warning him his life was in danger, but had already received so many threatening letters that he disregarded it. After entering the opera house, Gustav was surrounded by the conspirators, all wearing black masks, and one of them moved behind the king and fired a pistol-shot into the left side of his back. Gustav cried out, “Ah! I am wounded, take me away from here and arrest him!”

Reproduction of King Gustav III’s masquerade costume. He was easily
identified by the Royal Order of the Seraphim worn on the left side of his chest

1806 – U.S. Congress authorizes survey for the Cumberland Road, the first major improved highway built by the U.S. government, from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois, where Congressional funding runs out, a distance of 614 miles

1843 – Frances Wisebart Jacobs born, American charity organizer; co-founder with four clergymen of the Charity Organization Society (1887) in Denver CO, which will become the United Way of America, which joins with United Way International in 2009 to become United Way Worldwide, the world’s largest privately-funded nonprofit

Frances Jacobs stained glass window at the Colorado State Capitol

1847 – Mexican-American War: U.S. General Winfield Scott’s army takes Veracruz after a siege which lasted 20 days

1848 – Niagara Falls Runs Dry Day * – huge upstream ice jams stop almost all water flow over Niagara Falls (both American Falls and the Canadian Horseshoe Falls) for several hours; dry enough to walk out into the riverbed below the falls

1849 – Second Anglo-Sikh War: The British East India Company formally annexes the Punjab after defeating the Sikh Empire

1852 – Ohio makes it illegal for children under 18 and women to work more than a 10-hour workday

1864 – Finding maintaining a protectorate over the Ionian Islands too expensive, Great Britain cedes them to Greece

1866 – Dr. John Pemberton creates Coca-Cola

Dr. John Pemburton and early Coca-Cola advertisement

1867 – British North America Act (the Canadian constitution) is given Royal Assent, and effective July 1, establishes the Dominion of Canada

1867 – British North America Act (Canadian constitution) is given Royal Assent

1871 – Queen Victoria opens the Royal Albert Hall in London

Royal Albert Hall – inset: Queen Victoria

1879 – Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin premieres in Moscow

1900 – Charles Elton born, English Biologist who develops the ‘food chain’ idea

1902 – Sir William Walton born, English composer; noted particularly for his film and ballet scores during WWII, including the memorable First of the Few from which Walton extracted the ‘Spitfire’ Prelude and Fugue, and the ballets The Wise Virgins and The Quest for the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. He composed the scores for Laurence Olivier’s major Shakespearean films, Henry V, Hamlet and Richard III

1903 – Vera M. Dean born, American political scientist and author, head of research for the Foreign Policy Association; “Is Democracy Possible in Africa?”

1906 – E. Power Biggs born in England, American organist

1907 – In the Transvaal, Gandhi’s Satyagraha (‘devotion to truth’) campaigners hold a mass protest against the Asiatic Law Amendment Act, which requires all male Asians to register and be finger-printed, and carry ‘certificates’ (passes) at all times, which must be shown to police officers on demand. It is the beginning of a seven-year struggle in which thousands of Indians, including Gandhi, are jailed, and protesters flogged or even shot for striking, refusing to register, burning their certificates, or other forms of non-violence. Ultimately, public outrage at the harsh methods the government employs, against people who are steadfastly non-violent, forces South African General Jan Smuts to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi

Gandhi’s law office in South Africa, 1906

1908 – Henri Farman carries the first passenger in an airplane, aircraft designer Leon Delagrange, in his bi-plane

1912 – Hanna Reitsch born, German pilot, awarded the Iron Cross First Class and the Luftwaffe Pilot/Observer Badge during WWII

1918 – Pearl Bailey born, American singer and actress; receives a 1969 USO award for  her WWII tour entertaining U.S troops, and a 1988 Presidential Medal of Freedom

1923 – Betty Binns Fletcher born, American lawyer and federal judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (1979- 2012); one of the first women to become a partner in a major U.S law firm, and the second woman appointed to the Ninth Circuit bench; writes liberal opinions on employment discrimination, environmental protection and the death penalty; when her son is nominated for a judgeship on the Ninth Circuit, Conservative Republicans, led by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), claim a mother and son serving on the same court violates a 1911 federal anti-nepotism law; Judge Fletcher agrees to accept senior status in order clear the way for her son’s confirmation, which means she serves only part time, only on cases in her home city, Seattle, and does not handle death penalty cases – her original seat is filled by a Republican

Judge Betty Binns Fletcher, center, on first U.S. all-woman  federal judicial
panel with Judge Dorothy Wright Nelson and Judge Judith Nelsen Keep

1929 – Sheila Kitzinger born, British social anthropologist, pregnancy and childbirth author; natural childbirth and breastfeeding advocate; National Childbirth Trust board member; taught MA in midwifery at the University of West London, and lectured on the social anthropology of birth of breastfeeding; The Good Birth Guide, The Politics of Birth, and Rediscovering Birth  

1936 – Judith Guest born, American novelist and screenwriter; Ordinary People, Second Heaven, and The Tarnished Eye

1940 – Astrud Gilberto born, major Brazilian singer-songwriter

1944 – Lynne Segal born in Australia, British-based socialist feminist, academic and author; co-author of the influential 1979 book Beyond the Fragments, advocating broader alliances among trade unionists, feminists and leftist political groups, and author of Is the Future Female? and Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men; member of the Virago (publishing) Advisory Board (1984-1993)

1949 – Pauline Marois born, public servant and politician; leader of the Parti Québécois (2007–2014); first woman Premier of Quebec (2012–2014); member of the Quebec National Assembly for Taillon (1989-2006), for La Peltrie (1981-1985); chief of staff for the Ministry of State for the Status of Women (1979–1981), promoted to Minister of State when Lisa Payette, her former boss, left (1981-1982)

1951 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union

1951 – Tina Monzon-Palma born, Filipina broadcast journalist and anchorwoman; worked for GMA Networks (1976-1992), and was GMA’s first woman news presenter, then pioneered its Public Affairs department during her term as GMA News executive. After working at ABC-5 (1992-1997), she has been at ABS-CBN, heading a public service campaign against child abuse, and anchoring the news program The World Tonight

1957 – Elizabeth Hand born, American scifi/fantasy writer and novelist; co-creator of DC Comics series Anima; Waking the Moon (1994) won the Tiptree Award and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award; The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon won 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella

1961 – After a four-and-a-half year trial, Nelson Mandela is acquitted of treason in Pretoria, South Africa

1961 – Amy Sedaris born, American comedian, writer and playwright; among numerous credits,  appeared in the Comedy Central series, Strangers With Candy, and the 2010 movie,  The Best and the Brightest. Co-author with her brother David Sedaris of the plays Stump the Host (1993),  Stitches (1994), One Woman Shoe(1995), Incident at Cobblers Knob (1997) The Little Frieda Mysteries, and The Book of Liz.  She is a supporter of PETA

1964 – Catherine Cortez Masto born, American attorney and Democratic politician; Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair since January 2019; in 2017, she was first woman and first Latina to become a U.S. Senator from Nevada; Attorney General of Nevada (2007-2015)

1971 – U.S. Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. convicted for murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre (Calley spends 3 years under house arrest)

1971 – Lara Logan born, South African media journalist and war correspondent. In 2011, she gave an interview on 60 Minutes about being sexually assaulted in Egypt by men in the crowd celebrating Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, after someone falsely shouted she was an Israeli Jew. Her clothes were ripped off, she was raped by their hands, then dragged along the square until a group of women camped by a fence closed ranks around her and the men with them threw water at the crowd until a group of soldiers arrived. Logan was Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for CBS News (2006-2018)

1971 – A Los Angeles jury recommends the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers for 1969’s Tate-La Bianca murders; but sentences are later commuted to life

1973 – The last U.S. troops leave South Vietnam, ending America’s direct military involvement in the Vietnam War (see also entry for 2017)

1974 – Chinese farmers discover the Terracotta Army near Xi’an, 8,000 clay warrior statues buried to guard tomb of China’s 1st emperor Qin Shi Huang

1992 – Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton admits to experimenting with marijuana “a time or two” while attending Oxford University, adding, “I didn’t inhale and I didn’t try it again.”

1993 – Catherine Callbeck becomes Premier of Prince Edward Island, the first woman to win a general election for a premiership of a Canadian province

2004 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first country in the world to ban cigarettes smoking in all work places, including bars and restaurants

2014 – The first same-sex marriages are performed in England and Wales

2017 – Vietnam War Veterans Day * honors Vietnam veterans on anniversary of withdrawal of U.S. military units from South Vietnam (see also entry for 1973)

Vietnam War Veterans at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC  (Saul Loeb/AFP)

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