March 30th is

‘I Am in Control’ Day *

National Doctor’s Day *

National Pencil Day *

Virtual Vacation Day

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MORE! Naomi Sims, Shahka Sherkat and Zuzana Caputova, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Palestine – Land Day *

Spain –
School Day of Non-violence and Peace

Trinidad & Tobago –
Spiritual Shouter Baptist Liberation Day *

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On This Day in HISTORY

240 BC – Perihelion passage recorded of what will be called Halley’s Comet

1135 – Moses Maimonides born, Spanish-born Jewish philosopher, jurist and physician

1533 – Thomas Cranmer becomes Archbishop of Canterbury

1699 – Guru Gobind Singh establishes the Khalsa, a special group of initiated Sikh warriors, in Anandpur Sahib, Punjab. The warriors were pledged to protect the innocent from any form of religious persecution. Upon initiation, a Khalsa Sikh is given the title of Singh. Women have been admitted, and receive the title Kaur, but authority remains with the Sikh men. There was also a code of behavior and a dress code, which originally called for uncut hair, a wooden comb, a metal bracelet worn on the wrist called a Kara, a sword or dagger called a Kirpan, and short breeches

1746 – Francisco de Goya born, major Spanish painter

May Third 1808; Self-Portrait sketch; Señora  Sabasa Garcia,
by Francisco de Goya 

1778 – Voltaire, the leading philosopher of the French Enlightenment, having returned to Paris from a long exile in Switzerland, is in the audience when a bust in his likeness is crowned with a laurel wreath after a performance of his last play Irène; he dies in Paris a few months later

1820 – Anna Sewell born, English author; her novel Black Beauty helps get anti-animal cruelty legislation passed

1822 – U.S. Congress combines East and West Florida into the Florida Territory, and William Pope Duvall becomes its first civilian governor, taking over from the military governor, future U.S. President Andrew Jackson

1842 – Dr. Crawford W. Long administers the first ether anesthetic for a delicate surgery to remove a tumor from a man’s neck; the surgery is a success, and the patient awakens having felt nothing during the operation – see also entry for 1933

1844 – Paul Verlaine born, major French poet of the fin de siècle 

1853 – Vincent Van Gogh born, Dutch Impressionist painter, his work has a major impact on Western Art after his death

1855 – Charlotte Johnson Baker born, first woman physician to practice medicine in San Diego, California; practiced obstetrics and gynecology at St. Joseph’s Hospital

1856 – The Crimean War ends with Russia’s signing of the Peace of Paris

1858 – Pencil Day * – Hyman Lipman patents his method of attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil

1863 – Mary Whiton Calkins born, philosopher and psychologist, first woman president of the American Psychological Association. She graduated from Smith College, then worked as a tutor and later as a teacher in the Greek department of Wellesley College. When she was offered a position at Wellesley to teach psychology, a new subject for the college’s Philosophy Department, she accepted on the contingency that she would be able to study psychology for a year first. She was refused admittance to Harvard, which was the closest university to where she lived which offered classes in the subject, in spite of a letter sent by the president of Wellesley pleading her case. She decided to attend classes taught by Josiah Royce at the Harvard Annex, who suggested that she audit the Harvard classes taught by William James, but first both he and James had to persuade Harvard president Charles William Eliot to allow this, as he was opposed to a woman learning in the same room with men. She was not allowed to be a registered student. Calkins returned to Wellesley in 1891 and began her work as an instructor of psychology. She is noted for her research on dreams and memory, while she was teaching at Wellesley for forty years. She also set up the first women’s psychology lab there, and developed the paired-associate procedure for studying verbal memories. One of her main findings was that repeated pairings of words increased memory. Calkins was interested in a wide variety of research topics, including perception, personality, emotion, and dreaming

1864 – Helen Abbot Merrill born, mathematician, professor, textbook author, earns Ph.D. from Yale in 1903 with a thesis “On Solutions of Differential Equations which possess an Oscillation Theorem” – Wellesley Mathematics Department professor/chair (1915-32), executive council and then VP of Mathematical Association of America

1867 – “Seward’s Folly”: Secretary of State William Seward negotiates and signs the treaty for the U.S. to buy Alaska from Russia for 2 cents an acre, a total of $7,200,000

1870 – The 15th amendment to the Constitution, giving black men the right to vote, goes into effect

1870 – Texas becomes last confederate state readmitted to Union

1880 – Sean O’Casey born, Irish playwright; The Plough and the Stars, Juno and the Paycock

1882 – Melanie Klein born in Austria, British psychoanalyst in the field of developmental psychology; she devised new techniques for working with children, and developed a highly influential training program in psychoanalysis. Though in agreement with Freud on most of his fundamental theories, her work directly with children led her to disagree with some of his ideas concerning children which came from his work with adult patients, including her belief that aggression was an important force in its own right in children, a theory with which Anna Freud strongly disagreed. Anna Freud’s influence remained largely predominant in the U.S., while some British analysts were more open to Klein’s ideas. She is one of the founders of the object relations theory, concerning an individual’s interaction with others, how those interactions are internalized, and how they affect an individual’s psychological framework

1891 – Arthur Herrington born, American engineer-manufacturer; WWII jeep developer

1902 – Brooke Astor born, American author and philanthropist; noted for her novels, The Bluebird is Home, and The Last Blossom on the Plum Tree;and her memoirs, Patchwork Child, and Footprints. She also served as a Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and chaired the Visiting Committee of the Metropolitan’s Department of Far Eastern Art; she is credited with the idea for a Chinese garden courtyard, the Astor Court, in the Metropolitan, as well as a major supporter of the New York Public Library and the Animal Medical Center

1917 – Else Aarne born, Estonian composer and pianist; noted for chamber music, but she also composed two symphonies

1919 – Mahatma Gandhi announces a hartal, resistance to the Rowlatt Act, legislation passed by the Imperial Legislative Council in Delhi to indefinitely extend emergency measures of no-limit detention, incarceration without trial and suspension of  judicial review enacted in the Defence of India Act 1915 during WWI, named for Sir Sidney Rowlatt, president of the legislative council; the hartal calls for all Indians to stop doing business and to fast, but when violence breaks out in the Punjab and other areas, Gandhi suspends the hartal, but violent protests continue, leading up to the infamous April 13, 1919 Amritsar massacre of  hundreds nonviolent unarmed civilians, including women and children, by troops under the command of Colonel Dyer, who ordered the exits blocked, and the troops to fire on the crowd with no warning, and to keep on firing at the trapped and helpless people. Official British Indian sources gave out the same figures Dyer used in his letter to the British parliament of 379 identified dead, with approximately 1,100 wounded. The casualty number estimated by the Indian National Congress was over 1,500 injured, with approximately 1,000 dead

1925 – Josef Stalin speaks before the Yugoslav commission of the Comintern’s executive committee in support of the rights of non-Serbian Yugoslavians

1933 – The first Doctor’s Day * was a local event, started by Eudora Almond, too honor her husband, Dr. Charles Almond, and all the other members of his profession; see 1842 entry for Dr. Crawford Long; officially proclaimed as a National Day by President George H.W. Bush in 1991

1948 – Naomi Sims born, African-American model, businesswoman and author; in November, 1968, she became the first black woman to appear on the cover of the Ladies Home Journal, and in October, 1969, appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine. She was one of the first highly successful black American models. She retired from modeling in 1973, and started a successful wig business, which expanded into a multimillion-dollar beauty empire. She wrote several books on modeling, beauty and health, including Beauty for the Black Woman; and All About Health. She died of breast cancer in 2009 at the age of 61

1949 – After the Icelandic Alpingi (parliament) votes to join newly-formed NATO, anti-NATO protesters clash with supporters of the decision in front of the parliament building, and escalates into a rocking-throwing riot; Reykjavik police quell rioters with tear gas and arrests; protesters fear being dragged into the Cold War, and a confrontation with the U.S.S.R.

1949 – Liza Frulla born, Canadian Liberal politician and executive; Executive Director of the Institut de tourisme et d’hotellerie du Québec since 2015; Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women (2004-2006); Minister of Social Development of Canada (2003-2004); Member of the Canadian Parliament (2002-2006); Minister of Culture and Communications of Quebec (1990-1994); Member of the National Assembly of Quebec for Marguerite-Bourgeoys (1989-1998); worked in public affairs for the Montreal Olympics organizing committee (1974-1976)

1950 – Janet Browne born, British science historian, noted for work on 19^th century biology and a two-volume biography of Charles Darwin; currently Aramont Professor of History of Science at Harvard University

1951 – Spiritual Shouter Baptist Liberation Day * celebrates the repeal of the Trinidad & Tobago 1917 Shouter Prohibition Ordinance prohibiting the shouting services of the Spiritual Baptists; the only country in the world with a public holiday honoring the Spiritual Baptist faith

1953 – Albert Einstein announces revised unified field theory

1956 – Shahka Sherkat born, Persian pioneer of the Iranian Women’s Rights movement and feminist author; founder-publisher of Zanan (Women) magazine in 1991, the first journal to focus on women’s rights after the 1979 Iranian Revolution; frequently in hot water with the Iranian government, Sherkat was sentenced to four months in prison for attending the 2000 Iran After the Elections Conference in Berlin, but the sentence was reduced, on appeal, to a heavy fine; honored in 2005 with the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) Courage in Journalism Award

1957 – Marie-Christine Kounja born, Chadian diplomat and first published Chadian woman author; First Secretary at the Chadian Embassy in Nigeria

1959 – The Dalai Lama is granted political asylum in India after fleeing Chinese-held Tibet, as thousands of Tibetans are killed fighting Chinese forces

1959 – Martina Cole born, British crime novelist, noted for strong women characters and gritty realism; her first book, Dangerous Lady, was made into a highly-rated four-part TV mini-series

1961 – The UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed by representatives of 185 countries; so far, 40 have ratified the convention

1964 – The TV game show Jeopardy! premieres

1967 – The cover shot for the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Bandalbum is taken by Peter Blake; it would win a Grammy for Best Album Cover

1970 – Miles Davis releases his double album Bitches Brew

1972 – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum opens on Broadway

1976 – Land Day * – When the Israeli government announces plans to expropriate thousands of dunams (4 dunams almost equal an acre) of land, much of it Arab-owned, in the Galilee for state purposes, and also declares a curfew in many Arab villages, a general strike and marches are organized for March 30 in Arab towns from the Galilee to the Negev. Solidarity strikes are also organized in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The government declared all demonstrations illegal, and threatened to fire ‘agitators.’ In confrontations with the Israeli army and 4,000 police, six unarmed Arab citizens are killed, about one hundred wounded, and hundreds of others arrested. The Israeli press relied almost completely on statements from government officials, and gave virtually no space to Arab Israeli organizers and participants, who were characterized in print as communists, nationalists, extremists, agitators or even enemies

1979 – Norah Jones won born, American singer-songwriter; has won a total of 9 Grammy Awards; best known for her 2002 album Come Away With Me

photo by Madison McGaw/BFA/REX/Shutterstock

1980 – Mark Medoff’s play Children of a Lesser God premieres on Broadway

1981 – ‘I Am In Control’ Day * – As President Reagan is being rushed to surgery after an assassination attempt that wounded Reagan, a Secret Service agent, a police officer and gravely wounded Press Secretary James Brady, Secretary of State Alexander Haig mistakenly claims, “As of now, I am in control here in the White House.”  He is taken to task by the media for those words, since the Vice President and several others are ahead of him on the list of those in line to take over in the event of a president being incapacitated, but he says later he only meant he was in charge until Vice President Bush arrived at the White House and could be sworn in as Acting President

1981 – The film Chariots of Fire premieres at a Royal Command Performance in London; it will win the 1982 Best Picture Oscar

1987 – Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers sells for 22.5 million pounds ($39.7 million)

1995 – Pope John Paul II, who has never faced pregnancy or childbirth, issues an encyclical condemning abortion and euthanasia as crimes no human laws can legitimize

1999 – A Portland Oregon jury finds Philip Morris liable for $81 million to the family of a man who died of lung cancer after smoking Marlboros for four decades

2006 – American reporter Jill Carroll, a freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor, is released after an 82-day ordeal as a hostage in Iraq

Jill Carroll talks with U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Frank Gorenc, as 
she prepares to leave Iraq on U.S. Air Force transport – CSM photo

2009 – President Barack Obama asserts unprecedented government control over the auto industry, rejecting GM and Chrysler’s restructuring plans and engineering the ouster of GM’s chief executive, Rick Wagoner, demanding fresh concessions for long-term federal aid and raising the possibility of quick bankruptcy for either ailing auto giant. “I am absolutely committed to working with Congress and the auto companies to meet one goal: The United States of America will lead the world in building the next generation of clean cars,” Obama said, adding, “our auto industry is not moving in the right direction fast enough to succeed.”

2012 – Austerity Measure: the Spanish Government cuts its budget by 27 billion Euros

2013 – The Kenyan Supreme Court declares Uhuru Kenyatta the rightful winner of Kenya’s presidential election

2017 – SpaceX conducts the first reflight of an orbital class rocket; their Falcon 9 rocket launched a geosynchronous communications satellite. After stage separation, the rocket’s first stage returned to Earth a second time, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean

2018 – Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai returned to her hometown in Pakistan for the first time since she was shot in the head by the Taliban at the age of 12. Now 20, Yousafzai had not visited Mingora or anywhere in Pakistan since her family moved to Britain after her attack. “What I want is for people to support my purpose of education and think about the daughters of Pakistan who need an education,” she said in an interview during the trip. “Don’t think about me. I don’t want any favor, or I don’t want everyone to accept me. All I care about is that they accept education as an issue.”

2019 – Slovakia elects its first woman president. Environmental lawyer and government critic Zuzana Caputova handily defeated her opponent, Maros Sefcovic, winning 58% of the vote. Both candidates are considered pro-Europe, though Sefcovic argued that Slovakia should retain more decision-making powers. Caputova, who has been called a liberal, said she views her election as a signal for change. Her victory runs counter to trends in Europe, which has seen populist, Euro-skeptic parties increasingly make gains throughout the continent. Caputova campaigned to end corruption in Slovakia, where a journalist who investigated high profile fraud cases and his fiancé were murdered last year. Caputova said the crime sparked her candidacy.

Zuzana Caputova; and at swearing-in ceremony for her new government
in 2020 wearing mask and gloves during Covid-19 pandemic

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