© 2024 KALW 91.7 FM Bay Area
KALW Public Media / 91.7 FM Bay Area
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Almanac ~ Wednesday, 3/15/17

Happy Birthday music man Ry Cooder!

Today is Wednesday, March 15, 2017, the 74th day of the year, with 291 days remaining.

  • Sunrise: 7:20am
  • Sunset: 7:17pm

...giving us 11 hours and 57 minutes of daylight.  95% of the waning moon will be visible, rising at 10:30pm.

Tides at the Golden Gate

  • High: 2:07am/2:28pm
  • Low: 8:04am/8:08pm

Special international celebrations today…

  • Constitution Day - Belarus
  • National Day - Hungary

It’s also…

  • Brain Injury Awareness Day
  • Buzzards Day
  • Ides of March “Brutus Day”
  • International Day of Action Against Canadian Seal Slaughter
  • Kick Butts Day
  • National Shoe The World Day
  • True Confessions Day
  • World Consumer Rights Day
  • Pears Helene Day

On this day in...

44 BC - Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated by high ranking Roman Senators. The day is known as the "Ides of March."

1341 - During the Hundred Years War, an alliance was signed between Roman Emperor Louis IV and France's Philip VI.

1493 - Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first New World voyage.

1778 - In command of two frigates, the Frenchman la Perouse sailed east from Botany Bay for the last lap of his voyage around the world.

1781 - During the American Revolution, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse took place in North Carolina. British General Cornwallis' 1,900 soldiers defeated an American force of 4,400.

1820 -Maine was admitted as the 23rd state of the Union.

1862 - General John Hunt Morgan began four days of raids near the city of Gallatin,TN.

1864 - Red River Campaign began as the Union forces reach Alexandria,LA.

1875 - The Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, John McCloskey, was named the first American cardinal.

1877 - The first cricket test between Australia and England was played in Melbourne. Australia won by 45 runs.

1892 -New York State unveiled the new automatic ballot voting machine.

1892 - Jesse W. Reno patented the Reno Inclined Elevator. It was the first escalator.

1900 - In Paris, Sarah Bernhardt starred in the premiere of Edmond Rostand's "L'Aiglon."

1901 - German Chancellor von Bulow declared that an agreement between Russia and China over Manchuria would violate the Anglo-German accord of October 1900.

1902 - In Boston, MA, 10,000 freight handlers went back to work after a weeklong strike.

1903 - The British conquest of Nigeria was completed. 500,000 square miles were now controlled by the U.K.

1904 - Three hundred Russians were killed as the Japanese shelled Port Arthur in Korea.

1907 - In Finland, woman won their first seats in the Finnish Parliament. They took their seats on May 23.

1909 - Italy proposed a European conference on the Balkans.

1910 - Otto Kahn offered $500,000 for a family portrait by Dutch artist FransHals. Kahn had outbid J.P. Morgan for the work.

1913 -U.S. President Woodrow Wilson held the first open presidential news conference.

1916 -U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent 12,000 troops, under General Pershing, over the border of Mexico to pursue bandit Pancho Villa. The mission failed.

1917 - Russian Czar Nicholas II abdicated himself and his son. His brother Grand Duke succeeded as czar.

1919 - The American Legion was founded in Paris.

1922 - Fuad I assumed the title of king of Egypt after the country gained nominal independence from Britain.

1934 - Henry Ford restored the $5 a day wage.

1935 - Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda banned four Berlin newspapers.

1937 - In Chicago,IL, the first blood bank to preserve blood for transfusion by refrigeration was established at the Cook County Hospital.

1938 - Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia.

1939 - German forces occupied Bohemia and Moravia, and part of Czechoslovakia.

1944 - Cassino, Italy, was destroyed by Allied bombing.

1946 - British Premier Attlee offered India full independence after agreement on a constitution.

1948 - Sir Laurence Olivier was on the cover of "LIFE" magazine for his starring role in Shakespeare’s "Hamlet."

1949 - Clothes rationing in Great Britain ended nearly four years after the end of World War II.

1951 - General de Lattre demanded that Paris send him more troops for the fight in Vietnam.

1951 - The Persian parliament voted to nationalize the oil industry.

1954 - CBS television debuted its "Morning Show."

1955 - The U.S. Air Force unveiled a self-guided missile.

1956 - The musical "My Fair Lady" opened on Broadway.

1960 - Ten nations met in Geneva to discuss disarmament.

1960 - The first underwater park was established as Key Largo Coral Reef Preserve.

1964 - In Montreal, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were married.

1968 - TheU.S. mint halted the practice of buying and selling gold.

1970 - The musical "Purlie" opened on Broadway in New York City.

1971 - CBS television announced it was going to drop "The Ed Sullivan Show."

1977 - The first episode of "Eight is Enough" was aired on ABC-TV.

1977 - TheU.S. House of Representatives began a 90-day test to determine the feasibility of showing its sessions on television.

1979 - Pope John Paul II published his first encyclical "RedemptorHominis." In the work he warned of the growing gap between the rich and poor.

1982 - Nicaragua's ruling junta proclaimed a month-long state of siege and suspended the nation's constitution for one day. This came a day after anti-government rebels destroyed two bridges near the Honduran border.

1985 - In Brazil, two decades of military rule came to an end with the installation of a civilian government.

1989 - TheU.S. Food and Drug administration decided to impound all fruit imported from Chili after two cyanide-tainted grapes were found in Philadelphia,PA.

1989 - The U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs became the 14th Department in the President's Cabinet.

1990 - In Iraq, British journalist FarzadBazoft was hanged for spying.

1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the first executive president of the Soviet Union.

1990 - The Ford Explorer was introduced to the public.

1990 - The Soviet parliament ruled that Lithuania's declaration of independence was invalid and that Soviet law was still in force in the Baltic republic.

1991 - Four Los Angeles police officers were indicted in the beating of Rodney King on March 3, 1991.

1991 - Yugoslav President BorisavJovic resigned after about a week of anit-communist protests.

1994 -U.S. President Clinton extended the moratorium on nuclear testing until September of 1995.

1996 - The aviation firm Fokker NV collapsed.

1998 - More than 15,000 ethnic Albanians marched in Yugoslavia to demand independence for Kosovo.

1998 - CBS' "60 Minutes" aired an interview with former White House employee Kathleen Willey. Wiley saidU.S. President Clinton made unwelcome sexual advances toward her in the Oval Office in 1993.

2002 - Libyan AbdelBaset Ali MohmedAl-Megrahi began his life sentence in a Scottish jail for his role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988.

2002 - In the U.S., Burger King began selling a veggie burger. The event was billed as the first veggie burger to be sold nationally by a fast food chain.

2002 - InTexas, Andrea Yates received a life sentence for drowning her five children on June 20, 2001.

2002 - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Associated Press that theU.S. would stand by a 24-year pledge not to use nuclear arms against states that don't have them.

2004 - Clive Woodall's novel "One for Sorrow: Two for Joy" was published. Two days later Woodall sold the film rights to Walt Disney Co. for $1 million.

Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...

  • Andrew Jackson 1767
  • Emil von Behring 1854 - Physiologist
  • Jimmy McPartland 1907 - Musician
  • Samuel "Lightnin" Hopkins 1912 - Singer, guitarist
  • Macdonald Carey 1913 - Actor ("Days of Our Lives")
  • Harry James 1916 - Musician
  • Norm Van Brocklin 1926 - Football player
  • Carl Smith 1927 - Musician
  • Alan L. Bean 1932 - Astronaut
  • Cecil Taylor 1933 - Piano player
  • Judd Hirsch 1935 - Actor ("Taxi")
  • Jimmy Lee Swaggart 1935 - Pastor
  • Phil Lesh 1940 - Musician (The Grateful Dead)
  • Mike Love 1941 - Musician (The Beach Boys)
  • David Costell 1944 - Musician (Gary Lewis & The Playboys)
  • Sly Stone 1944 - Musician (Sly & the Family Stone)
  • Tracy Smith 1945 - Runner
  • Bobby Bonds 1946 - Baseball player
  • Howard Scott 1946 - Musician (War)
  • Ry Cooder 1947 - Musician
  • Dee Snider 1953 - Musician (Twisted Sister)
  • Craig Wasson 1954 - Actor
  • Park Overall 1957 - Actress
  • Harold Baines 1959 - Baseball player
  • Fabio 1961 - Model
  • Terry Cummings 1961 - Basketball player
  • Terence Trent D'Arby 1962 - Singer
  • Bret Michaels 1963 - Musician (Poison)
  • Rockwell (Kenneth Gordy) 1964 - Singer
  • Mark McGrath 1968 - Singer (Sugar Ray)
  • Kim Raver 1969 - Actress ("24")
  • Mark Hoppus 1972 - Musician (Blink 182)
  • Eva Longoria Parker 1975 - Actress ("Desperate Housewives")
  • will.i.am 1975 - Musician (Black Eyed Peas)
  • Joseph "Joe" Hahn 1977 - Musician (Linkin Park)
  • Kevin Youkilis 1979 - Baseball player
  • Young Buck 1981 - Rapper
  • Kellan Lutz 1985 - Actor ("Twilight")
  • Caitlin Wachs 1989 - Actress ("Thirteen Days")

David Latulippe is host of On the Arts, KALW's weekly radio magazine of the performing arts, as well as for Explorations in Music, and the Berkeley Symphony broadcasts. He has also hosted and produced the radio series From the Conservatory, Music from Mills, and Music at Menlo, and is principal guest host for Revolutions Per Minute.