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Friday March 30,2012

1980 North Sea Oil Rig Collapse (highlighted story below)
1980 North Sea Oil Rig Collapse (highlighted story below)
  • 90th Day of 2012 / 276 Remaining
  • 82 Days Until Summer Begins
  • Sunrise:6:57
  • Sunset:7:32
  • 12 Hr 35 Min
  • Moon Rise:12:13pm
  • Moon Set:2:08am
  • Moon’s Phase: First Quarter
  • The Next Full Moon
  • April 6 @ 2:20pm
  • Full Pink Moon
  • Full Fish Moon
  • Full Sprouting Grass Moon
  • Full Full Fish Moon

This name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Full Fish Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.

  • Tides
  • High:4:14am/7:09pm
  • Low:11:37am
  • Rainfall
  • This Year:12.34
  • Last Year:24.61
  • Normal To Date:20.28
  • Annual Average: 22.28
  • Holidays
  • Doctor's Day
  • Grass is Always Browner on the Other Side of the Fence Day
  • National Dining Car Day
  • Check For Change in Every Coin Return You Pass Day
  • Take A Walk in the Park Day
  • Spiritual Baptist Liberation Shouter Day-Trinidad & Tobago
  • On This Day In …
  • 1533 --- Henry VIII divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
  • 1775 --- Hoping to keep the New England colonies dependent on the British, King George III formally endorses the New England Restraining Act on this day in 1775. The New England Restraining Act required New England colonies to trade exclusively with Great Britain as of July 1. An additional rule would come into effect on July 20, banning colonists from fishing in the North Atlantic. The British prime minister, Frederick, Lord North, introduced the Restraining Act and the Conciliatory Proposition to Parliament on the same day. The Conciliatory Proposition promised that no colony that met its share of imperial defenses and paid royal officials' salaries of their own accord would be taxed. The act conceded to the colonists' demand that they be allowed to provide the crown with needed funds on a voluntary basis. In other words, Parliament would ask for money through requisitions, not demand it through taxes. The Restraining Act was meant to appease Parliamentary hardliners, who would otherwise have impeded passage of the pacifying proposition. Unfortunately for North and prospects for peace, he had already sent General Thomas Gage orders to march on Concord, Massachusetts, to destroy the armaments stockpiled in the town, and take Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams into custody. The orders were given in January 1775 and arrived in Boston before the Conciliatory Proposition. Thus, on April 18, 700 Redcoats marched towards Concord Bridge. The military action led to the Revolutionary War, the birth of the United States as a new nation, the temporary downfall of Lord North and the near abdication of King George III. The Treaty of Paris marking the conflict's end guaranteed New Englanders the right to fish off Newfoundland--the right denied them by the New England Restraining Act.
  • 1814 --- European forces allied against Napoleonic France march triumphantly into Paris, formally ending a decade of French domination on the Continent. Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, seized control of the French state in 1800, and in 1804 was crowned emperor. By 1807, he controlled an empire that stretched across Europe. In 1812, however, he began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington, and enduring total defeat against an allied force in 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba, he escaped to France in early 1815 and raised a new Grand Army that enjoyed temporary success before its crushing defeat at Waterloo. He was then exiled to the island of St. Helena, where he died six years later.
  • 1842 --- From this day on, surgery would no longer painful -- at least, while it was being performed. Dr. Crawford W. Long performed the first operation while a patient was anesthetized by ether, as he removed a tumor from the neck of a boy.  Crawford had been observing several party-goers under the influence of nitrous oxide and sulfuric ether. Those folks were feeling no pain. And Crawford’s patient literally felt no pain as the good doctor removed a tumor from the man’s neck using the party concoction.  This event has been celebrated as Doctors’ Day since this day in 1933. The idea of setting aside a day to honor physicians was conceived by Eudora Brown Almond, wife of Dr. Charles B. Almond. Doctors throughout the United States celebrate in Dr. Crawford W. Long’s honor and, in honor of ether as an anesthetic.
  • 1858 --- Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania patented the writing device we call the pencil. Yes, it did have an attached eraser as well.
  • 1867 --- U.S. Secretary of State William Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million (approx 2 cents per acre), a deal widely ridiculed as "Seward's Folly."
  • 1868 --- The Pullman Palace Car Company introduced the first railroad dining car.
  • 1870 --- Following its ratification by the requisite three-fourths of the states, the 15th Amendment, granting African-American men the right to vote, is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment reads, "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." One day after it was adopted, Thomas Peterson-Mundy of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, became the first African American to vote under the authority of the 15th Amendment.
  • 1909 --- The Queensboro bridge in New York opened linking Manhattan and Queens. It was the first double decker bridge.
  • 1958 --- The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater gave its initial performance.
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  • 1964 ---- “This ... is ... ‘Jeopardy’!” One of television’s best known game shows, Jeopardy, developed by Merv Griffin, aired on NBC-TV for the first time on this day. Your category: Game Show Hosts: for 200 points. This host never missed one show in 2,500 programs. “Um, who is Art Fleming?” Right you are! The later syndicated version was hosted from 1984 by Alex Trebeck.
  • 1974 --- John Denver reached the top spot on the music charts with his hit, Sunshine on My Shoulders. It was the singer’s first number one song. Three other singles by Denver reached the top of the music world: Annie’s Song, Thank God I’m a Country Boy and I’m Sorry. Take Me Home Country Roads made it to the number two position, while Rocky Mountain High just cracked the Top 10 at number 9.
  • 1980 --- A floating apartment for oil workers in the North Sea collapses, killing 123 people. The Alexander Kielland platform housed 208 men who worked on the nearby Edda oil rig in the Ekofisk field, 235 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. Most of the Phillips Petroleum workers were from Norway, although a few were American and British. The platform, held up by two large pontoons, had bedrooms, kitchens and lounges and provided a place for workers to spend their time when not working. At about 6:30 p.m. on March 30, most of the residents were in the platform's small theater watching a movie. Although there were gale conditions in the North Sea that evening, no one was expecting that a large wave would collapse and capsize the platform. The capsizing happened very quickly, within 15 minutes of the collapse, so that many of the workers were unable to make it to the lifeboats. The Royal Air Force of Great Britain and Norwegian military both immediately sent rescue helicopters, but the poor weather made it impossible for them to help. Most of the 123 victims drowned. A subsequent investigation revealed that a previously undetected crack in one of main legs of the platform caused the structure's collapse. The Alexander Kielland sat in the water for three years before it was salvaged.
  • 1981 --- U.S. President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John W. Hinckley Jr. The president had just finished addressing a labor meeting at the Washington Hilton Hotel and was walking with his entourage to his limousine when Hinckley, standing among a group of reporters, fired six shots at the president, hitting Reagan and three of his attendants.
  • 1987 --- 'Sunflowers' by Vincent Van Gogh is sold to a Japanese buyer for $39.9 million.  There has been some controversy on whether it is possibly a fake.  During the 1990s more than 2 dozen Van Gogh's have been labeled as fakes or copies. The sale was on the 134th anniversary of the birth of the artist. Singer Don McLean wrote and sang a musical tribute to this artistic genius, titled Vincent, in April of 1972.
  • 1993 --- In "Peanuts," Charlie Brown hit his first home run.
  • 2009 --- President Barack Obama asserted 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.
  • Birthdays
  • Vincent Van Gogh
  • Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes
  • Norah Jones
  • Sean O'Casey
  • Warren Beatty
  • (M.C.) Hammer
  • Eric Clapton
  • Paul Reiser
  • Robbie Coltrane
  • Tracy Chapman
  • Anna Sewell
  • Ted Heath
  • Frankie Laine
  • Peter Marshall
  • Lene Lovich