This Week in #History ... March 28th - April 3rd

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Mar 28
1738 English parliament declares war on Spain (War of Jenkin's Ear)
1794 Louvre opens to the public (although officially opened since August)
1797 Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire patents a washing machine
1866 1st ambulance goes into service
1891 1st world weightlifting championship held
1922 1st microfilm device introduced
1939 Spanish Civil War ends, Madrid falls to Francisco Franco
1944 Astrid Lindgren sprains ankle and begins writing Pippi Longstocking
1957 1st National Curling Championship held
1964 9.2 earthquake shakes Prince William Sound, Alaska
1974 Rock group Raspberries breakup
1993 Type II supernova detected in M81 (NGC 3031)
2010 The BBC finds evidence of a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo carried out by the Lord's Resistance Army last December, in which 321 people, including children, were killed

Mar 29
1461 Battle near Towton Field, 33,000 die (War of the Roses)
1795 Beethoven (24) debuts as pianist in Vienna
1827 20,000 attend Ludwig von Beethovens burial in Vienna
1848 Niagara Falls stops flowing for 30 hours due to an ice jam
1886 Chemist John Pemberton begins to advertise for Coca-Coke
1912 Captain Robert Scott, storm-bound in a tent near South Pole, makes last entry in his diary "the end cannot be far"
1936 Nazi propaganda claims 99% of Germans voted for Nazi candidates
1943 Meat, butter and cheese rationed in U.S. during WW II
1961 After a 4 year trial Nelson Mandela is acquitted on treason charge
1971 Development of a serum hepatitis vaccine for children announced
1974 Mariner 10's, 1st fly-by of Mercury, returns photos
1987 Wrestlemania III - 93,173 watch Hulk Hogan beat Andre the Giant
1995 Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Chicago, Illinois on WCKG 105.9 FM
2010 At least 38 are killed and 60 injured when two female suicide bombers carry out two separate terrorist attacks at Moscow Metro stations Lubyana and Park Kultury

Mar 30
1778 Playwright Voltaire crowned with laurel wreath
1814 Britain and allies march into Paris after defeating Napoleon
1842 Ether was used as an anaesthetic for 1st time by Dr. Crawford Long
1858 Pencil with attached eraser patented by Hyman L. Lipman
1889 John T. Reid opens 1st U.S. golf course in Yonkers, New York
1923 Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, formed at Howard U in 1920, incorporates
1932 Amelia Earhart is 1st woman to fly solo cross the Atlantic
1950 Phototransistor invention announced, Murray Hill, New Jersey
1970 U.S.S.R. wins its 8th straight world hockey championship
1981 President Reagan shot and wounded by John W Hinckley III
1991 1st exhibition of baseball game at Joe Robbie Stadium (Yankees - Orioles)
2010 8 Indian vessels are hijacked and 120 sailors are abducted by Somali pirates and off the cost of Kismayo

Mar 31
1831 Quebec and Montreal incorporated
1880 1st town completely illuminated by electric lighting (Wabash, Indiana)
1889 300m Eiffel Tower officially opens, commemorates French Revolution
1896 Whitcomb Judson, Chicago, patents a hookless fastening, also known as the zipper
1903 Richard Pearse flies monoplane several hundred yards (New Zealand)
1918 1st daylight savings time in U.S. goes into effect
1921 Albert Einstein lectures in New York on his new theory of relativity
1933 German Republic gives power to Hitler
1948 Congress passes Marshall Aid Act to rehabilitate war-torn Europe
1959 Dalai Lama fled China and was granted political asylum in India
1967 1st time Jimi Hendrix burns his guitar (London)
1981 1st Golden Raspberry Awards: Can't Stop the Music wins
1991 Albania offers 1st multi-party election in 50 years
2010 Tear gas is fired on more than 200 Palestinians and their allies protesting outside the gates of Ofer Prison over the recent detainment of colleagues

Apr 1
1578 William Harvey of England discovers blood circulation
1748 Ruins of Pompeii found
1778 Oliver Pollock, a New Orleans businessman, creates
1826 Samuel Morey patents internal combustion engine
1889 1st dishwashing machine marketed in Chicago
1927 1st automatic record changer introduced by His Master's Voice
1929 Louie Marx introduces Yo-Yo
1934 Bonnie and Clyde kill 2 police officers
1948 Big Bang theory proposed in Physical Review by Alpher, Bethe and Gamow
1957 Trial begins in Budapest against participants of october uprising
1964 John Lennon is reunited with his father Freddie after 17 years
1971 U.S. and Canada ISIS 2 launched to study ionosphere
1983 Anti-nuke demonstrators link arms in 14-mile human chain in England
1991 Warsaw Pact officially dissolves
2010 Northern Ireland's electricity is knocked out; nearly 25,000 homes remain powerless

Apr 2
1513 Florida discovered, claimed for Spain by Ponce de Leon
1792 U.S. authorizes $10 Eagle, $5 half-Eagle and 2.50 quarter-Eagle gold coins and silver dollar, dollar, quarter, dime and half-dime
1870 Victoria Woodhull is 1st woman to be nominated for U.S. president
1902 1st motion picture theater opens in Los Angeles
1908 Mills Committee declares baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday
1917 Jeannette Rankin becomes 1st women member of U.S. House of Representatives
1935 Sir Watson-Watt patents RADAR
1954 Plans to build Disneyland 1st announced
1964 U.S.S.R. launches Zond 1 to Venus; no data returned
1978 Velcro was 1st put on the market
1987 IBM introduces PS/2 and OS/2
1992 John Gotti found guilty in death of Paul Castallanos
2007 8.1 earthquake triggers tsunami in the Solomon Islands

Apr 3
1657 English Lord Protector Cromwell refuses crown
1776 Washington receives honorary Ll.D. degree from Harvard College
1860 Pony Express began between St. Joseph Missouri and Sacramento California
1882 Wood block alarm invented, when alarm rang, it dropped 20 wood blocks
1913 British suffragette Emily Pankhurst sentenced to 3 years in jail
1926 2nd flight of a liquid-fueled rocket by Robert Goddard
1933 1st airplane flight over Mount Everest
1948 1st U.S. figure skating championships held
1956 German war criminals Hinrichsen/Ruhl/Siebens/

Viebahn freed
1965 1st atomic powered spacecraft launched
1977 Boston Bruin Jean Ratelle scores his 1,000th NHL point
1985 French government adopts equal electoral system
2010 Rescuers in Shanxi, China, enter a flooded mine to help over 153 workers who have been trapped for over a week



This Week In #History ... March 21 - 27

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Mar 21
1697 Czar Peter the Great begins tour through West-Europe
1788 Gustavus Vassa petitions Queen Charlotte, to free enslaved Africans
1871 Journalist Henry M. Stanley begins his famous expedition to Africa
1924 Mass Investors Trust becomes 1st mutual fund set up in US
1935 Persia officially renamed Iran
1943 Assassination attempt on Hitler fails
1952 Alan Freed presents Moondog Coronation Ball at old Cleveland Arena, 25,000 attend 1st rock and roll concert ever
1962 A bear becomes the 1st creature to be ejected at supersonic speeds
1969 John and Yoko stage their 1st bed-in for peace (Amsterdam Hilton)
1975 Ethiopia ends monarchy after 3000 years
1984 Part of Central Park is named Strawberry Fields honoring John Lennon
2010 A suicide bomb attack in Geresh, Helmand Province, Afganistan kills ten people and injures 7

Mar 22
1457 Gutenberg's Bible became the 1st printed book
1630 1st colonial legislation prohibiting gambling enacted (Boston)
1733 Joseph Priestly invents carbonated water (seltzer)
1790 Thomas Jefferson becomes the 1st U.S. Secretary of State
1872 Illinois becomes 1st state to require sexual equality in employment
1888 English Football League established
1914 World's 1st airline, St. Petersburg - Tampa Airboat Line, begins
1922 British court sentences Mahatma Gandhi to 6 years in prison
1946 1st U.S. rocket to leave the Earth's atmosphere (50 miles up)
1960 1st patent for lasers, granted to Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes
1972 Congress approves Equal Rights Amendment (never ratified)
1985 NASA launches Intelsat VA
2010 The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 is passed by the U.S. House of Representatives

Mar 23
1490 1st dated edition of Maimonides "Mishna Torah" published
1794 1st U.S. patent (Joseph G Pierson for a riveting machine)
1839 1st recorded use of "OK" [oll korrect] (Boston's Morning Post)
1840 Draper takes 1st successful photo of the Moon (daguerrotype)
1861 London's 1st tramcars, designed by Mr. Train of New York, begins operating
1910 1st race at Los Angeles Motordrome (1st U.S. auto speedway)
1912 Dixie Cup invented
1925 Tennessee becomes 1st state to outlaw teaching theory of evolution
1933 Enabling Act: German Reichstag grants Adolph Hitler dictatorial powers
1944 Nicholas Alkemade falls 5,500 m without a parachute and lives
1960 Explorer (8) fails to reach Earth orbit
1976 International Bill of Rights goes into effect (35 nations ratifying)
1989 2 Utah scientists claim they have produced fusion at room temperature
2001 Russian Mir space station is crashed into the Pacific during a controlled re-entry

Mar 24
1603 Scottish king James VI becomes King James I of England
1828 Philadelphia and Columbia Railway (1st state owned) authorized
1882 Dr. Robert Koch discovers germ that causes tuberculosis
1898 1st automobile sold
1920 1st U.S. coast guard air station established (Morehead City, NC)
1930 Planet Pluto named
1941 Glenn Miller begins work on his 1st movie for 20th Century Fox
1955 1st seagoing oil drill rig placed in service
1964 Kennedy half-dollar issued
1982 U.S. submarine Jacksonville collides with a Turkish freighter near Virginia
1992 1st Belgium in the space, Dirk Frimout on Atlantis Space Shuttle STS-45 (Atlantis 11) launches into space
2008 Bhutan holds it's first public election

Mar 25
31 1st Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus
421 Friday at 12 PM - city of Venice founded
1655 Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan (Saturn's largest satellite)
1807 1st railway passenger service began in England
1857 Frederick Laggenheim takes 1st photo of a solar eclipse
1896 Modern Olympics began in Athens, Greece
1902 Irving W. Colburn patents sheet glass drawing machine
1954 RCA manufactures 1st color TV set, a 12-inch screen for $1,000
1960 1st guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut)
1965 Martin Luther King, Jr. led 25,000 to state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama
1970 Concorde makes its 1st supersonic flight (700 MPH/1,127 KPH)
1986 Kurt Browning (Canada) becomes 1st skater to land a quadruple jump
2008 160 square mile part of the Antarctic ice shelf disintegrates

Mar 26
1636 University of Utrecht opening ceremony
1780 1st British Sunday newspaper appears (British Gazette and Sunday Monitor)
1845 Patent awarded for adhesive medicated plaster, precusor of bandaid
1859 1st sighting of Vulcan, a planet thought to orbit inside Mercury
1885 Eastman Film Co. manufactures 1st commercial motion picture film
1910 U.S. forbid immigration to criminals, anarchists, paupers and the sick
1927 Gaumont-British Film Corporation forms
1934 Driving tests introduced in Britain
1943 Elsie S. Ott becomes 1st woman awarded U.S. Air Force Medal
1969 Soviet weather satellite Meteor 1 launched
1986 Geffen records signs Guns and Roses
2010 Iran calls upon Muslims around the world to act in protest in response to Israel's plans to build in East Jerusalem

Mar 27
1790 The shoelace invented
1794 U.S. Navy forms
1841 1st U.S. steam fire engine tested, New York City
1855 Abraham Gesner patents kerosene
1866 Andrew Rankin patents the urinal
1914 1st successful blood transfusion (in Brussels)
1940 Himmler orders building of Auschwitz concentration camp, at Katowice
1945 Iwo Jima occupied, after 22,000 Japanese and 6,000 U.S. killed
1958 Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet premier and 1st Secretary of Communist Party
1969 Launch of Mariner 7, flies 2,190 miles above southern Mars
1983 Larry Holmes beats Lucien Rodriguez in 12 for heavyweight boxing title
1991 Scotty Bowman and Neil Armstrong elected to NHL Hall of Fame
2010 Thousands of 'red shirt' protesters demand fresh elections, causing Thai troops to retreat

This Week In #History ... March 7-13th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Ula Vovk

Mar 7
1778 Captain James Cook 1st sights Oregon coast, at Yaquina Bay
1854 Charles Miller patents 1st U.S. sewing machine to stitch buttonholes
1876 Alexander Graham Bell patents telephone
1908 Cincinnati Mayor Mark Breith stood before city council and announces that, "women are not physically fit to operate automobiles" ('scuse me?)
1911 Willis Farnsworth, Petaluma, California, patents coin-operated locker
1912 Roald Amundsen announces discovery of the South Pole
1926 1st transatlantic telephone call, London - New York
1933 Game of "Monopoly" invented
1954 Russia wins title in their 1st international ice hockey competition
1962 Launch of OSO 1, 1st astronomy satellite (solar flare data)
1981 1st homicide at Disneyland, 18 year old is stabbed to death
1996 1st surface photos of Pluto by Hubble Space Telescope
2010 Iraqi voters take part in parliamentary elections and a referendum on the Status of Forces Agreement


Mar 8
1855 1st train crosses 1st U.S. railway suspension bridge, Niagara Falls
1887 Everett Horton, Connecticut, patents fishing rod of telescoping steel tubes
1910 Baroness Raymonde de Laroche of Paris is 1st licensed female pilot
1911 1st International Woman's Day
1927 Pan American Airlines incorporates
1941 1st baseball player drafted into WW II (Hugh Mulcahy, Phillies)
1946 1st helicopter licensed for commercial use (New York City)
1961 U.S. nuclear submarine Patrick Henry arrives at Scottish naval base of Holy Loch from South Carolina in a record underseas journey of 66 days 22 hours
1965 1st U.S. combat forces arrive in Vietnam (3,500 Marines)
1972 1st flight of the Goodyear blimp
1986 Martina Navratilova is 1st tennis player to earn $10 million
2010 35 suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia are captured by the French Navy, the European Union's most successful mission


Mar 9
1497 Nicolaus Copernicus 1st recorded astronomical observation
1562 Kissing in public banned in Naples (punishable by death)
1798 Dr. George Balfour becomes 1st naval surgeon in the U.S. navy
1858 Albert Potts of Philadelphia patents the street mailbox
1882 False teeth patented
1907 1st involuntary sterilization law enacted, Indiana
1918 Russian Bolshevik Party becomes the Communist Party
1945 Japanese proclaim "independence" of Indo-China
1953 Josef Stalin buried in Moscow
1959 Barbie, the popular girls' doll, debuted, over 800 million sold
1964 1st Ford Mustang produced
1986 Soviet probe Vega 2 flies by Halley's Comet at 8,030 km
2010 Alphalara itadori, a Japanese insect that combats invasive Japanese knotweed, is the first biocontrol agent approved by the European Union


Mar 10
1791 John Stone, Concord, Massachusetts, patents a pile driver
1862 U.S. issues 1st paper money ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 and $1000)
1876 1st telephone call made (Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Watson)
1910 China ends slavery
1925 Walter Mittelholzer is 1st to flies over Demawend mountain, Iran
1933 Nevada becomes 1st U.S. state to regulate narcotics
1945 Japan declares Vietnam Independence
1951 FBI director J. Edgar Hoover declines post of baseball commissioner
1975 Dog spectacles patented in England
1987 Vatican formal opposition to test-tube fertilization and embryo transfer
2006 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enters Mars orbit


Mar 11
1302 Romeo and Juliet's wedding day, according to Shakespeare
1669 Volcano Etna in Italy erupts killing 15,000
1702 1st English daily newspaper "Daily Courant," publishes
1850 Woman's Medical College of Penn. (1st female medical school)
1917 British troops occupy Baghdad
1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Lend-Lease Bill to lend money to Britain
1953 1st woman army doctor commissioned (FM Adams)
1960 Pioneer 5 launched into solar orbit between Earth and Venus
1974 Rhino Store gives people 5 cents to take home Danny Bonaduce's Album
1985 Mikhail Gorbachev replaces Konstantin Chernenko as Soviet leader
1997 Ashes of Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry are launched into space
2006 Slobodan Milosevic found dead in cell in the Hague


Mar 12
1365 University of Vienna founded
1642 Abel Tasman is 1st European in New Zealand
1755 1st steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine
1849 1st gold seekers arrive in Nicaragua en route to California
1868 Congress abolishes manufacturer's tax
1896 1st movie in Netherlands (Kalverstr 220)
1904 1st main line electric train in U.K. (Liverpool to Southport)
1934 Josip Broz (Tito) freed from jail
1945 New York is 1st to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment
1958 British Empire Day is renamed "Commonwealth Day"
1970 U.S. lowers voting age from 21 to 18
1981 Soyuz T-4 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 6 space station
1994 Church of England ordains 1st 33 women priests


Mar 13
1519 Cortez lands in Mexico
1639 Cambridge College renamed Harvard for clergyman John Harvard
1887 Chester Greenwood of Maine patents earmuffs
1894 J L Johnstone of England invents horse racing starting gate
1921 Mongolia (formerly Outer Mongolia) declares independence from China
1930 Clyde Tombaugh announces discovery of Pluto at Lowell Observatory
1943 Failed assassin attempt on Hitler during Smolensk-Rastenburg flight
1961 John F. Kennedy sets up the Alliance for Progress
1969 Apollo 9 returns to Earth
1979 European Monetary System is established, ECU created
1987 John Gotti is acquitted of racketeering
2010 Six people are killed by a remotely operated bomb while travelling in southern Afghanistan in Tirin Kot, the capital of Afghanistan's Uruzgan province

This Week In #History ... February 28th - March 6th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Feb 28
1692 Salem witch hunt begins
1759 Pope Clement XIII allows Bible to be translated into various languages
1883 1st U.S. vaudeville theater opens in Boston
1917 Russian Duma sets up Provisional Committee; workers set up Soviets
1933 Hitler disallows German Communist Party (KPD)
1956 Forrester issued a patent for computer core memory
1959 Launch of Discoverer 1 (WTR)-1st polar orbit
1970 Bicycles permitted to cross Golden Gate Bridge
1977 1st killer whale born in captivity (Marineland, Los Angeles California)
2010 Egypt announces the discovery of a granite head from a statue of Tutankhamun's grandfather, Amenhotep III, buried at a temple in Luxor

Happy birthday to Michel de Montaigne, Jobst Burgi, Thomas Newcomen, Rene-Antoine de Reaumur, D. Francois J. Arago, Karl Earnest Ritter von Baer, Ernest Renan, Hermann Schell, Jacob P Vis, Vyacheslav I Ivanov, Jose Vasconcelos, Victor Sutherland, Ben Hecht, Linus Pauling, Stephen Harold Spender, Olan Soule, Zero "Samuel" Mostel, John Bouber, John Swire, Bettye Ackerman, Leon Cooper, Gavin MacLeod, Jeff Farrell, Frank Bonner, Mimsy Farmer, Charles "Bubba" Smith, Mercedes Ruehl, Gustavo Thoeni, Jennie Lynn, Gilbert Gottfried, John Turturro, Rae Dawn Chong, Noureddine Morceli, Rory Cochrane, Ali Larter.

Mar 1
1642 Georgeana (York), Maine became the 1st incorporated American city
1780 Pennsylvania becomes 1st U.S. state to abolish slavery (for new-borns only)
1803 Ohio becomes 17th state
1864 Louis Ducos du Hauron patents movie machine (never built)
1872 Yellowstone becomes world's 1st national park
1912 Albert Berry makes 1st parachute jump from an airplane
1937 1st permanent automobile license plates issued (Connecticut)
1941 "Captain America" appears in a comic book
1961 President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corp
1966 Venera 3 becomes 1st man-made object to impact on a planet (Venus)
1978 Charlie Chaplin's coffin was stolen from a Swiss cemetery
1988 Wayne Gretzky passes Gordie Howe with his record 1,050th NHL assist
2010 Ejup Ganic, former President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is stopped while trying to escape war crime charges, at London Heathrow airport

Happy birthday to Johann B Schup, Jacob Gottfried Weber, Vittorio Bersezio, Matthias J. Scheeben, William Dean Howells, Georg Simmel, Rebecca Lee, Lytton Strachey, Oskar Kokoschka, Paul Hartman, Terence De Marney, David Niven, Ralph Waldo Ellison, Roger Delgado, Howard Nemerov, Jack Clayton, Michael Flanders, Yitzhak Rabin, Donald "Deke" Kent Slayton, Robert Clary, Raymond St. Jacques, Joan Hackett, Marion Farouk-Sluglett, Leo Brouwer, Louis Gerstner, Jerry Fischer, Peter Guber, John Leeson, Mauro Checcoli, Franz Hohler, Roger Daltrey, Dirk Benedict, Tony Ashton, Ron Howard, Catherine Bach, Clinton Gregory, Javier Bardem, Jack Davenport, Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

Mar 2
1789 Pennsylvania ends prohibition of theatrical performances
1829 New England Asylum for the Blind, 1st in U.S., incorporated, Boston
1866 1st U.S. company to make sewing needles by machine incorporated, Connecticut
1923 Time magazine debuts
1930 1st U.S. indoor glider flight, St. Louis Terminal Building
1949 1st automatic street light (New Milford, Ct)
1958 1st surface crossing of Antarctic continent is completed in 99 days
1969 1st test flight of the supersonic Concorde
1976 Walt Disney World logged its 50 millionth guest
1983 Final episode of M*A*S*H; 125,000,000 viewers
1994 Miami begins a latin walk of fame, 1st star for Gloria Estefan
2009 Joao Bernardo Vierira, President of Guinea-Bissau is assassinated during an armed attack on his residence in Bissau

Happy birthday to Thomas Bodley, Camille Desmoulins, Samuel Houston, Constantine D. Uschinsky, Gosta Forsell, Wallis Clark, Felix Bressart, Edward Uhler Condon, Theodor Geisel - Dr. Seuss, William Hansen, Marjorie Weaver, Martin Ritt, Jennifer Jones, Philip K. Dick, John Cullum, Tom Wolfe, Al Waxman, Ricardo Lagos, Barbara Luna, John Irving, Katherine Crawford, Gordon Thompson, Rory Gallagher, Eddie Money, Mitchel Laurance, Cassie Yates, Laraine Newman, John Cowsill, Larry Stewart, Daniel Craig, Amber Smith, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Biel.

Mar 3
1634 1st tavern in Boston opens (Samuel Cole)
1791 1st internal revenue act (taxing distilled spirits and carriages)
1845 Florida becomes 27th state
1869 University of South Carolina opens to all races
1885 American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) incorporates
1915 National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NASA forerunner) created
1934 John Dillinger breaks out of jail using a wooden pistol
1959 1st U.S. probe to enter solar orbit, Pioneer 4, launched
1969 Apollo 9 launched for 151 Earth orbits (10 days)
1985 Bill (Willie) Shoemaker is 1st jockey to surpass $100 million
2005 Steve Fossett flys the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer to a world record by completing the first non-stop, non-refueled, solo flight around the world

Happy birthday to Edward Herbert of Cherbury, William Godwin, George M. Pullman, George W. Hill, John Murray, Georg Cantor, Alexander Graham Bell, Wee Willie Keeler, Garrett Morgan, Edward Thomas, Edmund Lowe, Bill Nestell, Robert Gordon, Ragnar Frisch, Juanita Hansen, Edna Best, Ruby Dandridge, Donald Novis, Jay Morris Arena, Arthur Kornberg, James Doohan, Diana Barrymore, Richard Vernon, James Merrill, Gia Scala, Douglas Leedy, Mike Pender, Chris Hughes, Miranda Richardson, Lisa Ann Poggi, Tone-Loc, Diann Roffe-Steinrotter, Julie Bowen, Martin Prochazka, David Faustino, Ronan Keating, Kim Smith.

Mar 4
1675 John Flamsteed appointed 1st Astronomer Royal of England
1791 Vermont admitted as 14th state (1st addition to the 13 colonies)
1826 1st U.S. Railroad chartered, Granite Railway in Quincy, Massachsetts
1849 U.S. had no president, Polks term ends on a Sunday, Taylor couldn't be sworn-in, Senator David Atchison (President pro tem) term ended March 3rd
1881 Holmes and Watson begin "A Study in Scarlet," 1st case together
1923 Lenin's last article in Pravda (about Red bureaucracy)
1955 1st radio facsimile transmission sent across the continent
1962 AEC announces 1st atomic power plant in Antarctica in operation
1979 U.S. Voyager I photo reveals Jupiter's rings
1997 President Clinton bans federally funded human cloning research

Happy birthday to Henry the Navigator, Antonio Vivaldi, Benjamin Waterhouse, Charles Dibdin, Wijnand J J Nuijen, Giovanni Schiaparelli, Pearl White, Edgar Barrier, John Garfield, Hans Eysenck, Joan Greenwood, Patrick Moore, Thayer David, Alan Sillitoe, Paula Prentiss, John Hancock, Zoltan Jeney, Bobby Womack, Dieter Meier, Michael Ashcroft, Jean O'Leary, Shakin' Stevens, Billy Gibbons, Emilio Estefan, Gwen Welles, Patricia Heaton, Kelly Lynch, Steven Weber, Stacy Edwards, Tim Vine, Patsy Kensit, Dionna Harris, Chastity Bono.

Mar 5
1558 Smoking tobacco introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes
1770 Boston Massacre, British troops kill 5 in crowd. Crispus Attackus becomes 1st black to die for American freedom
1836 Samuel Colt manufactures 1st pistol, 34-caliber "Texas" model
1868 Stapler patented in England by C. H. Gould
1872 George Westinghouse, Jr. patents triple air brake for trains
1933 Germany's Nazi Party wins majority in parliament (43.9%-17.2M votes)
1956 "King Kong," 1st televised
1968 U.S. launches Solar Explorer 2 to study the Sun
1979 Voyager I's closest approach to Jupiter (172,000 miles)
2010 Gordon Brown, United Kingdom's Prime Minister, gives evidence to the Iraq Inquiry

Happy birthday to William Oughtred, John van der Heyden, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Jacques Babinet, James Merritt Ives, Elisha Harris, Constance Fenimore Woolson, Isabella Gregory, Howard Pyle, Rosa Luxemburg, Henry Travers, Paul Radmilovic, Henry Daniell, Ludwig Donath, Lowell Peters, Sophie Stewart, Joan Sterndale Bennett, Joseph Tomelty, Virginia Christine, Joan Shawlee, Dean Stockwell, Michael D[iamond] Resnick, Paul Sands, Randy Matson, Michael Warren, Harvey Jacob Alperin, Marsha Warfield, Penn Jillette, Mark Handley, Matt Robinson, Matt Lucas, Eva Mendes, Kevin Connolly, Jolene Blalock, Jake Lloyd.

Mar 6
1521 Magellan discovers Guam
1646 Joseph Jenkes, MA, receives 1st colonial machine patent
1899 "Asprin" patented by Felix Hoffmann
1918 U.S. naval boat "Cyclops" disappears in Bermuda Triangle
1940 1st U.S. telecast from an airplane, New York City
1947 XB-45, 1st U.S. 4-engine jet bomber, makes 1st test flight, Muroc, California
1961 1st London minicabs introduced
1967 Muhammad Ali is ordered by selective service to be inducted
1980 French Academy, founded in 1635, elects it 1st woman novelist (Marguerita Youcenar)
1991 Following Iraq's capitulation in the Persian Gulf conflict, President Bush told Congress that "Aggression is defeated. The war is over."
2007 Mega Millions has the highest lottery jackpot ever, $370 million dollars

Happy birthday to Michelangelo, Jean Luis Vives, Cyrano de Bergerac, Joseph von Fraunhofer, Aaron Lufkin Dennison, Guy Kibbee, Fernand Ansseau, Victor Kilian, Jay C. Flippen, Ludwig Donath, Elizabeth Pinkston Becker, Bob Wills, Charles Frank, Madge Adam, Ella Logan, Roger Price, Frankie Howerd, William Hedgcock Webster, Ann Curtis, William J. Bell, John Smith, Carmen Delavallade, Ronnie Delaney, Valentina V Tereshkova-Nikolayev, Lovelace Watkins, David Spielberg, Joanna Miles, David Gilmore, Rob Reiner, Anna Maria Horsford, Tony Klatka, Martin Kove, Kiki Dee, Jackie Zeman, Alan Davies, Moira Kelly, Connie Britton, Andrea Elson, Amy Pietz, Shaquille O'Neal, Ellen Muth. 

This Week In #History ... February 21- 27th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Feb 21

1804 1st locomotive, Richard Trevithick's, runs for 1st time, in Wales
1858 Edwin T. Holmes installs 1st electric burglar alarm (Boston, Massachusetts)
1878 1st telephone book issued, 50 subscribers (New Harbor, Connecticut)
1902 Dr. Harvey Cushing, 1st U.S. brain surgeon, does his 1st brain operation
1916 Battle of Verdun in WW I begins (1 million casualties)
1925 1st issue of "New Yorker" magazine published
1932 Camera exposure meter patented, W. N. Goodwin
1947 1st instant developing camera demonstrated in New York City, by E H Land
1953 Francis Crick and James Watson discover structure of DNA-molecule
1995 RAF-pilot Jo Salter is 1st woman to fly in a tornado

Happy birthday to Justus van Effen, Willem van Haren, Friedrich C von Savigny, Karl A. Varnhagen von Ense, John Henry Newman, Ernest Meissonier, Clement-Philibert-Leo Delibes, [James] Burner Matthews, Hendrik P Berlage, Sacha Guitry, Willem Banning, Felix Aylmer, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Celia Lovsky, Sydney Arnold, Madeleine Renaud, Anais Nin, W. H. Auden, Arline Judge, Ann Sheridan, Lucille Bremer, Sam Peckinpah, Hubert de Givenchy, Larry Hagman, Rue McClanahan, Mark McManus, Gary Lockwood, Richard Beymer, Tyne Daly, Alan Rickman, Christine Ebersole, Chuck Palahniuk, Christopher Atkins, Petra Kronberger, Charlotte Church.

Feb 22

1775 1st U.S. joint stock company (to make cloth) offers shares at 10 cents
1865 Tennessee adopts a new constitution abolishing slavery
1900 Hawaii became a U.S. territory
1928 1st solo England to Australia flight lands (Bert Hinkler)
1941 Nazi SS begin rounding up Jews of Amsterdam
1956 1st British soccer match at Kunstlicht: Portsmouth vs Newcastle United
1989 U.K. physicist Stephen Hawking calls Star Wars a "deliberate fraud"
2006 Apple's iTunes store sells it's 1 billionth song
2010 Germany and the European Union deny planning a 20 - 25 billion euro financial aid plan for Greece

Happy birthday to Charles VII, Peter Bornemisza, Anthony Van Dyck, George Washington, Karl Jacob Wagner, Matthijs I van Bree, Joachim Nicolas Eggert, Adolphe Quetelet, Niels Wilhelm Gade, Adolf Kuszmaul, Pierre Jules Cesar Janssen, Robert Baden-Powell, Heinrich Hertz, Johannes Bronsted, Robin G Collingwood, Jan Wils, David Dubinsky, Dwight Frye, Giorgios Seferis, Mildred Davis, Gale Gordon, Sheldon Leonard, Dan Seymour, Giulietta Masina, Andre Asriel, Gerard Hoffnung, Paul Dooley, Marni Nixon, Allison Hayes, Bobby Hendricks, Jonathan Demme, Sylvette Miou-Miou, Julie Walters, Ellen Greene, Gigi Fernandez, Jeri Ryan, Jose Solano, Drew Barrymore, David Lopez.

Feb 23
1455 Johannes Gutenberg prints 1st book, Bible (estimated date)
1822 Boston is incorporated as a city
1861 By popular referendum, Texas becomes 7th state to secede from U.S.
1886 London Times publishes world's 1st classified ad
1936 1st rocket air mail flight, Greenwood Lake, New York
1945 U.S. Marines raise flag on Iwo Jima, famous photo and statue
1967 U.S. troops begin largest offensive of Vietnam War
1980 Oil tanker explosion off Pilos, Greece, causes 37-million-gallon spill
1991 North Carolina is 1st NCAA basketball team to win 1,500 games
1997 Scientists in Scotland announced they succeeded in cloning an adult mammal, producing a lamb named "Dolly"

Happy birthday to Samuel Pepys, John Blow, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, John Walter II, Emma Willard, U.S., Herman N van der Tuuk, Norman Lindsay, Victor Fleming, Frank Cellier, Frederik M baron of Asbeck, Kathleen Harrison, Erich Kastner, Johnny Carey, Johnny Seven, Harry Boldt, Gerry Davis, Tom Wesselmann, Lee Quencey Calhoun, Diane Varsi, Majel Barrett, William Hjortsberg, Jada Rowland, Rusty Young, Colin Sanders, Patricia Richardson, Brad Whitford, Sallie L. Baliunas, Michael Wilton, Kristin Davis, Stephanie Seymour, Jason & Shane Keller, Dakota Fanning.

Feb 24

1888 Louisville, Kentucky becomes 1st government in U.S. to adopt Australian ballot
1895 Cuban war for independence begins
1938 Du Pont begins commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles
1949 V-2/WAC-Corporal 1st rocket to outer space, White Sands, NM, 400 km
1976 Cuba adopts its constitution
1986 Voyager 2, 1st Uranus flyby
1988 Matti Nykanen becomes winter olympics 1st triple gold medalist
2008 Fidel Castro resigns as President of Cuba, his brother Raul Castro is unanimously elected

Happy birthday to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Bernard S Albinus, Wilhelm Karl Grimm, Albert Schaffle, Winslow Homer, George A. Moore, Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski, Bert Lytell, Marjorie Main, Max Black, Zachary Scott, Frank Rogers, Douglass Watson, Abe Vigoda, Lionel Dakers, Paul B Elvstrom, Michael Harrington, Al Lettieri, Barbara Lawrence, John Vernon, Linda Cristal, Phil Knight, James Farentino, David K Williamson, Sheila Larkin, Rubert Holmes, Helen Shaver, Steve Jobs, Judith Butler, Michelle Shocked, Mitch Hedberg, Jonathan Ward, Manon Rheaume, Alexis Jose Grullon.

Feb 25

1836 Samuel Colt patents 1st revolving barrel multishot firearm
1837 1st U.S. electric printing press patented by Thomas Davenport
1908 1st tunnel under Hudson River (railway tunnel) opens
1930 Check photographing device patented
1932 Immigrant Adolf Hitler gets German citizenship
1956 Khrushchev denounces Stalin at 20th Soviet Party Conference
1977 Soyuz 24 returns to Earth
1989 1st independent blue-collar labor union in Communist Hungary forms
2010 After being delayed by the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych is sworn in as the 4th President of Ukraine

Happy birthday to Simon Stijl, Taras Shevchenko, Otto Liebmann, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Menso Kamerlingh Onnes, Leonard Carey, Howard Wendell, William Thomas Astbury, [Herbert] Zeppo Marx, Warren Hymer, Shimen Rushkin, Richard Wattis, Jim Backus, Gert Froebe, Ian Wallace, Anthony Burgess, Henry Norwood Ewell, Hayes Gordon, Bert Remsen, Jane Nigh, Dick Jones, Larry Gelbart, Tommy Newsom, Tom Courtenay, Marisa Mell, Jud Taylor, Susan Browning, Karen Grassle, Elkie Brooks, Lee Edward Evans, G B Warren, Neil Jordan, Davie Cooper, Nancy O'Dell, Stacey Cortez, Sean Astin.

Feb 26

1870 1st New York City subway line opens (pneumatic powered)
1881 SS Ceylon begins 1st round-the-world cruise from Liverpool
1930 1st red and green traffic lights installed (Manhattan, New York City)
1935 RADAR-Radio Detection and Ranging 1st demonstrated (Robert Watson-Watt)
1968 Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People (Communist) final transmission
1977 1st flight of Space Shuttle (atop a Boeing 747)
1984 Pak Awang (84) marries 80th spouse
1993 2nd tallest building in world, New York City World Trade Center bombed, 7 die
2009 Former Serbian President Milan Mulutinovic is acquitted of war crimes during the Kosovo War

Happy birthday to Christopher Marlowe, Victor Hugo, Carlos Calvo, Richard Andree, Herbert Henry Dow, Nadezjda K Krupskaja, Erich R Jaensch, William Frawley, Madeleine Carroll, Tex Avery, Jon Hall, Robert Alda, Mason Adams, Beppie Nooij, Tony Randall, Betty Hutton, Margaret Leighton, Cynthia Stone, Godfrey Cambridge, Manmohan Desai, Jack Knight, Joop van den Ende, Paul Cotton, Bill Duke, Marta Kristen, Phyllis Eisenstein, Sandi Shaw, Priscilla Lopez, Jonathan Cain, Keena Rothhammer, Connie Carpenter-Phinney, Alison Armitage, Meeno Peluce, Katie O'Neill, Erykah Badu.

Feb 27

1700 Pacific Island of New Britain discovered
1827 1st Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans
1883 Oscar Hammerstein patents 1st cigar-rolling machine
1912 Lord Kitchener opens Khartoum-El Obeid (Nyala) railway
1942 J. S. Hey discovers radio emissions from Sun
1967 Pink Floyd release their 1st single "Arnold Layne"
1974 "People" magazine begins sales
1992 Tiger Woods, 16, becomes youngest PGA golfer in 35 years
1998 Apple discontinues developing Newton computer

Happy birthday to Constantine I, Elias Annes Borger, Richard Garnett, Ellen Terry, Charles Hubert H Parry, Rudolph Steiner, George Herbert Mead, Irving Fisher, Alice Hamilton, Luitzen Brouwers, David Sarnoff, William Demarest, Edward Brophy, Bernard F. Lyot, Ian Keith, John Steinbeck, Ethelda Bleibtrey, Renaat Verheijen, James Thomas Farrell, Franchot Tone, Gerhard Alexander, Joan Bennett, Irwin Shaw, Dexter Gordon, Guy Mitchell, Elizabeth Taylor, [Navarre] Scott Momaday, Van Williams, Virginia Maskell, Kenzo Takada, Mary Frann, Daniel Olbrychski, Franco Moschino, Garry Christian, Adam Baldwin, Michael Vartan, Christina Nigra, Josh Groban.