March 14, 2015

Born on this date
Happy Birthday, Andrea Jameson!

425 years ago
1590

War
During the French Wars of Religion, Henry of Navarre and his Huguenot forces defeated the forces of the Catholic League under the Duc de Mayenne in the Battle of Ivry.

130 years ago
1885

Opera
The Mikado, by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, received its first public performance at the Savoy Theatre in London.

100 years ago
1915

Born on this date
Alexander Brott. Canadian orchestra conductor. Mr. Brott, born Joël Brod, was leader of the Montreal Orchestra, Les Concerts symphoniques de Montréal and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1945-1958 and conducted the Kingston Symphony Orchestra from 1965-1981. His son Boris, born on Alexander's 29th birthday, also became a prominent conductor. Alexander Brott died on April 1, 2005, 18 days after his 90th birthday.

War
Cornered off Robinson Crusoe Island the coast of Chile by the British Royal Navy after fleeing the Battle of the Falkland Islands, the German light cruiser SMS Dresden is abandoned and scuttled by her crew.

90 years ago
1925

Died on this date
Walter Camp, 65. U.S. football player, coach, and sportswriter. Mr. Camp, known as the "Father of American football," played halfback at Yale University from 1876-1881 and coached at Yale (1888-1892) and Stanford University (1892, 1894-1895), compiling a record of 79-5-3 and leading Yale to national championships in 1888, 1891, and 1892. He devised many of American football's basic features, including the line of scrimmage and the system of downs. Mr. Camp wrote nearly 30 books and 250 magazine articles, and pioneered the selection of the "All-America" team. He died 24 days before his 66th birthday, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a charter member in 1951.

75 years ago
1940

At the movies
Road to Singapore, directed by Victor Schertzinger, and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour, opened in theatres. It was the first in the series of "Road" pictures starring Messrs. Crosby and Hope.



War
Finland began evacuation of areas ceded to the U.S.S.R. in the Moscow Peace Treaty, signed two days earlier.

Diplomacy
U.S. Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles met in Paris for the second time with French Prime Minister Eduard Daladier.

Politics and government
Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies, a Liberal, created a new coalition cabinet that included members of the Country Party.

Economics and finance
The Brazilian government announced that it would finance the development of its own steel industry, rejecting German aid.

A U.S. Senate-House of Representatives conference agreed to, and Congress accepted, a $1,032-billion Treasury-Post Office supply bill and sent it to the White House for the signature of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Olympics
Erik von Frenckell, chairman of the Helsinki Olympic Committee, said it was too early to decide whether Helsinki would host the 1940 Summer Olympic Games.

70 years ago
1945

War
The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives went to conference over the House's May-Bailey "limited national service" bill and the Senate's "voluntary" manpower measure. The United States Army and Navy announced that starting the next day, all enlisted men aged 18-20, except radio technicians, would be assigned to the Army as combat replacements. The British Royal Air Force first made operational use of the Grand Slam bomb on Bielefeld, Germany. U.S. troops in Germany expanded their bridgehead up to 10½ miles on the east bank of the Rhine River. U.S. Marines formally raised the American flag at 9:30 A.M. stop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, while Japanese resistance continued on the slopes of the mountain. U.S. Superfortresses drooped more than 2,000 tons of fire bombs on the Japanese city of Osaka.

60 years ago
1955

On television tonight
Sherlock Holmes, starring Ronald Howard and H. Marion Crawford
Tonight's episode: The Case of the Deadly Prophecy



40 years ago
1975

Hit parade
#1 single in New Zealand: Please Mr. Postman--Carpenters (2nd week at #1)

#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Griechischer Wein--Udo Jürgens (5th week at #1)

#1 single in Switzerland: Longfellow Serenade--Neil Diamond

Died on this date
Joseph Roxbury, 61. U.S. baseball pitcher. Mr. Roxbury played with nine teams in the minor professional leagues from 1935-1945, compiling a record of 91-90 with an earned run average of 4.28. His best season was 1939, when he was 24-5 with a 3.70 ERA with Jackson of the Class B Southeastern League. Mr. Roxbury was a barber after his baseball career was over.

Susan Hayward, 57. U.S. actress. Miss Hayward, born Edythe Marrenner, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in I Want to Live! (1958). Her other movies included Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947); My Foolish Heart (1949); With a Song in My Heart (1952); I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955); and The Conqueror (1956). Miss Hayward was one of many people associated with The Conqueror to fall fatally ill with cancer; exterior filming for the movie had taken place near St. George, Utah--where nuclear weapons tests were taking place--and soil from the area was transported to Hollywood for filming there.

25 years ago
1990

Hit parade
#1 single in Sweden (Topplistan): Nothing Compares 2 U--Sinéad O'Connor (4th week at #1)

Personal
This blogger began a job as a researcher with Treaty & Aboriginal Rights Research with the Indian Association of Alberta.

Politics and government
The Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies voted Mikhail Gorbachev into the newly-created and powerful position of president and voted to begin popular elections for the presidency beginning in 1995.

The Central Committee of the People’s Revolutionary (Communist) Party in Mongolia voted to drop its monopoly on power as guaranteed by the constitution. Gombojavyn Ochirbat, a reformist leader who had been living in Czechoslovakia, was selected to replace Communist general secretary Jambyn Batmunh, and an all-new Politburo was chosen.

Diplomacy
Representatives from West Germany, East Germany, France, U.K., U.S.S.R., and U.S.A. began talks in Bonn on German reunification.

Sport
Susan Butcher won her fourth Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in the past five years, covering the 1,158 miles from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska in 11 days, 1 hour, 53 minutes, 23 seconds.

20 years ago
1995

Died on this date
William Fowler, 83. U.S. physicist. Dr. Fowler was awarded a share of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe."

Space
Soyuz TM-21, with cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov and U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard aboard, lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to begin mission Mir EO-18. Mr. Thagard became the first American astronaut to ride to space aboard a Russian launch vehicle.

War
Nine French soldiers were killed and four injured when their vehicle crashed south of Sarajevo. The soldiers were acting as United Nations peacekeepers.

10 years ago
2005

Abominations
A judge in San Francisco ruled that California's ban on sodomite/lesbian marriage was unconstitutional.

Protest
About 1 million people rallied in Beirut, demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, and the arrest of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's killers.