March 7, 2015

Born on this date
Happy Birthday, Carolyn Jagger!

250 years ago
1765

Born on this date
Nicéphore Niépce. French inventor. Mr. Niépce is credited as the inventor of photography, and took the world's first photograph in 1826 or 1827. He died on July 5, 1833 at the age of 68.

110 years ago
1905

Hockey
Stanley Cup
Rat Portage (Kenora) Thistles 9 @ Ottawa Silver Seven 3 (Rat Portage led best-of-three challenge series 1-0)

The Silver Seven had held the Cup since 1903, and had most recently defeated a challenge by the Dawson City Klondikers in January 1905.

100 years ago
1915

Born on this date
Jacques Chaban-Delmas. Prime Minister of France, 1969-1972. Mr. Chaban-Delmas, a Gaullist, was Mayor of Bordeaux from 1947-1995, and served as Prime Minister under President Georges Pompidou. He lost the 1974 presidential election to Valery Giscard D'Estaing. Mr. Chaban-Delmas died on November 10, 2000 at the age of 85.

75 years ago
1940

Died on this date
Jacinto Peynado, 62. President of the Dominican Republic, 1938-1940; Vice President of the Dominican Republic, 1934-1938. Mr. Peynado was a figurehead officeholder under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, holding several positions. He died 12 days after resigning the presidency because of ill health.

War
The U.S.S.R. and Finland agreed to armistice negotiations. The U.S.S.R. reported the occupation of several islands in Lake Ladoga and the capture of Nautsi on the Arctic front in the Finnish war. France called U.S. citizens to military service.

Diplomacy
U.S. Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles conferred with French President Albert LeBrun and Prime Minister Eduard Daladier in Paris.

Economics and finance
Arrangements were completed for a $20-million American loan to China by the Import-Export Bank.

Scandal
Former U.S. Federal Judge Martin Morton began serving a two-year prison term at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania for "conspiracy to obstruct justice and defraud the United States."

70 years ago
1945

Literature
The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced that its Howells Medal, awarded every fifth year for excellence in fiction writing, went to novelist Booth Tarkington. He was the first man to receive the medal since its inception in 1921.

War
The United States House of Representatives passed and sent to the Senate a bill which would draft all nurses aged 20-44 who were not married before March 15 and had no dependents. The United States Senate defeated the Revercomb-Robertson bill providing for "voluntary" mobilization and deployment of manpower. U.S. troops in Germany established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Rhine River by a surprise crossing at the Ludendorff railroad bridge at Remagen. Erpal, near the eastern end of the bridge, was captured, and German counterattacks were repulsed. On the west side of the Rhine, the U.S. 1st and 3rd Armies effected a junction between Remagen and Coblenz, trapping five or six German divisions. The 1st Army completed the capture of Bonn, 12 miles north of Remagen. The U.S.S.R. launched seven armies in an all-out offensive toward Berlin from the Oder River, 40 miles eastward. Chinese troops seized both New and Old Lashio, where the railroad from Rangoon joined the old Burma Road.

Politics and government
Marshal Josip Tito completed the formation of a new Yugoslavian cabinet of 28 members, with himself as Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense.

Diplomacy
In a letter to The Times of London, Sir William Beveridge denounced the proposed voting procedure in a new international security organization as "a short way to a third world war," arguing that it would place the Big Five powers above the law established for other nations.

Economics and finance
The U.S. House of Representatives Banking and Currency Committee opening hearings on the Bretton Woods Conference heard Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau call the monetary proposals "the first practical test of our willingness to cooperate in the work of world reconstruction and stabilization.

U.S. National War Labor Board Chairman Davis was named by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to be economic stabilization director. NWLB Vice Chairman Dr. George Taylor was named to succeed Mr. Davis.

Medicine
The U.S. War Production Board announced that after March 15, more than three times the former supply of penicillin for public use would be available to hospitals and physicians.

60 years ago
1955

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



Producers' Showcase, on NBC
Tonight's episode: Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard

This was the first broadcast of the Broadway musical, and was the first full-length Broadway production to be telecast in colour.



Humour
Comedienne Phyllis Diller made her stage debut at the Purple Onion in San Francisco.

50 years ago
1965

Space
The U.S.S.R. launched the satellite Cosmos 59.

Protest
A group of 600 civil rights marchers was brutally attacked by state and local police in Selma, Alabama while marching 54 miles to the state capital of Montgomery. At least 50 people were injured, and 17 hospitalized. See also here and here.

Religion
Roman Catholic churches in Canada celebrated Mass in English or French for the first time.

40 years ago
1975

Hit parade
#1 single in New Zealand: Please Mr. Postman--Carpenters

#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Griechischer Wein--Udo Jürgens (4th week at #1)

#1 single in Switzerland: I Can Help--Billy Swan (6th week at #1)

Died on this date
Ben Blue, 73. Canadian-born U.S. comedian. Mr. Blue, born Benjamin Bernstein in Montreal, moved to Baltimore at the age of 9, and was in a touring company by the age of 15. He appeared on stage, screen, and television in a career spanning more than 60 years, often playing a dumb-bell with a goofy expression.

Crime
The body of 17-year-old English heiress Lesley Whittle was found at the bottom of a drain shaft, 52 days after she had been kidnapped from her Shropshire home.

Politics and government
The United States Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present.

25 years ago
1985

On television tonight
The first episode of Television Parts, a comedy and music series starring former Monkee Michael Nesmith, was broadcast on NBC. The series evolved from Mr. Nesmith’s video Elephant Parts, which won the first Grammy Award for video for 1980-81. The featured music video in the first episode of Television Parts was for a song called Eldorado to the Moon. It was one of the best music videos I’ve ever seen; the song wasn’t released on a record until it appeared on the album The Newer Stuff, released in 1989.

Music
The single We are the World by USA for Africa received its international release.

Technology
IBM released its PC DOS Version 3.1 update.

25 years ago
1990

Hit parade
#1 single in Sweden (Topplistan): Nothing Compares 2 U--Sinéad O'Connor (3rd week at #1)

World events
White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that evidence indicated that a plant in Rabta, Libya--50 miles southwest of Tripoli--was producing chemical weapons. He called on the "international community" to "step up its efforts to deny the ability to continue operating the plant." Libya claimed that the plant was a pharmaceutical factory.

Protest
7 people were killed and 450 injured when local police opened fire on a crowd of 50,000 that had marched on a government office in the South African "homeland" of Bophuthatswana.

Law
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ruled that Nova Scotia Micmac Indians had a constitutional right to hunt and fish for food as long as they obeyed conservation guidelines.

Business
British Gas bid $1.1 billion for Consumers Gas from the Reichmann family.

Figure skating
Lloyd Eisler and Isabelle Brasseur of Canada won the silver medal in the pairs competition at the World Championships at Halifax Metro Centre. Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov of the U.S.S.R. won the gold medal; it was their fourth straight world championship, in addition to an Olympic gold medal.







20 years ago
1995

Economics and finance
The U.S. dollar hit a post-World War II low of 90.05 yen after a decline of 5% in just one week. It also fell to 1.3705 against the Deutschmark, a 12% decline in three months to another postwar low.

10 years ago
2005

Diplomacy
John Bolton was nominated by President George W. Bush to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.