March 14, 2016

Born on this date
Happy Birthday, Andrea Jameson!

225 years ago
1791

Canadiana
The Constitutional Act received Royal Assent in London. The act divided Canada into two parts, Lower and Upper; each province was to have an Executive Council crown appointed--Lower Canada to have no fewer than fifteen members and Upper Canada no fewer than seven members--and each was to have a Legislative Assembly, the members for Lower Canada to be no less than fifty and for Upper Canada to be no less than sixteen. The act granted one-seventh of the crown lands in each province "for the support and maintenance of a Protestant clergy within the same." The Act was proclaimed at Quebec on November 18, 1791, and went into effect on December 26.

120 years ago
1896

Popular culture
The public bathhouse known as the Sutro Baths opened in San Francisco.

110 years ago
1906

Boxing
Jack Johnson (34-5-8-3) retained his world "colored" heavyweight title with a 15-round decision over Joe Jeannette (5-2-1) at Germania Maennerchor Hall in Baltimore.

Hockey
Stanley Cup challenge
Ottawa Silver Seven 1 @ Montreal Wanderers 9 (1st game of 2-game, total goals series)

The Silver Seven were the defending champions.

100 years ago
1916

Born on this date
Horton Foote. U.S. playwright and screenwriter. Mr. Foote, a native of Wharton, Texas, wrote about the American South. He wrote numerous television programs in the 1950s, including The Trip to Bountiful (1953), which he adapted for the movie version in 1985. Mr. Foote won the Academy Award for his adapted screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and for his original screenplay for Tender Mercies (1983). He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Young Man From Atlanta (1995). Mr. Foote died on March 4, 2009, 10 days before his 93rd birthday.

Abominations
The Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly voted to grant women in the province the right to vote and stand for election; Manitoba had passed similar legislation in January.

90 years ago
1926

At the movies
The Bat, written, pproduced, and directed by Roland West, and starring Emily Fitzroy, Jack Pickford, and Jewel Carmen, received its premiere screening in New York City.



Disasters
248 people were killed and 93 injured when a train fell off a bridge over the Río Virilla between Heredia and Tibás, Costa Rica.

80 years ago
1936

On the radio
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Louis Hector and Harry West, on MBS
Tonight’s episode: The Resident Patient

75 years ago
1941

War
1,100 people were dead and 1,050 injured after a two-day German bombing attack on Clydesdale, England.

Defense
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Sir Arthur Salter would go to the United States to discuss urgent shipping needs to transport Lend-Lease material. The U.S. House of Representatives passed and sent to the Senate the $3,446,685,144 Navy supply bill for 1942. Curtiss-Wright Corporation announced a new dive bomber for the U.S. Navy that was said to exceed the German Stuka in performance.

Diplomacy
Representatives of Chile and Argentina began conferences in Santiago to determine their boundaries in the Antarctic.

Economics and finance
The U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue began a test action to determine whether the federal government had the right to tax income from state and municipal securities.

Labour
American Federation of Labor President William Green said that he supported the U.S. government's plan of an 11-member board to mediate strikes in defense industries; Congress of Industrial Organizations President Philip Murray described the plan as detrimental to labour. Pennsylvania Governor Arthur James ordered state police to protect workers who would remove finished defense goods at a strike-bound Vanadium Steel Corporation plant in Bridgeville.

70 years ago
1946

Died on this date
Werner von Blomberg, 67. German military officer and politician. Colonel General Blomberg was Minister of War, and Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces from January 1933-January 1938. He was appointed to his political position by President Paul von Hindenburg two days before Adolf Hitler took office as Chancellor, and remained in his position until he resigned after losing a power struggle with Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering. Col. Gen. Blomberg spent World War II in obscurity, and gave evidence at the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals before his death from colorectal cancer.

Married on this date
Ernest Hemingway and Mary Welsh. The noted American author and Miss Welsh were married in Havana.

War
Former Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, testifying at his war crimes trial in Nuremberg, proudly assumed "full responsibility" for the seizure of Austria; the invasion of Norway; and the sending of German fliers to Spain during that country's civil war. Mr. Goering said that the late Fuehrer Adolf Hitler alone decided on the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Scandal
As a result of the revelations of former U.S.S.R. cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko, who had defected to Canada from the Soviet embassy in 1945, Canadian Labour-Progressive (i.e., Communist) Member of Parliament Fred Rose was arrested for conspiracy to transmit wartime secrets to the U.S.S.R. He was eventually convicted and sentenced to six years in prison for spying.

Politics and government
Belgian Prime Minister Paul-Henri Spaak completed formation of his predominantly socialist cabinet.

Diplomacy
Chiang Kai-ngau, head of the Chinese Economic Commission to Manchuria, reported that the U.S.S.R. had demanded war booty and economic concessions as the price of complete withdrawal from Manchuria, preventing any agreement.

Former U.S. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes assailed "sniping at Russia," and urged President Harry Truman to "stand up aggressively for the foreign policies of President Roosevelt."

Defense
The U.S. House of Representatives voted an additional $250 million for temporary housing for veterans.

60 years ago
1956

On television tonight
Project XX, on NBC
Tonight's episode: The Twisted Cross

This program was a documentary about the rise of Nazi Germany.



50 years ago
1966

Hit parade
#1 single in Spain (PROMUSICAE): (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction--The Rolling Stones

#1 single in Ireland (IRMA): Come Back to Stay--Dickie Rock (3rd week at #1)

Canada's Top 10 (RPM)
1 At the Scene--Dave Clark Five
2 Breakin' Up is Breakin' My Heart--Roy Orbison
3 Homeward Bound--Simon & Garfunkel
4 While I'm Away--Bobby Curtola
5 Batman Theme--The Marketts
6 An Ordinary Guy--Chip Fisher
7 It was a Very Good Year--The Turtles
8 Bad Reputation--The James Boys
9 Listen People--Herman's Hermits
10 Spanish Flea--Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass

Singles entering the chart were Nowhere Man by the Beatles (#32); Until it's Time by Catherine McKinnon (#33); Moulty by the Barbarians (#34); It's Too Late by Bobby Goldsboro (#35); S.O.S. by Christine Cooper (#36); Walkin' My Cat Named Dog by Norma Tanega (#37); Little Latin Lupe Lu by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels (#38); and I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry by B.J. Thomas and the Triumphs (#40).

At the movies
Born Free, starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as the real-life couple Joy and George Adamson, premiered with a Royal Command screening in London.



Scandal
A Canadian Royal Commission chaired by Justice Wishart Flett Spence began investigation of recent revelations that former Canadian Defense Minister Pierre Sevigny had had an affair with Gerda Munsinger, an East German spy. The commission reportsed its findings in September 1966.

40 years ago
1976

Died on this date
Busby Berkeley, 80. U.S. movie director and choreographer. Mr. Berkeley, born Berkeley Enos, was known for directing elaborate musical production numbers that involved large numbers of girls in complex geometric patterns, often filmed from above. His movies included 42nd Street (1933); Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and several sequels; and Babes in Arms (1939) and several sequels.

Horse racing
Bill Shoemaker, already the winningest jockey in history, rode Royal Derby II to victory at Santa Anita, California, becoming the first to win 7,000 races. Mr. Shoemaker was passed for most career victories by Laffit Pincay Jr. with 8,834 in 1999.

Hockey
CIAU
Men's Championship Final @ Varsity Arena, Toronto
Guelph 2 @ Toronto 7

Kent Ruhnke scored 3 goals to lead the Varsity Blues over the Gryphons for their first Canadian championship in three years.

30 years ago
1986

Hit parade
#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Brother Louie--Modern Talking (2nd week at #1)

Environment
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences reported that the burning of coal, gasoline, and other fossil fuels was definitely linked to the acid rain that fell in eastern North America and killed fish and possibly trees.

Economics and finance
The United States Labor Department reported that the index of prices paid by producers for finished goods had declined 1.6% in February, the largest monthly fall since the index had come into use in 1947.

25 years ago
1991

Hit parade
#1 single in Ireland (IRMA): Do the Bartman--The Simpsons (8th week at #1)

Died on this date
Doc Pomus, 65. U.S. songwriter. Mr. Pomus, born Jerome Solon Felder, and his partner Mort Shuman were one of the most successful songwriting teams who worked at the Brill Building in New York City in the 1950s and '60s, writing such hits as A Teenager in Love; Save The Last Dance For Me; Hushabye; This Magic Moment; Little Sister; Can't Get Used to Losing You; Suspicion; Surrender; and (Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame.

Howard Ashman, 40. U.S. playwright and songwriter. Mr. Ashman was best known for his collaboration with Alen Menken on songs from Disney animated films. They won Academy Awards for Best Original Song for Under the Sea (The Little Mermaid, 1989) and Beauty and the Beast (Beauty and the Beast, 1991). Mr. Ashman was a sodomite who died of AIDS.

Weather
It was warm enough in Edmonton for this blogger to wear shorts outdoors.

World events
Two weeks after the end of the Gulf War, Emir Shaikh Jabir al-Ahmad al-Jabir as-Sabah of Kuwait returned to his country. He was criticized for taking so long to return.

Terrorism
The Birmingham Six were freed after serving 16 years in prison when the U.K. High Court quashed their convictions. The six men had been convicted for the 1974 bombings by the Irish Republican Army of two pubs. 21 people had been killed and over 100 injured in the bombings.

Crime
12 days after the beating of Rodney King, four members of the Los Angeles Police department were indicted by a grand jury. U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh said that the Justice Department would review other cases of alleged police brutality.

Figure skating
Kurt Browning of Canada won his third consecutive men’s world championship, at Olympiahalle in Munich. Viktor Petrenko of the U.S.S.R. was in first place after the short program, but Mr. Browning put on a brilliant performance in the long program to overtake him. The ice dance competition was won by Isabel and Paul Duchesnay from Alymer, Quebec, skating for France.







20 years ago
1996

Hit parade
#1 single in Finland (Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland): Kaunis peto--XL5

#1 single in Denmark (Nielsen Music Control & IFPI): Spaceman-- Babylon Zoo (7th week at #1)

Television
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruled that Canada's television broadcasters must devise a system to rate the levels of violence in television programs. Six levels were proposed: none; comedic; mild; brief; violent; or graphic.

Scandal
Settlement was reached with the victims of Japan's tainted blood scandal, with the Japanese government and five drug companies offering compensation to 2,000 victims who were HIV-positive.

Economics and finance
Prince Edward Island Treasurer Wayne Cheverie forecasted his second consecutive budget with a surplus.

Business
Hudson's Bay Company announced that it would merge Zellers' office operations with those of The Bay and move Zellers headquarters from Montreal to Toronto, with a loss of 550 jobs in Quebec.

10 years ago
2006

Died on this date
Lennart Meri, 76. 2nd President of Estonia, 1992-2001. Mr. Meri, a member of the Pro Patria Union, was a leading advocate of Estonian independence from the U.S.S.R., and served as Estonia's Foreign Minister from 1990-1992. He died of a brain tumour 15 days before his 77th birthday.

World events
Members of the Chadian military, led by brothers Tom and Timane Erdimi and former General Seby Aguid, failed in an attempted coup d'état against President Idriss Déby.