Monthly Archives: March 2012

1750 – The first Shakespearean play was presented in America, when the Nassau Street Theatre in New York City staged King Richard III.

1770 – A mob of American colonists gathered at the Customs House in Boston and began taunting British soldiers guarding the building in protest of the English occupation of the city.  The British retaliated, which resulted in the “Boston Massacre.”

1815 – Franz Anton Mesmer, a physician who pioneered the practice of hypnotism, died in Meersburg, Germany.

1821 – James Monroe became the first President of the United States to be inaugurated on March 5th.  The usual inauguration date of March 4th fell on a Sunday that year, and a President cannot be inaugurated on the Sabbath.  It’s still the law, even though the Inauguration Day was officially set back to January 20th.

1872 – George Westinghouse patented the air brake.

1923 – Old-age pension laws were enacted in the states of Montana and Nevada.

1946 – Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain Speech” in Fulton, MO, which included the line, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”

1953 – Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, died in Moscow.

1960 – Elvis Presley returned to civilian life after a two-year hitch in the U.S. Army.

1963 – Patsy Cline, Lloyd “Cowboy” Copas and Harold “Hawkshaw” Hawkins were killed in a plane crash at Camden, TN, near Nashville.

1963 – Arthur Melin patented the Hula-Hoop.

1969 – The rock magazine, Creem, debuted.

1984 – The Los Angeles Express of the United States Football League signed quarterback Steve Young, from Brigham Young University, to a “substantial” contract.  Young inked a pact that would earn him $40 million dollars over a 43-year period, in one of the most complicated contracts ever – lasting until 2027.  The USFL folded not long after he signed the deal.

1985 – Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders became the first National Hockey League player to score 50 goals in eight consecutive seasons.