March

American Red Cross Month -- National Women’s History Month

1 Peace Corps founded, 1961
Salem witch hysteria begins, 1692
Silly Putty debut, 1950
2 Read Across America Day honors Dr. Seuss’s birthday
3 “The Star Spangled Banner” adopted as national anthem, 1931
4 Pennsylvania deeded to William Penn by King Charles II, 1681
5 Boston Massacre, 1770
6 Fall of the Alamo, 1836
7 Monopoly invented, 1933
8 First U.S. income tax levied and collected, 1913
9 Barbie debuts, 1959
10 First telephone message transmission, 1876
Harriet Tubman dies, 1913
First U.S. paper money issued, 1862
11 Johnny Appleseed Day
12 Girl Scouts of the USA founded by Juliette Low, 1912
13 Passion Week
Uranus discovered, 1781
14 Clean Monday, Orthodox Lent begins
15 Ides of March, Julius Caesar assassinated, 44 B.C.
16 First liquid-fueled rocket flight by Robert Hutchings Goddard, 1926
17 St. Patrick’s Day
19 Operation Iraqi Freedom begins, 2003
Save the Florida Panther Day
Swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, annual event since 1776
20 Holy Week begins
Palm Sunday
Vernal equinox, spring begins
21 First round-the-world balloon flight, 1999
Pocahontas dies, 1617
22 Laser patented, 1960
23 Liberty Day, commemorates Patrick Henry’s speech, 1775
24 Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday
25 Purim
27 Easter Sunday
28 Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident, 1979
P.T. Barnum and James A. Bailey merge forming the “Greatest Show on Earth”, 1881
29 Niagara Falls runs dry, 1848
30 First anesthetic used in surgery by Dr. Crawford W. Long, 1842
Eraser topped pencil patented, 1858
31 Eiffel Tower anniversary, 1889


Birthdays

2 Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, 1904
3 Alexander Graham Bell, 1847
4 Casimir Pulaski, 1747
5 Gerhardus Mercator, 1512
6 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475
8 Kenneth Grahame, 1859
9 Amerigo Vespucci, 1451
14 Albert Einstein, 1879
Casey Jones, 1864
15 Andrew Jackson, 1767
16 James Madison, 1751
18 Grover Cleveland, 1837
19 William Bradford, 1589
Wyatt Earp, 1848
21 Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685
Benito Juarez, 1806
24 Harry Houdini, 1874
26 Robert Frost, 1874
29 John Tyler, 1790
30 Anna Sewell, 1820
Vincent Van Gogh, 1853
31 Cesar Chavez, 1927
Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732

The Ides of March have come. -- Julius Caesar

Beware the ides of March. -- William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty. -- William Shakespeare (The Winter’s Tale)

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
-- Robert Frost (“Two Tramps in Mud Time")