Friday, March 30, 2007

On this Date in History

Birthdays:

1853 Vincent van Gogh Zundert Netherlands
1940 Astrud Gilberto Brazil, singer (Girl From Ipanema)
1945 Eric Clapton [Eric Patrick Clapp] Ripley England, legendary guitarist/singer (Yardbirds, Cream, Tears in Heaven)
1964 Tracy Chapman US singer/songwriter (Freedom Now, I Got a Fast Car)
1968 Celine Dion Québec Canada, singer (I'm Your Woman)
1970 Secreteriat race horse, triple crown (1973)


Deaths:

1925 Rudolf Steiner Austrian philosopher (anthroposophy), dies at 64
1948 Mahatma Gandhi assassinated in New Delhi
1966 Maxfield Parrish US painter, dies at 95
2002 HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother dies at Royal Lodge, Windsor, at 101

Events:

0239 -BC- 1st recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
1533 Henry VIII divorces his 1st wife, Catherine of Aragon
1778 Playwright Voltaire crowned with laurel wreath
1842 Ether was used as an anaesthetic for 1st time by
Dr Crawford Long (Jefferson GA)
1858 Pencil with attached eraser patented (Hyman L Lipman of Philadelphia)
1867 US purchases Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 (2¢ an acre-Seward's Folly)
1870 15th Amendment passes, guarantees right to vote regardless of race
1870 Texas becomes last confederate state readmitted to Union
1889 John T Reid opens 1st US golf course (Yonkers NY)
1919 Gandhi announces resistance against Rowlatt Act
1932 Amelia Earhart is 1st woman to fly solo cross the Atlantic
1953 Einstein announces revised unified field theory

There's a lot more here.

Picture is of Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night." Click on it or his name above for link. Second picture is Maxfirld Parrish's "Daybreak." Then, of course, Gandhi.

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