First Day of Spring

Feast Day of St. Benedict patriarch of Western monks, founded the Benedictine order, patron saint of cave explorers.

2003 Iraq War "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly… All this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."  Statement by White House spokesman Ari Fleisher.

1989 Fast Food Popeye's Chicken (the third-largest chicken chain) buys Church's Fried Chicken (the second-largest chicken chain) resulting in a combined 2000+ stores. This eventually drove the company into bankruptcy in 1991.

1973 Watergate Pres. Nixon and his council, John Dean, discuss offering clemency and hush money as part of the cover-up.

1965 Martin Luther King, Jr begins a five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. More than 25,000 demonstrators gathered at the capitol in Montgomery.

1963 Boxing - Why Four Ropes? Sugar Ramos knocks defending World Featherweight Champion Davey Moore down. Moore hit his head on the bottom ring.  He died four days later from the injuries he received. As a result, the bottom ring was loosened and a fourth rope was added to boxing rings to help catch the fighters. The event is memorialized in the Bob Dylan song Who Killed Davey Moore.

1963 Alcatraz Closes The San Francisco prison had been built in the 1830s.  The federal prison, known as the Rock, housed such famous prisoners as, Al Capone, Robert Stroud, known as The Birdman of Alcatraz, and George "Machine Gun" Kelly.

1958 First Sylvanus Thayer Award is presented, to American physicist Ernest O. Lawrence.

1952 First Rock and Roll Concert "The Moondog Coronation Ball" is held at the Cleveland Arena.  Alan Freed was one of its organizers.

1935 Iran The Shah of Persia issues a decree requesting the use of the name "Iran" instead of the current name "Persia."

1925 Evolution The teaching of evolution in public schools is outlawed by the state of Tennessee. John T. Scopes was later convicted of violating this law, in the celebrated "monkey" trial.

1924 Daily reading of the Bible becomes mandatory in Kentucky public schools.

2228 James T. Kirk fictional captain of the Enterprise on Star Trek.

1962 Matthew Broderick American Tony-winning actor. Stage: Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983, Tony). Film: WarGames (1983), Biloxi Blues (1985), and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).

1958 Gary Oldman English actor. Film: Sid and Nancy (1986, Sid Vicious), JFK (1991, Oswald), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1993, Dracula on a bad hair day).

1946 Timothy Dalton British actor, 4th James Bond for United Artists. Film: The Living Daylights (1987) and License to Kill (1989).

1934 Al Freeman Jr American Emmy-winning actor. TV: One Life to Live (Capt. Ed Hall).

1923 Philip Abbott d. 1998 actor. TV: The FBI (Arthur Ward).

1904 Forrest Edward Mars d. 1999 Sr., American candy maker, inventor of M&M's. They were designed so that soldiers would not get their trigger fingers sticky.

1882 G.M. "Bronco Billy" Anderson d. 1971 (Max Aronson), western actor and director. He became the first male movie star with The Great Train Robbery (1903). In 1957 he received a special Oscar "for his contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment."

1869 Florenz Ziegfeld d. 1932 American theatrical producer, creator of Ziegfeld Follies (1907).

1768 Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier d. 1830 French mathematician. He developed the Fourier Series, one of the landmarks of mathematics.

1713 Francis Lewis d. 1802 American patriot, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1685 Johann Sebastian Bach d. 1750 German composer and organist, one of the greatest composers in music history.

1994 Macdonald Carey b. 1913 American Emmy-winning actor. TV: Days of Our Lives (Dr. Horton and narrator for the opening, "Like sands through the hourglass…") and Roots (1977, Squire James).

1994 Dack Rambo b. 1941 (Norman Rambeau), American actor. TV: All My Children (Steve Jacobi) and Dallas (Jack Ewing).

1949 Samuel Sidney McClure b. 1857 American publisher, founder of McClure syndicate (1884) and McClure's Magazine (1893).

1915 Frederick Winslow Taylor b. 1856 America's first efficiency expert, called the father of scientific management.

1617 Pocahontas b. circa 1595 American Indian, married Capt. John Rolfe (1614). She died in England.

543 Saint Benedict of Nursia b. circa 480 Italian monk, founder of Western monasticism, known for his gift of prophecy, he correctly predicted the day and time of his own death.

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