What Happened On
President Jimmy Carter touring the control room
President Jimmy Carter touring the control room
Three Mile Island (Life Imitates Art)
March 28, 1979
Nuclear reactor number 2 at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station has a partial meltdown. This resulted in the release of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. The accident was due largely to operator error, inadequate training, and design flaws.
The movie The China Syndrome had premiered just 12 days earlier. It told the fictional story of TV reporters who uncovered major safety violations and filmed a nuclear accident at a power plant. The nuclear power industry derided the film, claiming it was absurd and nothing like that could ever happen. And then 12 days later…
U.S. President Jimmy Carter (who had specialized in nuclear power while serving in the United States Navy) toured the damaged reactor after the event.
Marriage of the Century - Pickford and Fairbanks Wed
March 28, 1920
The Hollywood legends Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. are married. Known as the "King and Queen of Hollywood", the event was called the "marriage of the century".
They divorced in 1936.
Barnum & Bailey's Circus
March 28, 1881
The Barnum & Bailey Circus is formed when P.T. Barnum combines his circus with the Cooper and Bailey Circus. It was initially named "P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show On Earth", later changing the name to "Barnum & Bailey's Circus". The following year, they acquired Jumbo, billed as the "World's Largest Elephant." When Barnum died 10 years later, James Anthony Bailey bought out the circus from his widow.
First U.S. Patent for a Washing Machine
March 28, 1797
A U.S. patent is issued to Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire. Called the Box Mangler, it consisted of a large box filled with rocks, resting on a series of long wooden rollers. Washing was laid flat on a sheet and wound round one of the rollers. Two people pulled on levers to move the heavy box back and forth over the rollers.
Birthdays
Jimmie Dodd (James Wesley Dodd)
Born March 28, 1910 d. 1964
American actor. The 45-year-old actor/song writer was the first leader (1955-59) of the Mouseketeers on TV's The Mickey Mouse Club and composer of the opening theme song, The Mickey Mouse Club March. Dodd also did short homilies on the show encouraging young viewers to make the right moral choices; these became known as "Doddisms".
Dodd also played Lullaby Joslin in several Western B-movie episodes of The Three Mesquiteers.
Left to right: Jacinta Marto, Lúcia dos Santos, and Francisco Marto
Left to right: Jacinta Marto, Lúcia dos Santos, and Francisco Marto
Sister Lúcia dos Santos (Lúcia de Jesus Rosa Santos)
Born March 28, 1907 d. 2005
Roman Catholic Carmelite nun. She claimed that at the age of ten she and her two cousins, Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto, saw and were spoken to by the Virgin Mary near Fátima, Portugal (1917) in what became known as the Our Lady of Fatima visions. Both of her cousins died several years after the sighting in the Great Influenza Epidemic.
Marlin Perkins
Born March 28, 1905 d. 1986
American zoo director, TV personality. Host of TV's Wild Kingdom from 1963 to 1985. During his previous show, Zoo Parade (1950-57), Perkins was bitten by a timber rattlesnake during a rehearsal. This event has become an urban legend as many people "remember" seeing it on television, however, it wasn't filmed and consequently was never broadcast. (This type of false memory shared by multiple people is known as the "Mandela Effect.")
August Anheuser Busch, Jr. - c1910
August Anheuser Busch, Jr. - c1910
August Anheuser Busch, Jr.
Born March 28, 1899 d. 1989
American beer-company executive. After learning the family business, Busch became superintendent of Anheuser-Busch brewing operations in 1924 and head of the brewing division after his father's death in 1934. By 1957, it had become the largest brewery in the world.
He was owner of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise in Major League Baseball from 1953 until his death.
Reba McEntire
Born March 28, 1955
American country singer. Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year four years in a row.
Dorothy DeBorba
Born March 28, 1925 d. 2010
American actress, one of the Little Rascals. She appeared in 24 Our Gang films (1930-33, Chubby's little sister). She was known for her ability to cry on cue.
Freddie Bartholomew (Frederick Cecil Bartholomew)
Born March 28, 1924 d. 1992
English-born American child actor. One of the most famous child actors of his time, he commanded a salary even higher than that of Shirley Temple. Film: David Copperfield (1935, Copperfield as a young boy) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936).
Edmund S. Muskie
Born March 28, 1914 d. 1996
American politician, Governor of Maine (1955-59), U.S. Senator (1959-80), and Secretary of State (1980-81).
Irving "Swifty" Lazar
Born March 28, 1907 d. 1993
American talent agent. Clients: Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, Vladimir Nabokov, Truman Capote, U.S. President Richard Nixon, Tennessee Williams, and Neil Simon. He was known for his yearly star-studded parties on Oscar Awards night.
First American Male Saint
John Neumann (John Nepomucene Neumann)
Born March 28, 1811 d. 1860
Bohemian-born American Roman Catholic Bishop (Philadelphia, 1852). He was the first American male saint (1977). Neumann emmigrated from Bohemia to the United States in 1836, where he was ordained, joined the Redemptorist order, and became the fourth Bishop of Philadelphia in 1852. He also founded the first Catholic diocesan school system in the U.S.
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
Born March 28, 1793 d. 1864
American explorer. He discovered the source of the Mississippi river (1832).
Deaths
Emmett Kelly
Died March 28, 1979 b. 1898
American circus clown. Known as Weary Willie, he was revolutionary for his time, as most clowns wore white face and performed stunts for laughs, Kelly wore hobo makeup and would perform skits such as trying to sweep the light from a spotlight. He performed with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus (1942-56) and became the mascot for the Brooklyn Dodgers after leaving Ringling Bros.
Kelly helped rescue people during the Hartford Circus Fire. A photo was taken of him in sad tramp makeup holding a bucket of water, causing the event to become known as "The Day the Clowns Cried."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Died March 28, 1969 b. 1890
American politician. 34th U.S. President (1953-61) and 5-star general. He was the first U.S. President to conduct a televised news conference.
In his farewell address, he warned of both the buildup of the Military Industrial Complex and of scientific research becoming a chase for government funding instead of the search for knowledge.
Jim Thorpe (Bright Path)
Died March 28, 1953 b. 1888
American Hall of Fame athlete, He is considered the greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century. He played professional football and baseball, and excelled in boxing, wrestling, gymnastics, swimming, hockey, basketball, and track.
Thorpe was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation and in was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States, winning gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon. But, his gold medals were revoked after it was discovered he had been paid to play baseball, disqualifying him from the strictly amateur Olympics. There was speculation that the revocation was due to his Native American heritage, as it was known that other athletes had played professionally, although usually under aliases. His medals were restored in 1982.
Thorpe was also the first president of the American Professional Football Association (APFA) from 1920 to 1921, which became the NFL in 1922.
Katharine Lee Bates
Died March 28, 1929 b. 1859
American poet. She wrote the words to the American patriotic hymn America the Beautiful (1910). She originally wrote the words as the poem Pikes Peak (1893), which was inspired by a trip to Colorado, where she witnessed the wheat fields of Kansas, and the majestic view of the Great Plains from Pikes Peak. A revised version of Bates' poem was combined with music by Samuel A. Ward and published as America the Beautiful in 1910.
The original (which differs from the modern version):
"O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee"
Earl Scruggs (left) and Lester Flatt
Earl Scruggs (left) and Lester Flatt
Earl Scruggs
Died March 28, 2012 b. 1924
American bluegrass musician, with Lester Flatt. He was the first banjoist to master the three-finger picking style. Music: Foggy Mountain Breakdown (1948), and the theme for TV show The Beverly Hillbillies.
June Havoc (Ellen June Hovick)
Died March 28, 2010 b. 1912
Canadian-born American actress. Film: My Sister Eileen (1942).
Caspar Weinberger
Died March 28, 2006 b. 1917
American politician, secretary of health, education, and welfare (1973-75), secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan. He was indicted in the Iran-Contra Affair but pardoned by U.S. President George H. W. Bush (1992).
Peter Ustinov
Died March 28, 2004 b. 1921
British Oscar-Emmy-Grammy winning actor. Film: Spartacus (1960, Oscar) and Topkapi (1964, Oscar).
Eugène Ionesco
Died March 28, 1994 b. 1909
Romanian-born French playwright. Known for his contributions to the theater of the absurd, he is considered among the most important dramatists of the 20th century. Writings: The Bald Soprano (1950) and The Lesson (1950).
Maria von Trapp
Died March 28, 1987 b. 1905
Austrian-born singer, matriarch of the singing von Trapp family whose life story inspired the movie The Sound of Music.
Richard Arlen (Sylvanus Richard Mattimore)
Died March 28, 1976 b. 1899
American actor. Film: Star of the first Oscar-winning film (Wings, 1927).
W.C. Handy (William Christopher Handy)
Died March 28, 1958 b. 1873
American composer, musician, Father of the Blues. He composed Memphis Blues (1912) which was the first blues song published in the U.S.
Virginia Woolf
Died March 28, 1941 b. 1882
English author, women's rights activist. Writings: Jacob's Room (1922).
Charge of the Light Brigade
Charge of the Light Brigade
Charge of the Light Brigade
Seventh Earl of Cardigan (James Thomas Brudenell)
Died March 28, 1868 b. 1797
English soldier. He led the Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) and for whom cardigan sweaters are named.
Dr. William Thornton
Died March 28, 1828 b. 1759
British-born American architect, physician. He designed the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. (1793).
Martin IV
Died March 28, 1285 b. ????
French-born religious leader, 189th Pope (1280-85).