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ALTERNATE SITES    ALL FOR 030316      ANY DAY  OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY     ART “4” MAR 16

• US soldiers massacre innocent children, women, old men... • US troops to Honduras... • The Scarlet Letter is published... • Judge Roy Bean dies... • First liquid~fuel rocket... • South Vietnamese flee as North Vietnam violates truce... • Iwo Jima battle ends... • Iran–Contra indictment of Reagan aides... • Journalist kidnapped by Hezbollah... • Naissance de Sully Pruhomme... • Mort de Selma Lagerlöf... • Federal Trade Commission... • US Military Academy... • Hearst New Media... • Computer privacy... • “Saint Urho”... • Children's books... NOT !... • Archcriminal SS doctor is born... • Archbishop of Cali is murdered...

On a March 16: 2001 The National Catholic Reporter cover story informs on several reports written by senior members of women’s religious orders and by an American priest. They assert that sexual abuse of nuns by priests, including rape, is a serious problem, especially in Africa and other parts of the developing world. The reports allege that some Catholic clergymen exploit their financial and spiritual authority to gain sexual favors from religious women, many of whom, in developing countries, are culturally conditioned to be subservient to men. The reports say that priests at times demand sex in exchange for favors, such as permission or certification to work in a given diocese. In Africa particularly, a continent ravaged by HIV and AIDS, young nuns are sometimes seen as safe targets of sexual activity. In a few extreme instances, according to the documentation, priests have impregnated nuns and then encouraged them to have abortions. 2000 In Atlanta, Black sheriffs deputies Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English go in the evening to serve an old arrest warrant on Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (former H. Rap Brown, Black activist). Al-Amin shoots the two deputies. Kinchen dies the next day. English 1999 El índice Dow Jones (DJI) de Wall Street alcanza los 10'000 puntos por primera vez en sus 114 años de historia.recovers and testifies in Al-Amin's trial which results in his conviction on 09 March 2002. 1998 Rwanda, with 125'000 suspects for 500'000 murders, began mass trials for the country's 1994 genocide. 1998 La Iglesia Católica realiza un "acto de arrepentimiento" y de confraternización con todas la religiones, especialmente el judaísmo, al pedir perdón públicamente por su parte de responsabilidad "no directa" en "una de las mayores tragedias de nuestro siglo", como fue el holocausto judío durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. 1998 Hasbro purchases the rights to more than seventy-five Atari video games popular in the early 1980s, including Missile Command, Centipede, Pole Position, Pong, Combat, and Breakout. Hasbro had already had success in 1997 with an updated version of the vintage game Frogger. 1997 Se celebran elecciones legislativas y municipales en El Salvador, en las que ARENA, el partido gobernante desde 1989, sufre un revés en las urnas ante el avance del frente guerrillero FMLN (Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional), que se sitúa como segunda fuerza dentro del mapa político del país. 1996 In his weekly radio address, President Bill Clinton accused the Republican-controlled House of bowing to "the back-alley whispers of the gun lobby" by gutting anti-terrorism legislation he'd submitted in response to the Oklahoma City bombing. 1996 For the first time, ordinary citizens were allowed inside the central archives of the Stasi, the former East German secret police.

1995 IBM releases its annual report not only in print, but also on the Internet and on CD-ROM. The CD-ROM has 15 minutes of video, including an interview with Chairman Lou Gerstner, Jr., and an original soundtrack. The Web version offers photos, graphics, sound, and video. 1995 Con casi 130 años de retraso, la esclavitud queda abolida en todo Estados Unidos: ratificación unánime por el estado de Mississippi de la XIII enmienda constitucional (18 Dec 1865), que la prohíbe. 1994 España es, a esta fecha, el país europeo más afectado por el SIDA, con 22'655 casos acumulados desde 1981. 1993 US Secret Service violated computer privacy.       ^top^       A federal judge in Texas ruled that the US Secret Service violated privacy laws when it seized electronic mail and computer records from a computer games company in 1990. The judge ruled that the Secret Service had violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act by reading, disclosing, and erasing bulletin board messages in the course of a computer hacker investigation. The controversial case led to the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a watchdog group protecting the freedom of speech on the Web. The computer games company was awarded almost $55'000. 1993 Former FCC chairman named head of Hearst New Media       ^top^       Alfred Sikes, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is named head of Hearst's New Media division. Known for magazines like Cosmopolitan and Popular Mechanics, the publishing company quickly adapts its content to electronic media. In February 1994, it would announce a series of multimedia services called HomeNet, which aimed to deliver CD-ROMs and online information services. Among the company's offerings was the popular Hearst HomeArts, a Web site offering articles and content from a variety of Hearst publications. 1989 El croata Ante Markovic es investido jefe del Gobierno Federal yugoslavo y anuncia en el Parlamento su propósito de introducir las leyes de mercado en la economía yugoslava.

1988 Reagan orders US troops into Honduras.       ^top^       As part of his continuing effort to put pressure on the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, President Ronald Reagan orders over 3000 US troops to Honduras, claiming that Nicaraguan soldiers had crossed its borders. As with so many of the other actions taken against Nicaragua during the Reagan years, the result was only more confusion and criticism. Since taking office in 1981, the Reagan administration had used an assortment of means to try to remove the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. President Reagan charged that the Sandinistas were pawns of the Soviet Union and were establishing a communist beachhead in the Western Hemisphere, though there was little evidence to support such an accusation. Nonetheless, Reagan's administration used economic and diplomatic pressure attempting to destabilize the Sandinista regime. Reagan poured millions of dollars of US military and economic aid into the so-called "Contras," anti-Sandinista rebels operating out of Honduras and Costa Rica. By 1988, however, the Contra program was coming under severe criticism from both the American people and Congress. Many Americans came to see the Contras as nothing more than terrorist mercenaries, and Congress had acted several times to limit the amount of US aid to the Contras. In an effort to circumvent Congressional control, the Reagan administration engaged in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra Affair, in which arms were illegally and covertly sold to Iran in order to fund the Contras. This scheme had come to light in late 1987. Indeed, on the very day that Reagan sent US troops to Honduras, his former national security advisor John Poindexter and former National Security staffer Lt. Col. Oliver North were indicted by the US government for fraud and theft related to Iran-Contra. The New York Times reported that Washington, not Honduras, had initiated the call for the US troops. In fact, the Honduran government could not even confirm whether Sandinista troops had actually crossed its borders, and Nicaragua steadfastly denied that it had entered Honduran territory. Whatever the truth of the matter, the troops stayed for a brief time and were withdrawn. The Sandinista government remained unfazed.

1988 North and Poindexter indicted in Iran-Contra affair    ^top^      As part of the Iran-Contra affair, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North and Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter of the National Security Council (NSC) are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.       The Iran-Contra affair first became public in late 1986, when it was revealed that members of the Reagan administration, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the armed forces were illegally selling arms to Iran for two purposes: to help secure the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian groups, and to raise funds for the illicit support of the Contras in their guerrilla war against Nicaragua's Communist government.       Under orders from President Ronald Reagan, Lieutenant Colonel North directed the operation and Vice Admiral Poindexter helped the NSC raise private and foreign funds for the Contras. Revelations about the Iran-Contra connection caused outrage in Congress, which in 1983 had passed the Boland amendments prohibiting the Defense Department, the CIA, or any other government agency from providing military aid to the Contras.       In December 1986, Lawrence E. Walsh was named special prosecutor to investigate the matter, and over the course of the investigation thirteen top White House, State Department, and intelligence officials were found guilty on charges ranging from perjury to conspiracy to defraud the United States. Although President Reagan was heavily implicated by Oliver North in the televised congressional hearings and by Walsh in his final Iran-Contra report, neither he nor Vice President George Bush was directly indicted in the subsequent criminal trials.       Oliver North, who was convicted on charges of obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence, eventually had all his convictions overturned by a federal judge because the prosecutors had used testimony that North had given to Congress under immunity. Poindexter would also be convicted and have his conviction overturned.      Also indicted on charges relating to the Iran-Contra affair are retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord and his business partner, Albert Hakim. These two would be sentenced to probation.

1987 Primera entrega de los premios Goya en España. 1984 William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, is kidnapped; he would die in captivity. 1981 Los ministros de Asuntos Exteriores de la CE acuerdan en Bruselas el establecimiento de un pasaporte único europeo. 1978 Italian politician Aldo Moro is kidnapped by left-wing urban guerrillas, who later would murder him. — Aldo Moro, líder del partido político italiano Democracia Cristiana, es secuestrado justo antes de su investidura como Presidente de la República. 1977 Author Alex Haley files suit against Doubleday, publisher of Roots, for not promoting the book and failing to land a competitive paperback contract. The book was made into a television miniseries, which attracted some 100 million viewers when it aired in January 1977. 1975 South Vietnamese flee as North Vietnam violates truce.       ^top^       The withdrawal from Pleiku and Kontum begins, as thousands of civilians join the soldiers streaming down Route 7B toward the sea. In late January 1975, just two years after the cease-fire established by the Paris Peace Accords, the North Vietnamese launched Campaign 275. The objective of this campaign was to capture the city of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands. The battle began on March 4 and the North Vietnamese quickly encircled the city with five main force divisions, cutting it off from outside support. The South Vietnamese 23rd Division, which had been sent to defend the city, was vastly outnumbered and quickly succumbed to the communists. As it became clear that the city--and probably the entire Darlac province-would fall to the communists, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu decided to withdraw his forces in order to protect the more critical populous areas to the south. Accordingly, he ordered his forces in the Central Highlands to pull back from their positions. Abandoning Pleiku and Kontum, the South Vietnamese forces began to move toward the sea. By March 17, civilians and soldiers came under heavy communist attack; the withdrawal, scheduled to take three days, was still underway on April 1. Only 20'000 of 60'000 soldiers ever reached the coast; of 400'000 refugees, only 100'000 arrived. The survivors of what one South Vietnamese general described as the "greatest disaster in the history of the ARVN [Army of the Republic of Vietnam]" escaped down the coastal highway toward Saigon. The North Vietnamese overran the South Vietnamese forces in both the Central Highlands and further north at Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang. The South Vietnamese collapsed as a cogent fighting force and the North Vietnamese continued the attack all the way to Saigon. South Vietnam surrendered unconditionally to North Vietnam on April 30 and the war was over. 1970 The complete text of the New English Bible was published, simultaneously, by the Oxford and Cambridge Presses. (The New Testament of the NEB had been first published in 1961.) 1966 General Motors produces its 100'000'000th car, an Oldsmobile Toronado. 1958 the Ford Motor Company produces its 50'000'000th car, a Thunderbird. 1958 Terry Anderson kidnapped    ^top^      In Beirut, Lebanon, Islamic militants kidnap American journalist Terry Anderson, and take him to the southern suburbs of the war-torn city where other Western hostages are being held in scattered dungeons under ruined buildings.       Before his abduction, Anderson covered the Lebanese Civil War for The Associated Press (AP), and also served as the AP’s Beirut bureau chief. On December 4, 1991, he was finally released by his Hezbollah captors after 2455 days. He was the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon.       Although his seven-year-ordeal was the longest of the ninety-two foreigners abducted during Lebanon’s civil war, he was saved the fate of eleven hostages who died or were believed murdered. Anderson spent his entire captivity blindfolded, and was finally released when the sixteen-year civil war came to an end. 1945 US defeats Japan at Iwo Jima. 1944 II Guerra Mundial: un intenso bombardeo aliado deja casi destruido el histórico monasterio de Monte Cassino (Italia meridional) que las tropas alemanas habían convertido en plaza fuerte.. 1939 Germany occupies Czechoslovakia. 1935 Hitler orders German rearmament, violating Versailles Treaty. — El Gobierno alemán rechaza las cláusulas militares del Tratado de Versalles y proclama su libertad de acción sobre rearme. 1926 Robert Hutchings Goddard launches first liquid fuel rocket, it travels 56 meters. — Robert Hutchings Goddard, físico estadounidense, hace volar el primer misil a combustible líquido de la historia en una llanura cerca de Auburn (Massachusetts).

1926 First liquid-fuel rocket is launched.       ^top^       The first man to give hope to dreams of space travel, Robert H. Goddard, successfully launches the world's first liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts. The rocket traveled for 2.5 seconds at a speed of about 100 km/h, reaching an altitude of 12.5 meters and landing 56 meters away. The rocket was 3 meters tall, constructed out of thin pipes, and was fueled by liquid oxygen and gasoline.       The Chinese developed the first military rockets in the early 13th century using gunpowder and probably built firework rockets at an earlier date. Gunpowder-propelled military rockets appeared in Europe sometime in the 13th century, and in the 19th century British engineers made several important advances in early rocket science. In 1903, an obscure Russian inventor named Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky published a treatise on the theoretical problems of using rocket engines in space, but it was not until Robert Goddard's work in the 1920s that anyone began to build the modern, liquid-fueled type of rocket that by the early 1960s would be launching humans into space.       Goddard, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1882, became fascinated with the idea of space travel after reading the H.G. Wells' science fiction novel War of the Worlds in 1898. He began building gunpowder rockets in 1907 while a student at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and continued his rocket experiments as a physics doctoral student and then physics professor at Clark University. He was the first to prove that rockets can propel in an airless vacuum like space and was also the first to explore mathematically the energy and thrust potential of various fuels, including liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. He received US patents for his concepts of a multistage rocket and a liquid-fueled rocket, and secured grants from the Smithsonian Institute to continue his research. In 1919, his classic treatise A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes was published by the Smithsonian. The work outlined his mathematical theories of rocket propulsion and proposed the future launching of an unmanned rocket to the moon.       The press picked up on Goddard's moon-rocket proposal and for the most part ridiculed the scientist's innovative ideas. In January 1920, The New York Times printed an editorial declaring that Dr. Goddard "seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools" because he thought that rocket thrust would be effective beyond the earth's atmosphere. (Three days before the first Apollo lunar-landing mission in July 1969, the Times printed a correction to this editorial.) In December 1925, Goddard tested a liquid-fueled rocket in the physics building at Clark University. He wrote that the rocket, which was secured in a static rack, "operated satisfactorily and lifted its own weight."       On 16 March 1926, Goddard accomplishes the world's first launching of a liquid-fueled rocket from his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn. Goddard continued his innovative rocket work until his death in 1945. His work was recognized by the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, who helped secure him a grant from the Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. Using these funds, Goddard set up a testing ground in Roswell, New Mexico, which operated from 1930 until 1942. During his tenure there, he made 31 successful flights, including one of a rocket that reached 2700 meters above the ground in 22.3 seconds. Meanwhile, while Goddard conducted his limited tests without official US support, Germany took the initiative in rocket development and by September 1944 was launching its V-2 guided missiles against Britain to devastating effect. During the war, Goddard worked in developing a jet-thrust booster for a US Navy seaplane. He would not live to see the major advances in rocketry in the 1950s and '60s that would make his dreams of space travel a reality. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is named in his honor. 1922 England recognizes Kingdom of Egypt under King Fuad I. 1921 Los bolcheviques, tras un acuerdo con Turquía, se apoderan de Armenia. 1909 A US federal court rules in Harper and Bros. v. Kalem Co. that the movie studio's 1907 production of Ben-Hur, based on the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace, and filmed without the author's permission, was a copyright violation. Kalem pays the author's estate $25'000 in damages. 1882 US Senate ratifies treaty establishing the Red Cross 1873 US Treasury Secretary resigns       ^top^       Antislavery advocate George Boutwell Sewall resigns after four years as the US Secretary of the Treasury. A self-trained lawyer, Sewall rose through the ranks of the Massachusetts legislature during the 1840s to become the state’s governor in 1851. Though he won the governor’s seat through the support of Free Soilers and left-leaning Democrats, Sewall soon grew disenchanted with the Democratic party’s stance on slavery. He converted to the Republicans and eventually became a member of the party’s more radical wing. Indeed, Sewall was a harsh and outspoken critic of Andrew Johnson’s presidency: along with lobbing frequent attacks, Sewall led the charge to have Johnson impeached. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant named Sewall as the nation’s twenty-eighth secretary of the treasury. Following his term in the Treasury, Sewall served as a US senator and presidential advisor before returning to the private sector as a lawyer. 1865 Battle of Averasboro, NC. 1851 Firma del Concordato entre España y la Santa Sede para solucionar los problemas existentes entre el Estado y la Iglesia. 1836 The Republic of Texas approves a constitution. 1816 Llega a Le Havre el Elise, primer barco a vapor que cruzó el Canal de la Mancha. 1815 Willem I proclaimed king of the Netherlands, including Belgium 1621 First Indian appears at Plymouth, Massachusetts. 1560 Los hugonotes llevan a cabo la conjura de Amboise, cuyo objetivo era liberar al joven rey francés Francisco II y a la reina María Estuardo de la tutela de la familia Guisa. 1521 Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Philippines, where he would be killed by natives the following month. 1517 Fin del quinto Concilio de Letrán. 1366 Enrique II se proclama rey de Castilla en la ciudad de Calahorra. 1309 Tras abdicar Muhammad III, su hermano Nasr se convierte en el cuarto rey nazarí de Granada. 1190 Crusades begin massacre of Jews of York England 1079 Iran adopts solar Hijrah calendar --597 BC According to certain archaeological calculations, the first conquest of Jerusalem by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar occurred. In the Bible, the event is recorded in 2 Kings 24:1ff. and in 2 Chronicles 36:5-8. It is also implied in the early chapters of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a March 16: 2002 Isaias Duarte Cancino, Archbishop of Cali, Colombia [photo >]      The archbishop dies shortly after being shot at point-blank range in the mouth, skull, and chest as he left the Buen Pastor Church in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Cali (barrio Ricardo Balcázar in the Aguablanca district) at 20:30 after celebrating an evening mass wedding of 100 couples that had started at 19:00. The two murderers, about 20 years old at most, escape on a motorbike. At 16:00, the pastor of Buen Pastor, Father Oscar de la Vega, had phoned the police after seeing some suspicious individuals asking for protection, but none was forthcoming. The archbishop had denounced drug-money corruption in election campaigns, and leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitary outlaws involved in Colombia's 38-year-old war which claims about 3500 mainly civilian lives a year. Archbishop Duarte was born on 15 February 1939. While residing at the Colegio Pio Latino Americano (a classmate of JFC) he studied teology at the Gregorian University in Rome, where he was ordained a priest on 01 December 1963. He was consecrated as a bishop (auxiliary of Bucaramanga) on 17 June 1985. On 18 June 1988 he was appointed the first bishop of the new diocese of Apartadó. On 19 August 1995 he was appointed Archbishop of Cali.      The death of Duarte, the highest-ranking Catholic clergyman killed during decades of violence in Colombia, evoked the memories of other Latin American Roman Catholic leaders who were assassinated. El Salvador Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero (born 15 August 1917), shot by a sniper on 24 March 1980, had decried the brutality of the country's military during its civil war. Guatemalan Bishop Juan José Gerardi was bludgeoned to death on 26 April 1998 after accusing the military of human rights abuses during its civil war. In Mexico, Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo (born 10 Nov 1926) was killed on 24 May 1993, allegedly by drug traffickers 2001 Stephen Kanyan, 32, by a crocodile, while he and his two-year-old son are bathing in a river in Batang Lupar, southeast of Kuching, capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak on Borneo island. A crocodile attacks! Kanyan pushes the boy to safety before being dragged underwater and eaten by the animal. In consequence police are issued two permits to hunt crocodiles at least 4.5 meters long (they are are normally protected in Sarawak). In February 2001, a police sharpshooter shot a crocodile that had attacked and eaten a child in the Niah River, in eastern Sarawak. 2001 Yulia Fomina, 27, flight attendant, a Turkish construction worker passenger, and one of the three Chechen hijackers, by gunshot from Saudi special forces storming the Tupolev aircraft on the tarmac of Medina airport. The hijackers, armed only with knives and no firearms, had, the previous day, seized an Istanbul-Moscow flight with 162 passengers and 12 crew members on board and forced the pilot to divert to Medina. — Veintidós horas después de que un comando checheno secuestrara en Turquía un avión ruso con destino a Moscú y desviara su trayectoria hacia Arabia Saudí, las fuerzas especiales de Riad asaltan la nave. En la precipitada operación de rescate resultan muertas tres personas. 2000 Thomas Wilson Ferebee, 81, the Enola Gay bombardier who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, dies in Windermere, Florida. 1998 Benjamín Spock, pionero de la pediatría moderna. 1992 Rocard, mathematician. 1989 Jesús María de Leizaola, político y lehendakari vasco. 1979 Jean Monnet, político francés, considerado uno de los "padres de Europa" y que fue primer presidente de la C.E.C.A. 1968 The over 400 victims of the My Lai massacre    ^top^ During the Vietnam War, a US Army platoon from Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, Americal Division, massacres over four hundred unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai in the district of Song My.       The American GIs, under the command of Lieutenant William Calley, were on a tour of an area believed to be the location of a large enemy buildup. Upon approaching My Lai, which the Americans knew for its Viet Cong sympathies, Calley ordered his men to enter the village firing although there had been no report of enemy fire. The platoon’s "search and destroy" mission rapidly deteriorated into a massacre, as over hundred civilians, most women, children, and old men, were brutally murdered by the US troops.       According to eyewitness accounts, old men and infants were bayoneted, praying women and children were shot in the back of the head, and several young girls were raped and subsequently murdered. For his part, Calley rounded up a large group of the villagers, ordered them into a ditch, and slaughtered them in a hail of machine gun fire.       A few of the Americans, such as helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, attempted to stop the killing. Thompson set his helicopter down between advancing US soldiers and a group of huddled civilians, and threatened to open fire on his comrades if they continued the massacre. Thompson thus saved these civilians from the fate of the other villagers. In later months, Thompson joined the effort over a handful of other eyewitnesses to convince the US Army to court-martial those responsible for the slaughter.       Word of the incident did not reach the American public until November of 1969, when The New York Times published a story uncovering the massacre. The article also detailed the efforts of Ron Ridenhour, an ex-GI and Vietnam veteran who learned of the massacre from a Charlie Company eyewitness, to get Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon to investigate the matter.       On 16 November 1969, the US Army announced that Lieutenant Calley and several others had been charged with the massacre and the subsequent cover-up. However, of the two dozen soldiers originally charged, only five were court-martialed, and only one, William Calley, was convicted. On 29 March 1971, Calley was found guilty of the premeditated murder of at least twenty-two Vietnamese civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment.       However, his sentence was later reduced to twenty and then ten years, and in September of 1974, a federal court overturned the conviction and Calley was released. The massacre at My Lai contributed significantly to the growing disillusionment and national divisions in the United States over the war in Vietnam       In what would become the most publicized war atrocity committed by US troops in Vietnam, a platoon slaughters between 200 and 500 unarmed villagers at My Lai 4, a cluster of hamlets in the coastal lowlands of the northernmost region of South Vietnam. My Lai 4 was situated in a heavily mined region where Viet Cong guerrillas were firmly entrenched and numerous members of the participating platoon had been killed or maimed during the preceding month. Lt. William L. Calley, a platoon leader, was leading his men on a search-and-destroy mission; the unit entered the village only to find women, children, and old men. Frustrated by unanswered losses due to snipers and mines, the soldiers took out their anger on the villagers. During the ensuing massacre, several old men were bayoneted; some women and children praying outside the local temple were shot in the back of the head; and at least one girl was raped before being killed. Others were systematically rounded up and led to a nearby ditch where they were executed.       Reportedly, the killing was only stopped when Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, an aero-scout helicopter pilot, landed his helicopter between the Americans and the fleeing South Vietnamese, confronting the soldiers and blocking them from further action against the villagers. The incident was subsequently covered up, but came to light a year later. An Army board of inquiry investigated the massacre and produced a list of 30 persons who knew of the atrocity. Only 14, including Calley and his company commander, Captain Ernest Medina, were charged with crimes. All eventually had their charges dismissed or were acquitted by courts-martial except Calley, who was found guilty of personally murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced later to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. Proclaimed by much of the public as a “scapegoat,” Calley was paroled in 1974 after having served about a third of his 10-year sentence. 1957 Constantin Brancusi, Romanian abstract sculptor, a French citizen since 13 June 1952.. He was born on 21 February 1876. — LINKS

1955 (or 17 March) Nicolas de Staël, French painter born on 05 January 1914. — LINKS 1945 The last of 6000 US and 21'000 Japanese as Iwo Jima battle ends.       ^top^       The west Pacific volcanic island of Iwo Jima is declared secured by the US military after months of fiercely fighting its Japanese defenders. The Americans began applying pressure to the Japanese defense of Iwo Jima in February 1944, when B-24 and B-25 bombers raided the island for 74 days straight. It was the longest pre-invasion bombardment of the war, necessary because of the extent to which the Japanese--21'000 strong--fortified the island, above and below ground, including a network of caves. Underwater demolition teams ("frogmen") were dispatched by the Americans just before the actual invasion to clear the shores of mines and any other obstacles that could obstruct an invading force. In fact, the Japanese mistook the frogmen for an invasion force and killed 170 of them. The amphibious landings of Marines began the morning of 19 February 1945, as the secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, accompanied by journalists, surveyed the scene from a command ship offshore. The Marines made their way onto the island--and seven Japanese battalions opened fire, obliterating them. By that evening, more than 550 Marines were dead and more than 1800 were wounded. In the face of such fierce counterattack, the US troops reconciled themselves to the fact that Iwo Jima could be taken only one yard at a time.       A key position on the island was Mt. Suribachi, the center of the Japanese defense. The 28th Marine Regiment closed in and around the base of the volcanic mountain at the rate of 400 meters per day, employing flamethrowers, grenades, and demolition charges against the Japanese that were hidden in caves and pillboxes (low concrete emplacements for machine-gun nests). Approximately 40 Marines finally began a climb up the volcanic ash mountain, which was smoking from the constant bombardment, and at 10:00 on 23 February, a half-dozen Marines raised an American flag at its peak, using a pipe as a flag post. Two photographers caught a restaging of the flag raising for posterity, creating one of the most reproduced images of the war. With Mt. Suribachi claimed, one-third of Iwo Jima was under American control. On 16 March, with a US Navy military government established, Iwo Jima was declared secured and the fighting over. When all was done, more than 6000 US Marines died fighting for the island, along with almost all the 21'000 Japanese soldiers trying to defend it. 1945 Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, poeta francés. 1940 Selma Ottiliana Lovisa Lagerlöf,. 82 ans, première femme à recevoir le prix Nobel de littérature, mère de Nills Holgersson.    ^top^       Cette romancière suédoise naquit en 1858 à Mårbacka. De 1885 à 1895, elle enseigna à Landskrona. Dotée d'une imagination naïve et fantastique, Selma Lagerlöf écrivit des contes et des romans inspirés de contes populaires suédois. Ses œuvres surprennent par leur fraîcheur et leur naturel, et son don de conteuse la place parmi les meilleurs écrivains suédois. Son premier livre, la Saga de Gösta Berling (1890-1891), est un recueil de contes populaires du Värmland, écrit dans une prose lyrique marquée par l'influence de l'écrivain écossais Thomas Carlyle.       Son deuxième ouvrage, un recueil de nouvelles intitulé Les Liens invisibles (1894), fut, comme le précédent, un grand succès. À partir de 1895, Selma Lagerlöf voyagea en Italie et en Asie et se consacra entièrement à la littérature. Tout en continuant à utiliser les formes courtes, contes et nouvelles, elle adopta également des formes narratives plus amples. Son roman en deux volumes, Jérusalem (1901-1902), est la chronique d'un exode vers la Palestine. Vinrent ensuite La Maison de Lilljecrona (1911), Le Charretier de la mort (1912) et Charlotte Löwensköld (1925).       Elle écrivit encore des recueils de nouvelles: Les Reines de Kungahälla (1899), le très célèbre Merveilleux Voyage de Nils Holgersson (2 volumes, 1906-1907), un recueil de Contes fantastiques pour enfants, et Le Monde des Trolls (2 volumes, 1915-1921). Selma Lagerlöf est aussi l'auteur d'ouvrages autobiographiques : Mårbacka (1922), Mon journal (1930) et Le Journal (1932). Elle reçut le prix Nobel de littérature en 1909 et fut élue à l'Académie de Suède en 1914. 1940 Heath, mathematician. 1935 John James Richard MacLeod, médico irlandés, descubridor de la insulina. 1933 Alfréd Haar, mathematician. 1930 Miguel Primo de Rivera, dictatorial ex-presidente del Gobierno español. 1925 August von Wassermann, médico alemán. 1922 Halsted, mathematician. 1922 Robert Russ, Austrian artist born on 07 July 1847. 1914 Gaston Calmette, editor of Le Figaro, killed by Mme Caillaux. 1910 Juan de Dios Peza, poeta mexicano. 1903 Judge Roy Bean, the self-proclaimed "law west of the Pecos," in Langtry, Texas.       ^top^       A saloonkeeper and adventurer, Bean's claim to fame rested on the often humorous and sometimes-bizarre rulings he meted out as a justice of the peace in western Texas during the late 19th century. By then, Bean was in his 50s and had already lived a life full of rough adventures. Born in Kentucky some time during the 1820s, Bean began getting into trouble at an early age. He left home in 1847 with his brother Sam and lived a rogue's life in Mexico until he shot a man in a barroom fight and had to flee. He next turned up in San Diego, where he enjoyed playing the dashing caballero. Again he shot a man during a quarrel and was forced to leave town quickly. He fell into the same old habits in Los Angeles, eventually killing a Mexican officer in a duel over a woman. Angry friends of the officer hanged Bean in revenge, but luckily, the rope stretched and Bean managed to stay alive until the woman he had fought for arrived to cut him down. Bearing rope scars on his neck that remained throughout his life, Bean left California to take up a less risky life in New Mexico and Texas.       For about 16 years, Bean lived a prosperous and relatively legitimate life as a San Antonio businessman. In 1882, he moved to southwest Texas, where he built his famous saloon, the Jersey Lilly, and founded the hamlet of Langtry. Saloon and town alike were named for the famous English actress, Lillie Langtry. Bean had never met Langtry, but he had developed an abiding affection for the beautiful actress after seeing a drawing of her in an illustrated magazine. For the rest of his life, he avidly followed Langtry's career in theatre magazines. Before founding Langtry, Bean had also secured an appointment as a justice of the peace and notary public. He knew little about the law or proper court procedures, but residents appreciated and largely accepted his common sense verdicts in the sparsely populated country of West Texas. Bean was often deliberately humorous or bizarre in his rulings, once fining a dead man $40 for carrying a concealed weapon. He threatened one lawyer with hanging for using profane language when the hapless man referred to the "habeas corpus" of his client. Less amusing was Bean's decision to free a man accused of killing a Chinese rail worker on the grounds that Bean knew of no law making it a crime "to kill a Chinaman." By the 1890s, reports of Bean's curmudgeonly rulings had made him nationally famous. Travelers on the train passing through Langtry often made a point of stopping to visit the ramshackle saloon, where a sign proudly proclaimed Bean to be the "Law West of the Pecos." Bean fell ill during a visit to San Antonio. He returned to Langtry, where he died on March 16, 1903. Lillie Langtry, the object of Bean's devoted adoration, visited the village named in her honor only 10 months after Bean died. 1899 Bud Cotton, Henry Bingham, Tip Hudson, and Edward Brown, Blacks, lynched in Campbell County, Georgia, accused of arson. 1881 Francisco “Chico” Forster, 40, shot by his lover Lastania Abarta, 18, in Los Angeles, after he reneged on promise to marry her. Abarta would plead that this caused female hysteria in her, and be acquitted. 1841 Savart, mathematician. 1838 Nathaniel Bowditch, 64, mathematician, astronomer, and navigation expert. 1837 baron François-Xavier Fabre, French painter specialized in Portraits, born on 01 April 1766 [no fooling!]. — LINKS 1827 Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier, matemático francés. 1792 Gustavo III, rey de Suecia. 1736 Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, compositor italiano. 1639 Pieter Deneyn (or de Neyn), Dutch artist born on 16 December 1597.

Births which occurred on a March 16: 1936 Francisco Ibáñez, dibujante español, autor de "Mortadelo y Filemón" y otros personajes del cómic infantil. 1928 Ramón Barce, músico y escritor español. 1927 Daniel Patrick Moynihan UN ambassador/(Sen-D-NY) 1924 Marinero en tierra, de Rafael Alberti, se publica. 1915 The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)       ^top^       The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), devised in 1914, begins its operations. Charged with curbing corporate actions that blocked competition and the free flow of international trade, the FTC also served to strengthen the ties between business and government. Not only did the agency aid exporters by keeping tabs on tariffs, it also threw its weight behind legislation that would sanction monopolies and trusts in the field of foreign trade. As some historians have noted, the FTC fulfilled Wilson's vision of a global fiscal order led by the United States and facilitated by "open" trade channels. Along with its far-reaching economic impact, the FTC also marked the further consolidation of power in the executive branch of the government, a trend that had been initiated earlier in the century by Theodore Roosevelt. 1915 Kodaira, mathematician. 1911 Dr. Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death” of Auschwitz.       ^top^       Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous “Todesengel” Nazi doctor who performed medical experiments at the Auschwitz death camps, was born on 16 March 1911, in Gunzburg, Germany. His father founded Frima Karl Mengele & Sohne, a factory that produced farm machinery, in Bavaria. In college, Mengele first studied philosophy, imbibing the rascist theories of Alfred Rosenberg--who posited the innate intellectual and moral superiority of Aryans--and then took a medical degree at the University of Frankfurt am Main. Soon thereafter he enlisted in the SA, the paramilitary force of the Nazi Party. Mengele was so enthusiastic about Nazism that in 1934 he joined the research staff of the Nazi Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene.       When World War II started, Mengele was a medical officer with the SS, the elite squad of Hitler's bodyguards who later emerged as a secret police force that waged campaigns of terror in the name of Nazism. In 1943, SS head Heinrich Himmler appointed Mengele the chief doctor of the the Birkenau supplementary extermination camp near Auschwitz in Poland. Mengele, in distinctive white gloves, supervised the selection of Auschwitz' incoming prisoners for either torturous labor or immediate extermination, shouting either "Right!" or "Left!" to direct them to their fate. Eager to advance his medical career by publishing "groundbreaking" work, he then began experimenting on live Jewish prisoners.       In the guise of medical "treatment," Mengele injected, or ordered others to inject, thousands of inmates with everything from petrol to chloroform to study the chemicals' effects. Among other atrocities, he plucked out the eyes of Gypsy corpses to study eye pigmentation, and conducted numerous gruesome studies of twins. Mengele managed to escape imprisonment after the war, first by working as a farm stableman in Bavaria, then by moving to South America. He became a citizen of Paraguay in 1959. He later moved to Brazil, where he met up with another former Nazi party member, Wolfgang Gerhard (who later returned to Europe)..       In 1985, a multinational team of forensic experts traveled to Brazil in search of Mengele. They determined that a man named Gerhard had died of a stroke while swimming on 07 February 1979. Dental records later revealed that Mengele had, at some point, assumed Gerhard's identity and was the stroke victim. A fictional account of Josef Mengele's life after the war was depicted in the film Boys from Brazil, with Mengele, portrayed by Gregory Peck, creating clones of Hitler. 1906 Francisco Ayala, escritor y ensayista español, profesor y académico. 1903 Mike Mansfield (Sen-D-Mont) majority whip. 1893 Ramón de la Cadena y Brualla, marqués de la Cadena, escritor y periodista español. 1892 César Abraham Vallejo, poeta peruano. 1892 James Petrillo, US labor leader who died on 23 October 1984. 1881 Barnum and Bailey Circus debuts. 1881 Pierre Paulus du Châtelet, Belgian artist who died in 1959. 1880 Paul Jouve, French artist who died in 1973. 1878 Reza Khan Pahlavi. Iranian Shah (1925-41) He died on 26 July 1944. 1868 (Julian date: go to 28 March Gregorian) Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov “Maksim Gorky” 1850 The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is published..       ^top^       Nathaniel Hawthorne's story of adultery and betrayal in colonial America, The Scarlet Letter, is published. Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on 04 July 1804. Although the infamous Salem witch trials had taken place more than 100 years earlier, the events still hung over the town and made a lasting impression on the young Hawthorne. Witchcraft figured in several of his works, including Young Goodman Brown (1835) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851), in which a house is cursed by a wizard condemned by the witch trials.       After attending Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, Hawthorne returned to Salem, where he began his career as a writer. He self-published his first book, Fanshawe (1828), but tried to destroy all copies shortly after publication. He later wrote several books of short stories, including Twice Told Tales (1837). In 1841, he tried his hand at communal living at the agricultural cooperative Brook Farm but came away highly disillusioned by the experience, which he fictionalized in his novel The Blithedale Romance (1852).       Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody in 1842, having at last earned enough money from his writing to start a family. The two lived in a house called the Old Manse, in Concord, Massachusetts, and socialized with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Branson Alcott, father of writer Louisa May Alcott. Plagued by financial difficulties as his family grew, he took a job in 1845 at Salem's custom house, where he worked for three years. After leaving the job, he spent several months writing The Scarlet Letter, which made him famous. In 1853, Hawthorne's old college friend, President Franklin Pierce, appointed him American consul to England, and the family moved to England, where they lived for three years. Hawthorne died in Plymouth, New Hampshire, in 1864. HAWTHORNE ONLINE: The Scarlet Letter Tanglewood Tales Twice-Told Tales The Marble Faun The Blithedale Romance The Celestial Railroad The House of the Seven Gables Complete On-Line Works. Legends of the Province House The Life of Franklin Pierce Mosses from an Old Manse A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys The Whole History of Grandfather's Chair Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches Passages from the American Note-Books The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales The Snow-Image: A Childish Miracle The Great Stone Face and Other Tales from the White Mountains 1849 Rev. James E Smith became father at 100 with woman 64 years younger 1846 Gösta Mittag-Leffler, mathematician.

1839 René-François-Armand "Sully" Prudhomme, in Paris.       ^top^       French poet who was a leading member of the Parnassian movement, which sought to restore elegance, balance, and aesthetic standards to poetry, in reaction to the excesses of Romanticism. He was awarded the first Nobel Prize for Literature in 1901. He wrote Stances et poèmes (1865) which contains his best known poem, “Le vase brisé”, Les Épreuves (1866), and Les Solitudes (1869). Two of his best known philosophical works in verse are La Justice (1878) and Le Bonheur (1888), the latter an exploration of the Faustian search for love and knowledge.       Fils de commerçants très aisés, ingénieur au Creusot. Bientôt déçu par le travail, il retourna à Paris pour y faire son droit. Après ses études, il fut rebuté par un stage chez un notaire et décida de se consacrer (grâce sa fortune personnelle) à la poésie. Il avait vingt-six ans lorsqu'il publia son premier recueil : Stances et Poèmes (1865). Ce livre, favorablement accueilli par Sainte-Beuve, eut un succès immédiat. “Le Vase brisé” [La rompita vaso] était récité partout. Ce succès permit à Sully Prudhomme de collaborer au Parnasse fondé par Leconte de Lisle, collaboration qui accentua encore son souci de la perfection formelle.       Avec Les Solitudes (1869), sa poésie commença à prendre un caractère philosophique. Cette préoccupation s'affirma par la publication d'une traduction en vers (1869) de De la nature des choses de Lucrèce.       Durant le siège de Paris, Sully Prudhomme s'enrôla dans la garde mobile, et le froid, les fatigues et les privations lui valurent une attaque de paralysie dont il ressentit les conséquences toute sa vie. Cette expérience et ses réflexions sur la guerre sont le thème d'un livre paru sous le titre : Impressions de guerre.       Son oeuvre de «poésie philosophique» se poursuivit avec Les Destins (1872), mais il revint un moment à une poésie plus intime et plus sentimentale avec Les Vaines Tendresses ( 1875). Il entreprit ensuite deux très longs poèmes qui devaient représenter sa somme philosophique: La Justice (1878), est une sorte d'enquête morale et sociale; Le Bonheur (1888) est une vaste épopée symbolique. La préciosité et le verbalisme marquent ses deux autres recueils, Le Prisme et La Révolte des fleurs (1886).       Sully Prudhomme fut élu à l'Académie française en 1881 et son oeuvre, où figurent également des essais d'esthétique, de philosophie et de critique, fut couronnée par le premier Prix Nobel le 10 décembre 1901, prix dont il consacra le montant à la fondation d'un prix de poésie décerné sous l'égide de la Société des gens de lettres.      Sully Prudhomme est mort à Châtenay-Malabry (Hauts-de-Seine actuels) le 7 septembre 1907.

Le vase brisé Le vase où meurt cette verveine D'un coup d'évantail fut fêlé; Le coup dut l'effleurer à peine : Aucun bruit ne l'a révélé. Mais la légère meurtrissure, Mordant le cristal chaque jour, D'une marche invisible et sûre, En a fait lentement le tour. Son eau fraîche a fui goutte à goutte, Le suc des fleurs s'est épuisé; Personne encore ne s'en doute, N'y touchez pas, il est brisé. Souvent aussi la main qu'on aime, Effleurant le cœur, le meurtrit; Puis le cœur se fend de lui-même, La fleur de son amour périt; Toujours intact aux yeux du monde, Il sent croître et pleurer tout bas Sa blessure fine et profonde; Il est brisé, n'y touchez pas.

PRUDHOMME ONLINE: Clé: V Les vaines tendresses — S Les solitudes — E Epaves — R Les épreuves — P Stances et poèmes — I La vie intérieure

A Ronsard V A vingt ans S Ah ! le cours de mes ans... E Au bord de l'eau V Au jour le jour V Aux amis inconnus V Aux poètes futurs V Ce qui dure V Combats intimes S Corps et âmes S Déception S Dernière solitude S Douceur d'avril V Eclaircie V Enfantillage V Invitation à la valse V Joies sans causes R Juin V L'agonie S

L'âme P L'amour maternel V L'automne V L'étoile au coeur V L'étranger V L'habitude P L'idéal P L'indifférence V L'indulgence E L'une d'elles S La beauté V La bouture S La chanson de l'air P La colombe et le lis S La coupe V La grande allée S La Grande Chartreuse S La jacinthe E La laide S

La mer S La musique E La pensée S La reine du bal S La terre et l'enfant S La vieillesse S Le coucher du soleil E Le cygne S Le dernier adieu S Le long du quai P Le réveil S Le temps perdu V Le vase brisé P Le volubilis S Les amours terrestres V Les caresses S Les oiseaux P Les serres et les bois S Les stalactites S

Les yeux I Mars S Midi au village S Ne nous plaignons pas S Pèlerinages V Pensée perdue P Pluie P Première solitude S Prière au printemps S Prière V Printemps oublié P Renaissance P Rosées P Scrupule S Silence et nuit des bois S Silence V Soupir S Trop tard V Un rendez-vous V

1821 Eduard Heine, mathematician.
1812 Antonio de los Ríos Rosas, político español.

1802 United States Military Academy established    ^top^      At West Point, New York, the United States Military Academy — the first military school in the United States — is founded by Congress for the purpose of educating and training young men in the theory and practice of military science.       Located on the high west bank of the Hudson River, West Point was the site of a Revolutionary-era fort built to protect the Hudson River Valley from British attack. In 1780, Patriot General Benedict Arnold, the commander in charge of the fort, agreed to surrender West Point to the British in exchange for six thousand pounds. However, the plot was uncovered before it fell into British hands, and Arnold fled to British protection.       In 1802, the US Military Academy was established at West Point, and in 1812, growing threat of another war with Great Britain resulted in congressional action to expand the academy’s facilities and increase the West Point corps. Beginning in 1817, the US Military Academy was reorganized by superintendent Sylvanus Thayer--later known as the "father of West Point"--and the school became one of the nation’s finest sources of civil engineers.       During the Mexican-American War, West Point graduates filled the leading ranks of the victorious US forces, and with the outbreak of the Civil War, former West Point classmates regrettably lined up against either in the defense of their native states. In 1870, the first African American cadet was admitted into the United States Military Academy, and in 1976, the first female cadets. The academy is now under the general direction and supervision of the department of the US Army, and has an enrollment of about 4300 students.

1789 Georg Simon Ohm, German physicist and mathematician.
1789 Francis Chesney, English soldier, explorer and Middle East traveler who died on 30 January 1872.
1787 Georg Simon Ohm physicist (discovered Ohm's Law)
1771 baron Antoine-Jean Gros, French Neoclassical / Romantic painter, who commited suicide on 26 June 1835. — MORE ON GROS AT ART “4” MARCH — LINKS — Napoléon Bonaparte on Arcole Bridge on 17 November 1796 (1797) _ Napoléon Bonaparte on Arcole Bridge (Gros' copy of the 1797 painting) — Napoléon on the Battlefield of Eylau on 9 February 1807 _ detail — Napoléon in the Pesthouse at Jaffa — Madame Récamier [compare Jacques-Louis David's Madame Récamier,, François Gérard's Madame Récamier], and René Magritte's Perspective I: David's Madame Recamier]
1568 Juan Martínez Montañés, escultor español.
1764 Joseph Dorffmeister, Hungarian artist who died in 1814.
1751 James Madison (D-R), 4th US president (1809-17) in Port Conway, Virginia. He died on 28 June 1836.
1750 Caroline Herschel, German-born English astronomer and mathematician who died on 09 January 1848.
1750 Isaak Ouwater, Dutch artist who died on 04 March 1793.
1667 Antoine Rivalz, French painter 1735 who died on 07 September 1735. — MORE ON RIVALTZ AT ART “4” MARCH — LINKS — Autoportrait devant l'esquisse de la chute des anges rebelles — Jean-Pierre Rivalz — La Présidente de Riquet en Diane Chasseresse — Enlèvement des Sabines _ inspired by. TITI LIVI AB VRBE CONDITA LIBER I, IX (English translation at Livy's The History of Rome) — L'Annonciation
1665 Giuseppe-Maria Crespi “lo Spagnolo”, Bolognese painter who died on 16 July 1747. — MORE ON CRESPI AT ART “4” MARCH — LINKS — Self-Portrait — Cardinal Prospero Lambertini — The Flea — Hecuba Blinding Polymnestor _ inspired by Hecuba, a tragedy by Euripides.
1478 Hieronymus Emser, German theologian, lecturer, editor and essayist who died on 08 November 1527.

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Holidays    Surinam : Holi Phagwah     Umatilla, OR : Curlew Day

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Religious Observances RC : SS Abraham, hermit, and Mary, penitent / RC : St John de Brébeuf and companions/martyrs /Santos Ciriaco, Hilario, Agapito y Heriberto.
Christian : Feast of fictional St Urho, “patron of Finland”       ^top^
St. Urho is a legendary patron saint of Finnish Vineyard workers. According to fabricated American legend, wild grapes were threatened by a plague of grasshoppers until St. Urho raised his staff and bellowed: "Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, menetaalta hiiteen." ("Grasshopper, Grasshopper, go away!"). With these effective words he is credited for miraculously ridding Finland of grasshoppers and thereby saving the grapes. Each year, St. Urho's Day is celebrated on March 16 — the day before St. Patrick's Day.

[< Saint Urho's statue in Menahga, Minnesota.]

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St. Urho was first celebrated in spring 1956. This is just an estimate, but the years 1956-1957 seems to be about the time when St. Urho was born. The verbal chronicles state that St. Urho was born in Virginia, Minnesota.
      According to the legend, St. Urho was hailed into existence in St. Patrick's party in the 17th of March in 1956. St. Patrick an Irish legend, who've been claimed to expel the snakes from Ireland. Richard Mattson, a departmental manager at the Ketola department store in Virginia really knocked this story down. He told immense stories of a Finnish saint, who's spell drove the poisonous frogs out of Finland.
      While joking to his Irish friends, Mattson thought of several names to this magnificient saint. Saint Eero or Saint Jussi weren't quite what Mattson was trying to get at, but Saint Urho had that right, authoritative tone.
      Gene McCavic, who worked at the same store as Mattson did, wrote an ode to Urho. The ode was about a boy named Urho, who got enormous strength from fishsoup and sour whole milk.
      Dr. Sulo Havumäki, a psychology teacher at Bemidji College, has also been named as one of the composers of the legend of Urho. His Urho chanted a huge swarm of grasshoppers into sea and saved the vintage of Finnish farmers.
      When Urho Kekkonen became the president of Finland in March 1956 many believed that St. Urho's name was taken from Kekkonen. The famous namesake might have accelerated the spread of St. Urho's Day.
      The cities Menahga , New York Mills and Wolf Lake in Minnesota at least know St. Urho. Menahga even has a statue of St. Urho. So has Finland, Minnesota. [photo >]
      The ceremonies and rituals vary and change from year to year.
      It is said that the celebrants don't care about the story being totally made up. The winter of North Minnesota is long. The parties of St Urho's and St. Patrick's Days give a warm breeze and a good reason to party two days in a row.

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This photo, discoverd in the Saint Urho Archives, shows two of the Saint's disciples carrying home the day's hunt. Finnish historians consider that this picture shows a re-enactment of a scene that occured just before the last Ice Age.

A learned investigation into the fabrication of the Saint Urho “legend”.
Another account.

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Misunderstood from the radio: “Today the One-Minute Army Band will perform at ....” [what they said was “60 second”]

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Thoughts for the day: “He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another`s mishap.”
“He is truly a lawyer who gains wealth from another`s mishap.”
“He is truly diabolical who gains pleasure from another`s mishap.”
“He is truly foolish who blames another for his own mishap.”
“He is truly wicked who gains wisdom from another`s mishap, and does nothing to help.”