March 7 is the 66th day of the year (67th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 299 days remaining until the end of the year.
Note from author:
Is America’s past a tale of racism, sexism, and bigotry? Is it a story of the conquest and rape of a continent? Is the history of the United States the story of white slave owners who perverted the electoral process for their own interests? Did America start with Columbus killing all the Indians, leap to Jim Crow laws and Rockefeller crushing the workers, and then save itself with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal?
No!
But if you have ever been to a history class or read any mainstream history book like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States you might think that the Founders as self-interested politicians and slave holders and of the icons of American industry robber baron oppressors.
I believe in an honest evaluation of our history and must in any spectrum view this country’s past a bright and shinning example of the city on the hill, the fountain of hope and the beacon of liberty. While I am not one to say “My country right or wrong”, I am not about to take up the banner “My country always wrong”.
I however do believe we have come to a crossroads, a very important time in history where if we are not careful, this country will fall.
Holidays
- Christian feast day:
- Teacher’s Day (Albania)
History
In 161, Emperor Antoninus Pius dies and is succeeded by his adoptive sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
In 238, Roman subjects in Africa revolt against Maximinus Thrax and elect Gordian I as emperor.
In 321, Emperor Constantine I decrees that the dies Solis Invicti (sun-day) is the day of rest in the Empire.
In 1274, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Italian priest and philosopher (b. 1225) dies. He was also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican friar and priest and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the “Doctor Angelicus“, “Doctor Communis“, and “Doctor Universalis“. “Aquinas” is from the county of Aquino, an area his family held land in until 1137. He was born in Roccasecca, Italy. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy was conceived in development or refutation of his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. Unlike many currents in the Church of the time, Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle — whom he referred to as “the Philosopher” — and attempted to synthethise Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity. The works for which he is best known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa contra Gentiles. His commentaries on Sacred Scripture and on Aristotle are an important part of his body of work. Furthermore, Thomas is distinguished for his eucharistic hymns which form a part of the Church’s liturgy.
In 1277, Stephen Tempier, bishop of Paris, condemns 219 philosophical and theological theses.
In 1530, King Henry VIII’s request for a divorce was turned down by the Pope. Henry then declared that he, not the Pope, was the supreme head of England’s church.
In 1583, the day is proclaimed Thomas Aquinas Day.
In 1644, Massachusetts established the first two-chamber legislature in the colonies.
In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte captures Jaffa in Palestine and his troops proceed to kill more than 2,000 Albanian captives.
In 1801, Massachusetts enacted the first state voter registration law.
In 1814, Emperor Napoleon I of France wins the Battle of Craonne.
In 1825, The U.S. Congress ratifies the first treaty with a South American country, the Republic of Colombia.
In 1827, Brazilian marines unsuccessfully attack the temporary naval base of Carmen de Patagones, Argentina.
In 1827, Shrigley Abduction: Ellen Turner is abducted by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a future politician in colonial New Zealand.
In 1843, first Catholic governor in US, Edward Kavanagh of Maine, takes office.
In 1848, In Hawaii, the Great Mahele (division of lands) is signed.
In 1849, and the 8th, Abraham Lincoln makes appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court regarding Illinois statute of limitations, but is unsuccessful.
In 1850, Senator Daniel Webster gives his “Seventh of March” speech endorsing the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.
In 1854, Charles Miller patented the first U.S. sewing machine to stitch buttonholes.
In 1862, American Civil War: Union forces defeat Confederate troops at the Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas.
In 1867, the Order of the Knights of St. Crispin is founded to halt the rising unemployment in the U.S. shoe industry (protection of seniorityends in 1878.
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention he calls the telephone.
In 1897, Dr. John Kellogg served the world’s first corn flakes to his patients at a mental hospital in Battle Creek, MI. It was put on sale years later.
In 1900, The German liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse becomes the first ship to send wireless signals to shore.
In 1902, Second Boer War: In the Battle of Tweebosch, a Boer commando led by Koos de la Rey inflicts the biggest defeat upon the British since the beginning of the war
In 1908, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Breith stood before city council & announces that, “women are not physically fit to operate automobiles”.
In 1911, the United States sent 20,000 troops to the Mexican border as a precaution in the wake of the Mexican Revolution.
In 1911, The first coin-operated locker is patented by Willis S. Farnsworth.
In 1912, Roald Amundsen announces that his expedition had reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911.
In 1914, Prince William of Wied arrives in Albania to begin his reign.
In 1918, The Bolsheviks changed their name to the Russian Communist Party.
In 1918, President Wilson authorized the U.S. Army’s Distinguished Service Medal recognizing those who performed exceptionally meritorious service during the war.
In 1925, the American Negro Congress was organized.
In 1933, the game “Monopoly” was invented. It was mass marketed by Parker Brothers in 1935. You can easily say that they had a MONOPOLY on that patent.
In 1936, World War II (Prelude to): In violation of the Locarno Pact and the Treaty of Versailles, Germany reoccupies the Rhineland.
In 1945, World War II: American troops seize the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen.
In 1950, Cold War: The Soviet Union issues a statement denying that Klaus Fuchs served as a Soviet spy.
In 1951, Korean War: Operation Ripper – United Nations troops led by General Matthew Ridgeway begin an assault against Chinese forces.
In 1965, Bloody Sunday: A group of 600 civil rights marchers are forcefully broken up in Selma, Alabama.
In 1967, Jimmy Hoffa, teamster president, begins eight-year jail sentence for defrauding the union and jury tampering (commuted Dec. 23, 1971).
In 1968, Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnamese military begin Operation Truong Cong Dinh to root out Viet Cong forces from the area surrounding Mỹ Tho.
In 1969, two of the three Apollo-9 astronauts test flew their lunar module around the main spacecraft while in Earth orbit, then linked the two together again.
In 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivers his historic speech at Suhrawardy Udyan.
In 1974, “Monitor” (US Civil War Ship) restored at Cape Hatteras NC.
In 1975, the U.S. Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present.
In 1979, Scientists discover a ring around Jupiter while examining photographs taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Astronomers had spotted rings around Saturn in 1610 and Uranus in 1977.
In 1984, the Senate confirmed William Wilson as the first U.S. ambassador to the Vatican in 117 years.
In 1985, The song “We Are the World” receives its international release.
In 1986, Challenger Disaster: Divers from the USS Preserver locate the crew cabin of Challenger on the ocean floor.
In 1989, Iran and the United Kingdom break diplomatic relations after a row over Salman Rushdie and his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses.
In 1990, Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan announced the government would propose a more informative food-labeling system that would require the disclosure of the fat, fiber and cholesterol content of nearly all packaged foods.
In 1993, authorities said David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidian, was becoming irritable and had rejected proposals to end a week-long standoff at his compound near Waco, Texas.
In 1994, Copyright Law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
In 1994, the U.S. Navy issued its first permanent orders assigning women to regular duty on a combat ship — in this case, the USS Eisenhower.
In 1995, New York Governor George Pataki used pens which had belonged to two slain New York Police officers to sign a new law reinstating the state’s death penalty. New York becomes the 38th of the 50 states to establish capital punishment.
In 1996, the first surface photos of Pluto, the only solar-system planet never visited by spacecraft, was photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on this date.
In 1997, after a week of embarrassing disclosures about White House fund raising, President Clinton told a news conference, “I’m not sure, frankly” if he also had made calls for campaign cash. But he insisted that nothing had undercut his pledge to have the highest ethical standards ever.
In 1998, A Minn. judge ordered tobacco companies to turn over thousands of secret documents in the state’s $1.77-billion lawsuit. Judge Kenneth Fitzpatrick ordered cigarette makers to release by Monday 39,000 documents that may contain information on how the industry studied ways to lure young people to smoke, some as young as five.
In 1999 – Stanley Kubrick, American director, screenwriter, and producer (b. 1928) after screening a final cut of Eyes Wide Shut for his family and the stars, Kubrick died in his sleep of natural causes at the age of 70. He was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, and editor who did much of his work in the United Kingdom. He is regarded by many as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His films, typically adaptations of novels or short stories, are noted for their “dazzling” and unique cinematography, attention to detail in the service of realism, and the evocative use of music. Kubrick’s films covered a variety of genres, including war, crime, literary adaptations, romantic and black comedies, horror, epic and science fiction. Kubrick was also noted for being a demanding perfectionist, using painstaking care with scene staging, camera-work and coordinating extremely closely both with his actors and his behind-scenes collaborators.
In 2004, New Democracy wins the Greek elections.
In 2006, The terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba coordinates a series of bombings in Varanasi, India.
In 2007, The British House of Commons votes to make the upper chamber, the House of Lords, 100% elected.
In 2009, The Real Irish Republican Army kills two British soldiers and two civilians, the first British military deaths in Northern Ireland since The Troubles.
In 2009, The Kepler space observatory, designed to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, is launched. Designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way to discover dozens of Earth-size exoplanets in or near the habitable zone and estimate how many of the billions of stars in the Milky Way have such planets, Kepler‘s sole instrument is a photometer that continually monitors the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. This data is transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star.
In 2014, The opening ceremony for the 2014 Winter Paralympics take place in Sochi, Russia.
In 2016, The Alabama Supreme Court tells the United States Supreme Court to Take a Hike on Marriage Opinion. The Alabama Supreme Court ordered that all probate judges cease and desist in issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. The court issued its 170-page ruling in favor of Petition for Mandamus by Liberty Counsel.
