On This Day:
Thursday March 13, 2014 This is the 72nd day of the year, with 293 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: snowflakes Ice crystals from clouds fall as snow. Moisture freezes on the crystals, which combine to make snowflakes. Large snowflakes, formed when the temperature is above freezing, fall as wet snow. Dry, powdery snow falls in extremely cold weather but its snowflakes do not stick together well. Each snowflake is a collection of ice crystals, which are usually hexagonal but may also be needle-shaped or columnar. No two crystals are identical; their shape depends on where they form in the cloud and the temperature changes each flake experiences as it is forming. The formation of the crystals is a complex process leading to an almost infinite number of possible variations. In theory, it is possible for two snowflakes to be precisely the same, but the probability of complex water molecules being distributed in the same configuration in two different snowflakes is next to zero.
Holidays Feast day of St. Gerald of Mayo, St. Mochoemoc, St. Nicephorus of Constantinople, Saints Roderic and Salomon, St. Ansovinus, and St. Euphrasia.
Events 1639 - Harvard University was named for clergyman John Harvard.
1781 - The planet Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel.
1852 - Uncle Sam made his debut as a cartoon character in the New York "Lantern."
1868 - The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the U. S. Senate.
1877 - Ear mufflers were patented by Chester Greenwood of Maine.
1878 - The first collegiate golf match was played; Oxford University defeated Cambridge University.
1884 - Standard Time was adopted throughout the United States.
1935 - Tennessee outlawed the teaching of evolution.
1974 - The five-month oil embargo by Arab countries was lifted. The embargo was in retaliation for the U.S. support of Israel during the 1973 Middle East war.
1996 - A gunman burst into an elementary school in Scotland and opened fire on a class of kindergartners, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.
2007 - The Bank of England launched a new £20 banknote, featuring the Scottish economist Adam Smith.
Births 1733 - Joseph Priestley, English chemist.
1855 - Percival Lowell, American astronomer.
1911 - L. Ron Hubbard, American Church of Scientology founder, author.
1927 - Raúl Alfonsín, President of Argentina.
1939 - Neil Sedaka, singer and songwriter, born in Brooklyn, New York.
1942 - Dave Cutler, software engineer, born in Lansing, Michigan.
1950 - William H. Macy, actor, born in Miami, Florida.
1960 - English-born Adam Clayton, bass player of the rock band U2.
1987 - Marco Andretti, American race car driver and grandson of racing legend Mario Andretti.
Deaths 1842 - Henry Shrapnel, a British Army officer and inventor, best known for the "shrapnel shell."
1881 - Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, in the streets of St. Petersburg by a bomb thrown by a member of the revolutionary "People's Will" group.
1901 - Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States.
1906 - Susan B. Anthony, American women's suffrage activist.
1938 - Clarence Darrow, American defense attorney.
1998 - Hans von Ohain, German engineer, and one of the inventors of jet propulsion.
2002 - Hans-Georg Gadamer, German philosopher.
2006 - Maureen Stapleton, film, theater, and television actress, born in Troy, New York.
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