On This Day:
Tuesday March 18, 2014 This is the 77th day of the year, with 288 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: Johnny Appleseed While some of the circumstances said to surround Johnny Appleseed are fictional, he was a real person. John Chapman (1774-1845) was a preacher and nurseryman who planted apple trees in the western parts of New York and Pennsylvania. Around 1800, as lands lying south of the Great Lakes and west of the Ohio river were opening up for settlement, Chapman became one of the first explorers. Ahead of the pioneers, he planted thousands of acres of orchards. Working alone and moving by foot and boat, he headed westward, making it as far as Fort Wayne, Indiana and selling or giving away millions of seedlings as he went. Chapman left a unique legacy, but he had also become a successful businessman. At the time of his death, he had acquired over 1,200 acres of land.
Holidays Feast day of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Alexander of Jerusalem, St. Christian, St. Edward the Martyr, St. Finan of Aberdeen, St. Anselm of Lucca, St. Frigidian, and St. Salvator of Horta.
Aruba: Flag Day.
Events 1662 - The first public bus service began operating, in Paris.
1766 - Britain's Parliament repealed the Stamp Act after widespread protest in America.
1813 - David Melville of Newport, Rhode Island, patented the gas streetlight.
1865 - The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourned for the last time.
1881 - Barnum and Bailey's "Greatest Show on Earth" opened in Madison Square Garden.
1909 - Einar Dessau of Denmark used a shortwave transmitter to talk with a government radio post -- in what is believed to have been the first broadcast by a "ham" operator.
1922 - Mohandas Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years' imprisonment for civil disobedience; he was released after serving two years.
1930 - American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto.
1931 - Schick marketed the first electric razor.
1939 - Georgia finally ratified the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government. (Connecticut and Massachusetts, the other holdouts, also ratified the Bill of Rights in 1939.)
1940 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agreed to join Germany's war against France and Britain.
1949 - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed.
1953 - Major League Baseball announced the first team relocation since 1903: Boston Braves to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1962 - France and the leaders of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) signed a peace agreement to end the seven-year Algerian War. It ended 130 years of colonial French rule in Algeria.
1965 - The first spacewalk took place -- by Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov from Voskhod II.
Births 1782 - John C. Calhoun, congressman, senator, secretary of war, secretary of state, and vice president (1825-1832) of the United States.
1837 - (Stephen) Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States of America (1885-1889, 1893-1897).
1844 - Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov, Russian composer.
1858 - Rudolf Diesel, German engineer who designed the compression-ignition engine.
1927 - George Plimpton, American author, journalist, actor.
1932 - John Updike, American poet and novelist.
1936 - Frederik W. deKlerk, President of the Republic of South Africa.
Deaths 1745 - Robert Walpole, first prime minister of Britain.
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