On This Day:
Saturday March 14, 2015 This is the 73rd day of the year, with 292 days remaining in 2015. Fact of the Day: onion tears The strong smell of fresh onions comes from the sulphur-rich oil they contain. Cutting or peeling an onion releases this oil, which readily evaporates and soon reaches the eyes. This sulphurous and acidic oil irritates nerve endings in the conjunctiva, the transparent tissue covering the eye and underside of the eyelids. An instinctive reaction is for the sensitized nerves to send signals which stimulate the tear (lachrymal) gland to produce extra tear fluid. Tears wash over the eye to flush out the chemical irritant. Our eyes are being watered by up to a quarter of a teaspoon a day of secretions that keep our eyes moist and wash away foreign particles and bacteria. When excess tears are secreted, they flow out of the eye and down the face. If you want to peel onions without tears, run them under water as you cut them. The water will capture most of the juices of the oil.
Holidays Feast day of St. Matilda, St. Eutychius, and St. Leobinus.
Events 1743 - The first recorded town meeting in America was held, at Faneuil Hall in Boston.
1794 - Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin.
1812 - The first War Bonds were authorized by the United States government.
1900 - Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act.
1939 - The Republic of Czechoslovakia was dissolved, opening the way for Nazi occupation.
1947 - Philippine military and naval bases were leased to the U.S..
1964 - Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald -- the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy -- was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. (The decision was later reversed, but Ruby spent the rest of his life in prison.)
1967 - John F. Kennedy's body was moved from a temporary grave to a permanent one in Arlington Cemetery.
1991 - The "Birmingham Six," imprisoned for 16 years for their alleged part in an IRA pub bombing, were set free after a court agrees that the police fabricated evidence.
1994 - Linux kernel version 1.0.0 is released.
2004 - Vladimir Putin is re-elected to a second term as President of Russia.
Births 1833 - Lucy Hobbs Taylor, American, first woman dentist.
1854 - Paul Ehrlich, German chemist, 1908 Nobel Prize for medicine, invented chemotherapy.
1864 - (John Luther) Casey Jones, American railroad engineer.
1874 - Harry Houdini (Erik Weisz), Hungarian-born American magician, escape artist.
1879 - Albert Einstein, German-born physics genius.
1912 - Les Brown, American bandleader.
1914 - Lee Petty, an American stock car driver in the 1950s and 60s, and one of the pioneers of NASCAR.
1920 - Hank Ketcham, American cartoonist who created the Dennis the Menace comic strip.
1933 - Chicago-born Quincy Jones, musician and composer.
1933 - Sir Michael Caine (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, Jr.), London-born film actor.
1934 - Eugene Cernan, American astronaut.
1948 - Billy Crystal, actor and comedian, born in Long Beach, New York.
Deaths 1883 - Karl Marx, German revolutionary, philosopher, economist, historian.
1932 - George Eastman, American inventor, and founder of the Eastman Kodak Company.
1973 - Chic Young, American cartoonist best known as the creator and original artist of the comic strip Blondie.
1989 - Edward Abbey, an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies.
2002 - Cherry Wilder (born Cherry Barbara Grimm), New Zealand-born science fiction and fantasy author.
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