On This Day
11th March 1888 – The Great Blizzard of 1888 begins along the eastern seaboard of the United States
by admin on Mar.11, 2010, under On This Day
The Great Blizzard of 1888 or Great Blizzard of ‘88 (March 11 – March 14, 1888) was one of the most severe blizzards in United States’ recorded history. Snowfalls of 40-50 inches (102-127 cm) fell in parts of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and sustained winds of over 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) produced snowdrifts in excess of 50 feet (15.2 m). Railroads were shut down and people were confined to their houses for up to a week.
The storm, referred to as the Great White Hurricane, paralyzed the East Coast from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine, as well as the Atlantic provinces of Canada. Telegraph infrastructure was disabled, isolating Montreal and most of the large northeastern U.S. cities from Washington, D.C. to Boston for days. Following the storm, New York began placing its telegraph and telephone infrastructure underground to prevent their destruction. From Chesapeake Bay through the New England area, over 200 ships were either grounded or wrecked, resulting in the deaths of at least 100 seamen.
In New York, neither rail nor road transport was possible anywhere for days, and drifts across the New York — New Haven rail line at Westport, Connecticut took eight days to clear; transportation gridlock as a result of the storm was partially responsible for the creation of the first underground subway system in the United States, which opened nine years later in Boston.
Fire stations were immobilized, and property loss from fire alone was estimated at $25 million. Severe flooding occurred after the storm due to melting snow, especially in the Brooklyn area, which was more susceptible to serious flooding due to its topography. Efforts were made to push the snow into the Atlantic Ocean. Over 400 people died from the storm and the ensuing cold, including 200 in New York City alone.
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10th March 1977 – Astronomers discover rings around Uranus
by admin on Mar.10, 2010, under On This Day
Uranus has a complicated planetary ring system, which was the second such system to be discovered in the Solar System after Saturn’s. The rings are composed of extremely dark particles, which vary in size from micrometers to a fraction of a meter. Thirteen distinct rings are presently known. All rings of Uranus (except two) are extremely narrow—they are usually a few kilometres wide. The rings are probably quite young; the dynamics considerations indicate that they did not form with Uranus. The matter in the rings may once have been part of a moon (or moons) which was shattered by high-speed impacts. From numerous pieces of debris that formed as result of those impacts only few particles survived in a limited number of stable zones corresponding to present rings.
William Herschel described a possible ring around Uranus in 1789. This sighting is generally considered doubtful, as the rings are quite faint, and in the two following centuries none were noted by other observers. Still, Herschel made an accurate description of the epsilon ring’s size, its angle relative to the Earth, its red color, and its apparent changes as Uranus traveled around the Sun. The ring system was definitively discovered on March 10, 1977 by James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham, and Douglas J. Mink using the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. The discovery was serendipitous; they planned to use the occultation of the star SAO 158687 by Uranus to study the planet’s atmosphere. However, when their observations were analyzed, they found that the star had disappeared briefly from view five times both before and after it disappeared behind the planet. They concluded that there must be a ring system around the planet. Later they detected four additional rings. The rings were directly imaged when Voyager 2 passed Uranus in 1986. Voyager 2 also discovered two additional faint rings bringing the total number to eleven.
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9th March 1970 – Happy Birthday Martin Johnson!!
by admin on Mar.09, 2010, under On This Day
Martin Osborne Johnson CBE (born 9 March 1970) is an English former rugby union footballer who represented and captained England and Leicester. He is mostly known for captaining England to victory in the World Cup in 2003. He became the new England team manager on 1 July 2008, replacing the previous manager Brian Ashton. He’s regarded as one of the greatest locks to have ever played. He toured three times with the British and Irish Lions, becoming the only man to have captained them on two separate tours. He also led his club Leicester Tigers to back-to back Heineken Cup victories and won the league six times. Despite no coaching experience, he was appointed team manager of the national England Rugby Union side in April 2008.
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8th March 1817 – The New York Stock Exchange is founded
by admin on Mar.08, 2010, under On This Day
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in lower Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. It is the world’s largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at US$28.5 trillion as of May 2008.
The NYSE is operated by NYSE Euronext, which was formed by the NYSE’s 2007 merger with the fully electronic stock exchange Euronext. The NYSE trading floor is located at 11 Wall Street and is composed of four rooms used for the facilitation of trading. A fifth trading room, located at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007. The main building, located at 18 Broad Street, between the corners of Wall Street and Exchange Place, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, as was the 11 Wall Street building.
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7th March 1814 – Napoleon I of France wins the Battle of Craonne
by admin on Mar.07, 2010, under On This Day
The Battle of Craonne was fought on March 7, 1814, and resulted in a French victory under Napoleon I against Russians and Prussians under General Blücher.
Craonne is a village on the Chemin des Dames, in the département of Aisne.
Marshal Blucher had recovered from his earlier setbacks more quickly than Napoleon Bonaparte had hoped and so the French Emperor was forced to switch his attacks from Field Marshal Schwarzenberg back to the Prussian commander.
Moving with speed and aggression, the French pushed the Allies over the Aisne river and while Blucher planned his counter with some 85,000 men, Napoleon’s 37,000 troops struck.
Napoleon’s aim was to pin the Allies and then launch Marshal Ney, leading a mixed force heavily weighted towards cavalry, in a flanking move.
Unfortunately, for the French, the coordination was poorly timed and Ney not only suffered heavy casualties but the Allies managed to extricate themselves from a sticky situation.
Craonne cost Blucher 5,000 casualties, while Napoleon lost some 5,400.
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6th March 1899 – Bayer registers aspirin as a trademark
by admin on Mar.06, 2010, under On This Day
Aspirin (USAN), also known as acetylsalicylic acid, is a salicylate drug, often used as an analgesic to relieve minor aches and pains, as an antipyretic to reduce fever, and as an anti-inflammatory medication.
Aspirin also has an antiplatelet effect by inhibiting the production of thromboxane, which under normal circumstances binds platelet molecules together to create a patch over damage of the walls within blood vessels. Because the platelet patch can become too large and also block blood flow, locally and downstream, aspirin is also used long-term, at low doses, to help prevent heart attacks, strokes, and blood clot formation in people at high risk for developing blood clots. It has also been established that low doses of aspirin may be given immediately after a heart attack to reduce the risk of another heart attack or of the death of cardiac tissue.
The main undesirable side effects of aspirin are gastrointestinal ulcers, stomach bleeding, and tinnitus, especially in higher doses. In children and adolescents, aspirin is no longer used to control flu-like symptoms or the symptoms of chickenpox or other viral illnesses, because of the risk of Reye’s syndrome.
Aspirin was the first discovered member of the class of drugs known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), not all of which are salicylates, although they all have similar effects and most have inhibition of the enzyme cyclooxygenase as their mechanism of action. Today, aspirin is one of the most widely used medications in the world, with an estimated 40,000 tonnes of it being consumed each year. In countries where Aspirin is a registered trademark owned by Bayer, the generic term is acetylsalicylic acid (ASA).
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5th March 1943 – First flight of Gloster Meteor jet aircraft in the United Kingdom
by admin on Mar.05, 2010, under On This Day
The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies’ first operational jet. Designed by George Carter, it first flew in 1943 and commenced operations on 27 July 1944 with 616 Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF). The Gloster Meteor was not an aerodynamically advanced aircraft but the Gloster design team succeeded in producing an effective jet fighter that served the RAF and other air forces for decades. Meteors saw action with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in the Korean War and remained in service with numerous air forces until the 1970s. Two Meteors, WL419 and WA638, remain in service with the Martin-Baker company as ejection seat testbeds.
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4th March 2001 – BBC bombing: a massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London
by admin on Mar.04, 2010, under On This Day
On Sunday, 4 March 2001 the Real IRA detonated a car bomb outside the BBC’s main news centre in the White City area of West London at 0030GMT. Officers were carrying out a controlled explosion on the bomb with a bomb-disposal robot when it went off yards from the front door of BBC Television Centre. Staff had already been evacuated after police received a coded warning. A London Underground worker suffered deep cuts and some damage was caused to the front of the BBC building.
As the explosion happened just after midnight some reports of the incident say that it happened on 3 March when in fact it was 4 March.
In November 2001, three men; Noel Maguire, Robert Hulme and his brother Aiden Hulme were arrested in connection with three bomb attacks in the UK. The first being outside the BBC on 4 March 2001 the second in Ealing Broadway on 3 August 2001 and the third in Birmingham on 3 November 2001. They were all later convicted at the Old Bailey on 8 April 2003. Robert Hulme and Aiden Hulme were each jailed for 20 years. Noel Maguire, who the judge said played “a major part in the bombing conspiracy”, was sentenced to 22 years.
Two other men, James McCormack, of County Louth, and John Hannan, of Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh, had already admitted the charge at an earlier hearing. James McCormack, who played the most serious part of the five, the judge said, was jailed for 22 years. John Hannan, who was 17 at the time of the incidents, was given 16 years detention.
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3rd March 1979 – Happy Birthday Alex Zane!!
by admin on Mar.03, 2010, under On This Day
Alex Zane (born Alexander Laurence, born 3 March 1979 in Leeds) is an English television presenter and DJ.
He attended Boston Spa School before going on to study Medicine at University College London, a course which he left after a year, and then Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College. He left Goldsmiths also without graduating.
His father currently resides in Trinidad, and has done so for some time. His mother lives in his native Leeds. Zane has mentioned on many occasions that while he was growing up, he, his mother and his brother lived in the upstairs of the house while their cats lived downstairs.
Zane began his career at the age of 18 when he became a finalist on an open-mic competition called So You Think You’re Funny.
In July 2009, he co-hosted Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: A T4 Special with Rick Edwards and hosted the Channel 4 coverage of Inglourious Basterds.
Zane also hosts a film show, Alex Zane’s Guest List, on Sky Movies Premiere.
In early 2010 he appeared with Bill Bailey as a team captain on birdwatching show ‘Bill Bailey’s Bird Watching Bonanza’ for Sky 1.
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2nd March 1969 – The first test flight of the Anglo-French Concorde is conducted
by admin on Mar.02, 2010, under On This Day
The Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde aircraft is a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport (SST), which flew from 1969 to 2003. It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation. (The French word concorde translates to the English concord as agreement, harmony, or union.) Concorde entered service with Air France and British Airways in 1976.
Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners.
With only 20 aircraft built, the development phase represented a substantial economic loss. Additionally, Air France and British Airways were subsidised by their governments to buy the aircraft. As a result of the type’s only crash, (on 25 July 2000), economic effects arising from the 11 September attacks, and other factors, operations ceased on 24 October 2003. The last “retirement” flight occurred on 26 November 2003.
Regarded by many as an aviation icon, Concorde has acquired an unusual nomenclature for an aircraft. In common usage in the United Kingdom, the type is known as “Concorde” rather than “the Concorde” or “a Concorde”.
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