Remember the Alamo

March 6th in history:

This day is a very important and festive day - Stoneware Pottery Appreciation Day
Other folks celebrate other more mundane historic events -
Alamo Day in the U.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamo_Mission_in_San_Antonio

Foundation Day on Norfolk Island (Australia) commemorates the arrival on March 6, 1788 of Lieutenant Philip Gidley King with 22 people (including 15 convicts) to form the first settlement. Norfolk Island is now a self governing Australian Territory situated in the South Pacific approximately 1,600 km north-east of Sydney and 1,100 km north-west of Auckland. It is about 8 km long and 5 km wide

Independence Day in Ghana celebrates the end of colonial rule by Britain and the dawn of their independence in 1957.

Births and deaths and more interesting tidbits:

1475 Michelangelo Buonarroti painter/sculptor/architect (David, Pièta)

1521 Magellan discovers Guam

1619 Cyrano de Bergerac famous nose, dramatist (A Voyage to the Moon)
1806 Elizabeth Barrett Browning poet (Sonnets from the Portuguese)
1808 1st college orchestra in US founded, at Harvard
1816 Jews are expelled from Free city of Lubeck Germany

1836 Davy Crockett US pioneer (Alamo), killed in battle at 49

1836 3,000 Mexicans beat 182 Texans at the Alamo, after 13 day fight

1857 Dred Scott Decision: Supreme Court rules slaves cannot be citizens
1886 1st US alternating current power plant starts, Great Barrington MA
1888 Louisa May Alcott US author (Old-fashioned Girl), dies at 55
1899 "Aspirin" patented by Felix Hoffmann
1900 Gottlieb Daimler designed 1st motorcycle, dies at 65
1906 Lou Costello Paterson NJ, comedian/actor (Abbott & Costello)
1918 US naval collier "Cyclops" disappears in Bermuda Triangle
1921 Police in Sunbury PA issue an edict requiring women to wear skirts at least 4 inches below the knee
1922 Babe Ruth signs 3 years at $52,000 a year New York Yankee contract
1923 Ed McMahon Detroit MI, TV host (Johnny Carson Show, Star Search)

1923 Cards announce their players will wear numbers on their uniforms
1926 Alan Greenspan economist/Presidential advisor (Federal Reserve Board)
1927 Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr Shawnee OK, USAF/astronaut (Mercury 9, Gemini 5)
1930 Brooklyn's Clarence Birdseye develops a method for quick freezing food
1932 John Philip Sousa US composer (Stars & Stripes Forever), dies at 77

1937 Merle Haggard country singer
1937 Valentina V Tereshkova-Nikolayev 1st woman in space (Vostok 6)
1950 Silly Putty invented

1959 Farthest radio signal heard (Pioneer IV, 400,000 miles)
1964 Elijah Muhammad renames Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali
1964 Liz Taylor's 3rd divorce (Eddie Fisher) (her total is now 7, twice from Richard Burton, and she was widowed once)

1964 Tom O'Hara runs world record indoor mile (3:56.4)

Loyola of Chicago's Tom O'Hara, 21, looks a little like the 97-lb. weakling of the Charles Atlas ads, who takes his girl friend to the beach and winds up getting sand kicked in his face. Tom actually weighs in at 130 Ibs., but his skin is the color of bleached Irish lin en, and a small-size track shirt hangs so loose on his scrawny chest that the letters on the front spell OYOL. the current record is 3:43.13.

1965 1st nonstop helicopter crossing of North America, JR Willford
1966 Barry Sadlers' "Ballad of the Green Berets" becomes #1 (13 weeks)
1969 1st human eye transplant performed

1972 Shaquille O'Neal Newark NJ, NBA center (Magic, Lakers, Olympics-gold-96) 1973 In an exhibition game with the Pirates, Twins Larry Hisle becomes the 1st designated hitter (he hits 2 homeruns & knocks in 7 RBIs)

1981 Walter Cronkite signs-off as anchorman of "The CBS Evening News"

1981 Klaus Grabowski child molester, shot by parent

1982 Susan Birmingham makes loudest recorded human shout (120 dB)
1982 Ayn Rand author-philosopher (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged), dies in New York at 77
1985 Yul Brynner appears in his 4,500th performance of "King & I"
1986 Georgia O'Keeffe US painter (Flowers), dies at 98
1990 SR-71 sets a transcontinental record, flying 2,404 miles in 1:08:17
1998 1st time the British flag is flown over Buckingham Palace

2005 First human face transplant is performed in France