1722 – Afghan monarch Mir Mahmud occupies Persia
1945 – “Kiss Me Kate” opens in Britain
1966 – “Golden Boy” closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 569 performances
1968 – Bill Graham’s New York rock venue Fillmore East opens in Manhattan
1973 – Paul and Linda McCartney are fined £100 for growing cannabis
1983 – House Foreign Affairs Com endorses nuclear weapons freeze with USSR
1986 – Japanese probe Suisei passes Halley’s Comet at 109,800 km
1986 – 27th SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament: Kentucky beats Alabama, 83-72
1989 – Roger Kingdom runs indoor world record 60m hurdles (7.37 secs)
1995 – Dutch Liberal Party wins Provincial-National elections
Author: gil7
Today in History for 8th March 2021
Historical Events
1945 – Nazi Sicherheitsdienst (SD) intelligence agency executes 116 prisoners, and one reluctant police official, at de Woeste Hoeve, Netherlands in response to raid by resistance forces two days earlier
1966 – An IRA bomb destroys Nelson’s Column in Dublin
1986 – Japanese probe Suisei passes Halley’s Comet at 109,800 km
1986 – 27th SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament: Kentucky beats Alabama, 83-72
1987 – 17th Easter Seal Telethon raises $35,184,425
1998 – 45th ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament: #4 North Carolina beats #1 Duke, 83-68
Famous Birthdays
1841 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, US 59th Supreme Court justice (1902-32), born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1935)
1922 – Cyd Charisse [Tula Finklea], American dancer and actress (Singin’ in the Rain), born in Amarillo, Texas (d. 2008)
1947 – Mike Allsup, Modesto Ca, rock guitarist (Three Dog Night)
1971 – Kit Symons, Welsh footballer
1974 – Steve Sarkisian, CFL quarterback (Saskatchewan Roughriders)
1976 – (Gareth) “Gaz” Coombes, British rock guitarist and singer-songwriter (Supergrass – “Alright”), born in Oxford, England
Famous Deaths
1640 – Guillaume van Messaus, composer, dies at 50
1817 – Wentworth Cheswell, American auditor, teacher, Revolutionary War messenger, 1st African American elected to public office, dies of typhus fever at 70
1853 – Edward John Dent, British clockmaker to Queen Victoria and commissioned to make Big Ben, London (completed after his death by his son Frederick Dent), dies at 62
1941 – José Serrano Simeón, Spanish composer, dies at 67
1971 – Harold Lloyd sr, American silent film actor, comedian, and director (Why Worry, Safety Last!), dies of cancer at 77
1977 – Henry Hull, American actor (Werewolf of London, Boys Town), dies at 86
Famous Deaths for 7th March 2021
1907 – Victor Alphonse Duvernoy, French pianist and composer, dies at 64
1951 – Haj Ali Razmara, 33rd Prime Minister of Iran (1950-51), assassinated at 49
1981 – Kirill Kondrashin, Russian conductor (Bolshoi Theatre, 1943-56; Moscow Philharmonic, 1960-75; Concertgebouw, 1978-81), dies at 67
1983 – Robert Bray, actor (Corey-Lassie, Simon-Stagecoach West), dies at 65
1995 – Jacques Lefebvre, Belgian air force general, commits suicide at 64
1996 – Aled Eames, Welsh maritime historian, dies at 74
1997 – Geraldine Clinton Little, Irish poet (A Little Bouquet), dies at 73
2004 – Paul Winfield, American actor (Star Trek II, Huckleberry Finn, Mars Attack), dies at 64
2006 – Gordon Parks, American photographer, dies at 83
2017 – Hans Dehmelt, German-born American physicist (Nobel Prize 1989), dies at 94
Historical Events for 7th March 2021
1696 – English King William III departs Netherlands
1808 – Portugal’s regent Dom Juan IV arrives in Rio De Janeiro
1850 – Daniel Webster endorses Compromise of 1850
1902 – Boers beat British troops at Tweebosch, Transvaal
1945 – Cologne taken by allied armies
1965 – Bruce Taylor takes 5-86 in debut innings for NZ after ton
1967 – Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa begins 8-year jail sentence for defrauding the union and jury tampering (commuted Dec 23, 1971)
1970 – Men’s Figure Skating Championship in Ljubljana won by Tim Wood (USA)
2010 – 82nd Academy Awards: “The Hurt Locker”, Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock win
2017 – Malta’s famous landmark the Azure Window collapses into the sea after a storm
Today in History for 7th March 2021
Historical Events
1872 – -8°F (-22°C) in Boston, Massachusetts
1876 – Battle at Gura: Ethiopian emperor Yohannes beats Egyptians
1950 – Ice Pairs Championship at London won by K Kennedy and P Kennedy (USA)
1970 – WXOW TV channel 19 in La Crosse, WI (ABC) begins broadcasting
1977 – Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin meets US President Jimmy Carter
1999 – 46th ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament: #1 Duke beats #15 North Carolina, 96-73
Famous Birthdays
1556 – Guillaume du Vair, French writer and thinker, born in Paris (d. 1621)
1841 – William Rockhill Nelson, founder of The Kansas City Star and patron of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (d. 1915)
1893 – Milton Avery, American artist, born in Almar, New York (d. 1965)
1934 – Nari Contractor, Indian cricketer (Indian batsman and captain), born in Godhra, India
1946 – Peter Wolf [Blankenfeild], American rock singer (J Giels Band-Centerfold, Freeze Frame), born in the Bronx, New York
1965 – Steve Beuerlein, American NFL quarterback (Jacksonville Jaguars, Car Panthers), born in Hollywood, California
Famous Deaths
1578 – Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, niece of Henry VIII and whose son married Mary Queen of Scots, dies at 62
1974 – Alberto Rabagliati, Italian singer and actor (b. 1906)
1975 – Francine Larrimore, French actress (John Meade’s Woman), dies at 76
1978 – Steve Bilko, American baseball player, dies at 49
1981 – Hilde Krahwinkel Sperling, German tennis player (Wimbledon 1931, 1936 runner-up), dies at 72
1997 – Edward Mills Purcell, American physicist (Nobel 1952), dies at 84
Famous Deaths for 6th March 2021
1531 – Pedrarias Dávila, Spanish conquistador
1796 – Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French writer, dies at 82
1933 – Anton Cermak, American politician (44th Mayor of Chicago, 1931-33), dies 23 days after being shot in Miami at 59
1951 – Ivor Novello [David Ivor Davies], Welsh composer, writer and actor (Keep the Home Fires Burning, The Truth Game), dies at 58
1986 – Adolph Caesar, actor (Club Paradise, Soldier’s Story), dies
1994 – Moses Rascoe, American blues singer, dies at 77
1995 – Delroy Wilson, Jamaican singer, dies at 46
1997 – Anthony Hopkins, English clinical neurologist and Director of the Research Unit at the Royal College of Physicians, dies at 59
1999 – Isa ibn Salman Al Khalifah, 1st emir of Bahrain (1961-1999), dies of a heart attack at 65
2000 – Chris Balderstone, English cricket batsman (England, belated faced WI in 1976), dies at 59
Historical Events for 6th March 2021
1895 – England beats Australia to win one of the best cricket series ever, 3-2
1945 – Chinese 38th division occupies Lashio
1966 – Barry Sadler’s “Ballad of the Green Berets” becomes #1 (13 weeks)
1972 – Keswick to Penrith railway officially closes
1975 – Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute.
1976 – European Men’s Figure Skating Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden won by John Curry (Great Britain)
1981 – France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
1985 – Yul Brynner appears in his 4,500th performance of “The King and I”
2013 – Microsoft is fined €561 by the Euro Commission for the EU for not providing option to chose an alternative web browser
2020 – Russia refuses to reduce oil production over COVID-19 fears, breaking with Saudi Arabia and OPEC and prompting a price war
Today in History for 6th March 2021
Historical Events
1590 – Dutch and English army led by Maurice of Nassau captures heavily protected city of Breda using a small assault force hidden in a peat barge
1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table of the elements to the Russian Chemical Society
1926 – China asks for a seat on the Security council
1933 – Maxwell Anderson’s “Both your Houses” premieres in NYC
1960 – President Sukarno disbands Indonesia’s parliament
2016 – Seventh Democratic presidential candidates debate hosted by CNN and held in Flint, Michigan
Famous Birthdays
1870 – Oscar Straus, composer (Ein Walzertraum), born in Vienna, Austria
1904 – Hugh Williams, British dramatist, actor and writer (Wuthering Heights, Bank Holiday), born in East Sussex, England (d. 1969)
1962 – Alison Nicholas, English golfer (US Open 1997), born in Gibraltar
1963 – D.L. Hughley, American comedian and actor (ComicView), born in Portsmouth, Virginia
1974 – Sebastian Siegel, British-American actor (Lost, Hawaii Five-0), born in Oxford, England
1992 – Momoko Tsugunaga, Japanese singer
Famous Deaths
1490 – Ivan the Young, Ruler of Tver (b. 1458)
1950 – Albert Lebrun, President of France (1932-40), dies at 78
1961 – George Formby, British singer and comedian, dies at 56
1981 – George Geary, English cricket fast bowler (14 Tests, 46 wickets), dies at 87
1983 – Thelma Pelish, actress (Pajama Game), dies at 55
2018 – Shammi [Nargis Rabadi], Indian actress (Half Ticket, Dekh Bhai Dekh), dies from natural causes at 88
Famous Deaths for 5th March 2021
1790 – Flora MacDonald, Scottish woman who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape, buried in the sheet he slept in at 67 or 68
1926 – Clément Ader, French aviation pioneer (b. 1841)
1945 – Lena Baker, American murderer, convicted of capital murder of her employer, Ernest Knight, dies at 44
1992 – Yevgeny Yevstigneev, Russian actor (Welcome Kosta), dies at 65
1994 – Joe Daley, American jazz tenor, clarinet and flute player, dies at 75
2003 – Gerhard Rosenfeld, German opera and film score composer, dies at 72
2013 – Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, dies from respiratory failure at 58
2014 – Geoff Edwards, American game show host, dies from pneumonia at 83
2017 – Kurt Moll, German bass opera singer, dies at 78
2018 – Helmut Maucher, German businessman, CEO of Nestlé (1990-97), dies at 90
Historical Events for 5th March 2021
1046 – Persian scholar Naser Khosrow begins the 7 year Middle Eastern journey which he will later describe in his book Safarnama
1179 – 3rd Lateran Council (11th ecumenical council) opens in Rome
1836 – Samuel Colt manufactures first pistol, 34-caliber “Texas” model
1942 – World première of Dmitri Shostakovich’ 7th Symphony in Kuybyshev, Russia
1945 – Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton and Alexander Patch meet in Lunéville, France
1953 – 6th British Film and Television Awards (BAFTAS): “The Sound Barrier” Best Film
1958 – KDUH TV channel 4 in Scottsbluff-Hay Spring, NB (ABC) 1st broadcast
1962 – 19th Golden Globes: “The Guns of Navarone”, Maximilian Schell, and Geraldine Page win
2015 – -8th Islamic State militants ransack and destroy ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra and Dur-Sharrukin in Iraq
2019 – Major study into the MMR vaccine involving over 650,000 children in Denmark finds it does not increase the risk of autism