March 31

Bstan-'dzin Rgya-mtsho, perhaps better known as Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, on the 31st in 1959, crossed the border between Tibet and India where he sought and received political asylum from the Indian government. Once safely in ensconced in his new home, Gyatso established the Tibetan government in exile, thus ending a journey which began when he was 3 years old at which time the 13th Dalai Lama declared little Tenzin his tulku (reincarnation). Considering the Dalai Lama’s age ( he was born July 6, 1935) when I find out the schedule of interviews for the position of 15th Dalai Lama and where they are being held I will be certain to let you know. While the job description includes having to shave one’s head and the wearing of robes of a color that clashes with my apartment’s color scheme, then again most colors pose that problem for me. I would however, be willing to take a fashion risk to get this position. The benefits that go with the job are extremely attractive, making the position one to definitely take a shot at. There is no mandatory retirement age that I am aware of and I am reasonably certain that there is no Tibetan equivalent of ‘Do you want fries with that?’

March 30

Joseph M. Venable had a rather unsightly tumor on his neck that he wanted to have removed (The tumor, not the neck). Not being a surgeon himself, much less a doctor, Venable contacted Dr. Crawford Long (pictured), who was both a doctor and a surgeon. Morton, being an accommodating doctor, agreed to comply with Venable’s wishes and did remove the offending tumor making use of a really, really neat new trick: anesthesia, making him the first surgeon to make use of anesthesia during a surgery, and not just at parties. The surgery took place on the 30th in 1842.

March 29

On the 29th in 1882, the fraternal order the Knights of Columbus filed its incorporation papers in Connecticut. The Knights went on to achieve great success and today they provide the satellite uplink for the Pope. I wonder whom the Pope Googles.

March 28

Henri Fabre was born on November of 1882. On the 28th of March in 1910, at the controls of Le Cunard, an airplane of his own design, he lifted off from the surface of Etang de Berre, a small inland sea in France and became the pilot of the first seaplane in history.

March 27

Carl Barks was born on the 27th in 1901. He was with Walt Disney Studios as an illustrator and comic book creator. He was the creator of Scrooge McDuck. Have you seen The Raiders of the Lost Ark? If so, you must remember the rolling boulder booby trap scene. If you don’t remember it, rent the movie because it is a very good scene. Both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have acknowledged that they got the idea for that particular scene from Carl Barks’ 1954 cartoon featuring Uncle Scrooge McDuck in The Seven Cities of Cibola.

March 26

The Oxford English Dictionary is considered by many to be the most comprehensive and scholarly dictionary of the English language. As of 2005, it contained in excess of 300,000 main entries. William Chester Minor, an American surgeon, was one of the more prolific contributors to the OED in the late 19th century. The vast majority of his contributions were made while he was a resident of London’s Horsemonger Gaol, a mental institution to which Minor was committed from 1872 until his death on March 26, 1920.

March 25

Allen Ginsberg, alleged poet, wrote a book titled Howl. This book established him as an important literary figure. On the 25th in 1955, United States Customs officials seized the book. The nominal justification for the seizure was that the book was obscene. Though Ginsberg was ultimately cleared of the obscenity charges, I firmly believe that had the Customs service taken a little time and had simply read the darn thing, Ginsberg could have been arrested on a felony charge of truly dreadful writing.

March 24

On the 24th in 1878, an incredibly ironic event occurred. The frigate HMS Eurydice sank killing all 300 onboard, thereby illustrating the extreme care that one should take when naming a vessel. The crew of the Eurydice made out about as well as Orpheus did when he tried to rescue his wife Eurydice from Hades and ignored Pluto’s command that he not look back. The past is indeed prologue. Therefore, should you have a son, do not name him either Richard Speck or Richard Macek.

March 23

Which came first, the elevator or the elevator shaft? While this may seem a bit like the old chicken or the egg question, it isn’t. The elevator shaft came first. In 1852, Peter Cooper began construction of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art bear Astor Place and Third Avenue in New York City. Included in Cooper’s design for the building was an elevator shaft. When Cooper began building his Union building a working elevator had yet to be invented but he was absolutely convinced that a safe elevator would be invented eventually. His confidence was not misplaced because on the 23rd of March, in 1853, at 488 Broadway, also in Manhattan, Elisha Otis (pictured) installed the first elevator designed to not suddenly plummet to the basement if its cable should snap. I am puzzled as to why Otis called his innovation a safety elevator.

March 22

Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags, signed a treaty with the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony on the 22nd in 1621. The Pilgrims honored this treaty in the same manner that future treaties between the first Americans and European interlopers were honored. This is to say that was not honored by the Europeans at all. I can only imagine how differently the history of the Western hemisphere would be if the Wampanoags had a Patriot Act and operated with the same sense of dogged determination that our Office of Homeland Security does.

March 21

Pius VII, born Giorgio Barnaby Luigi Chiaramonti, was crowned pope on the 21st in 1800. Rome has long been the site of armed conflicts and in 1800, fighting drove the Roman Catholic leadership out of Rome, forcing them to take refuge in Venice. The Vatican leadership has never been particularly fond of allowing inconvenient things like forced exile to cramp their style. However, finding themselves in Venice and not having ready access to the accoutrements of the papacy, the Vatican did its best under some very trying circumstances. Pius’s elevation to the papacy was accomplished making use of a papal tiara made of papier-mâché. A bit tacky perhaps, but considering that the Italians of this period originated the practice of covering perfectly serviceable furniture and carpets with sheets of clear plastic, I doubt if anyone in attendance even noticed.

March 20

Aleister Crowley ushered in the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child on the 20th in 1904. I have absolutely no idea what Crowley intended by doing this. I also fail to understand much of what Crowley wrote. This is, to a certain degree understandable, as insane heroin addicts are more often than not, difficult to understand. I do however think that the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child has a very nice ring to it and would make a wonderful t-shirt.

March 19

On the 19th in 1918 for some inexplicable reason, the United States Congress established time zones across the nation and the unceasingly annoying Daylight Saving Time system. I for one cannot get used to all the Spring Ahead and Fall Back rigmarole. Additionally, if Congress thought it a good idea, that fact alone, puts a taint on it. Moreover, if they are saving time, what are they planning on doing with it? This does not bode well at all. Consider yourself duly warned.

March 18

The 18th in 1962, France and Algeria signed a peace treaty ending the Algerian War, which had begun in 1954. It could not have been much of a war; I had never heard of it prior to learning when it ended, had you? My guess is that the French just threw up their collective hands and surrendered; an action for which they are quite well known.

March 17

Little is known about Dr. Jaroslav Kurash, a man who earned a reputation for possessing a truly resilient character. This was due, no doubt, to the fact that on the 17th in 1845 he invented the humble rubber band. One of the true crimes of history is that his invention is not referred to as a Kurash Band, in the same manner that Fredrick Waring’s invention, a boon to all purveyors of mixed beverages, is called a Waring Blender.

March 16

The history of the peopling of the Americas is rife with stories of Europeans first contact with the Native Americans. One in particular concerns Samoset, a Mohegan, who on the 16th in 1621 greeted the settlers of the Plymouth Colony by allegedly saying ‘Welcome Englishmen, my name is Samoset.’ I am not certain but I think he was more likely to have said ‘Hey you kids get out of the yard.’

March 15

On the 15th in 1672, King Charles II of England issued the Royal Declaration of Indulgence. I was surprised to discover that this had absolutely nothing to do with lavish dinner parties or extravagant lapses in to unbridled hedonism, which is what I had been hoping it was. Charles II, long suspected of being a highly closeted Catholic, gave it his best shot when he tried to give a little bit of a break to the recusants in his realm. Those bad humored cretins in Parliament would have none of it however and Charles was compelled to withdraw his declaration and replace it with the first of the Test Acts, which required anyone entering public service in England to become an Anglican, which is, of course, nothing more than Catholic Lite. Oh well. At least Charles fared better than his successor, James II, who was an openly Catholic monarch. When James attempted to issue a similar declaration, irate Anglicans, a polite group, though nasty in the extreme when angered, ousted him from the throne.

March 14

Some days are just busier than others are. The 14th is one such day. For instance, on the 14th in 1489, Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, (pictured) woke up one morning and found herself a bit short of cash. To remedy this singularly unpleasant turn of events, she sold her kingdom to Venice. The reaction of her subjects has been lost to time. Also on the 14th, in 1757, on-board the HMS Monarch, Admiral John Byng was executed by a firing squad for neglect of duty. Who would have imagined that the British were such sticklers for details of that sort? The 14th in 1883 saw the death of Karl Marx. Contrary to popular belief, he was not the fifth Marx Brother, but a social theorist whose work has been largely misunderstood by university undergraduates and tenured professors everywhere. This date in 1984 was not a particularly good one for Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein. He was the target of, and seriously wounded in, a rather amateurish assassination attempt in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Overall, the 14th is more or less a wasteland brightened only in the latter part of the twentieth century by the birth of Marieke Elizabeth Perchik in 1990.

March 13

On the 13th in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh, or someone acting on his behalf, sent a telegram to the Harvard College Observatory, announcing the discovery of the ninth planet in our Sun’s solar system. This new planet would be named Pluto. Tombaugh and Pluto had a very good run but, in August 2006, the International Astronomical Union, after heated debate, declared that while Pluto was a planet, it was only a dwarf planet, largely because Pluto ‘hadn’t cleaned its neighborhood.’ This should remind everyone to clean his or her room occasionally or you just might be declared a ‘dwarf human’. However, the upside of that would be that you would then be eligible for a handicapped parking sticker.

March 12

Mahatma Gandhi, the father Indian independence set out from the Sabarmati Ashram on the 12th in 1930 with 78 followers and began a march to the sea to protest the British Empires imposition of a tax on salt and a prohibition of its manufacture. The march took 23 days and when he finally arrived at the seashore; his group had grown into the thousands. Once at the waters edge, Gandhi picked up a small bit of mud and salt and proclaimed, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." Then he and his followers began to make salt. I hope everyone is aware of what happened after that.

March 11

Edward Mallet rented rooms over the White Hart pub, on Fleet Street in London, England. From these rooms he wrote and published a newspaper called The Daily Courant. Publication of the paper began on the 11th in 1702. Its appearance made the paper the first regular daily newspaper in the United Kingdom. Mallet’s offering would continue until 1735 when it merged with the Daily Gazetteer. Today, anyone with half a mind to do so can publish pretty much whatever he or she wants to. It should be noted however, that the ‘half a mind’ part is not a requirement, as will be evident from most of the stuff that is printed and sees the light of day.