On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin (real name Ioseb Dzhugashvili), leader of the Soviet Union since 1924, suffers a heart attack and dies in Moscow at age 75. Born in Georgia in 1878, Stalin (the Russian word for steel) began participating in political revolutionary activities in his early 20's. He joined the Marxist Social Democratic movement and, under the eyes of Vladimir Lenin, advanced in party rank to secretary general of the Central Committee at the time the Communists ousted the czars for control of Russia. By the outbreak of World War II he had total dictatorial control of the nation. Under his military leadership, the Soviet Union survived the Nazi invasion and was instrumental in Germany's defeat. But Stalin also goes down in history as one of the worst mass murderers of the 20th century, responsible for the deaths of anywhere from 8 to 20 million of his own people in his quest for power.


On March 5, 1960, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is in the midst of a speech when newspaper photographer Alberto Korda sees one of Castro's revolutionary generals, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, step to the front of the crowd. He's fascinated by Guevara's resolute expression and snaps two photos before Guevara melts back into the crowd. Korda crops one of the photos like a portrait, but its not until 1967 that it is bought and published, by a French newspaper to accompany a story about South American guerilla warfare. By then, Guevara was just months away from being executed in Bolivia. Not long after, the photo appears on the cover of Guevara's published memoirs, and is on its way to becoming one of the most distributed photos of all time, and a symbol of the late 20th century counterculture.


On March 5, 1963, the Wham-O toy company receives a patent on its newest product, called the Hula Hoop. Co-founders Arthur Melin and Richard Knerr had seen Australian schoolchildren twirling wooden hoops around their waists in gym class, and created a plastic version for American kids. An estimated 25 million Hula Hoops were sold in the first 4 months of production. Though sales drastically tapered off after that, the toy has never completely lost its fascination with the public. The Hula Hoop was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999.

On March 6, 1899, the German company Bayer receives the patent for acetylsalicylic acid, which it markets as aspirin. The active ingredient, salicin, is found in tree bark and had been used as a pain reliever in European folk remedies for centuries (medical historians believe Hippocrates used it), but sparingly because it tasted bad and irritated the stomach. In 1897, Bayer developed a powder form of the substance that eliminated the side effects. It began producing the tablet form of the drug in 1915. Today aspirin is the most commonly used drug in the world. Bayer, however, lost the rights to profit from it in post WWI settlements, and did not regain it until 1994.


On March 6, 2001, the death spiral of Napster begins, as it begins to comply with a federal court order to prevent the sharing of copyrighted material. Developed by Shawn Fanning, a Northeastern University student in the summer of 1999, Napster gave users the ability to share .mp3 files with other users via the internet. At the height of its popularity in mid-2000, some 60 million users were active worldwide; the overwhelming majority of the shared material being copyrighted music. The heavy metal band Metallica brought Napster to court when it learned that one of its songs was being shared before its release. Hip hop artist Dr. Dre soon followed with a similar complaint, and when A&M Records sued in February of 2001, the writing was on the wall. Napster would shut down just 3 months later.

Yep, someone will always come up with a way. Just out of curiosity, what's today's way?

On March 9, 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court frees the Africans who had seized the slave ship Amistad, ruling they had been illegally forced into slavery. The practice of exporting captured Africans into slavery had been banned by international treaty since 1807, but Cuba ignored the ban. On June 28, 1839, the slaves being transported to Cuba aboard the Amistad broke free and attempted to force their captors to return them home, but they turned the ship north whenever possible, until she was confronted by a U.S. Navy ship and forced into an American port. The Amistad Africans were returned home in November.
Amistad (4/8) Movie CLIP - The Verdict (1997) HD - YouTube

On March 9, 1945, more than 300 B-29 Superfortresses of the U.S. Army Air Corps bomb Tokyo. It is an extremely dangerous mission; the B-29's, designed to operate above 30,000 feet, come in at five hundred feet, and with no guns or gunners to increase speed and bomb capacity. The target is a suburb of Tokyo called Shitamachi, a community of wood frame and paper buildings. The planes carry incendiary bombs, and the results are horrific; more than 16 square miles of the Japanese capital are burned to the ground, and anywhere from 80,000 to 130,000 are dead in the worst fire bombing in history. Pilots of the final planes to attack reported they had to wear their oxygen masks, as the effects had created a red mist of blood and burned flesh that penetrated their cockpits.


On March 9, 1996, legendary actor/comedian George Burns dies in his Beverly Hills home at age 100. A veteran of the onstage "vaudeville" circuit of the early 20th century, Burns was one of a number of vaudeville performers who made the successful transition to radio and later, film. With his stage partner and wife Gracie Allen, Burns was one of NBC radio's top attractions of the '30s and '40s, making a seamless transition to TV in the '50s. His career went on hiatus with Allen's death in 1964, but a successful heart surgery in 1975 invigorated Burns, and he returned to performing with a string of successful movies, including The Sunshine Boys and Oh, God! In 1988, Burns was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Say Goodnight Gracie - The Drug Store - YouTube

On March 10, 1906 a massive explosion kills more than a thousand workers at the Courrieres Colliery (coal mine) in northern France. The day before, mine supervisors discovered a large fire burning in a pit 270 meters below the surface. Unable to quickly put the fire out, they decided to close off the tunnel and hopefully starve the fire of oxygen. The plan failed, and at about 7am on the 10th, flammable gas seeping into the pit ignited. The final death toll after weeks of recovery was 1,060, with hundreds more injured.


On March 10, 1993, the anti-abortion activist group Rescue America is protesting outside the Pensacola (Florida) Women's Medical Services clinic when abortion doctor David Gunn is shot and killed. The protester/killer, Michael Griffin, shouted, "Don't kill any more babies!" before shooting Gunn 3 times in the back. He immediately surrendered to a nearby police officer. Rescue America did not condemn the shooting; in fact, in a national TV appearance, national director Don Treshman said, "While Gunn's death is unfortunate, its true that quite a number of babies' lives will be saved." Griffin (below) argued at trial that he had been brainwashed by Rescue America, but it took a Florida jury just 3 hours to convict him. He is currently serving a life sentence.


On March 10, 1997, the fledgling Warner Brothers TV network (WB) premiers its newest series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show is based on the movie written by Joss Whedon, who was disappointed that director Fran Rubel Kuzui had given his material a comedic twist. Given a chance to produce the show for TV by the WB, Whedon went with his original premise, an edgy drama about a teenage girl born with a once-in-a-generation ability to kill vampires. Coincidentally (?), Buffy attends a California high school built over a "Hellmouth", an entry port to earth for the supernatural. With Daytime Emmy winner Sarah Michelle Gellar in the title role, Buffy becomes the WB's first hit, running for 6 years and spawning one spinoff series, Angel.
BTVS - 1x01 - Buffy and Giles speak HD - YouTube

On March 11, 2011, the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan strikes, triggering an equally devastating tsunami on the island of Honshu. Even more chilling, backup systems fail when workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant shut down the reactors. Over the next 3 days, two of the 3 reactors overheat and explode, causing government officials to order an evacuation of everyone within a 20 km radius. Fortunately, radiation never reached forecast levels, and of 154,000 people killed in the quake and tsunami, not one was attributed to the nuclear disaster (a former plant worker died of radiation sickness in 2018). Still, an area of 370 square kilometers around the plant remains uninhabited today, and Fukushima ranks second only to Chernobyl on the world's list of worst nuclear disasters.


On March 11, 1861, delegates from eight former United States adopt the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. Though much of the wording is lifted from the U.S. Constitution, it more closely resembles the Articles of Confederation in its recognition of states' rights. It also explicitly permits slavery, though it prohibits the import of new slaves from foreign countries (the birthrate among slaves in the 19th century had increased to the point that the pool of available slaves had become self-sustaining for as long as the practice was kept legal).


On March 11, 1989, the FOX television network debuts Cops, a documentary-style series following real police officers on patrol. A product of the writers' strike underway in Hollywood at the time, Cops marks the advent of a new genre in TV, the reality series. There is no script and no actors; camera crews follow real cops as they patrol and make arrests. Cops will go on to be one of the longest running series of all time, staying on the air until 2020, and documenting police work in about 140 cities around the nation.
Toughest Takedowns, Officer Matt Fey, COPS TV SHOW - YouTube