On February 28, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI officially resigns, citing his advanced age of 85. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Archbishop of Munich, was the oldest pope ever elected (age 78) eight years earlier. Previous to Benedict, only Pope Celestine V in 1294 had resigned of his own accord (Gregory XII resigned in 1415 to end the Great Western Schism, essentially a civil war within the church). All other popes have served until death. On February 28, 1987, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev shocks the western world by announcing he is ready to eliminate medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe. Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan had been discussing such a treaty for several years, but Reagan's refusal to put his "Star Wars" defense system on the table had been a sticking point. Now facing a need to free up defense funding for other areas in his national budget, Gorbachev is ready to come back to the table. Reagan is getting pressure from the "no nukes" crowd as well, and in December, the two super powers will sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, eliminating 1500 Soviet and 750 American missiles from Europe. On February 28, 1844, President John Tyler and about 400 other guests board the USS Princeton, a one-year old steam-powered warship, for a cruise up the Potomac River. Also aboard is Secretary of the Navy Thomas W. Gilmer, who is eager to demonstrate for Tyler the Princeton's main gun, "The Peacemaker"; a 12-inch, 2700 pound cannon designed by Robert Stockton, captain of the Princeton. The gun had been installed only a few days earlier and hastily tested. Today, Stockton successfully fires The Peacemaker three times for Tyler and the audience. But after the dignitaries went below deck, Gilmer calls for one more firing, in salute to George Washington as the ship sailed past Mt. Vernon. This time, the barrel ruptures, killing several people, including Gilmer, Secretary of State Abel Upshur and New York attorney David Gardiner. About 20 people are injured, including Stockton and Senator Thomas Hart Benton. Tyler is uninjured and personally carries Gardiner's daughter Julia, who he had been courting, off the damaged ship. They would marry later that year. (below: Currier and Ives lithograph of The Peacemaker explosion)
On March 1, 1781 nearly 3 and a half years after their approval by Congress, the states ratify the Articles of Confederation. Land disputes between Virginia and Maryland were the chief cause of the delay. The Articles would only last 5 years as the new nation's principle statement of law before leading citizens began calling for a change. The AoC, they said, placed too much emphasis on state's rights and not enough on the sovereignty of the people. The U.S. Constitution will be the result. On March 1, 1692 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony village of Salem, three women are accused of practicing witchcraft. One of the three (a slave who was likely coerced), confessed later in the day and suggested there may be many more "witches" in Salem and neighboring villages. The charges were triggered by a mysterious series of fits that fell on the daughter and niece of the village preacher; a perplexed doctor pronounced they were targets of witchcraft. The village established the Court of Oyer and Terminer ("to hear and decide") and over the next 20 months, 15 women and 4 men would be convicted and executed by hanging (one of the men was executed by crushing). Governor William Phipps halted the trials in October 1692 and released dozens of accused still awaiting trial. On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy's EO 10924 establishes the Peace Corps as an agency of the State Department. Kennedy actually borrowed (stole?) the idea from Wisconsin Senator Henry Reuss, who had proposed in the 50's an organization that would promote volunteerism among America's youth to travel abroad and assist underdeveloped countries. Kennedy made it a plank in his campaign platform and referenced it in his first State of the Union. Kennedy appointed his brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver, to head the agency, and later that year the first group of 51 volunteers landed in Ghana on the African continent for two years of service. Nearly a quarter of a million young Americans have volunteered for the Peace Corps since; there are currently about 7,000 serving in more than 60 countries world-wide.
On March 2, 1972, NASA launches Pioneer 10, destination: Jupiter. The probe reaches the largest planet in our solar system in December of '73 and soon sends back the first close up images ever taken of the giant. It then leaves the solar system, sending back the first electronic data accumulated in interstellar space in June 1983. Though NASA declares Pioneer 10's mission complete on March 31, 1997, its still going, now headed for the Taurus constellation, where it is expected to arrive in 34,600 A.D. Pioneer 10's exterior includes a plaque designed by Carl Sagan, which shows a male and female human form, a diagram showing the Sun's position in the Milky Way, and Pioneer 10's path out of the solar system. On March 2, 1944, more than 500 passengers aboard a railroad train near Salerno, Italy suffocate and die in a tunnel. The train was stopped awaiting either another train to pass, or because it was overloaded. Due to the war effort, Italian trains were using a lower grade ore as fuel, and carbon monoxide soon overcame the passengers. The Italian government covered up the incident, despite its unusual nature. It was one of the worst rail disasters to date. On March 2, 1978, grave robbers in Switzerland steal the body of silent film legend Charlie Chaplin. It was barely two months after Chaplin's death. Shortly after, his widow Oona received a phone call demanding $600,000 ransom. She refused, saying Charlie would have found the demand "ridiculous." A 5-week investigation finally resulted in the arrest of two auto mechanics, Roman Wardas of Poland and Gantscho Ganev of Bulgaria, who confessed and revealed to police the location of the body, buried in a cornfield only about a mile from Chaplin's home in Corsiers-sur-Vevey. They were charged with grave robbing and attempted extortion and sentenced to five years hard labor. The Chaplin family had him reburied in a concrete vault in the same cemetary, in the hills above Lake Geneva. Oona, his fourth wife, was buried beside him on her death in 1991.
On March 3, 1945, President John Tyler's second-to-last day in office, Congress overrides Tyler's veto of a bill that would prevent the Executive branch from appropriating money for military construction projects without legislative approval. It is Congress' first use of its veto override authority, accomplished by a two-thirds vote in both houses. Tyler was one of our most veto-happy presidents, using that power 10 times during his single term of office. On March 3, 1820, Congress approves the Missouri Compromise. Missouri's approval for statehood as a state that prohibited slavery in February, 1819 threw Southern states into a tizzy, fearing the balance of power would shift to free states (the number was just 11 free to 10 slave states, but the heavy northern population gave free states a large majority in the House). The approval of Alabama's entry as a slave state that December did nothing to calm the issue. Finally, Congress approved NY Congressman John Tallmadge's compromise proposal: slavery was legalized in Missouri, while Maine (previously a part of Massachusetts) was admitted as a free state. Slavery would be prohibited in any part of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the 36th Parallel (roughly Missouri's southern border). The Missouri Compromise would keep the peace between slave and free states until replaced by the Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854. On March 3, 1887 in Tuscumbia, Alabama, Anne Sullivan arrives at the Keller residence, having accepted employment as personal tutor to Arthur and Kate Keller's 7-year old daughter, Helen. A brief illness (possibly meningitis, rubella or scarlet fever) during infancy had left Helen blind, deaf and mute. Sullivan, a teacher of the disabled with the Perkins Institute, was recommended to the Keller's by inventor Alexander Graham Bell, an authority on the deaf. At the Perkins Institute, Sullivan had learned a method of sign language that she would attempt to teach to Helen, a very wild and undisciplined child at the time of Sullivan's arrival. Under Anne's tutelage, Helen would learn to speak, read and write, and eventually graduated from Radcliffe College with honors. She would go on to become a noted public speaker and advocate for the rights of women and the disabled, with Anne as a lifelong companion until her death in 1935. Helen died in 1968. (Helen and Anne, photographed in 1888)
One more....On March 3, 1983, Shreveport native Terry Bradshaw, at the time the winningest Super Bowl quarterback ever, checks into a hospital in his home town for minor elbow surgery. To avoid publicity, hospital officials allow Bradshaw to check in under an alias. And so he does....using the name "Tom Brady." I am not making this up.
March 4, 1789 marks the official opening of the federal government under the U.S. Constitution, which was officially ratified the previous June. Strangely, only 9 out of 22 Senators and 13 out of 49 Representatives show up for Congress' first order of business, the reading of 12 proposed amendments to the new constitution. On March 4, 1985, the Food and Drug Administration approves use of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test, which will be used to screen blood intended for transfusions for the presence of HIV, identified as the virus the causes AIDS the previous year. To date fewer than 150 of the 9,600 AIDS cases identified in the U.S. had resulted from transfusions, yet the fear of possible transmission by this method remained high. The ELISA test proved to have a low success rate in identifying HIV and soon fell into disuse for this purpose, though it remains in use by the medical research community in other applications. On March 4, 1960, TV and movie star Lucille Ball divorces her husband of 20 years, actor, singer and band leader Desi Arnaz. One of Hollywood's all-time great power couples, it was Ball who, when CBS approached her about doing a sitcom in 1951, insisted her real life husband Desi portray her fictional husband. I Love Lucy was the result, running from 1951-57 and becoming one of TV's most successful syndicated programs ever. To produce the show, Lucy and Desi created Desilu Productions, which would also go on to produce Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. Friends of the couple say the two were always deeply in love, but described their marriage as "tumultuous" due to the hectic pace of their careers, combined with Desi's drinking and womanizing. Lucy would buy out Desi's share of Desilu in 1962, but the pair reportedly remained close friends until Desi's death in 1986.
