On March 25, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson convenes a panel of nine retired presidential advisors, which he dubs the "wise men," to discuss the situation in Vietnam. They include Generals Omar Bradley, who commanded the D-Day invasion and eventually received a 5th star, and Matthew Ridgeway, who replaced McArthur in Korea, as well as former Secretary of State Dean Acheson. After two days of deliberation, the group will recommend the end of troop increases, and that Johnson begin seeking a negotiated peace. On March 25, 421, San Giacomo Church is dedicated on the islet of Rialto, Italy. It is the first church serving the community of refugees and fishermen that had developed over 300 years in a patch of more than 100 islands in the Venetian Lagoon. Many historians consider this event to be the official founding of the city of Venice. On March 25, 1934, Horton Smith wins the 1st Augusta National Invitational Tournament in Augusta, GA, winning by 1 stroke over Craig Wood. The tournament is played at the Augusta National Golf Club, built 2 years earlier on the grounds of a former plant nursery by amateur golf star Bobby Jones, Scottish golf architect Alistair MacKenzie and investment capitalist Clifford Roberts. The 1934 tournament field consists mostly of friends of Jones (photo is of the entire '34 tournament field). The Invitational becomes an annual event, and is soon known by a name Roberts suggested but Jones detested, The Masters.
On March 26, 1997, police find the bodies of 39 adults - all dead from apparently intentional overdoses of phenobarbital - in a mansion in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. They were all members of the "Heaven's Gate" cult, whose leaders preached that suicide would allow its members to leave their physical bodies and merge with an approaching alien spaceship. Its leader, a music professor named Marshal Applewhite, had been recruiting members since the mid-1970's and had declared the long-awaited spaceship was traveling in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet, which made a close pass of Earth that month during its 4,000 year orbit of the Sun. On March 26, 1812, the Boston Gazette publishes an editorial cartoon mocking Governor Elbridge Gerry's reluctant signing of a bill redrawing Massachusetts' Congressional districts. The new map clearly favored Gerry's Democratic-Republican Party; one critic of the plan said one district on the map resembled a salamander. The Gazette seized on that comment and drew a map with the district in question made to look like some sort of dragon - probably a tracing of a woodcarving made by artist Elkanah Tisdale - which the paper said was in fact called a Gerry-mander. Since then, the term "gerrymandering" has come to mean the manipulation of district boundaries for unfair political advantage. (Tisdale's wood carving is in the Library of Congress). On March 26, 1857, Ludwig von Beethoven, considered one of history's most admired musical composers, dies in Vienna at age 57. Born in Bonn, Germany to the 19th century equivalent of pageant parents, Beethoven gave his first public piano performance at age 7 (though his father advertised his age at 6). He moved to Vienna in 1792 where he actively studied the work of Mozart and frequently collaborated with Joseph Hayden. His opus of more than 700 works includes nine full symphonies, including Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, one of the most celebrated works of the Classical Era. His last works were written while he was becoming increasingly deaf.
On March 28, 1939, Spanish Nationalists under General Francisco Franco take control of Madrid, ending the Spanish Civil War. The war's roots are traced back to King Alfonso XIII's decision in 1931 to allow the people to select their own form of government. Voters chose a liberal republic, but nationalists pushed the nation into civil war by 1936. Nearly a million lives would be lost before Franco took power. Franco would establish a Fascist government, oppressive at first, though he became increasingly benign over the years. He died in 1975 and is still dead (whether you get that joke probably depends on your age). On March 28, 1915, German submarine U-28 sinks the Falaba, a cargo-passenger ship running its normal transit between Liverpool and West Africa. The 104 lives lost include 31-year old Leon Thrasher, an American mining engineer who worked on Africa's Gold Coast. He is the first official American casualty of the First World War. On March 28, 2006, Duke University officials suspend the school's men's lacrosse team for two games, over allegations of a sexual assault at a team party two weeks earlier. Days later, athletic director Joe Alleva will cancel the remainder of the season and force head coach Mike Pressler to resign. Every member of the team would submit a DNA sample to Durham (NC) police, but despite the samples turning up no evidence of an assault against the accuser (a part-time stripper named Crystal Mangum), within 3 weeks Durham County DA Mike Nifong brings rape charges against 3 team members. The case creates a national sensation, with the team members being portrayed as privileged, out-of-control white kids exploiting a defenseless minority victim. But as the case, and the publicity grew, flaws in Mangum's story began to appear, and in December, the North Carolina Bar Association would charge Nifong with prosecutorial misconduct. State's Attorney General Roy White would take over the case the following month, and dismiss the charges in April 2007. Nifong would be disbarred for his rush to judgement, while the players who were falsely accused received settlements from both the university and county. Despite her false accusations, Mangum would be rewarded for her "victimhood" with full tuition to North Carolina Central University from Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition. She graduated with a degree in police psychology, but in 2013 was convicted of second degree murder in the stabbing death of her boyfriend. (below: Duke lacrosse players celebrate the team's first national championship in 2010. Many of the NC team members had been part of the '06 team, and had been granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA after having much of the '06 season taken away)
On March 29, 1958, Dr. Charles D. Keeling of the Scripps Institute takes the first measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. Measurements are also taken at the South Pole. After two years of accumulating daily data, Keeling releases his findings, that while the levels fluctuate on a daily basis, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising. Further data taken from measuring CO2 in the southern polar icecap indicates the levels have been rising since the early 19th century. Keeling presents his findings with a graph called the Keeling Curve. Funding for the polar measurements (the National Weather Service started the program) ceased in the early 60's, but the Hawaiian observations continue to this day. Keeling died in 2005; his son Ralph now oversees the work. On March 29, 1951, New York's "Mad Bomber" rears his head again, as a homemade device explodes (with no casualties) in NYC's Grand Central Station. The bomber made his first appearance in 1940, when a pipe bomb was discovered in the main office of Con Edison, with the note, "Con Ed crooks, this is for you." Several unexploded bombs were discovered throughout 1941, and at year's end a note was sent to the press stating that no more bombs would appear until the end of the war. The bomber kept his word, but planted bombs all over NYC through the early '50's - the Grand Central bomb was the only one that detonated. Eventually, George Metesky, a disgruntled former ConEd employees, was pegged as the Mad Bomber. He was institutionalized for 15 years and died in 1995. On March 29, 1929, President Herbert Hoover has a telephone installed on his desk in the Oval Office. Incredibly, its the first time a "sitting' president can make a phone call while sitting at his desk, although the phone had been invented 51 years before. Previously, a president had to use a phone in the adjacent foyer.
