Today, March 11, is my birthday! According to the New York Times, not much of interest happened on this day in history:
- In 1810, Emperor Napoleon of France was married by proxy to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.
- In 1941, President Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis.
- In 1970, the album “Deja Vu” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was released on this date.
- In 1977, more than 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims were freed after ambassadors from three Islamic nations joined negotiations.
- In 1978, Palestinian guerrillas went on a rampage on the Tel Aviv-Haifa highway, killing 34 Israelis.
- In 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko.
- In 1993, Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be the nation’s first “female” attorney general.
- In 1997, musician Paul McCartney of the Beatles was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
- In 2004, 10 bombs exploded in quick succession across the commuter rail network in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 people and wounding more than 2,000.
- In 2005, a man being escorted to court for trial in Atlanta took a gun from a sheriff’s deputy and went on a deadly rampage, killing four people, including a judge.
- In 2006, former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead of a heart attack in his prison cell in the Netherlands.
Aside from the marriage of a tyrant, the death of another and a lame rock album being released, not much good happened on my birthday, no?
Here’s who shares my birthday:
– People that are still alive:
Rupert Murdoch, media mogul, is 77 today!
Sam Donaldson, broadcast journalist, is 74 today!
Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia is 72 today!
Bobby McFerrin, the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” singer is 58 today!
Jerry Zucker, director of Airplane! and other films, is 58 today!
Nina Hagen, the German New Wave singer, is 53 today!
Lisa Loeb, pop star, turns 40 today!
Johnny Knoxville, of Jackass fame, is 37 today!
The Madden Brothers (of Good Charlotte) are 29 today!
Lil’ Thora Birch is 26 today!
– People that are no longer alive:
Torquato Tasso, Italian poet of the late Renaissance
John McLean, Supreme Court justice; dissented in Dred Scott decision
Joseph Bertrand, French mathematician and educator
Dorothy Gish, American film and stage actress
Frederick IX, Danish king; led resistance against Nazis in WWII
Lawrence Welk, American bandleader and showman
Harold Wilson, English Labor Party politician; twice prime minister