Spring at the TORNADO TAVERN GALLERY is just around the corner (and not a moment too soon!)

We enjoyed the first event of the TORNADO TAVERN GALLERY season. There where quite a few very nice art entries by both amateurs and professional artists. The food offered by the Crystal Falls Banquet facility was very nice and the Wolf River Art League did a fine job with the show. Mary won a beautiful sculpture titled “Mother with Child” in the raffle and I knapped six nice arrowheads. Our next event will be in March at Whitnall Park in Milwaukee, stay tuned for more information.

I keep looking out the window for the next winter storm but not much yet. The past days have been rather nice for a Wisconsin February and I will not complain. I do look forward to the first smells of spring and the lilacs that are just outside of my window. I have many projects waiting for better weather, our tent needs some patching, the 1948 Dunlap lathe needs to be reassembled, and I have a new (old) kiln that will need attention. Lots of new ideas careening around in my head!

Before I move to the history part of this blog, I must talk with sadness about the inconceivable events of last weekend. I am not going to offer solutions, although I have my ideas. I will say that history has many events where angry men resort to violence, usually ending with much less horrific results as in our recent history. Unfortunately, since the 1920’s the efficiency of the tools of destruction has increased exponentially. I wonder how things would have been if the questionable characters portrayed in the 19^th century “dime novels” had tools of such efficiency. It’s interesting to look at how the Thomson “Tommy” gun was addressed.

OK, on to the list of things that happened in the history of the next couple of weeks;

2/27/0425	The Pandidakterion is established	The Imperial University of Constantinople, sometimes known as the University of the Palace Hall of Magnaura, can trace its corporate origins to 425 AD, when the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) emperor Theodosius II founded the Pandidakterion. The Pandidakterion was refounded in 1046 by Constantine IX Monomachos who created the Departments of Law and Philosophy. At the time various economic schools, colleges, polytechnics, libraries and fine-arts academies also operated in the city of Constantinople.
2/28/1066	Westminster Abbey, opens its doors	Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, is a large, mainly Gothic abbey church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom's most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. The building itself was a Benedictine monastic church until the monastery was dissolved in 1539. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral. Since 1560, the building is no longer an abbey or a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England "Royal Peculiar"—a church responsible directly to the sovereign.
2/22/1371	The Stuart dynasty is established	Robert II succeeded to the throne of Scotland. He was the son of Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland and of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of the Scottish king Robert the Bruce by his first wife Isabella of Mar.
2/23/1540	Francisco Vasquez de Coronado	Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado begins his unsuccessful search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold in the American Southwest.
2/21/1613	The Romanov imperial line is established	Michael I - Mikhail Romanov, a son of the Patriarch of Moscow, is elected Russian Tsar. Following the unstable period known as the “Time of Troubles” when Russian politics became fragmented and Mongol incursions increased.
3/1/1692	Salem Witch Trials	Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are arrested for the supposed practice of witchcraft in Salem, Mass. TITUBA, RELUCTANT WITCH OF SALEM: DEVILISH INDIANS AND PURITAN FANTASIES by Elaine G. Breslaw. The enigmatic life of Tituba, the West Indian slave who in 1692 was one of the first three women accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, unfolds in this well researched biography. Dividing her work into two sections, Breslaw first treats Tituba’s early life as a slave in Barbados, where her ideas were shaped by a combination of English, American Indian, and African customs and folklore. The author then focuses on Tituba’s life in Massachusetts, where she confessed to the charges of witchcraft brought against her. Tituba’s confession initiated a witch-hunt that, before it ended, brought about the execution of 19 people and the imprisonment of more than 150.
2/20/1725	American colonists officially practice scalping	In the American colonies, a posse of New Hampshire volunteers comes across a band of encamped Native Americans and takes 10 “scalps” in the first significant appropriation of this Native American practice by European colonists. The posse received a bounty of 100 pounds per scalp from the colonial authorities in Boston.
3/4/1789	The U.S. Constitution is put into effect	The law is one of the world's oldest constitutions still in use. The oldest is the Constitution of San Marino, which was issued in 1600.
3/1/1790	United States Census of 1790	The United States Census of 1790 was the first census of the whole United States. It recorded the population of the United States as of Census Day, August 2, 1790, as mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution and applicable laws. In the first census, the population of the United States was enumerated to be 3,929,214.
2/20/1792	Postal Service Act regulates United States Post Office Department	On this day in 1792, President George Washington signs legislation renewing the United States Post Office as a cabinet department led by the postmaster general, guaranteeing inexpensive delivery of all newspapers, stipulating the right to privacy and granting Congress the ability to expand postal service to new areas of the nation.
2/25/1804	Thomas Jefferson is nominated for president at the Democratic-Republican caucus.	The Democratic-Republican Party was an American political party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison between 1791 and 1793 to oppose the centralizing policies of the new Federalist Party run by Alexander Hamilton
2/22/1819	Spain ceded Florida to the United States.	The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Florida Treaty, was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the U.S. and defined the boundary between the U.S. and New Spain. New Spain included the Southwest portion of North America.
2/24/1821	Mexico gains independence from Spain	The Mexican War of Independence (Spanish: Guerra de Independencia de México) was an armed conflict, and the culmination of a political and social process which ended the rule of Spain in 1821 in the territory of New Spain.
2/27/1827	The first “modern” Mardi-Gras is celebrated in New Orleans	Mardi Gras is a tradition that dates back thousands of years to pagan celebrations of spring and fertility, including the raucous Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Lupercalia. When Christianity arrived in Rome, religious leaders decided to incorporate these popular local traditions into the new faith, an easier task than abolishing them altogether. As a result, the excess and debauchery of the Mardi Gras season became a prelude to Lent, the 40 days of fasting and penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. The first American Mardi Gras took place on March 3, 1699, when French explorers Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and Sieur de Bienville landed near present-day New Orleans, Louisiana. They held a small celebration and dubbed their landing spot Point du Mardi Gras. When the Spanish took control of New Orleans, however, they abolished these rowdy rituals, and the bans remained in force until Louisiana became a U.S. state in 1812. On Mardi Gras in 1827, a group of students donned colorful costumes and danced through the streets of New Orleans, emulating the revelry they’d observed while visiting Paris. Ten years later, the first recorded New Orleans Mardi Gras parade took place, a tradition that continues to this day.
2/21/1828	Cherokee receive their first printing press	The General Council of the Cherokee Nation had purchased the press with the goal of producing a Cherokee-language newspaper. The press itself, however, would have been useless had it not been for the extraordinary work of a young Cherokee named Sequoyah, who invented a Cherokee alphabet.
2/23/1836	The Alamo is besieged by Santa Anna	The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Buoyed by a desire for revenge, the Texans defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, ending the revolution.
3/2/1836	Texas declares independence	During the Texas Revolution, a convention of American Texans meets at Washington-on-the-Brazos and declares the independence of Texas from Mexico. The delegates chose David Burnet as provisional president and confirmed Sam Houston as the commander in chief of all Texan forces. The Texans also adopted a constitution that protected the free practice of slavery, which had been prohibited by Mexican law. Meanwhile, in San Antonio, Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s siege of the Alamo continued, and the fort’s 185 or so American defenders waited for the final Mexican assault.
2/24/1840	Adams begins arguments in the Amistad case	On this day in 1840, former President John Quincy Adams begins to argue the Amistad case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. United States v. Schooner Amistad, 40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841), was a United States Supreme Court case resulting from the rebellion of Africans on board the Spanish schooner La Amistad in 1839. It was an unusual freedom suit that involved international issues and parties, as well as United States law. The historian Samuel Eliot Morison described it in 1969 as the most important court case involving slavery before being eclipsed by that of Dred Scott in 1857.
2/21/1848	Marx publishes Manifesto	On February 21, 1848, The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, is published in London by a group of German-born revolutionary socialists known as the Communist League. The political pamphlet–arguably the most influential in history–proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” and that the inevitable victory of the proletariat, or working class, would put an end to class society forever. Originally published in German as Manifest der KommunistischenPartei (“Manifesto of the Communist Party”), the work had little immediate impact. Its ideas, however, reverberated with increasing force into the 20th century, and by 1950 nearly half the world’s population lived under Marxist governments.
2/26/1848	The Communist Manifesto is published in London	The Communist Manifesto summarizes Marx and Engels' theories about the nature of society and politics, that in their own words, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism.
2/19/1861	Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom.	The Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia ("the peasants Reform of 1861") was the first and most important of liberal reforms passed during the reign (1855-1881) of Emperor Alexander II of Russia.
3/4/1861	Lincoln inaugurated	On this day in 1861, Abraham Lincoln becomes the 16th president of the United States. In his inauguration speech Lincoln extended an olive branch to the South, but also made it clear that he intended to enforce federal laws in the states that seceded.
2/24/1868	President Andrew Johnson impeached	The U.S. House of Representatives votes 11 articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson, nine of which cite Johnson’s removal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The bill prohibited the president from removing officials appointed by and with the advice of the Senate without senatorial approval. The House vote made President Johnson the first president to be impeached in U.S. history.
3/1/1872	Yellowstone Park established	Yellowstone National Park is a national park located in the U.S. states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular features. It has many types of ecosystems, but the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion. Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years. Aside from visits by mountain men during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s.
3/1/1875	Civil Rights Act of 1875	The Civil Rights Act of 1875 (18 Stat. 335–337), sometimes called Enforcement Act or Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era in response to civil rights violations to African Americans, "to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights", giving them equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and to prohibit exclusion from jury service. The bill was passed by the 43rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875. The law was generally opposed by public opinion, but blacks did favor it. It was not effectively enforced and historian William Gillette says the passage of the law was an "insignificant victory." Eight years later, the Supreme Court ruled in Civil Rights Cases (1883) that the public accommodation sections of the act were unconstitutional.
2/19/1878	Thomas Edison patented the gramophone (phonograph).	In American English, "phonograph", properly specific to machines made by Edison, was sometimes used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others. But it was then considered strictly incorrect to apply it to Emile Berliner's upstart Gramophone, a very different machine
3/3/1879	United States Geological Survey created	Congress establishes the United States Geological Survey, an organization that played a pivotal role in the exploration and development of the West.
2/19/1913	Cracker Jack	1st prize inserted into a Cracker Jack box
2/26/1913	Federal Income Tax starts	The 16th Amendment to the constitution is adopted, setting the legal basis for the Federal income tax. The federal government realized in 1913 that in order for it to collect taxes effectively, and not have to share that tax money with the states, federal income tax was necessary.  Other taxes, such as taxes on houses or other property are considered “direct” taxes by the Constitution and would have to be divided back among the states.
2/26/1917	The world's first jazz record is created	"Livery Stable Blues" is a jazz composition copyrighted by Ray Lopez (né Raymond Edward Lopez; 1889–1979) and Alcide Nunez in 1917. It was recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band on February 26, 1917, and, with the A side "Dixieland Jazz Band One-Step" or "Dixie Jazz Band One-Step" (a tune later better known as "Original Dixieland One-Step"), became widely acknowledged as the first jazz recording commercially released. It was recorded by the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York City at its studio at 46 West 38th Street on the 12th floor – the top floor.
3/2/1917	Puerto Ricans become U.S. citizens, are recruited for war effort	Barely a month before the United States enters World War I, President Woodrow Wilson signs the Jones-Shafroth act, granting U.S. citizenship to the inhabitants of Puerto Rico.
2/22/1918	Montana passes law against sedition	Swept along by hysterical fears of treacherous German spies and domestic labor violence, the Montana legislature passes a Sedition Law that severely restricts freedom of speech and assembly. Three months later, Congress adopted a federal Sedition Act modeled on the Montana law.
2/26/1919	Grand Canyon National Park was established.	Grand Canyon National Park is the 15th site in the United States to have been named a national park. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, the park is located in northwestern Arizona. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often considered one of the Wonders of the World.
3/1/1919	Samil Independence Movement	The March 1st Movement, also known as Sam-il Movement was one of the earliest public displays of Korean resistance during the rule of Korea by Japan from 1910 into 1945. The name refers to an event that occurred on March 1, 1919, hence the movement's name, literally meaning "Three-One Movement" or "March First Movement" in Korean. It is also sometimes referred to as the Man-se Demonstrations.
3/3/1924	The last remnant of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey is abolished	The end of the Islamic caliphate marked the demise of the 600-year old empire and gave way to the formation of a reformed Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
2/27/1925	Glacier Bay National Monument is dedicated	Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve is in the Alaska panhandle west of Juneau. President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the area around Glacier Bay a national monument under the Antiquities Act on February 25, 1925. Subsequent to an expansion of the monument by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) enlarged the national monument by 523,000 acres (2116.5 km2) on December 2, 1980 and in the process created Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, with 57,000 additional acres (230.7 km2) of public land designated as national preserve to the immediate northwest of the park in order to protect a portion of the Alsek River and related fish and wildlife habitats while allowing sport hunting. Glacier Bay became part of a binational UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, was inscribed as a Biosphere Reserve in 1986 and in 1994 undertook an obligation to work with Hoonah and Yakutat Tlingit Native American organizations in the management of the protected area. In total the park and preserve cover 5,130 square miles (13,287 km2). Most of Glacier Bay is designated wilderness area which covers 4,164 square miles (10,784 km2).
2/26/1929	Grand Teton National Park is established	In a controversial move that inspires charges of eastern domination of the West, the Congress establishes Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Home to some of the most stunning alpine scenery in the United States, the territory in and around Grand Teton National Park also has a colorful human history. The first Anglo-American to see the saw-edged Teton peaks is believed to be John Colter. After traveling with Lewis and Clark to the Pacific, Colter left the expedition during its return trip down the Missouri in 1807 to join two fur trappers headed back into the wilderness. He spent the next three years wandering through the northern Rocky Mountains, eventually finding his way into the valley at the base of the Tetons, which would later be called Jackson Hole.
2/27/1933	Germany's parliament building is set on fire	The Nazis used the Reichstag fire to justify harsh repression against political opponents. The event is considered pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.
3/4/1933	FDR inaugurated	On March 4, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States. In his famous inaugural address, delivered outside the east wing of the U.S. Capitol, Roosevelt outlined his “New Deal”–an expansion of the federal government as an instrument of employment opportunity and welfare–and told Americans that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Although it was a rainy day in Washington, and gusts of rain blew over Roosevelt as he spoke, he delivered a speech that radiated optimism and competence, and a broad majority of Americans united behind their new president and his radical economic proposals to lead the nation out of the Great Depression.
2/26/1935	RADAR	RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) was first demonstrated by Robert Watson-Watt.
2/19/1942	Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066	Ten weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable.” The military in turn defined the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship, as a military area. By June, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to remote internment camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country
2/23/1942	The first Axis shelling of the U.S.	A Japanese submarine shells an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, California, the first Axis bombs to hit American soil. Due to the apparent isolation of North America any threat by the Axis Powers to invade the mainland United States or other areas was considered negligible, allowing for American resources to be deployed in overseas theaters.
2/27/1951	The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution	No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
3/2/1955	Claudette Colvin	Claudette Colvin refuses to give up her seat in Montgomery, Alabama, nine months before Rosa Parks famous arrest for the same offense.
2/21/1958	The peace symbol is designed by Gerald Holtom	The symbol was commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and combines the semaphore symbols for the letters N and D - an abbreviation of “Nuclear Disarmament”.
3/2/1959	Miles Davis records Kind of Blue	It is considered the best-selling jazz album in history and one of the most influential works of jazz music ever produced.
3/1/1961	Kennedy establishes Peace Corps	Newly elected President John F. Kennedy issues an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. It proved to be one of the most innovative and highly publicized Cold War programs set up by the United States.
2/27/1973	AIM takes Wounded Knee	Angered over a long history of violated treaties, mistreatment, and discrimination, 200 members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupy the tiny hamlet of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
3/2/1974	Watergate	A grand jury in Washington, D.C. concludes that President Nixon was indeed involved in the Watergate cover-up.
2/28/1983	The final episode of M*A*S*H aired	Goodbye, Farewell and Amen is a television film that served as the 256th and final episode of the American television series M*A*S*H. Closing out the series' 11th season, the 2 hour episode first aired on CBS on February 28, 1983, ending the series' original run. The episode was written by a large number of collaborators, including series star Alan Alda, who also directed. It was the most watched television program in history.
3/3/1985	The U.K. miners' strike ends	The year-long dispute was the country's longest-running industrial dispute and a defining issue of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government.
3/1/2018	Full moon	Biblically; The moon is one of the “great lights” that God made on the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:14–18).
2/24/0786	Pepin the Short dies	Pepin the Short (German: Pippin der Kleine, French: Pépin le Bref, c. 714 – 24 September 768) was the King of the Franks from 751 until his death. He was the first of the Carolingians to become king. Although unquestionably one of the most powerful and successful rulers of his time, Pepin's reign is largely overshadowed by that of his more famous son, Charlemagne.
3/3/1703	Robert Hooke dies	Robert Hooke FRS (Fellowship of the Royal Society); 28 July [Old Style 18 July] 1635 – 3 March 1703) was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath. His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great London fire of 1666, and eventually becoming ill and party to jealous intellectual disputes (the latter may have contributed to his relative historical obscurity).
2/23/1821	John Keats dies	John Keats; 31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death from tuberculosis at age 25 in the year 1821.
3/4/1868	Founder of Chisholm Trail dies	Jesse Chisholm (circa 1805 - March 4, 1868) was a mixed-blood Cherokee fur trader. His name is most famous because of the namesake cattle trail, which he originally scouted and developed to supply his various trading posts among the Plains Indians in what is now western Oklahoma. Although Chisholm never herded cattle and died before the heyday of the Texas-to-Kansas cattle drives, he was nevertheless a participant in several important events in Texas and Oklahoma history.
2/20/1895	Frederick Douglass dies	Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey; c. February 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writings. In his time, he was described by abolitionists as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave. Douglass wrote several autobiographies. He described his experiences as a slave in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which became a bestseller, and was influential in promoting the cause of abolition, as was his second book, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855).
2/21/1965	Malcolm X assassinated	El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , (1925–1965) was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. In New York City, Malcolm X was assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights.
2/25/1983	Tennessee Williams dies	Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) was an American playwright. He is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama. After years of obscurity, he became suddenly famous with The Glass Menagerie (1944), a play that closely reflected his own unhappy family background. This heralded a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959).
3/3/1987	Danny Kaye dies	Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; January 18, 1911 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, singer, dancer, comedian and musician. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes and rapid-fire novelty songs. He was the first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF in 1954 and received the French Legion of Honour in 1986 for his years of work with the organization.
2/27/2003	Mr. Rogers dies	Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003) was an American television personality, musician, puppeteer, writer, producer, and Presbyterian minister. Rogers was famous for creating, hosting, and composing the theme music for the educational preschool television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968–2001), which featured his kind-hearted, grandfatherly personality, and directness to his audiences.
2/19/1473	Copernicus is born	On February 19, 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus is born in Torun, a city in north-central Poland on the Vistula River. The father of modern astronomy, he was the first modern European scientist to propose that Earth and other planets revolve around the sun.
2/22/1732	George Washington is born	On this day in 1732, George Washington is born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the second son from the second marriage of a colonial plantation owner. An initially loyal British subject, Washington eventually led the Continental Army in the American Revolution and became known as the father of the United States. 1846 - The Liberty Bell tolls for the last time, to mark George Washington’s birthday.
3/2/1793	Sam Houston is born	Sam Houston (March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) born in Rockbridge County, Virginia. He was an American soldier and politician, the first president of the independent Republic of Texas. His victory at the Battle of San Jacinto secured the independence of Texas from Mexico in one of the shortest decisive battles in modern history. He was also the only governor within a future Confederate state to oppose secession (which led to the outbreak of the American Civil War) and to refuse an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, a decision that led to his removal from office by the Texas secession convention.
2/26/1846	William Frederick Cody is born	William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was an American scout, bison hunter, and showman. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but he lived for several years in his father's hometown in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, before the family returned to the Midwest and settled in the Kansas Territory.
3/3/1847	Alexander Graham Bell is born	Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born scientist, inventor, engineer, and innovator who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone and founding the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885. Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work.
2/27/1902	John Steinbeck is born	John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr.; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American author. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters", and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature (Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, Cannery Row). The Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon.
3/1/1904	Glenn Miller is born	Alton Glenn Miller (March 1, 1904 – missing in action December 15, 1944) was an American big-band musician, arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was the best-selling recording artist from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best-known big bands. In just four years Glenn Miller scored 23 number-one hits - more than Elvis Presley (18 No. 1s, 38 top 10s) and the Beatles (20 No. 1s, 33 top 10s) did in their careers.
3/2/1904	Dr. Seuss is born	On this day in 1904, Theodor Geisel, better known to the world as Dr. Seuss, the author and illustrator of such beloved children’s books as “The Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham,” is born in Springfield, Massachusetts. Geisel, who used his middle name (which was also his mother’s maiden name) as his pen name, wrote 48 books–including some for adults–that have sold well over 200 million copies and been translated into multiple languages. Dr. Seuss books are known for their whimsical rhymes and quirky characters, which have names like the Lorax and the Sneetches and live in places like Hooterville.
3/2/1923	Doc Watson is born	Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music were highly regarded. He performed with his son, guitarist Merle Watson, for over 15 years until Merle's death in 1985 in an accident on the family farm.
2/20/1927	Sidney Poitier is born	Sidney Poitier, (born February 20, 1927) is a Chinese-Bahamian-American actor, film director, author, and diplomat. In 1964, Poitier became the first Bahamian and first black actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of these achievements was bolstered in 1967, when he starred in three successful films, all of which dealt with issues involving race and race relations: To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, making him the top box-office star of that year. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of classic Hollywood cinema, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.
2/22/1932	Ted Kennedy is born	Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts for over forty years from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-continuously-serving senator in United States history, having served there for almost 47 years. For many years, Ted Kennedy was the most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, and he was also the last surviving, longest-living, and youngest son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Kennedy. He was the youngest brother of John F. Kennedy—the 35th President of the United States—and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassination, and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.
2/26/1932	Johnny Cash is born	John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and author. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. Although primarily remembered as a country music icon, his genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of multiple inductions in the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.
2/26/1943	George Harrison is born	George Harrison MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, a grade within the British order of chivalry.) (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English guitarist, singer-songwriter, and producer who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles, often referred to as "the quiet Beatle". His songs for the group included "Taxman", "Within You Without You", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something", the last of which became the Beatles' second-most covered song.
2/28/1948	Bernadette Peters is born	Bernadette Peters (born Bernadette Lazzara; February 28, 1948) is an American actress, singer and children's book author. Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades, she has starred in musical theatre, films and television, as well as performing in solo concerts and recordings. She is one of the most critically acclaimed Broadway performers, having received nominations for seven Tony Awards, winning two (plus an honorary award), and nine Drama Desk Awards, winning three. Four of the Broadway cast albums on which she has starred have won Grammy Awards.
2/22/1975	Drew Barrymore is born	Drew Blythe Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, author, director, model and producer. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American stage and film actors, and the granddaughter of John Barrymore. She made her breakout role in Steven Spielberg's film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).