On This Day In History March 26

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 280 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1964, the musical, Funny Girl makes its premiere on Broadway.

Funny Girl is a musical with a book by Isobel Lennart, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The semi-biographical plot is based on the life and career of Broadway, film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein. Its original title was My Man.

The musical was produced by Ray Stark, who was Brice’s son-in-law via his marriage to her daughter Frances, and starred Barbra Streisand.

Don’t Rain On My Parade

 1026 – Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor.

1484 – William Caxton prints his translation of Aesop’s Fables.

1552 – Guru Amar Das becomes the Third Sikh Guru.

1636 – Utrecht University is founded in the Netherlands.

1808 – Charles IV of Spain abdicates in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII.

1812 – An earthquake destroys Caracas, Venezuela.

1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.

1839 – The first Henley Royal Regatta is held.

1881 – Thessaly is freed and becomes part of Greece again.

1913 – Balkan War: Bulgarian forces take Adrianople.

1917 – World War I: First Battle of Gaza – British troops are halted after 17,000 Turks block their advance.

1934 – The driving test is introduced in the United Kingdom.

1942 – World War II: In Poland, the first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz.

1945 – World War II: US forces declare Iwo Jima secure.

1953 – Jonas Salk announces the first successful test of his polio vaccine on a small group of adults and children.

1958 – The United States Army launches Explorer 3.

1958 – The African Regroupment Party is launched at a meeting in Paris.

1967 – Ten thousand people gather for one of many Central Park be-ins in New York City

1971 – East Pakistan declares its independence from Pakistan to form People’s Republic of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Liberation War begins.

1974 – Gaura Devi leads a group of 27 women of Laata village, Henwalghati, Garhwal Himalayas, to form circles around trees to stop them being felled and giving rise to the Chipko Movement in India.

1975 – The Biological Weapons Convention comes into force.

1976 – Queen Elizabeth II sends the first royal email, from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment.

1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C..

1982 – A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, D.C..

1991 – Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay sign the Treaty of Asuncion,

establishing Mercosur, the South Common Market.

1995 – The Schengen Treaty comes into effect.

1997 – Thirty-nine bodies are found in the Heaven’s Gate cult suicides.

1998 – Oued Bouaicha massacre in Algeria: 52 people are killed with axes and knives, 32 of them babies under the age of 2.

1999 – The “Melissa worm” infects Microsoft word processing and e-mail systems around the world.

1999 – A jury in Michigan finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.

2005 – The Taiwanese government calls on 1 million Taiwanese to demonstrate in Taipei, in opposition to the Anti-Secession Law of the People’s Republic of China. Around 200,000 to 300,000 attend the demonstration.

2006 – The military junta ruling Burma officially names Naypyidaw, a new city in Mandalay Division, as the new capital. Yangon had formerly been the nation’s capital.

2010 – 46 die as a South Korean warship sinks, allegedly after an attack by North Korea.

Holidays and observances

   * Christian Feast Day:

         o Emmanuel and companions

         o Felicitas

         o http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S… Larissa]

         o Ludger

         o Margaret Clitherow

         o March 26 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

   * Independence Day and National Day (Bangladesh), celebrates the declaration of independence from Pakistan in 1971.

   * Prince Kuhio Day (Hawaii)

   * Prophet Zoroaster‘s Birthday (Zoroastrianism)

   * Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel (Eastern Christianity)