This Day in History — March 29

National Days

- Education and Sharing Day - changed annually

- Mom and Pop Business Owners Day

-Lemon Chiffon Cake Day

- Vietnam War Veterans Day

- Pita Day

- Nevada Day

- Borrowing Days - (Mar. 29, 30, 31); stormy weather

~ Scottish folklore proposes that these three days were borrowed from April so that March might extend his power

~Scottish Proverb:

“March borrowit from April

Three days, and they were ill:

The first was frost, the second was snaw [snow],

The third was cauld [cold] as ever’t could blaw [blow].”

- Palm Sunday- (beginning of Holy Week) marks the day when Christ rode into Jerusalem a week before his death and resurrection (Triumphal Entry)

~also called Passion, Branch, Yew, Willow, Blossom, Fig Sunday, Flower Day and several other names

~Christian observance falls on the Sunday before Easter

~is the sixth and last Sunday/Week of Lent

~palm fronds (palm leaves or substitute branches from yews, willows, or other plants) are burned at the end of the service; the ashes are saved for use on the next Ash Wednesday

•Lent = represents the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert; begins on Ash Wednesday

•Ash Wednesday = 46 days before Easter to set a specific time for introspection; providing 40 days of fasting excluding Sundays

• ashes= symbol of mortality and repentance

~ “dust and to dust you shall return"

•Almsgiving = a form of fasting that involves giving up material comfort to help others

~1/3 pillars of spiritual renewal & penance

- Passover or Pesach = “in the Bible is a major Jewish festival (7 - 8 days) commemorating God sparing the Israelites' firstborn during the 10th plague in Egypt, leading to their freedom from slavery” -google ai

~Exodus 12 = involves sacrificing a lamb and eating unleavened bread = symbolize the haste of their departure

~Jews mark doorsteps with lamb blood for God to “Passover” them or not kill them (10th plague)

~15th day of Nissan or the first month of the Hebrew calendar

(Every religion and culture has their own calendar. Ugh)

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What Happened?

— 1961 - The 23rd Amendment ratified

~allows Washington, D.C. residents to vote in Presidential elections

— 1638 - Swedish Lutherans become the first permanent settlement in Delaware

— 1806 - National Road was authorized

~the first federally funded road

~First federal highway = the Great National Pike

— 1807 - Vesta discovered

~German astronomer Wilhelm Olbers discovered the minor planet, also the brightest asteroid in the sky

— 1812 - The first White House wedding took place

~Lucy Payne Washington married Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd

•Lucy = sister-in-law of President James Madison

— 1848 - Niagara Falls stopped flowing for the first time in recorded history

~bc of an Ice Jam

— 1852 - Ohio makes it illegal for women and children to work more than 10 hours a day

— 1867 - Congress approves the building of the Lincoln Memorial

— 1867 - British North America Act

~the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada were united as the Dominion of Canada

~the province of Canada was separated into Quebec and Ontario

— 1886 - John Pemberton brewed the first batch of Coca Cola as a hangover cure over his backyard fire in Atlanta

~advertised as brain tonic

~Cocaine was an ingredient of Coke until 1904 when Congress banned it

— 1929 - President Hoover had the first telephone installed in the Oval Office

— 1936 - Inge Lehmann discovered Earth’s Core

~”upended prevailing theories about the nature of Earth's core. Seven years prior, an earthquake had struck New Zealand. Lehmann studied the waves produced by the quake, which consisted of P and S waves—the former of which pass through all states of matter, the latter of which pass only through solids. Lehmann observed that some P waves had been deflected, as though they had been bent by something solid. Thus she came to the conclusion that the Earth had a solid core—a conclusion that was eventually validated by technology and helped to bolster the study of plate tectonics.” -Britannica

— 1943 - Meat, butter and cheese are rationed as part of the WWII effort

— 1951 - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg convicted of treasonous conspiring over atom bomb secrets to Soviet agents

~found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death for turning over U.S. military secrets

— 1971 - Lt. William Calley Jr. convicted for massacre of civilians at Mylai, S. Vietnam

— 1973 - The last U.S. combat soldiers evacuated Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in South Vietnam

~explains the national day & peace agreement signed that January

— 1974 - discovery of the terra-cotta army in the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang

~8,000 life-size terra-cotta soldiers and horses

~Farmers drilling a well near Xi'an, China found the subterranean chamber

— 1974 - Mariner 10 becomes the first space probe to fly by Mercury

— 1993 - Catherine Callbeck became the first woman to be elected premier (P.E.I.) in Canada

— 2007 - Bono of U2 was crowned a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire

~during an informal ceremony in the Dublin home of British Ambassador David Reddaway

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Birth/Death:

— John Tyler (Mar. 1790-1862): The 10th President of the U.S. (1841–45)

— Edwin Drake (Mar. 1819-1881): First person to drill productive oil well in the U.S.

— Sam Walton (Mar. 1918-1992): Founded Walmart and Sam's Club

~richest family in USA

— Martha A. Sandweiss (Mar. 1954-Still Living): Founder of the Princeton and Slavery Project

~a research investigating Princeton University’s historical ties to slavery = revealing deep connections to slave labor and ownership by its early leadership

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Sources: nationaldaycalendar, farmersalmanac, Britannica

#thisdayinhistory #march29 #ravenseyrie