March 18 - St. Patrick

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day

Almost got it...

Overheard

The other night:
W (around a bite of Mommy's gyro): Yum!

This Day In History

1673

John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton sells his part of New Jersey to the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers.

1850

American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.

1910

First opera by a US composer (Converse's The Pipe of Desire) performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

1959

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law allowing for Hawaiian statehood, which would become official on August 21.

1965

Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.

1989

In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found near the Pyramid of Cheops.

1990

In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

Famous Birthdays

1603

King John IV of Portugal, composer, patron of music and the arts, and musicologist (d. 1656)

1782

John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States (d. 1850)

1837

Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States (d. 1908)

1844

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer (d. 1908)

1848

Nathanael Herreshoff, American naval architect (d. 1938)

1858

Rudolf Diesel, German inventor (d. 1913)

1926

Peter Graves, American actor (d. 2010)

1927

John Kander, American songwriter

1938

Charley Pride, American musician

1950

Brad Dourif, American actor

1951

Ben Cohen, American ice cream maker

1960

Richard Biggs, American actor (d. 2004)

1970

Queen Latifah, American singer and actress

1980

Sophia Myles, English actress

1981

Tora Berger, Norwegian biathlete