Calendar for March 25th, 2011

The Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary

2001: Seward's Day (Alaska)

2001: Mothering Sunday

2001: Good Friday

1524: Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano arrived off Outer Banks of North Carolina

1775: George Washington planted pecans at Mount Vernon

1776: Congress authorized first U.S. medal for Gen. George Washington, for forcing British army to evacuate Boston

Born 1867: Arturo Toscanini (conductor)

Born 1881: Bela Bartok (composer)

1882: First U.S. public demonstration of pancake making, NYC

1894: Jacob S. Coxey's army of jobless men began march from Ohio to Washington, D.C., to demand relief measures from Congress

1900: Socialist Party of the United States organized at Indianapolis, Indiana

Born 1901: Ed Begley, Sr. (actor)

1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in NYC killed 148 women trapped by locked fire escape doors

Born 1920: Howard Cosell (sportscaster)

Born 1922: Eileen Ford (business executive)

Born 1925: Flannery O'Connor (novelist)

Born 1928: James Arthur Lovell, Jr. (astronaut)

Born 1934: Gloria Steinem (women's rights activist)

1937: First perfumed ad in a U.S. newspaper

Born 1942: Aretha Franklin (singer)

1943: The Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore Show premiered on the radio. The duo replaced the popular Abbott and Costello

Born 1947: Elton John (musician)

Born 1948: Bonnie Bedelia Culkin (actress)

1958: Sugar Ray Robinson won world's middleweight boxing championship by defeating Carmen Basilio, in Chicago

Born 1962: Marcia Cross (actress)

1965: About 25,000 civil rights demonstrators ended a five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, with a rally demanding equal rights for blacks

Born 1965: Sarah Jessica Parker (actress)

1966: U.S. Supreme Court declared the poll tax to be unconstitutional for all elections

Born 1971: Sheryl Swoopes (basketball player; Olympic gold medalist)

1972: Multinational agreement to coordinate efforts to control trade in narcotic drugs signed in Geneva

Died 1973: Edward Steichen (photographer)

Born 1979: Lee Pace (actor)

Born 1982: Danica Patrick (race car driver)

1987: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an employer may voluntarily act to redress imbalances in the workforce through affirmative action programs for women. It was the first time that the court specifically addressed such programs for women

Born 1989: Aly Michalka (actress)

Died 2004: Viscountess Dilhorne (trained pigeons to carry secret communications in Europe during WWII)

Died 2006: Buck Owens (singer)

Died 2008: Herb Peterson (invented McDonald's Egg McMuffin)