Calendar for March 3rd, 2013

2008: Casimir Pulaski Day

2001: Discovery Day (Guam)

1812: First U.S. foreign aid bill authorized $50,000 for relief of victims of an earthquake in Venezuela

1820: Missouri Compromise was passed by U.S. Congress, admitting Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state

Born 1831: George Mortimer Pullman (industrialist; designed luxury railroad cars)

1845: Florida admitted to the Union as the 27th state

Born 1847: Alexander Graham Bell (inventor)

1861: Serfs were emancipated in Russia

1863: National Academy of Sciences signed into existence by Abraham Lincoln to advise the government on scientific and technical issues

1875: First organized ice hockey match, Montreal, Canada

1875: Carmen, by Georges Bizet, premiered in Paris

1879: Belva Ann Bennet Lockwood became first woman to try a case before the U.S. Supreme Court

1887: Anne Sullivan began teaching deaf/blind Helen Keller

1901: The U.S. Steel Corp. was formed

1903: Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York, began taking prisoners' fingerprints

Born 1911: Jean Harlow (actress)

1915: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of NASA, was founded

Born 1918: Arnold Newman (photographer)

1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed by Russia and the Central Powers

1919: First international airmail delivery was made from Vancouver, BC, to Seattle, WA

Born 1920: James Montgomery Doohan (actor, linguist)

1931: The Star-Spangled Banner was officially designated U.S. national anthem

1933: FDR inaugurated as 32nd president of the U.S. He told Americans, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," referring to the Great Depression

1937: First annual meeting of General Wildlife Federation (later, NWF), 1937.

Born 1940: Perry Ellis (fashion designer)

1952: Puerto Rico became a U.S. commonwealth, with autonomy in internal affairs

1953: First fatal jetliner accident occured when a Canadian plane crashed in Karachi, Pakistan

Born 1958: Miranda Richardson (actress)

Died 1959: Lou Costello (actor & comedian)

1959: Pioneer 4, first U.S. spacecraft to orbit Sun, launched

Born 1962: Jackie Joyner-Kersee (heptathlon athlete; Olympic gold medalist)

Born 1962: Herschel Walker (football player)

1969: Apollo 9 spacecraft launched from Cape Kennedy

1980: Pierre Trudeau replaced Joe Clark as prime minister of Canada

Born 1982: Jessica Biel (actress)

Died 1987: Danny Kaye (actor)

Died 1991: Arthur Murray (dance teacher)

Died 1998: Fred Friendly (documentary producer)

Died 2003: Hank Ballard (singer and songwriter who wrote and recorded The Twist in 1958 which later was recorded by Chubby Checker)

2005: Steve Fossett became the first person to fly around the world solo without stopping or refueling, safely touching down in his custom-built plane 67 hours after taking off

Died 2011: James Ludlow Elliot (astronomer who discovered the rings of Uranus)