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GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS SUNDAY, March 15, the 75th day of 2020 with 291 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 6:56 and sunset is @ 6:50. The moon is waning. The morning stars are Mars, Neptune and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
ON THIS DAY IN: 44 BC – Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated by high ranking Roman Senators. The day is known as the “Ides of March.”
1341 – During the Hundred Years War, an alliance was signed between Roman Emperor Louis IV and France’s Philip VI.
1493 – Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first New World voyage.
1778 – In command of two frigates, the Frenchman la Perouse sailed east from Botany Bay for the last lap of his voyage around the world.
1781 – During the American Revolution, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse took place in North Carolina. British General Cornwallis’ 1,900 soldiers defeated an American force of 4,400.
1820 – Maine was admitted as the 23rd state of the Union.
1907 – In Finland, woman won their first seats in the Finnish Parliament. They took their seats on May 23.
1909 – Italy proposed a European conference on the Balkans.
1910 – Otto Kahn offered $500,000 for a family portrait by Dutch artist Frans Hals. Kahn had outbid J.P. Morgan for the work.
1913 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson held the first open presidential news conference.
1916 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent 12,000 troops, under General Pershing, over the border of Mexico to pursue bandit Pancho Villa. The mission failed.
1944 – Cassino, Italy, was destroyed by Allied bombing.
1946 – British Premier Attlee offered India full independence after agreement on a constitution.
1948 – Sir Laurence Olivier was on the cover of “LIFE” magazine for his starring role in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
1949 – Clothes rationing in Great Britain ended nearly four years after the end of World War II.
1951 – General de Lattre demanded that Paris send him more troops for the fight in Vietnam.
1977 – The first episode of “Eight is Enough” was aired on ABC-TV.
1977 – The U.S. House of Representatives began a 90-day test to determine the feasibility of showing its sessions on television.
1979 – Pope John Paul II published his first encyclical “Redemptor Hominis.” In the work he warned of the growing gap between the rich and poor.
1982 – Nicaragua’s ruling junta proclaimed a month-long state of siege and suspended the nation’s constitution for one day. This came a day after anti-government rebels destroyed two bridges near the Honduran border.
1985 – In Brazil, two decades of military rule came to an end with the installation of a civilian government.
1989 – The U.S. Food and Drug administration decided to impound all fruit imported from Chili after two cyanide-tainted grapes were found in Philadelphia, PA.
1991 – Four Los Angeles police officers were indicted in the beating of Rodney King on March 3, 1991. (California)
1991 – Yugoslav President Borisav Jovic resigned after about a week of anit-communist protests.
1994 – U.S. President Clinton extended the moratorium on nuclear testing until September of 1995.
1996 – The aviation firm Fokker NV collapsed.
1998 – More than 15,000 ethnic Albanians marched in Yugoslavia to demand independence for Kosovo.
1998 – CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired an interview with former White House employee Kathleen Willey. Wiley said U.S. President Clinton made unwelcome sexual advances toward her in the Oval Office in 1993.
2002 – Libyan Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi began his life sentence in a Scottish jail for his role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988.
2002 – In the U.S., Burger King began selling a veggie burger. The event was billed as the first veggie burger to be sold nationally by a fast food chain.
2002 – In Texas, Andrea Yates received a life sentence for drowning her five children on June 20, 2001.
2002 – U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Associated Press that the U.S. would stand by a 24-year pledge not to use nuclear arms against states that don’t have them.
2004 – Clive Woodall’s novel “One for Sorrow: Two for Joy” was published. Two days later Woodall sold the film rights to Walt Disney Co. for $1 million.