Poem: "The Writer," by Richard Wilbur, from New and Collected Poems (Harcourt Brace).
Today is INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY, a day that's been celebrated all over the world since 1910. March 8 was later established as the official date because it was the anniversary of two protest marches in New York City—one in 1857 by women textile workers, and one in 1908 when over 15,000 women marched through the streets shouting their slogan, "Bread and Roses"—the symbols of better wages and shorter hours.
It was on this day in 1965 that the first U.S. combat troops in VIETNAM, about 4,000 Marines, went ashore at Da Nang in South Vietnam in a mission to protect U.S. air bases in the area.
It was on this day in 1917 that riots broke out in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) over the shortage of food, beginning the RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.
It's the birthday of KENNETH GRAHAME, born 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland, author of the children's book The Wind in the Willows with its characters Rat, Mole, Badger and Toad, and it's famous line, "There is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
Broadcast Date: TUESDAY: March 9, 1999
Poem: "The Dumka," by B.H. Fairchild, from The Art of the Lathe (Alice James Books).
It's the birthday of the composer SAMUEL BARBER, born 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He became internationally famous when the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony first performed his Adagio for Strings in 1938—the first time Toscanini had conducted an American composition.
It's the birthday of the English writer VICTORIA (VITA) SACKVILLE-WEST, born 1892 in Sevenoaks in the county of Kent. She wrote a number of novels and travel books, including her semi-autobiographical novel The Edwardians, and many books about gardening based on the garden she designed at Sissinghurst Castle.
The founder of Stanford University, AMASA LELAND STANFORD, was born on this day in 1824 in Watervliet, New York. He served as president of the Central Pacific Railroad, part of the trans-continental railroad, for over 30 years. He and his wife established the Leland Stanford Junior University on his former farm at Palo Alto in 1891 as a memorial to his only child, Leland Jr., who had died at the age of 15. It opened in 1891 with 559 students.
Broadcast Date: WEDNESDAY: March 10, 1999
Poem: "At Dusk," by Jim Clark, from Dancing on Canaan's Ruins (Eternal Delight Productions).
Today is the birthday of the British writer JAMES HERRIOT, born James Alfred Wight in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1916. He was a veterinarian in a little town in Yorkshire, and at the age of 50 started writing down the stories about his life as a country vet amongst the Yorkshire farmers. His book All Creatures Great and Small, came out in 1972 and was a huge best-seller.
It's the birthday in 1903 of "the young man with a horn"—the jazz trumpeter and composer BIX BEIDERBECKE, born Leon Bix Beiderbecke in Davenport, Iowa. He played with all of the greats of the day such as Jimmy Dorsey, Paul Mertz, and Hoagie Carmichael, but he died at the age of 28 and most people know his music through recordings—tunes such as "At the Jazz Band Ball," "Jazz Me Blues," "Davenport Blues" and the piano solo "In A Mist."
It was on this day in 1880 that the SALVATION ARMY started its work in the United States when a group of eight women and their leader George Railton—landed in New York on a ship from England. The Salvation Army had started as a Christian missionary society in London's East End slums in 1865.
Today was the day in 1876 when ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL wrote in his laboratory notebook: "My assistant Mr. Watson was stationed in one room with the receiving instrument. He pressed one ear closely against the receiver and closed his other ear with his hand. The transmitting instrument was placed in another room and the doors of both rooms were closed. I then shouted into the microphone the following sentence, "Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you." To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said."
It's the birthday today of the opera librettist LORENZO DA PONTE, born 1749 near Teviso, Italy, the man who penned the text to three of Mozart's famous operas—The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787) and Cosi Fan Tutte (1790). After Mozart's death he left for London and then New York, where he taught Italian language and literature at Columbia College in the early 1800s.
Broadcast Date: THURSDAY: March 11, 1999
Poem: "March Blizzard," by John Tagliabue, from New and Selected Poems, 1942-1997 (National Poetry Foundation).
It's the birthday of writer DOUGLAS ADAMS, born 1952 in Cambridge, England, author of the mock science-fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started as a 12-part radio series on the BBC in 1978.
It was on this day in 1941 that the U.S. Congress passed the LEND-LEASE ACT of 1941, mainly intended to provide food and weapons to Britain, which was unable to pay cash for them. Churchill later said that the Lend-Lease act was "the most unselfish and unsordid financial act of any country in all history."
It was in the early hours of this day that the GREAT BLIZZARD OF 1888 started to whip up—one of the most severe blizzards in American history which lasted three days and killed over 400 people.
It's the birthday of the discoverer of Neptune, URBAIN-JEAN-JOSEPH LE VERRIER, born 1811 in St. Lô, France.
Broadcast Date: FRIDAY: March 12, 1999
Poem: "Herring," "Lion," and "Wolf"—selected verses from "A Beastiary," by Kenneth Rexroth, from Selected Poems (New Directions).
It was on this day in 1994 that the CHURCH OF ENGLAND ORDAINED ITS FIRST WOMEN PRIESTS—32 of them—in a ceremony at Bristol Cathedral, ending a tradition of male priests going back more than 450 years.
It's the birthday today of the writer JACK KEROUAC, born 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, author of a series of autobiographical novels which made him a leading figure in the "Beat Generation" of poets and writers based in New York and San Francisco in the 1950s.
The GIRL SCOUTS OF AMERICA were founded on this day in 1912 in Savannah, Georgia, by Juliette Gordon Low. She organized the first troop with 18 girls and at their first meeting they learned to tie knots, played tennis, and were taught the Girl Scout laws.
It was on this day in 1901 that the steel magnate ANDREW CARNEGIE gave New York City 5.2 million dollars to construct 65 branch libraries. He had just sold his Carnegie Steel Company for 250 million dollars and decided to retire to devote himself to charity work, and later gave money to create more than 1700 libraries all over the United States and in Britain.
It's the birthday in 1890 of ballet dancer VASLAV NIJINSKY, born in Kiev. He was the principle dancer in the Ballets Russes—taking Paris by storm with his incredible leaping abilities in his first performance in 1909. He later danced the leading roles in the premiers of Les Sylphides and Schéhérazade.
Broadcast Date: SATURDAY: March 13, 1999
Poem: "Love is Enough," by William Morris (1834-1896).
It was on this day in 1938 that Hitler formally annexed Austria as part of his "Third Reich"—what is known as the ANSCHLUSS or "Union" between Austria and Germany.
It's the birthday in 1910 of big band swinger SAMMY KAYE, born in Lakewood, Ohio. People in the 1930s and 40s used to "swing and sway with Sammy Kaye" to tunes such as "Harbor Lights," "Remember Pearl Harbor" and "The White Cliffs of Dover."
It's the birthday in 1860 of the Viennese composer HUGO WOLF, born in Windischgraz, Austria, known for the many German song cycles or Lieder that he composed in the late 1800s.
It's the birthday of the astronomer PERCIVAL LOWELL, born 1855 in Boston, who made a mathematical study of the planet Uranus and was the first to predict that its orbit was affected by an unseen planet beyond Neptune—a theory that was proven correct in 1930 when Pluto was discovered.
It was on this day in 1852 that UNCLE SAM first appeared in a published cartoon, in an issue of the magazine The New York Lantern. The original "Uncle Sam" was Samuel Wilson, a butcher in Troy, New York, who supplied barrels of beef to the American soldiers fighting in the war of 1812. The barrels were marked with the words "U.S. Beef," and local soldiers assumed it was from the man they called Uncle Sam.
It was on this day in 1639 that Cambridge College in Boston was re-named HARVARD COLLEGE, after the clergyman John Harvard died, leaving half of his estate and his library to the new college at Cambridge which was just being built.
Broadcast Date: SUNDAY: March 14, 1999
Poem: "The Clumsy Man," by Richard Frost, from Neighbor Blood (Sarabande Books).
It's the birthday in 1887 of SYLVIA BEACH, born in Baltimore, the owner of the Parisian bookstore "Shakespeare and Company." She was the one who published James Joyce's novel Ulysses in 1922 after it had been turned down by other publishers, and helped Joyce to correct the proofs.
It's the birthday today in 1879 of the physicist ALBERT EINSTEIN, born in Ulm, Germany, who revolutionized twentieth-century science with his theories of relativity.
It's the birthday today of the railway engineer CASEY JONES, born John Luther Jones 1864 in southeastern Missouri, whose legend is celebrated in "The Ballad of Casey Jones."
It's the birthday of the composer JOHANN STRAUSS THE ELDER, born 1804 in Vienna—the one who started off the waltz craze in Vienna in the early 1800s and composed more than 250 waltzes and other dances. He was the father of "The Waltz King" Johann Strauss the Younger.
