On this Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on March 25:
1133 Henry II King of England (1154-89)
1532 Pietro Pontio composer
1767 Joachim Murat marshal of France/King of Naples (1808-15)
1786 Giovanni B Amia Italian astronomer/physicist/botanist
1797 John Winebrenner US, clergyman, founded Church of God
1818 Isaac Ingalls Stevens Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1862
1823 William Thompson Martin Major General (Confederate Army), died in 1910
1867 Arturo Toscanini Parma Italy, temperamental conductor
1867 Gutzon Borglum sculptor (Mount Rushmore)
1873 Rudolf Rocker German/US anarchist
1881 Béla Bartók Hungary, composer/pianist (Concerto for Orchestra)
1893 Edward Hart (Representative-Democrat-NJ)/1st chairman of Committee on Un-American Activities
1906 Alan J P Taylor British historian (English history 1914-1915)
1906 Howard Pyle (Governor-Republican-AZ, 1951-55)
1908 David Lean Croydon England, director (Dr Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter)
1920 Patrick Troughton actor (Doctor Who)
1921 Simone Signoret Wiesbaden Germany, actress (Casque d'Or, Room at the Top)
1922 Eileen Ford modeling agency head (Ford Modeling Agency)
1925 Flannery O'Connor Georgia, novelist (A Good Man Is Hard to Find)
1928 James A Lovell Jr Cleveland OH, USN/astronaut (Gemini 7, 12, Apollo 8, 13)
1934 Gloria Steinem Toledo OH, feminist/publisher (Ms Magazine)
1938 Hoyt Axton Duncan OK, musician (Della and the dealer, I've never been to spain)
1940 Anita Bryant Barnsdall OK, Miss Oklahoma-America (1958)/singer (George Gobel Show)
1942 Aretha Franklin Memphis TN, Soul Sister #1/singer (Respect)
1942 Paul Michael Glaser Cambridge MA, actor (Starsky-Starsky & Hutch)
1944 Frank Oz muppetteer (Grover-Sesame Street, Muppet Show)
1947 Elton John [Reginald Kenneth Dwight] Pinner Middlesex England, singer (Rocketman, Your Song, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)
1965 Sarah Jessica Parker Nelsonville OH, actress (Square Pegs, LA Story)
1974 Vyninka Arlow Australia, diver (Olympics-96)
2184 Pavel Andreivich Chekov St. Petersburg, Russia
Deaths which occurred on March 25:
1223 Afonso II 3rd King of Portugal (1211-23), dies at 36
1751 Frederik of Hessen Kassel King of Sweden (1720-51), dies at 74
1918 Claude A Debussy French composer, dies in Paris France at 55
1949 Hanns A Rauter German SS-commandant in Netherlands, executed at 54
1962 Auguste Piccard Swiss explorer/balloonist, dies at 78
1963 David Moore US feather weight boxer, dies at 29
1973 Edward Steichen pioneer of American photography, dies at 92
1975 King Faisal of Saudi Arabia shot to death by his nephew
1992 Nancy Walker actress (Ida Morgenstern-Rhoda), dies of cancer at 69
GWOT Casualties
25-Mar-2003 4 | US: 2 | UK: 2 | Other: 0
US Major Gregory Lewis Stone Camp Pennsylvania Non-hostile - homicide
US Hospital Corpsman 3rd Cl. Michael Vann Johnson Jr. Not reported Hostile - hostile fire
UK Corporal Stephen John Allbutt Basra Hostile - friendly fire
UK Trooper David Jeffrey Clarke Basra Hostile - friendly fire
25-Mar-2004 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Specialist Adam D. Froehlich Ba’qubah Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Lance Corporal Jeffrey C. Burgess Fallujah (E of) Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal James A. Casper Al Asad Non-hostile - unspecified cause
Afghanistan
A good Day
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
http://icasualties.org/oif/
On this day...
0031 1st Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus
0421 Venice was founded on a Friday at 12 PM
0708 Constantine begins his reign as Catholic Pope
0752 Stephen ends his reign as Catholic Pope (or 26th)
1133 William the Conqueror orders 1st Domesday Survey of England
1306 Robert the Bruce crowned king of Scotland
1584 Sir Walter Raleigh renews Humphrey Gilbert's patent to explore North America
1609 Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Co
1634 Lord Baltimore founded Catholic colony of Maryland
1655 Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan, (Saturn's largest satellite)
1668 1st horse race in America takes place
1669 Mount Etna in Sicily erupts, destroying Nicolosi, killing 20,000
1774 English Parliament passes Boston Port Bill
1776 Continental Congress authorizes a medal for General George Washington
1802 France, Netherlands, Spain & England signs Peace of Amiens
1807 1st railway passenger service began in England
1807 British Parliament abolishes slave trade
1813 1st US flag flown in battle on the Pacific, frigate Essex
1817 Tsar Alexander I recommends formation of Society of Israeli Christians
1821 Greece gains independence from Turkey (National Day)
1847 Pope Pius IX encyclical "On aid for Ireland"
1856 A E Burnside patents Burnside carbine
1857 Frederick Laggenheim takes 1st photo of a solar eclipse
1863 1st Army Medal of Honor awarded
1863 Skirmish at Brentwood TN
1864 Battle of Paducah KY (Forrest's raid)
1865 Battle of Bluff Spring FL
1865 Battle of Fort Stedman VA: in front of Petersburg
1865 Battle of Mobile AL (Spanish Fort, Fort Morgan, Fort Blakely)
1882 1st demonstration of pancake making (Department store in New York NY)
1894 Coxey's Army of the unemployed sets out from Massillon OH for Washington DC
1895 Italian troops invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
1896 Modern Olympics begin in Athens Greece
1898 Intercollegiate Trapshooting Association formed in New York NY
1900 US Socialist Party is formed at Indianapolis
1902 Irving W Colburn patents sheet glass drawing machine
1905 (some)Rebel battle flags captured during war are returned to South
1910 Chalmers Auto Co offers a new car to each leagues' batting champion
1911 146 die in a fire at Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York NY
1913 Home of vaudeville, Palace Theatre, opens (New York NY) starring Ed Wynn
1915 1st submarine disaster; a US F-4 sank off Hawaii, killing 21
1916 Women are allowed to attend a boxing match
1920 Greek Independence Day
1923 British government grants Trans-Jordan autonomy
1931 Scottsboro Boys (accused of raping a white woman) arrested in Alabama
1934 1st Golf Masters Championship: Horton Smith wins, shooting a 284
1937 Italy & Yugoslavia sign no-attack treaty (Pact of Belgrade)
1937 It's revealed Quaker Oats pays Babe Ruth $25,000 per year for ads
1938 1st US bred horse (Battleship) to win Grand National Steeplechase
1939 Billboard Magazine introduces hillbilly (country) music chart
1942 700 Jews of Polish Lvov-district reach Belzec Concentration camp
1943 97% of all Dutch physicians strike againt Nazi registration
1944 RAF Sergeant Nickolas Alkemade survives a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet without a parachute
1945 US 1st army breaks out bridgehead near Remagen
1945 US 4th Armored division arrives at Hanau & Aschaffenburg
1947 Coal mine explosion in Centralia IL, claims 111 lives
1949 SS police chief Rauter request for a pardon, denied
1954 Pope Pius XII encyclical "Sacra virginitas" (On consecrated virginity)
1954 RCA manufactures 1st color TV set (12½" screen at $1,000)
1955 East Germany granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR
1957 Treaty of Rome establishes European Economic Community (Common Market)
1958 Sugar Ray Robinson is 1st boxing champion to win 5 times
1960 1st guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut)
1961 "Gypsy" closes at Broadway Theater NYC after 702 performances
1961 Elvis Presley performs live on the USS Arizona
1961 Explorer 10 launched into elongated Earth orbit (177/181,000 km)
1961 Sputnik 10 carries a dog into Earth orbit; later recovered
1964 Egypt ends state of siege (1952-64)
1965 Martin Luther King Jr led 25,000 to state capitol in Montgomery AL
1966 US Supreme court rules "poll tax" unconstitutional
1967 The Turtles' "Happy Together" goes #1
1967 Who & Cream make US debut at Murray the K's Easter Show
1969 Pakistan General Agha Mohammed Jagja Khan succeeds Ayub Chan as President
1970 Concorde makes its 1st supersonic flight (700 MPH/1,127 KPH)
1971 Boston Patriots become New England Patriots
1972 America's LP "America" goes #1
1972 Bobby Hull becomes the 2nd NHLer to score 600 goals
1975 Faisal ibn Abd al-Aziz, king of Saudi-Arabia (1964-75), shot by nephew
1976 Argentine military junta bans leftist political parties
1982 Wayne Gretzky becomes 1st NHL to score 200 points in a season
1985 Edwin Meese III becomes US Attorney General
1986 Supreme Court rules Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes
1987 Supreme Court rules women/minorities may get jobs if less qualified (Remember diversity is our strength...or not)
1990 10th Golden Raspberry Awards: Star Trek V won
1992 British scientists find new largest perfect number (2 756839 -1 2 756839)
1995 Boxer Mike Tyson released from jail after serving 3 years
1996 "Braveheart" won Academy Awards for best picture and best director Mel Gibson
1996 Comet C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake) approaches within 0.1018 astronomical units (AUs) of Earth
1996 US issues newly-redesigned $100 bill
1997 Georgia Gov. Zell Miller signes into law a ban on a controversial form of late-term abortion.
1997 Former President George Bush, 73, parachuted from a plane over the Arizona desert
2000 In Belarus thousands of people demonstrated in Minsk against the rule of Pres. Lukashenko and clashed with police
2001 In Saudi Arabia the Higher Committee for Scientific Research and Islamic Law claimed that Pokemon games and cards have “possessed the minds” of Saudi children
2003 7th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US aircraft dropped more than 2,000 precision-guided bombs on Iraq since the war's start. The "smart" bombs were produced for a relatively cheap $20,000 each. Sandstorms slowed coalition movement and air missions. US officials reported 150-200 Iraqi soldiers were killed near Najaf.
2004 The United States uses its veto power to quash a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel for killing Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in a missile strike.
Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
England : New Year's Day 1155-1752
Greece : Independence Day (1821)
Maryland : Maryland Day (1634)
US : Pecan Day
Alaska : Seward Day (1867) (Monday)
US Virgin Island : Transfer Day (1917) (Monday)
US : Pecan Day
US : Chocolate Week (Day 6)
US : Straw Hat Week (Day 6)
Religious Observances
Roman Catholic : Feast of the Annunication
Christian : Saint Dismas Feast Day - The good thief who died on the cross next to Jesus
Christian : Commemoration of St Margaret Clitherow, English martyr
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Lucy Filippini, Italian educator
Moslem : 'Id al-Fitr; end of Ramadân fast (Shawwâl 1, 1412 AH)
Religious History
1 Roman Church historian Dionysius Exiguus (ca.500_550), in calculating his history of the Christian Church, took this day as the supposed date of the Annunciation. March 25th afterward became the first day of the calendar year, until the Gregorian Calendar Reform of 1753 changed the day to January 1st.
1533 During one of his recorded "Table Talks," German reformer Martin Luther declared: 'That the Creator himself comes to us and becomes our ransom - this is the reason for our rejoicing.'
1634 The Catholic Church gained a foothold in colonial America when the ships "Dove" and "Ark" arrived in Maryland with 128 Catholic colonists, selected by Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore. The colony was under the leadership of Leonard Calvert, Lord Baltimore's brother.
1951 American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot reflected in his journal: 'When it comes time to die, make sure that all you have to do is die.'
1953 A group of 22 Southern Baptist military personnel, stationed at Rapid City, met to form the Calvary Baptist Church , the first Southern Baptist congregation established in South Dakota.
Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.
Thought for the day :
"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are."
1911 146 die in a fire at Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York NY 
Today, the papers "spare us" from such gruesome pictures.
At 4:45 pm the bell rang signaling that the workday was done. The girls in the light brown and terra cotta Asch building, on the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place in lower Manhattan, had put in some overtime. The clothiers on the lower floors had closed shop at noon this Saturday but the girls, mostly Italian, Yiddish and German, on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors could use the extra money over the $6 a week they normally made. They assembled women's tailored shirts which were copied from the men's styles. The girls worked for Isaac Harris and Max Blanck. The name of the business was the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. The date was March 25, 1911.
As the girls were gathering their belongings and putting on their coats someone yelled "Fire!"
Down below on the street, people started to notice the smoke billowing from the 8th floor. One of the bystanders observed a bolt of cloth come flying out the window and hit the pavement. Instinctively, he remarked that Harris was trying to save his best material. As the people on the street moved closer, out flew another bolt. It was then that the realization hit them that it wasn't bolts of cloth at all but bodies plummeting to the pavement below.
By the time Engine Company 72 arrived from 12th Street (only 6 blocks away) they had trouble maneuvering their hose wagon into position since they didn't want to grind the already six limp forms lying in the street. The bodies were still falling. The distraught fire fighters pulled out a life net and attempted to catch one girl but three more hurled themselves immediately after the first and all four bounced out hitting the concrete. A policeman and fireman held a horse blanket and tried to catch the next hurling body. The blanket split in two and the body hit the pavement -- dead.
Back inside, on the 8th floor, feeding on cotton fabric and then climbing to the hanging overhead garments, the fire took little time to race out of control. The foreman and male tailors tried desperately to douse the licking flames with the 27 water buckets that were available. The efforts proved to be futile and the 275 girls panicked in desperation and headed for the two passenger elevators and the stairway at the west end of the loft. The crush of women at the door leading to the stairway slammed it closed. The doors in this building opened in rather than out.
Joe Zitto and Joe Gaspar, the elevator operators, brought elevators to the 8th floor and the girls fought frantically to get on. Each car only held 10. These two cars, making approximately 15 to 20 trips each, brought about 12 to 15 havoc-stricken passengers down to street level -- their clothing still smoldering. Finally, the girls upstairs were able to open the stairway door and raced down the stairs to street level -- most of them with their garments almost completely burned from their bodies.
Hundreds were still trapped upstairs. Three male cutters formed a human chain from the Shirtwaist's 8th floor window to the adjacent window next door. Some girls were able to cross over on the backs of the three. But then the men lost their balance and all three souls fell 80 feet to join the already growing number on the pavement.
Meanwhile, Engine Company 33 had arrived from Great Jones Street. To add to the horror, the stream of water from their hoses would only reach as far as the 7th floor! The aerial ladders only reached between the 6th and 7th floors. Girls were now jumping, trying to grab the top of the ladder. All missed -- diving to their deaths. Some of the girls were jumping now five at a time with fire streaking from their hair as they hurled themselves into eternity. They hit the glass sidewalk vault lights and crashed through to the basement, water pouring on top of them. Now there were literally thousands of spectators behind the police lines unable to believe what they were witnessing.
At another window, a man and a woman kissed and hurled themselves into the air. One girl jumped holding a fire bucket. Another one tossed her purse, her hat and then herself.
Interns, arriving in horse drawn ambulances from St. Vincent's, Bellevue and New York hospitals were only able to tag the broken bodies and cover them with tarpaulins. The 10th floor, which was where the showroom and the pressing of the shirtwaists took place, first received the message of a fire over the teleautograph which relayed messages between floors. At first, they thought it to be a prank -- but they soon smelled the smoke. Realizing that they could not go down, they climbed onto the roof. Some members and students from New York University Law School lowered a ladder to the horror-stricken girls. (The Triangle Building was about 12 feet lower than its adjacent structure.) Almost 150 reached safety this way.
A considerable portion of those who jumped came from the 9th floor. The reaching tongues of the flames from the floor beneath grabbed the windowsills and entered the 9th floor to start consuming the materials that were stacked high. The women raced to the east end stairway but by now it was an inferno. They stampeded back to the west side passenger elevators and stairway. The door was locked. Some tried the building's only fire escape but the courtyard was as hot as a blast furnace. They started screaming for Zitto to come up. After an eternity, he did, but could only take a handful. He would later testify that, as he was going back down the elevator shaft, he heard bodies hitting the top of the car -- blood was dripping on him and coins bouncing through the shaft. Later, police would pull over 25 charred bodies from atop the elevator.
Firemen would later say that they found 19 bodies melted against the locked door. 25 were found huddled in death in the cloakroom trying to escape the flames, some with their hands covering their faces in death.
The firemen now rushed up the stairs with their hoses to extinguish the flames. The steel and concrete structure was undamaged -- for the Triangle Building was fireproof; but not death proof.
As night approached, the grisly task began of removing the bodies from the upper floors of the building. Searchlights on both Greene Street and Washington Place were directed to the upper floors creating an eerie effect to the already grim sight. Using the nets, the firemen lowered the bodies, 2 and 3 at a time, out the window by means of block and tackle to the waiting police below. The nets were soon exhausted and blankets from the driver's seats and eventually from the horses were used. The bodies were spread in a row on the east side of Greene Street on a dark red canvas.
All during the night ambulances transported the dead bodies to Bellevue Morgue on 26th Street and to the adjoining tin-roofed pier on the East River. The patrol wagons that were dispatched from distant precincts to transport the bodies to the pier were delayed because of the slow process of removing the bodies. They ending up lining up on a side street like taxicabs waiting to take people to their destination.
From 6 pm on, the wagons, as if in a procession, moved from Washington Square up Broadway to 14th Street then up Fourth Avenue to 23rd, then east to Fifth Avenue and down to the foot of 26th Street. Ironically, the morbid smell of death was no stranger to this pier. In 1904, the dead were lined up here from the disastrous fire on the excursion boat General Slocum.
Police had sent for 75 to 100 coffins from the morgue but only 65 were available. Commissioner Drummond sent the Charities Department steamer, The Bronx, to Blackwell's Island to bring down the supply of 200 coffins in the carpenter shop of Metropolitan Hospital. The steamship returned at 10:30 pm with the boxes. Meanwhile, the firemen searched the water and gas filled basement under the street for survivors. One fireman by chance looked up and found the bodies of two women draped across the lattice of steam pipes above him. He had passed this spot several times in his search and never even noticed them before.
Around 6 pm that night hundreds of screaming, hysterical relatives and friends of the factory workers rushed to the Mercer Street Police Station looking for survivors and information on those that hadn't returned home from work. The doors had to be shut because of the crush of people. When the doorman informed them of the temporary morgue on the East River, many fainted.
The next few days would bring hundreds of relatives and friends to the temporary morgue trying to identify their loved ones. It was estimated that the initial count was 100 grief-stricken souls arriving every minute. Out of necessity, a temporary police station was opened at the pier and 40 policemen were assigned the painful duty of assisting the horrified multitudes. The task of identifying the dead, some of which were unrecognizable, went on through the night. One woman, on finding her daughter after only looking at the third coffin, stood motionless for several minutes. She was being comforted and held by each arm by a nurse and a police officer but as she turned she fell to her knees and fainted. She was carried outside and revived and comforted by the policeman. As she began to walk away, the grief-stricken officer gave her a 2 dollar bill.
Many that did come were curiosity seekers, reading about the tragedy in the morning papers. Some women were able to sneak through the security soon wished their curiosity had not gotten the best of them. On seeing the first charred body, they fainted.
To this day, 84 years later, no one is absolutely sure on how the fire started. It is said that one of the men, who was smoking, threw either a match or cigarette onto the clutter-filled floor. On December 28th, 1911 Harris and Blanck were acquitted of wrong doing -- specifically, if the doors on the west side were locked or not (a measure probably taken to prevent theft). Twenty-three families sued the two owners and eventually they each were paid a sum of $75. The New York legislature, appalled by the event, created a commission headed by Senator Robert F. Wagoner, Alfred E. Smith, and Samuel Gompers to investigate conditions in the city's sweatshops. This resulted in the present labor laws protecting factory workers in health, disability and fire prevention. The division of Fire Prevention was also created as part of the Fire Department. Their function is to rid factories of fire hazards. Among other restrictions, all doors must now open outwards, no doors are to be locked during working hours, sprinkler systems must be installed if a company employs more than 25 people above the ground floor, and fire drills are mandatory for buildings lacking sprinkler systems.
The building where 146 died still stands now and is part of the New York University. Today, students look out the windows where so many leaped to their deaths.
Few events in the course of the lifetime of an individual leave a lasting impression on that person but this is one of them. We tend to date new events according to a tragic event from our past. In our lifetime it would be the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK or the Challenger disaster. Such was the case with the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire on March 25, 1911. One businessman who was born a few blocks away from the fire related that, as a child, he remembered asking his father when he was born and being told: "Just two years before the Triangle Waist Company fire."
