March 5th 1946 Churchill gives "Iron Curtain" Speech in Fulton, MO

Winston Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address[30] of 5 March 1946, at Westminster College, used the term "iron curtain" in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "Iron Curtain" has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.

Much of the Western public still regarded the Soviet Union as a close ally in the context of the recent defeat of Nazi Germany and of Japan. Although not well received at the time, the phrase iron curtain gained popularity as a shorthand reference to the division of Europe as the Cold War strengthened. The Iron Curtain served to keep people in and information out, and people throughout the West eventually came to accept and use the metaphor.[31

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain#Iron_Curtain_speech

March 4th, 1908 Collinwood school fire

The Collinwood school fire (also known as the Lake View School fire) of Ash Wednesday, March 4, 1908, was one of the deadliest disasters of its type in the United States. The conflagration in Collinwood, Ohio, a community that has since been absorbed into the city of Cleveland, resulted in the deaths of 172 students, two teachers and a rescuer.

While the Lake View School was built with load-bearing masonry outer walls, much of the four story building's floor structure system used wooden joists. It was one wooden joist that caught fire when it was overheated by a steam pipe. The building’s main staircase extended from the front doors of the building, up to the third floor; without benefit of fire doors. The stairwell acted like a chimney, helping to spread the fire quickly. Oiled wooden hall and classroom floors also fueled the fire.

Flames quickly blocked escape routes, leaving many students pressed against doors that were locked or opened inward. The flammable construction gave only minutes for evacuation. Though one fire escape was accessible at the rear of the building, not all the children found their way to the exit.[1] Doors to the building were equipped with common door knob latches, not the more modern crash bar type latch. As panic leading to the crush of a large number of students in stairwell vestibules contributed to the death toll, students also died as a result of smoke inhalation and the fire itself. Some children died jumping from second- and third-story windows. Community members watched as victims trapped in the building were burned beyond recognition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collinwood_School_Fire

March 4, 1917 – Jeannette Rankin becomes first Woman to take a seat in US House of Representatives

Rankin's brother Wellington, a power in the Montana Republican Party, financed and helped manage her first campaign for the Congressional election of 1916. The campaign involved traveling long distances to reach the large state's scattered population. Rankin rallied support at train stations, street corners, potluck suppers, and one-room schoolhouses. On the evening of the election, the Missoula daily newspaper reported her as having almost certainly lost. But results continued to trickle in over the next several days, and Rankin won by over 7,500 votes.[2]

On November 7th she was elected to Montana's at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first female member of Congress.[1] During her term in the 65th Congress women did not have universal suffrage, but many were voting in some form in about forty states, including Montana. "If I am remembered for no other act," Rankin said, "I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote."[2]

Just after her term began the House held a vote on whether to enter World War I. Rankin cast one of fifty votes against the resolution, later saying, "I felt the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war she should say it." Some considered Rankin's vote to be a discredit to the suffragist movement and to Rankin's authority in Congress. But others, including Alice Paul of the National Woman's Party and Representative Fiorello LaGuardia of New York, applauded it.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeannette_Rankin

March 4, 1791 – Vermont is admitted to the U.S. as the fourteenth state.

Vermont (i/vɜrˈmɑːnt/,[5] [vɚːˈmɑːn(ʔ ] or [vɚˈmɑ̃ ʔ ][6]) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Vermont is the 6th least extensive and the 2nd least populous of the 50 United States. It is the only New England state not bordering the Atlantic Ocean. Lake Champlain forms half of Vermont's western border, which it shares with the state of New York. The Green Mountains are within the state. Vermont is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north.

Originally inhabited by two major Native American tribes (the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki and the Iroquois), much of the territory that is now Vermont was claimed by France during its early colonial period. France ceded the territory to the Kingdom of Great Britain after being defeated in 1763 in the Seven Years' War (also called the French and Indian War). For many years, the nearby colonies, especially New Hampshire and New York, disputed control of the area (then called the New Hampshire Grants). Settlers who held land titles granted by these colonies were opposed by the Green Mountain Boys militia, which eventually prevailed in creating an independent state, the Vermont Republic. Founded in 1777 during the Revolutionary War, the republic lasted for fourteen years. Setting aside the Thirteen Colonies, Vermont is one of only five U.S. states (along with Texas, Hawaii, California, and the briefly declared Republic of West Florida) to have been a sovereign state in its past. In 1791, Vermont joined the United States as the 14th state, the first outside the original 13 Colonies. It abolished slavery while still independent, and upon joining the Union became the first state to have done so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont

March 4: National Pound Cake Day

March 4th is National Grammar Day

March 1st is Employee Appreciation Day

So enjoy as best you can today!

A to all the hardworking folks out there!

Why Americans Are Cutting Coupons Out of Their Lives

Nearly half (46%) of consumers who redeemed fewer coupons said they did so mainly because there were fewer coupons worth redeeming. While the total number of coupons has remained steady, the number of coupons that shoppers actually feel are valuable enough to use is on the decline.

Coupons are available nowadays for everything from clothing to restaurant meals. Still, for obvious reasons, consumers tend to be most likely to use coupons on household essentials—namely, groceries. And guess what? The number of coupons for food decreased by 6.5% last year, according to NCH. At the same time, there was an increase in coupons for goods that consumers are less likely to need on a weekly basis (various “non-food categories” like deodorants and cough remedies), or even be tempted to buy, including more coupons for new products featuring brands that shoppers haven’t heard of.

http://news.yahoo.com/why-americans-cutting-coupons-lives-130040807--finance.html

March 1, 1893 – Nikola Tesla gives the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis, Missouri.

Tesla's theories on the possibility of the transmission by radio waves go back as far as lectures and demonstrations in 1893 in St. Louis, Missouri

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

March 1, 1990 – Steve Jackson Games is raided by the United States Secret Service,

Founded in 1980, six years after the birth of Dungeons & Dragons, and before the height of role-playing games, SJG created several role-playing and strategy games with science fiction themes. SJG borrowed and expanded upon ideas pioneered by strategy game companies such as Metagaming Concepts, Avalon Hill and TSR. Despite these similarities, SJG had a unique feel all their own and became popular with their releases. SJG's early titles were all microgames initially sold in 4×7 inch ziploc bags, and later in the similarly sized Pocket Box.[2] Games such as Ogre, Car Wars, and G.E.V (an Ogre spin-off) were popular during SJG's early years.

Today SJG publishes games of numerous varieties (card games, board games, strategy games) and genres (fantasy, sci-fi, gothic horror); they also publish the book Principia Discordia, the sacred text of the Discordian religion.

On March 1, 1990, SJG's offices in Austin, Texas were raided by the U.S. Secret Service. The manuscript for GURPS Cyberpunk was confiscated although this was merely coincidence and not the actual purpose of the raid at all. The raid is often thought to have been related to Operation Sundevil, a nationwide investigation of computer crime; however, Sundevil was based in Arizona and the Steve Jackson Raid was coordinated out of Chicago. More than three years later, a federal court awarded damages of $50,000 and attorneys' fees of $250,000 (amounts in USD) to SJ Games, ruling that the raid had been carelessly executed, illegal, and completely unjustified. Cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling discussed the affair in his non-fiction book The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier. The case also helped to prompt the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as spawning a new game, Hacker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games