On This Day: March 1

This is the 60th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: Lent

Self-denial during a period of religious devotion is a long-standing tradition in both Eastern and Western churches. The season of Lent was fixed at 40 days during the ninth century (with Sundays omitted). Lent comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'spring' or 'lengthening days.' It is a period of preparation for Easter and a time to strengthen one's faith through repentance and prayer. Lent has been observed with periods of fasting; abstinence from meat, dairy products, wine, etc.; and other penitential activities. It is a modern custom for Christians to "give up something for Lent" such as a favorite food, pleasure, or activity.

Holidays

Feast day of St. David, St. Swithbert, and St. Felix III, pope.

Wales: St. David's Day.

Scotland: Whuppity Scoorie.

Bosnia-Herzegovina: National Day.

Iceland: Beer Day.

Korea: Samiljol / Independence Movement Day.

Paraguay: National Heroes' Day.

Events

1642 - York, Maine became the first incorporated American city.

1780 - Pennsylvania became the first U.S. state to abolish slavery.

1781 - The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation.

1790 - Congress authorized the first U.S. Census.

1803 - Ohio became the 17th state.

1845 - President John Tyler signed a congressional resolution to annex the Republic of Texas.

1867 - Nebraska became the 37th state.

1872 - Yellowstone became the first area in the world to be designated a national park, established by an act of Congress.

1932 - The infant son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was kidnapped from their home in New Jersey.

1954 - In the U.S. Capitol, four members of an extremist Puerto Rican nationalist group opened fire at the floor of the House of Representatives from a visitors' gallery, injuring five U.S. representatives.

1954 - The first American hydrogen bomb was "officially" detonated at the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

1966 - Venera 3, a Soviet probe, collided with Venus. It was the first unmanned spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.

2002 - The peseta lost its legal tender status in Spain, and is replaced with the euro (€).

2002 - NASA said its Mars Odyssey spacecraft had found evidence that vast regions of Mars may have had water.

2006 - Tarja Halonen is inaugurated as president of Finland for the second and last time.

2006 - English-language Wikipedia adds its one millionth article.

Births

1904 - Glenn Miller, American composer and bandleader.

1914 - Harry Caray (born Harry Christopher Carabina), American sportscaster.

1917 - Robert Lowell, American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

1922 - Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

1944 - Roger Daltrey, English musician.

1954 - Ron Howard, American actor, director.

1974 - Mark-Paul Gosselaar, American actor.

1989 - Carlos Vela, Mexican football striker.

Deaths

1984 - Jackie Coogan, American film actor who in 1921 played the child in Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid."

1988 - Joe Besser, American comic actor.

1991 - Edwin H. Land, American scientist and inventor.

1995 - Georges J.F. Kohler, German biologist, recipient of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

2007 - Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Kennedy insider.