On This Day: March 11

This is the 70th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: genealogy

The first genealogy of an American family to be published was a 24-page pamphlet in 1771 by Ebenezer Watson of Hartford, Connecticut. It was Luke Stebbins's The Genealogy of the Family of Mr. Samuel Stebbins and Mrs. Hannah Stebbins, His Wife from the Year 1701 to 1771 with their names, time of their births, marriages, and deaths of those that are deceased. In 1731, there was a 10-page supplement in The Memoirs of Captain Roger Clap that could be argued to be an earlier published genealogy.

Holidays

Lesotho: Moshoeshoe's Day.

Feast day of St. Oengus, St. Vindician, St. Sophronius of Jerusalem, St. Constantine of Cornwall, St. Eulogius of Cordova, St. Aurea, St. Benedict of Milan, and St. Teresa Margaret Redi.

Lithuania: Restoration of Independence Day.

Events

1779 - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was established.

1824 - The U.S. War Department created the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1861 - The Confederate convention in Montgomery, Alabama, adopted a constitution.

1865 - In the Civil War, General William T. Sherman captured the town of Fayetteville, North Carolina.

1888 - The famous "Blizzard of '88" hit the northeastern United States with approximately 40 inches of snow; around 400 people died.

1930 - President Howard Taft became the first U.S. President to be buried in the National Cemetery in {Arlington, Virginia.

1941 - President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis Powers.

1942 - In World War II, General Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia as Japanese forces advanced, vowing "I shall return."

1985 - Mikhail Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.

1990 - Lithuania proclaimed its independence from the USSR, the first Soviet republic to do so.

1990 - American tennis player Jennifer Capriati, aged 13, became the youngest-ever finalist in a professional contest.

2004 - Spain is the victim of terrorists when at least 10 bombs explode on four commuter trains in Madrid during rush hour, killing 202 people and wounding more than 2,000. An Arabic newspaper reports it received a fax alleging that al-Qaeda was behind the attack.

Births

1903 - Lawrence Welk, American bandleader.

1916 - Harold Wilson, English Labor Party politician; twice prime minister.

1926 - Ralph David Abernathy, American civil rights leader.

1931 - Rupert Murdoch, Australian media mogul.

Deaths

1957 - Richard Evelyn Byrd, American aviator and explorer.