On This Day: March 24

This is the 83rd day of the year.

Fact of the Day: crosswords

A crossword puzzle consists of a diagram, usually rectangular, divided into blank (white) and cancelled (black, shaded, or crosshatched) squares. The first crosswords appeared in England during the 19th century. They were of an elementary kind apparently derived from the word "square," a group of words arranged so the letters read alike vertically and horizontally. The first modern crossword puzzle was published on December 21, 1913, in the New York World Sunday supplement, constructed by Arthur Wynne. By 1923, crosswords were being published in most of the leading American newspapers.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Dunchad, St. Hildelith, St. Macartan, St. Aldemar, St. Simon of Trent, St. William of Norwich, St. Catherine of Vadstena, and St. Irenaeus of Sirmeum.

Events

1401 - Tamerlane the Great captured Damascus in Syria.

1664 - Roger Williams was granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island.

1765 - Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers.

1882 - German scientist Robert Koch announced the discovery of the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis.

1883 - Long-distance telephone service was started between Chicago and New York.

1900 - Mayor Van Wyck of New York broke ground for the New York subway tunnel that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.

1934 - The Philippines were granted independence, which did not take effect until July 4, 1946.

1955 - Tennessee Williams' play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" opened on Broadway.

1958 - Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Army.

1976 - The president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by the country's military.

1989 - The supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound and began leaking eleven million gallons of crude, the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

1999 - NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it had ever attacked a sovereign country. The NATO offensive came in response to a new wave of ethnic cleansing launched by Serbian forces against the Kosovar Albanians.

Births

1494 - Georgius Agricola, German scholar, scientist known as the "Father of Mineralogy."

1834 - John Wesley Powell, geologist, explorer, Director of U.S. Geological Survey.

1855 - Andrew Mellon, American financier, philanthropist, Secretary of the Treasury.

1887 - Fatty (Roscoe) Arbuckle, American actor.

1902 - Thomas E. Dewey, prosecutor, New York governor, two-time presidential candidate.

Deaths

1603 - Queen Elizabeth I of England, after 44 years of rule; King James VI of Scotland then ascends to the throne, uniting England and Scotland under a single British monarch.