On This Day: March 28

This is the 87th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: board games

The earliest game boards and pieces that can be positively identified were discovered during excavations at the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley in 1926-1927. The artifacts date from c 3000-2500 BC. Evidence suggests that they were racing games with rules similar to pachisi. Boards and their pieces have also been found in Egyptian tombs and depicted on wall paintings, mostly from c 2000 BC onward.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Alkelda of Middleham, St. Gontran, and St. Tutilo.

Czech Republic: Teachers' Day.

Libya: British Bases Evacuation Day.

Events

1797 - Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire patented a washing machine.

1854 - During the Crimean War, Britain and France declared war on Russia.

1881 - P.T. Barnum and James Bailey merged their circuses to form the "Greatest Show on Earth."

1898 - The Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen.

1922 - Bradley A. Fiske of Washington, D.C. patented a microfilm reading device.

1930 - The names of the Turkish cities of Constantinople and Angora were changed to Istanbul and Ankara.

1939 - The three-year Spanish Civil War ended as Madrid fell to the forces of Francisco Franco.

1979 - America's worst commercial nuclear accident occurred as the Unit-2 reactor suffered a meltdown in its core at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania.

2002 - The Arab League agreed on a peace plan that offered Israel normal relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from lands taken in war and establishing a Palestinian state.

Births

1811 - Saint John Nepomucene Neumann, first male saint of the United States.

1899 - August Anheuser Busch, Jr., American beer magnate, baseball team owner.

1907 - Irving "Swifty" Lazar, American Hollywood talent agent.

Deaths

2004 - Peter Ustinov, actor, director, and writer.