On This Day: March 4

This is the 63rd day of the year.

Fact of the Day: Iditarod

The Iditarod is an annual dogsled race held in March between Anchorage and Nome, Alaska. It started as a short race of 56 miles in 1967 and in 1973 became the current race of nearly 1,100 miles. The racecourse partially follows the old Iditarod Trail dogsled mail route blazed from Knik to Nome in 1910. (The Iditarod also commemorates an emergency mission to get medical supplies to Nome during a 1925 diphtheria epidemic.) Competitors cross two mountain ranges (the Alaska and the Kuskokwim), run along the Yukon River for 150 miles, and cross frozen waterways. The first race in 1973 took the winning musher about 20 days, but now the winning time has been reduced by almost half. Iditarod is from Holikachuk hudenhod, for which no etymology is given.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Peter of Cava, St. Casimir of Poland, and St. Adrian and his Companions.

United States: Constitution Day.

Switzerland: Fasnacht.

Events

1461 - Henry VI was deposed and the Duke of York proclaimed King Edward IV.

1681 - England's King Charles II granted a charter to William Penn for an area of land that later became Pennsylvania.

1766 - The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, the cause of bitter and violent opposition in the colonies.

1789 - The Constitution of the United States of America went into effect as the first Federal Congress met in New York.

1789 - Until the passage of the 20th Amendment in 1937, March 4 was the official date set by the Constitution of the United States of America for presidential inaugurations. When the fourth fell on a Sunday, then the inauguration was on March 5. George Washington, however, was inaugurated on April 30, because Congress was unable to count the electoral ballots as early as anticipated.

1791 - Vermont became the 14th state.

1801 - Thomas Jefferson became the first President to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C.

1861 - The Confederate States of America adopted the "Stars and Bars" flag.

1863 - President Abraham Lincoln signed an act creating Idaho Territory.

1877 - The Russian Imperial Ballet staged the first performance of "Swan Lake" in Moscow.

1877 - Emile Berliner announced his invention of the microphone.

1902 - The American Automobile Association (AAA) was founded in Chicago.

1933 - President Franklin Roosevelt added the first woman to serve in the Cabinet, Labor Secretary Frances Perkins.

1968 - Tennis authorities voted to admit professional players to Wimbledon, previously open only to amateur players.

1974 - "People" magazine began publication.

1987 - President Ronald Reagan accepted full responsibility for the Iran-Contra Affair scandal.

1989 - Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. announced plans to merge into the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate.

Births

1394 - Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese patron of explorers.

1678 - Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer.

1852 - Lady Gregory Augusta, Irish playwright who helped found the Abbey Theatre.

1859 - Aleksandr Popov, Russian physicist and electrical engineer.

1888 - Knute Rockne, American football player and University of Notre Dame football coach.

Deaths

1999 - Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who wrote the 1973 decision that legalized abortion.