Sunday Open Thread: March 11 is Johnny Appleseed Day, really.

Today's date is also Setting Orange, Chaos 70, 3184 YOLD (for you Discordians out there)

bluebird.jpg
Sir Malcolm Campbell at the wheel of the "Bluebird",

World History this day

1649 -- The Frondeurs and the French signed the Peace of Rueil
1702 -- The first issue of England's first national daily newspaper
1917 -- Baghdad fell to Anglo-Indian troops
1918 -- The first case of Spanish flu
1941 -- FDR signed the Lend-Lease Act
1990 -- Democracy returned to Chile with the election of Patricio Aylwin after the US created, sponsored and supported Pinochet hiatus.

US History this day

1824 -- The US Department of War created the Bureau of Indian Affairs. *
1861 -- The Confederacy adopted its constitution
1993 -- Janet Reno was confirmed as the first female Attorney General of the US

* With the purpose of continuing the war on Native Americans by subtler means

Science & Technology this day

The Arts this day
1851 -- The first performance of Verdi's Rigoletto

Misc. this day

Birthdays of Note this day

1811 -- Urbain Le Verrier, mathematician and astronomer
1822 -- Joseph Louis Francois Bertrand, mathematician and economist
1854 -- Jane Meade Welch, journalist and lecturer
1870 -- Louis Bachelier, mathematician and theorist, bullshitter and quant enabler *
1885 -- Malcolm Campbell, speed freak, race car driver and journalist, record setter
1890 -- Vannevar Bush, engineer and science dude
1895 -- Shemp Howard, presidential role model
1903 -- Lawrence Welk, yeah, him
1932 -- Leroy Jenkins, violinist and composer (Revolutionary Ensemble)
1942 -- Marcus Borg, theologian - a professional xtian named Borg. Just sayin'.
1945 -- Harvey Mandel, guitarist
1950 -- Bobby McFerrin, singer
1952 -- Douglas Adams, writer

* Bachelier was the first to apply a mathematical analysis of brownian motion to the valuation of stock options (which are so obviously determined by the rules governing the temperature dependent random motion of particles in fluids, right?). This idiocy and the resultant techniques were later used by quants to assist banksters and other scammers to fuel and enable speculation and gambling on anything and everything imaginable and played a huge role in the collapse of the MBS bubble and similar lesser speculative fiascos.

Deaths of Note this day

1970 -- Erle Stanley Gardner, writer
1971 -- Philo Farnsworth, inventor, cultural leveller
1986 -- Sonny Terry, singer and harmonica player
2002 -- James Tobin, economist
2007 -- Betty Hutton, actress and singer

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So now some music


The BIA

Malcolm Campbell

Harvey Mandel

Bobby McFerrin

Douglas Adams

Sonny Terry

Betty Hutton

The Piedmont Blues style boasts a somewhat limited number of major performers and is frequently defined in terms of the guitar methods employed, but old Sonny Terry up there plays harp. Of course he did spend enugh time in the company of a piedmont Blues guitarist that a lot of us instinctively say both names together:


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Photo: Powerhouse Museum - Sir Malcolm Campbell at the wheel of the "Bluebird", with crowd, 1926 - 1936

It's an open thread, so do your thing

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The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Seems as though not much happened on this date, compared to other dates about which you've informed us.

FWIW, I have never watched the Don't Worry, Be Happy video without smiling, although seeing Robin Williams has become bittersweet.

When we told the truth about at least some things, we called it the Department of War, not the Department of Defense. We changed the name shortly before warring in Korea. Inasmuch as it was undeclared, contrary to the Constitution of the United States, we didn't call it a war. See? What you call something changes everything. Or nothing, depending upon your POV.

Organization

The United States Secretary of War, a member of the United States Cabinet, headed the War Department.

The National Security Act of 1947 merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment, later the United States Department of Defense. On the same day this act was signed, Executive Order 9877 assigned primary military functions and responsibilities[18] with the former War Department functions divided between the new Army and Air Force departments.

In the aftermath of World War II, the American government (among others around the world) decided to abandon the word 'War' when referring to the civilian leadership of their military. One vestige of the former nomenclature are the Army War College, Naval War College and the Air War College, which still train U.S. military officers in battlefield tactics and the strategy of war fighting.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@HenryAWallace
editorial choice, maybe I was more picky or just less inspired. For example, I skipped
the 2006 inauguration of Michelle Bachelet as Chile's first female president. (No real room for snark)

Likewise, in 2012, a US soldier killed 16 civilians but it's not rare and not a record and the soldier was probably neither punished nor rewarded, so, sad but true, that stuff has now sunk to the level of "meh".

Also, some have trouble loading these, too many vids, so I'm trying to cut back a bit, but, yes, it did seem a less busy day than many.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --