Back in Time – This Day in History – March 29

1974: The Terracotta Army

By Mick Ferris, Press Association, AP, UPI, calendar.songfacts.com, classicbands.com and thisdayinmusic.com

1461: Wars of the Roses: Battle of Towton – Duke of York defeats the Lancastrian army, deposes King Henry VI and proclaims himself King Edward IV.

1638: Swedish colonists settled in present-day Delaware.

1673: Charles II accepts the Test Act where Roman Catholics are excluded from public functions.

1795: Ludwig van Beethoven makes his debut as a pianist in Vienna.

1798: Republic of Switzerland formed.

1812: Lucy Payne Washington, sister-in-law of U.S. President James Madison, married Supreme Court Justice Thomas Dodd in the first wedding performed in the White House.

1827: Ludwig van Beethoven’s burial in Vienna. 20,000 attend.

1847: US troops capture Vera Cruz, Mexico.

1848: Niagara Falls stops flowing for 30 hours due to an ice jam.

1849: Britain formally annexs the Punjab.

1864: Britain gives the Ionian Islands back to Greece.

1867: Britain’s Parliament passed, and Queen Victoria signed, the British North America Act creating the Dominion of Canada, which came into being the following July.

1871: The Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.

1873: Wanderers beat Oxford University, 2-0 in the FA Cup final at Lillie Bridge, London.

1879: Old Etonians beat Clapham Rovers, 1-0 in the FA Cup final at Kennington Oval.

1886: Coca-Cola was created by Dr. John Pemberton, who produced it in his backyard in Atlanta.

1891: French post-impressionist painter Georges Seurat dies aged 31.

1912: British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, his doomed expedition stranded in an Antarctic blizzard after failing to be the first to reach the South Pole, wrote the last words of his journal: “For Gods sake look after our people.”

1940: Joe Louis KOs Johnny Paycheck in 2 to retain heavyweight boxing title.

1941: First performance of Benjamin Britten’s “Requiem Symphony”.

1942: British cruiser HMS Trinidad torpedoes itself in the Barents Sea. On the same day, the bombing of Lübeck in World War II was the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany.

1943: World War II rationing of meat, fats and cheese began, limiting consumers to store purchases of an average of about two pounds a week for beef, pork, lamb and mutton using a coupon system. (The Associated Press noted, “From the customer viewpoint, the unrationed oasis of food will be the restaurant or other public eating place.”)

1945: The last day of V-1 flying bomb attacks on England. On the same day, film star James Stewart is promoted to full colonel, one of the few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years.

1947: 100/1 Irish outsider Caughoo ridden by Eddie Dempsey wins the Grand National.

1951: Americans 1951: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for passing atomic weapons information to the Soviet Union. They were executed in 1953.

1951: The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I” opened on Broadway.

1958: Connie Francis enjoys her first chart success as "Who's Sorry Now?" reached Billboard's #4 spot. Over the next ten years she will place 55 more songs on the Billboard hit parade.

1959: Billy Wilder’s comedy “Some Like It Hot” starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe premieres in New York.

1961: The 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment gave District of Columbia residents the right to vote in presidential elections.

1961: After a four and a half year trial Nelson Mandela is acquitted of treason in Pretoria.

1962: Jack Paar hosted NBC’s “Tonight” show for the final time. (Johnny Carson debuted as host the following October.)

1966: Muhammad Ali beats George Chuvalo in 15 for heavyweight boxing title.

1966: Rolling Stone Mick Jagger was injured during a gig in Marseilles, Southern France after a fan threw a chair at the stage. Jagger required eight stitches in the cut.

1967: Working at Abbey Road studios The Beatles finished recording ‘Good Morning Good Morning’. They then started work on a new song ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’, (originally titled ‘Bad Finger Boogie’), recording 10 takes of the rhythm track, then Ringo overdub a double-tracked lead vocal.

1969: Lulu is part of a 4-way tie winning the Eurovision Song Contest with “Boom Bang a Bang.”

1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Black Sabbath, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Curved Air, J.J. Jackson's Dilemma, Shy Limbs, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Sunflower Brass Band and Toe Fat all appeared at the London Free Easter Festival in Bethnal Green, London, England.

US TOP 20: Album chart:

1. Blood, Sweat & Tears - Blood, Sweat & Tears 

2. Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman 

3. Cream - Goodbye

4. Iron Butterfly - Ball

5. The Beatles - The Beatles [White Album]

6. Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

7. Donovan - Donovan's Greatest Hits

8. The Association - Greatest Hits

9. Tom Jones - Help Yourself

10. Diana Ross & The Supremes With The Temptations - TCB

11. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country

12. The Beatles - Yellow Submarine

13. Walter - Switched-On Bach

14. Tommy James - Crimson & Clover

15. The Temptations - Cloud Nine

16. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin

17. Steppenwolf - At Your Birthday Party

18. Vanilla Fudge - Near The Beginning

19. Hair - Original Cast Recording

20. Bee Gees - Odessa

***

1970: Manchester City win the European Cup Winner’s Cup against Górnik Zabrze of Poland 2-1 in Vienna.

1971: Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was convicted of murdering 22 Vietnamese civilians in the 1968 My Lai massacre. (Calley ended up serving three years under house arrest.) 

1971: A jury in Los Angeles recommended the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers for the 1969 Tate-La Bianca murders. (The sentences were later commuted.)

1973: The last U.S. combat troops left South Vietnam (some advisers and others remained), ending the United States' direct military involvement in a war that didn't officially end until 1975.

1974: Mariner 10’s first fly-by of Mercury, returns photos. On the same day, Chinese farmers discover the Terracotta Army near Xi’an – 8,000 clay warrior statues buried to guard the tomb of China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang.

1974: Eight Ohio National Guardsmen were indicted on federal charges stemming from the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University. (The charges were later dismissed.)

1975: Led Zeppelin saw all six of their albums in the US Top 100 chart in the same week, alongside their latest album Physical Graffiti at No.1. Physical Graffiti has now been certified 16 times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for US sales in excess of 16 million copies.

1976: Jack Nicholson wins the Oscar for best actor in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

1979: After attending a Dire Straits show during their residency at the Roxy in Los Angeles, Bob Dylan asked Mark Knopfler and drummer Pick Withers to play on the sessions for his next album. Slow Train Coming was the album, recorded in Muscle Shoals in May of 1979, with Jerry Wexler producing. Dylan had first heard Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler when his assistant Arthur Rosato played him the single 'Sultans of Swing'.

1980: Mantovani, (Annunzio Paolo Mantovan), Orchestra leader died aged 74. Born in Italy his family moved to England in 1912, where he studied at Trinity College of Music in London. He recorded over 50 albums for Decca records, including Song from Moulin Rouge and Cara Mia, both reached No. 1 in the UK. In the United States, between 1955 and 1972, he released over 40 albums with 27 reaching the Top 40 and 11 the Top Ten. His biggest success was with the album Film Encores, which made it to No. 1 in 1957.

1980: Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of The Moon spends its 303rd week on the US album chart beating the record by Carole King's 1971 long player Tapestry.

1981: Shakin' Stevens was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with his version of the Rosemary Clooney hit 'This Ole House', the Welsh singers first of four UK No.1's.

UK TOP 20 : Singles chart:

1. Shakin' Stevens - This Ole House

2. Kim Wilde - Kids In America

3. Tony Capstick & Carlton Main Frickley Colliery Band - Capstick Comes Home

4. Stevie Wonder - Lately

5. Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up

6. Toyah - Four From Toyah (EP)

7. Roxy Music - Jealous Guy

8. Landscape - Einstein A-Go-Go

9. Coast To Coast - (Do) The Hucklebuck

10. Linx - Intuition

11. The Whispers - It's A Love Thing

12. Hazel O'Connor - D-Days

13. Visage - Mind Of A Toy

14. The Who - You Better You Bet

15. The Teardrop Explodes - Reward

16. Duran Duran - Planet Earth

17. Dave Stewart With Colin Blunstone - What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted

18. Adam & The Ants - Kings Of The Wild Frontier

19. Kiki Dee - Star

20. Kool And The Gang - Jones Vs Jones/Summer Madness

***

1982: Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney release "Ebony And Ivory."

1985: Jeanine Deckers, The Singing Nun, died aged 52 after taking an overdose of sleeping pills in a suicide pact with a friend.

1986: Beatles records officially go on sale in Russia for the first time.

1987: Sandy Lyle of Scotland defeats Jeff Sluman on the 3rd hole of a sudden-death playoff to become the first international player to win the PGA Tournament Players Championship.

1989: At the Academy Awards, “Rain Man” won best picture, best director for Barry Levinson and best actor for Dustin Hoffman; Jodie Foster won best actress for “The Accused.” (This was the Oscars ceremony that featured the notorious opening number with Rob Lowe and “Snow White.”)

1991: Six-time Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti quit, opening the way for the country's 50th government since World War II.

2000: Phil Collins took out a high court action against two former members of Earth, Wind & Fire. Collins claimed his company had overpaid the musicians by £50,000 ($85,000) in royalties on tracks including 'Sussudio' and 'Easy Lover'.

2005: Neil Young was treated for a brain aneurysm at a hospital in New York.

2006: Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party narrowly won the national election, taking 28 seats, forcing it into a coalition situation.

2006: Tom Jones was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his services to music.

2007: Bono accepted an honorary knighthood (KBE) at a ceremony in Dublin.

2009: General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner resigned under White House pressure. A gunman killed seven residents of the Pinelake Health and Rehabilitation Center in Carthage, N.C., along with a nurse. (Robert Kenneth Stewart was convicted of second-degree murder and other charges and sentenced to more than 140 years in prison.) A stampede at a World Cup qualifying soccer match in the Ivory Coast killed 22 people.

2011: Small levels of radiation from Japan's earthquake-tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant were detected in at least 15 U.S. states, but the Environmental Protection Agency said they posed no threat to public health.

2013: A letter from John Lennon to Paul McCartney, written in 1971 during the aftermath of The Beatles' breakup, was announced as being one of the items being put up for sale on May 30th as part of an online auction organized by Profiles in History.

2014: Two Spanish journalists, Javier Espinosa and Ricardo Garcia Vilanova, were freed after being held captive for six months in Syria by a rogue al-Qaida group. Mao Asada of Japan topped the free skate to capture her third world figure skating title.

2014: First same-sex couples marry in the UK as a result of the passing of The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013.

2015: Norman Greenbaum, who wrote and sang the 1970 hit ‘Spirit in the Sky’, was critically injured when the car he was riding in crossed into the path of an on-coming motorcycle. The 20-year-old motorcyclist was killed.

2017: George Michael’s funeral took place, three months after his sudden death at the age of 53. On the same day, Theresa May sends a letter to the EU invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, formally triggering Brexit.

2018: Russia announced the expulsion of more than 150 diplomats, including 60 Americans, and said it was closing a U.S. consulate in retaliation for Western expulsions of Russian diplomats over the poisoning of an ex-spy and his daughter in Britain. Malala Yousafzai returned home to Pakistan for a four-day visit, the first by the 20-year-old Nobel laureate since she was shot by the Taliban five years earlier for speaking out in support of education of girls. The 2018 baseball season began with a home run from Ian Happ of the Chicago Cubs on the season’s first pitch, while Giancarlo Stanton hit two homers in his debut with the New York Yankees. Rusty Staub, whose fiery orange hair and gregarious personality had charmed baseball fans in the United States and Canada during an All-Star career that spanned 23 seasons, died in Florida at the age of 73.

BIRTHDAYS: 

Terence Hill (Mario Girotti), actor, 82; 

Eden Kane, pop singer, 81

Julie Goodyear, actress, 79; 

Eric Idle, actor/writer, 78; 

John Major, former prime minister, 78; 

Vangelis (Evangelos Papathanassiou). Soundtrack composer/musician, 78; 

John Suchet, journalist, 77; 

Bobby Kimball singer (Toto) 74; 

Marina Sirtis, actress, 66; 

Brendan Gleeson, actor, 66; 

Christophe Lambert, actor, 64; 

Perry Farrell, singer-songwriter (Jane’s Addiction) 62; 

Annabella Sciorra, actress, 61; 

Elle MacPherson, former supermodel, 57; 

Lucy Lawless, actress, 53; 

Marc Overmars, footballer, 48; 

Jennifer Capriati, tennis star, 45; 

Ed Skrein, actor, 38; 

N’Golo Kanté, footballer, 30.