MARCH 3 — 1931 Star Spangled Banner becomes America’s national anthem; I1884 Legal Tender Act is upheld in Juliard V Greenman; 1847 Happy Birthday Alexander Graham Bell; 1887 Helen Keller meets Anne Sullivan; 1999 Music professor tries to sue Smashing Pumpkins
MARCH 3
1931 –The Star Spangled Banner becomes America’s national anthem.
I don’t what’s better, the fact that Francis Scott Key wrote this while witnessing Ft. McHenry’s flag surviving a British attack over 1800 bombs during the War of 1812, or the fact that the song is sung to the tune of an old British ditty called To Anacreon in Heaven. It was used by the US Army and other factions, and finally On March 3 193,1 President Herbert Hoover signed it into law as the official national anthem.
1884 – The Legal Tender Acts of 1862 and 1863 are upheld in Julliard V Greenman.
According to Wiki, the story goes like this: Julliard sold and delivered $5,122.90 worth of cotton. Greenman paid him $5100 in US legal tender notes and the rest in coin, but Julliard wouldn’t take the notes. These notes were issued during the Civil War, and in 1878 an act was passed to forbid the further retirement of U.S. legal tender notes.
So the decision in court between Julliard and Greenman ended in Congress having the implied power of making U.S. government notes legal tender, and therefore money, in peacetime as well as wartime. So who cares?
Economists do, or at least should, particularly those who believe that only gold and silver can be legal tender.
INVENTIONS/PATENTS:
1877 – Happy Birthday Garret Morgan. He was a great American who patented, among other things, a hair-strengethning product, improved sewing machines, improved traffic lights, and patented a breathing device.
Let me tell you that story real quick.
According to wIkipedia, “1916 of workers trapped within a water intake tunnel, 50 ft (15 m) beneath Lake Erie. He performed his rescue using a hood fashioned to protect his eyes from smoke and featuring a series of air tubes that hung near the ground to draw clean air beneath the rising smoke. By using this simple principle of heat, it allowed Morgan lengthen his ability to endure the inhospitable conditions of a smoke-filled room.”
Morgan is also credited as the first African American in Cleveland to own an automobile.
1909 – Happy Birthday Jay Moris Arena.
He is the inventor of the child safety bottle cap.
1847 HB Alexander Graham Bell.
He invented the telephone because he understood deaf people like no other. He also once met Helen Keller and recommended to her parents that they seek help for young blind deaf and dumb Helen from the Perkins Institution, which is how Helen Keller met Anne Sullivan. That initial meeting took place on March 3,
1887 – Helen was a very frustrated and angry six year old child when she met Ms. Sullivan, and Sullivan had her work cut out for her for sure.
Now before anyone starts with the Helen Keller jokes, let me just save you the trouble. We all know how her parents tortured her. They rearranged the furniture glued doorknobs to the wall, and put her in a round room and look for the penny in thecorner. Yeah, those jokes aren’t funny and they never were so if you’re one of those people who like telling those jokes, knock it off. Most people who tell jokes like that probably did’nt graduate from College with honors, or publish a book, let alone change public perception about disability. Helen did all that during her 87 years of social contribution on this planet and so much more. That was hard enough to do being a female in the early 1900s, not to mention not being able to see or hear life like the rest of us can.
1999 – Music professor Peter Jeffrey goes to court.
He took his young son to a Smashing Pumkins concert and after the show, his ears were ringing. Shocking, right? He sued the Pumkins, Fountains of Wayne, the Frogs, the New Haven Coliseum, Virgin Records and the manufacturer for the earplugs he was wearing for $50,000. I’d call him and idiot, but I already called him a college professor, which is probably worse in a lot of cases. No, he idn’t win. The judge told him in fact, that he should’ve known the risks before going to a concert, to which Jeffrey’s replied, huh? Only in America that’s like suing a coke dealer for selling a bad kilo.