Kennedy Assassination - Ruby Sentenced to Death

March 14, 1964

Jack Ruby is sentenced to death for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. The conviction was later overturned and Ruby died while awaiting retrial. Oswald had assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy

FBI Ten Most Wanted

March 14, 1950

The first FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List is announced. Thomas Holden was the first person on the list. He had killed his wife and her two brothers. He was captured the following year.
Holden and Francis Keating robbed payroll deliveries, trains, and banks, becoming one of the most notorious holdup teams by the end of the 1920s. They were captured and convicted in 1928 and each sentenced to 25 years in prison.
After two years, they escaped Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary and went on to form a new gang, committing a series of daylight robberies during 1930 and 1931. They were recaptured and returned to Leavenworth, where Holden was paroled in 1947. Two and a half years later, Holden killed his wife and two of her brothers during a drunken family argument.

First Shopping Cart

March 14, 1938

The patent for the first shopping cart is filed for by its inventor Sylvan Goldman, the owner of a Humpty Dumpty Grocery store in Oklahoma City. It was essentially a folding chair with wheels and two baskets attached. The carts were initially a flop, as shoppers were reluctant to use them - men found them effeminate and women thought them too much like a baby carriage - so he hired models to shop with them.
Eventually, folding carts became extremely popular and Goldman became a multimillionaire by collecting a royalty on every folding design shopping cart in the United States.
He also invented "nested" shopping carts, where the carts are pushed inside of each other for storage.

Cotton Gin

March 14, 1794

Eli Whitney receives a patent for his cotton gin. His cotton gin separated the seeds from the cotton by pulling the cotton though a mesh that blocked the seeds. He claimed to have gotten the idea from watching a cat who was trying to pull a chicken through a fence, but was only able to pull feathers through.
His gin could generate up to 55 pounds (25 kg) of cleaned cotton daily, whereas a person could only do about a pound (0.45 kg) a day. This turned cotton into a profitable crop. U.S. cotton exports went from less than 500,000 pounds (230,000 kg) in 1793 to 93 million pounds (42,000,000 kg) by 1810 making it the country's chief export.
Historians argue that the cotton gin helped preserve slavery in the U.S., since before its invention slave labor was primarily used in growing rice, tobacco, and indigo, none of which were profitable any more. But, with the gin reducing the labor needed to remove the seeds, growing cotton became highly profitable and became the chief source of wealth in the South, greatly increasing the desire for slave labor.

Last Person Hanged in Boston for Being a Quaker

March 14, 1661

William Leddra is hanged for returning to Boston after banishment for being a Quaker. At the time, it was crime in Boston to be a Quaker. Quakers are a Christian religious group that believes God speaks directly to individuals and not just through the clergy, which was considered heresy to the Puritans. As he was being prepared for the gallows he said, "For bearing my testimony for the Lord against deceivers and the deceived, I am brought here to suffer".
Punishments for being a Quaker included branding with an "H" for heretic, boring through the tongue with a hot iron, lashings, ears chopped off, and banishment. Between 1659 and 1661, four Quakers were hanged in Boston (Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson, Mary Dyer, and William Leddra), becoming known as the Boston martyrs. King Charles II put an end to the executions in 1661 shortly after Leddra's hanging.
Quakers, also called the Religious Society of Friends, are a Christian religious group who are generally united in a belief in the ability of each person to experientially access "that of God in every one." They are known for their refusal to participate in war, wearing of plain dress, refusal to swear oaths, opposition to slavery, and teetotalism.

J. Fred Muggs

Born March 14, 1952

Chimpanzee. J. Fred Muggs was the mascot for NBC's Today Show from 1953 to 1957. The Today Show's ratings were doing poorly and Muggs was added to attract viewers.
He was an instant hit and it's estimated that Muggs earned the network over $100 million in advertising and merchandising.
Muggs would sit in host Dave Garroway's lap, "read" the day's newspapers, and play the piano with Steve Allen. His wardrobe consisted of over 450 outfits.
Muggs was born in the African colony of French Cameroon and brought to New York City at 10 months old. He was purchased by two former NBC pages who got him an appearance on the Perry Como Show, where Today Show executives saw him and signed him to their show.
Muggs retired at the age of 23 and now lives with his girlfriend in Florida.

Last Man on the Moon

Eugene Andrew Cernan

Born March 14, 1934 d. 2017

American astronaut. He was the last man on the Moon (1972). Upon reentering the Lunar Module after making the last Moon walk: "…America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

Frank Borman

Born March 14, 1928 d. 2023

American astronaut. He was the command pilot for Apollo 8, making him part of the first crew to orbit the Moon (1968).

Hank Ketcham (Henry King Ketcham)

Born March 14, 1920 d. 2001

American cartoonist. Creator of the comic strip Dennis the Menace (1951). It was based on his real-life son, Dennis Ketcham, who earned the nickname "Dennis the Menace" when he was four years old.

The Minnesota Woolly Girl

Alice Elizabeth Doherty

Born March 14, 1887 d. 1933

American hairy woman. "The Minnesota Woolly Girl." She is the only-known person born in the U.S. with hypertrichosis lanuginosa. Doherty was born with two-inch long blonde hair all over her body, which grew to about nine inches by the time she was a teenager. She was exhibited by her parents as a sideshow attraction from as early as two years old. Financially secure, she retired in 1915 and died of unknown causes in 1933.

Albert Einstein

Born March 14, 1879 d. 1955

German-born American Nobel-winning physicist and mathematician. He developed the theory of relativity and the mass equivalence formula: E=mc². By the age of 26, he had published four ground-breaking papers: Photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy. He would go on to publish more than 300 scientific papers. He was visiting the U.S. when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933; being Jewish he did not want to return to Germany, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen.
Quote: Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the universe.

28th U.S. Vice-President

Thomas Riley Marshall

Born March 14, 1854 d. 1925

American politician. 28th U.S. Vice-President (1913-21 under Woodrow Wilson). Proclaimed "What this country really needs is a good five-cent cigar" (1915).