Feast Day of St. Braulio

Patron saint of Aragon, Spain.

Heaven's Gate Mass Suicide

March 26, 1997

Police discover the mass suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult, including its leader Marshall Applewhite. The were all found lying in matching dark clothes and Nike sneakers. They believed their suicide would allow them to leave their earthly bodies and join an alien spacecraft that was trailing behind the Hale-Bopp comet in order to reach the next level of existence.
Among the dead was Thomas Nichols, brother of actress Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura in the original television series of Star Trek.
In the following months, several other former member also committed suicide.
The members believed they could transform themselves into immortal extraterrestrial beings by rejecting their human nature, and they would ascend to heaven, referred to as "The Evolutionary Level Above Human", believing that their body was merely a "container" for the soul and that their consciousness would be transferred to new "Next Level bodies" upon death.

Mike Tyson

March 26, 1992

Boxer Mike Tyson is sentenced to six years in prison and fined $30,000 for raping beauty contestant Desiree Washington, but was released in 1995 after serving less than three years of his sentence. During his incarceration, Tyson converted to Islam and took the Muslim name Malik Abdul Aziz.

Fire Extinguisher

March 26, 1872

The first practical fire extinguisher is patented by African-American inventor Thomas J. Martin. It provided a way to quickly attach a pump to a body of water for the purposes of extinguishing fires, washing buildings, and sprinkling streets.

First U.S. Naturalization Act

March 26, 1790

The first U.S. naturalization act is passed by Congress. It provided for uniform naturalization based on a two year residency.

World's First Test-Tube Quintuplets

Alan, Bret, Connor, Douglas, and Edward Jacobssen

Born March 26, 1986

World's first test-tube quintuplets. Born in England, three months premature, the weighed between 1 pound 13½ ounces to 2 pounds 2 ounces.

Larry Page

Born March 26, 1973

American computer scientist, co-founder of Google (1998).

Leeza Gibbons

Born March 26, 1957

American reporter. TV: Entertainment Tonight (co-anchor).

Curtis Sliwa

Born March 26, 1954

American crime fighter. Founder of the Guardian Angels (1978), an unarmed anti-crime unit.

Teddy Pendergrass

Born March 26, 1950 d. 2010

American singer. He was severely injured in an auto accident (1982), which paralyzed him from the chest down. Music: Never Knew Love Like This Before (1980).

Martin Short

Born March 26, 1950

Canadian-American Tony-Emmy-winning comedian. TV: Saturday Night Live and Ed Grimley on SCTV.

Vicki Lawrence

Born March 26, 1949

American actress. TV: Mama's Family (Mama). She also recorded the song The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1972).

Diana Ross

Born March 26, 1944

American singer, Supreme. Her sister Barbara Ross-Lee was the first black woman to lead a U.S. medical school.

Bob Woodward (Robert Upshur)

Born March 26, 1943

American journalist. He and Carl Bernstein uncovered the Watergate scandal while working for the Washington Post.

Evolutionist who Coined the word "Meme"

Richard Dawkins

Born March 26, 1941

English evolutionary biologist, author. His book The Selfish Gene (1976) popularized the gene-centered view of evolution and coined the term meme, the behavioral equivalent of a gene. Writings: The Blind Watchmaker (1986, in which he argues against the watchmaker argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms) and The God Delusion (2006).

James Caan

Born March 26, 1940 d. 2022

American actor. Film: Brian's Song (1971, the dying football player) and The Godfather (1972, Sonny Corleone).

Alan Arkin

Born March 26, 1934 d. 2023

American Oscar-Tony-winning actor, director. Arkin was a member of the sketch comedy group The Second City before acting Broadway.
Stage: Enter Laughing (1963, Tony). Film: The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), Wait Until Dark (1967), and Catch 22 (1970). TV: Sesame Street (1970-71, Larry and Phyllis sketches with then wife Barbara Dana as Phyllis).

Sandra Day O'Connor

Born March 26, 1930 d. 2023

American lawyer, U.S. Supreme Court Justice. She was the first woman associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1981-2006).

Bob Elliott

Born March 26, 1923 d. 2016

American Peabody-Emmy-winning comic actor, member of the radio comedy team Bob & Ray. TV: Get a Life (1990-92, bathrobe-wearing father of Chris Peterson, played by his real-life son Chris Elliott).

General William Westmoreland

Born March 26, 1914 d. 2005

American General. He commanded the U.S. troops during the Vietnam War (1964-68). During his command of Vietnam forces, the U.S. military troop involvement rose from 16,000 to over 500,000. He employed a strategy of attrition on North Vietnam using U.S. military superiority to inflict heavy losses on them.

Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams)

Born March 26, 1911 d. 1983

American Pulitzer-winning playwright. Writings: The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947, Pulitzer), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955, Pulitzer).

Betty MacDonald

Born March 26, 1907 d. 1958

American author. Writings: The Egg and I (1945), which was made into the 1947 film featuring Ma and Pa Kettle.

Robert Frost

Born March 26, 1874 d. 1963

American Pulitzer-winning poet. Writings: A Boy's Will, North of Boston, and The Mending Wall, which contained the phrase "Good fences make good neighbors".

Sir Benjamin Thompson

Born March 26, 1753 d. 1814

American-born British scientist. He proved that heat was not a form of liquid matter. He is also improved stoves and is credited with inventing thermal underwear.

William Blount

Born March 26, 1749 d. 1800

American statesman, signer of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Senator (Tennessee, 1796-97), Governor of the Southwest Territory (1790-96), Speaker of the Tennessee Senate (1798-99), the first federal official to face impeachment, and for whom Blount County, Tennessee is named. As a member of the North Carolina delegation at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he led efforts to have North Carolina ratify the U.S. Constitution. He served as the only governor of the Southwest Territory, and played a leading role in helping the territory gain admission to the Union as the State of Tennessee, and served as one of Tennessee's initial U.S. senators in 1796.
He had amassed large western land holdings. After France defeated Spain in the War of the Pyrenees (1795), he was worried that the French would gain control of Spanish-controlled Louisiana, and shut off American access to the Mississippi River, thus greatly devaluing his land. Blount conspired with others allow Britain to gain control of Florida and Louisiana, in return for giving free access to New Orleans and the Mississippi River to American merchants. The plan called for aiding the British fleet in attacking New Orleans, Pensacola, and New Madrid. When his plot was discovered, the U.S. Senate voted 25 to 1 to "sequester" Blount's senate seat, effectively expelling him. His reputation now ruined for national politics, he went on to become Speaker of the Tennessee Senate.

Wrong Way Roy - Worst Blunder in College Football

Roy Riegels

Died March 26, 1993 b. 1908

American football player. During the 1929 Rose Bowl he ran 65 yards the wrong way. He was stopped six inches from the goal by his own teammate. A safety scored on a blocked punt the next play caused his team to lose (8-7). This is often considered the worst blunder in college football. After this, he became known as Roy "Wrong-Way" Riegels.

Won Pulitzer for Book Published 11 Years After His Suicide

John Kennedy Toole

Died March 26, 1969 b. 1937

American Pulitzer-winning author. Writings: A Confederacy of Dunces (written in 1963, but not published until 11 years after he committed suicide), which won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Toole's mother found a copy of the manuscript after his suicide and persisted in getting it published, even after rejections by several publishing houses. It instantly became a classic work of Southern U.S. fiction.
The book takes its title from the Jonathan Swift essay, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Sarah Bernhardt (Rosine Bernard)

Died March 26, 1923 b. 1844

French actress, called Divine Sarah. She is considered the first great actress to appear in a motion picture (1900). She suffered an injury to her knee when she leaped off the parapet during a performance of La Tosca. The mattress on which she was to land was misplaced, and she landed on the boards. This injury never healed properly, and led to the eventual amputation of her leg (1915). She continued her successful career after the amputation.
She also starred in the first feature-length film shown in the U.S. (1912, Queen Elizabeth).

Ludwig van Beethoven

Died March 26, 1827 b. 1770

German composer. He is considered the greatest composer in the history of music; his 5th and 9th symphonies are unequaled. He is one of the "Three Bs of Music" (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms).

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin

Died March 26, 1814 b. 1738

French physician. His campaign for the use of a machine to provide humane executions led to the invention of the guillotine by a German mechanic. The first execution by Guillotine was performed in 1792.

Geraldine Ferraro (Geraldine Anne Ferraro)

Died March 26, 2011 b. 1935

American politician. First female vice-presidential candidate for a major political party (1984, Democratic). She was selected by presidential candidate Walter Mondale as his running mate.

Jan Berry

Died March 26, 2004 b. 1941

American singer, with Jan and Dean. In 1966, life imitated art when Berry crashed his Corvette into a parked truck while rounding a curve, eerily reminiscent of their hit song from two years earlier, Dead Man's Curve in which a Corvette crashes. The crash occurred just a short distance from the curve memorialized in their song. Jan suffered brain damage and partial paralysis. He had minimal use of his right arm, and had to learn to write with his left hand.

Edmund S. Muskie

Died March 26, 1996 b. 1914

American politician, Governor of Maine (1955-59), U.S. Senator (1959-80), and Secretary of State (1980-81).

Sir Noel Pierce Coward

Died March 26, 1973 b. 1899

English playwright, composer, actor, director. Writings: Mad Dogs and Englishmen.

Cecil John Rhodes

Died March 26, 1902 b. 1853

English colonial statesman. He established Rhodesia and Rhodes scholarships. His will declared that his estate should be used to secure British world domination, and that Rhodes scholars should strive to unify English-speaking people.

Walt Whitman

Died March 26, 1892 b. 1819

American poet. Writings: Leaves of Grass.

Richard Allen

Died March 26, 1831 b. 1760

American clergyman. Born a slave, he helped establish the first African American U.S. church (1816), the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Philadelphia, of which he was bishop, making him the first African American bishop in the U.S.

John Winthrop

Died March 26, 1649 b. 1588

English colonizer. He was the third governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630-34).

Stephen

Died March 26, 752 b. ????

Roman priest. He was elected pope but died several days later, before the beginning of his pontificate.