Wednesday 27 March 2024 Calendar with holidays, observances and special days

Holidays and observances

• Archivist's Day in Mexico
• Armed Forces Day in Myanmar (Tatmadaw is the official name for the Armed Forces of Myanmar)
• International Myeloma Action Day (Held on the last Thursday of March)
• International Whiskey Day
• National Joe Day in US
• Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day
• Sakura Blossom Holiday in Japan (Usually, the blooms burst into colour between March and early April)
• Spanish Paella Day (is a traditional Spanish dish, made with rice, meat or fish, and a delicious sauce)
• UK National Terrier Day
• Victory Day in Angola
• World Theatre Day

Events

• 2004 – HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander-class frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.
• 1999 – Kosovo War: An American Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk is shot down by a Yugoslav SAM, the first and only Nighthawk to be lost in combat.
• 1998 – The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
• 1990 – The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí, an anti-Castro propaganda network, to Cuba.
• 1964 – The Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes Southcentral Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
• 1943 – World War II: Battle of the Komandorski Islands: In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska.
• 1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Taierzhuang begins, resulting several weeks later in the war's first major Chinese victory over Japan.
• 1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, is put in quarantine, where she would remain for the rest of her life.
• 1899 – Emilio Aguinaldo leads Filipino forces for the only time during the Philippine–American War at the Battle of Marilao River.
• 1871 – The first international rugby football match, when Scotland defeats England in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.
• 1794 – The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
• 1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León reaches the northern end of The Bahamas on his first voyage to Florida.

Births

• 1989 – Matt Harvey, American baseball player. Matthew Edward Harvey (born March 27, 1989), often nicknamed The Dark Knight, is an American professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent.
• 1988 – Brenda Song, American actress. After many commercials and television roles in the late 1990s, Song appeared in The Ultimate Christmas Present (2000), and won a Young Artist Award for her performance.
• 1987 – Buster Posey, American baseball player. Gerald Dempsey "Buster" Posey III (born March 27, 1987) is an American professional baseball catcher for the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball.
• 1985 – Dustin Byfuglien, American ice hockey player. Dustin Byfuglien (/ˈbʌflɪn/ BUF-lin; born March 27, 1985) is an American professional ice hockey player currently playing and serving as an alternate captain for the Winnipeg Jets of the National Hockey League (NHL).
• 1976 – Danny Fortson, American basketball player. He played power forward in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1997 to 2007.
• 1975 – Fergie, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress. Fergie or Fergy or Fergee is a short form of the names Fergus, Ferguson, and Fergusson, and may refer to:
• 1972 – Charlie Haas, American professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in the 2000s and Ring of Honor (ROH) in the 2010s. He is also known for teaming up with Shelton Benjamin and Kurt Angle in a tag team called "The World's Greatest Tag Team"
• 1970 – Brent Fitz, Canadian-American multi-instrumentalist and recording artist. Holmes, Ronnie Montrose, Indigenous, Lamya, Streetheart, Harlequin, and Econoline Crush.
• 1970 – Elizabeth Mitchell, American actress. Mitchell also had lead roles on the television series V (2009–2010), Revolution (2012–14), and Dead of Summer (2016), as well as a recurring role as the Snow Queen on Once Upon a Time (2014) and as Annuska Volovodov on The Expanse.
• 1970 – Mariah Carey, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress. She rose to fame in 1990 after signing to Columbia Records and releasing her eponymous debut album, which topped the U.S.
• 1969 – Pauley Perrette, American actress. She is also a published writer, singer, and civil rights advocate.
• 1963 – Cory Blackwell, American basketball player, was selected by the Seattle SuperSonics in the 2nd round (28th overall) of the 1984 NBA Draft. A 6'6" forward from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
• 1963 – Quentin Tarantino, American director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Quentin Jerome Tarantino (/ˌtærənˈtiːnoʊ/; born March 27, 1963) is an American filmmaker, actor, film programmer, and cinema owner.
• 1963 – Randall Cunningham, American football player, coach, and pastor. Cunningham is also known for his tenure with the Minnesota Vikings.
• 1962 – Brad Wright, American-Spanish basketball player. Brad Wright is a Canadian television producer, screenwriter and actor.
• 1962 – Kevin J. Anderson, American science fiction writer. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity.
• 1955 – Susan Neiman, Jewish American-German philosopher and author. She currently lives in Germany, where she is the Director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam.
• 1950 – Maria Ewing, African-American soprano. Maria Louise Ewing (born March 27, 1950) is an American opera singer who has sung both soprano and mezzo-soprano roles.
• 1947 – Walt Mossberg, American journalist. He is widely credited with pioneering the modern, consumer-focused, technology review and commentary.
• 1944 – Jesse Brown, American marine and politician, 2nd United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs (d. 2002), was a veteran of the United States Marine Corps who served as United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997.
• 1940 – Austin Pendleton, American actor, director, and playwright. Austin Campbell Pendleton (born March 27, 1940) is an American actor, playwright, theatre director and instructor.
• 1939 – Cale Yarborough, American race car driver and businessman. William Caleb "Cale" Yarborough (born March 27, 1939), is an American farmer, businessman and former NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver and owner.
• 1939 – Jay Kim, South Korean-American engineer and politician. Chang Joon "Jay" Kim (Korean: 김창준; Hanja: 金昌準; born March 27, 1939) is a Korean American politician and former member of the U.S.
• 1936 – Malcolm Goldstein, American violinist and composer. Malcolm Goldstein (born March 27, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American-Canadian composer, violinist and improviser who has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960s.
• 1935 – Stanley Rother, American Roman Catholic priest and missionary (d. 1981), was an American Roman Catholic priest from Oklahoma who was murdered in Guatemala. Ordained as a priest for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City in 1963, he held several parish assignments there until 1968 when he was assigned as a missionary priest to Guatemala where he was murdered in 1981 in his Guatemalan mission rectory.
• 1932 – Junior Parker, American singer and harmonica player (d. 1971), was an American Memphis blues singer and musician. He is best remembered for his voice which has been described as "honeyed" and "velvet-smooth".
• 1931 – David Janssen, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1980), was an American film and television actor who is best known for his starring role as Richard Kimble in the television series The Fugitive (1963–1967). Janssen also had the title roles in three other series: Richard Diamond, Private Detective; Harry O; and O'Hara, U.S.
• 1929 – Anne Ramsey, American actress (d. 1988), was an American stage, television, and film actress. She portrayed Mama Fratelli in The Goonies (1985) and Mrs.
• 1927 – Anthony Lewis, American journalist and academic (d. 2013), was an American public intellectual and journalist. He was twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and was a columnist for The New York Times.
• 1926 – Frank O'Hara, American writer (d. 1966), was an American writer, poet, and art critic. Because of his employment as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world.
• 1924 – Margaret K. Butler, American mathematician and computer programmer (d. 2013), was a mathematician who participated in creating and updating computer software. During the early 1950s, Butler contributed to the development of early computers.
• 1924 – Sarah Vaughan, African-American singer (d. 1990), was an American jazz singer.
• 1923 – Louis Simpson, Jamaican-American poet, translator, and academic (d. 2012), was an American poet born in Jamaica. He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his work At the End of the Open Road.
• 1922 – Jules Olitski, Ukrainian-American painter, printmaker, and sculptor (d. 2007). Olitski was born Jevel Demikovsky in Snovsk, in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (now Ukraine), a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Soviet government.
• 1921 – Harold Nicholas, American actor and dancer (d. 2000), was an American dancer specializing in tap. Nicholas was the younger half of the tap-dancing pair the Nicholas Brothers, known as two of the world's greatest dancers.
• 1921 – Phil Chess, Czech-American record producer, co-founded Chess Records (d. 2016), was an American record producer and company executive, the co-founder with his brother of Chess Records.
• 1920 – Colin Rowe, English-American architect, theorist and academic (d. 1999), was a British-born, American-naturalised architectural historian, critic, theoretician, and teacher; acknowledged as a major intellectual influence on world architecture and urbanism in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, particularly in the fields of city planning, regeneration, and urban design. During his life he taught briefly at the University of Texas at Austin and, for one year, at the University of Cambridge in England.
• 1917 – Cyrus Vance, American lawyer and politician, 57th United States Secretary of State (d. 2002), was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980. Prior to serving in that position he was the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Johnson Administration.
• 1915 – Robert Lockwood, Jr., American guitarist (d. 2006), was an American Delta blues guitarist, who recorded for Chess Records and other Chicago labels in the 1950s and 1960s. He was the only guitarist to have learned to play directly from Robert Johnson.
• 1914 – Budd Schulberg, American author, screenwriter, and producer (d. 2009), was an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer. He was known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy Award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay for A Face in the Crowd.
• 1914 – Richard Denning, American actor (d. 1998), was an American actor best known for starring in science fiction films of the 1950s, including Unknown Island (1948), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Target Earth (1954), Day the World Ended (1955), Creature with the Atom Brain (1955), and The Black Scorpion (1957). Denning also appeared in the film An Affair to Remember (1957) with Cary Grant and on radio with Lucille Ball in My Favorite Husband:244 (1948–1951), the forerunner of television's I Love Lucy.
• 1909 – Ben Webster, American saxophonist (d. 1973), was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He is considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young.
• 1906 – Pee Wee Russell, American clarinet player, saxophonist, and composer (d. 1969), was a jazz musician. Early in his career he played clarinet and saxophones, but he eventually focused solely on clarinet.
• 1905 – Elsie MacGill, Canadian-American author and engineer (d. 1980), was likely the world's first woman to earn an aeronautical engineering degree and was the first woman in Canada to receive a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. She worked as an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War and did much to make Canada a powerhouse of aircraft construction during her years at Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F) in Fort William, Ontario.
• 1905 – Leroy Carr, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1935), was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist who developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. He first became famous for "How Long, How Long Blues", his debut recording released by Vocalion Records in 1928.
• 1902 – Charles Lang, American cinematographer (d. 1998). Early in his career, he worked with the Akeley camera, a gyroscope-mounted "pancake" camera designed by Carl Akeley for outdoor action shots.
• 1902 – Sidney Buchman, American screenwriter and producer (d. 1975), was an American screenwriter and producer who worked on about 40 films from the late 1920s to the early 1970s. He received four Oscar nominations and won once for Best Screenplay for fantasy romantic comedy film Here Comes Mr.
• 1901 – Carl Barks, American illustrator and screenwriter (d. 2000), was an American cartoonist, author, and painter. He is best known for his work in Disney comic books, as the writer and artist of the first Donald Duck stories and as the creator of Scrooge McDuck.
• 1899 – Gloria Swanson, American actress and producer (d. 1983). Swanson was the silent screen's most successful and highest paid star, earning $20,000 a week in the mid-1920s.
• 1893 – G. Lloyd Spencer, American lieutenant and politician (d. 1981), was an American Democratic United States Senator from the State of Arkansas.
• 1893 – George Beranger, Australian-American actor and director (d. 1973), was an Australian actor and Hollywood and stage director.
• 1892 – Ferde Grofé, American pianist and composer (d. 1972), was an American composer, arranger, pianist and instrumentalist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.
• 1892 – Thorne Smith, American author (d. 1934), was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction under the byline Thorne Smith. He is best known today for the two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, much drinking and ghosts.
• 1886 – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German-American architect, designed IBM Plaza and Seagram Building (d. 1969). He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname.
• 1879 – Edward Steichen, Luxembourger-American painter and photographer (d. 1973), was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter and curator. His were the photographs that most frequently appeared in Alfred Stieglitz's groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its publication from 1903 to 1917.
• 1879 – Miller Huggins, American baseball player and manager (d. 1929). Louis Cardinals (1910–1916).
• 1871 – Joseph G. Morrison, American captain and Nazarene minister (d. 1939). Morrison (1871–1939) was an American minister and general superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene.
• 1868 – Patty Hill, American songwriter and educator (d. 1946), was a composer and teacher who is perhaps best known for co-writing, with her sister Mildred Hill, the tune which later became popular as "Happy Birthday to You". She was an American nursery school, kindergarten teacher, and key founder of the National Association for Nursery Education (NANE) which now exists as the National Association For the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).
• 1863 – Henry Royce, English engineer and businessman, founded Rolls-Royce Limited (d. 1933), was an English engineer famous for his designs of car and aeroplane engines with a reputation for reliability and longevity. With Charles Rolls (1877 – 1910) and Claude Johnson (1864 – 1926), he founded Rolls-Royce.
• 1862 – Dorothea Fairbridge, South African author and conservationist, co-founded Guild of Loyal Women (d. 1931), was a South African author and co-founder of the Guild of Loyal Women.
• 1860 – Frank Frost Abbott, American-Swiss scholar and academic (d. 1924), was an American classical scholar.
• 1855 – William Libbey, American target shooter, colonel, mountaineer, geographer, geologist, and archaeologist (d. 1927). Libbey III (March 27, 1855 – September 6, 1927) was an American professor of physical geography at Princeton University.
• 1851 – Ruperto Chapí, Spanish composer, co-founded Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (d. 1909), was a Spanish composer, and co-founder of the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers.
• 1844 – Adolphus Greely, American general and explorer, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1935), was a United States Army officer, polar explorer, and recipient of the Medal of Honor.
• 1801 – Alexander Barrow, American lawyer and politician (d. 1846), was a lawyer and United States Senator from Louisiana. He was a member of the Whig Party.
• 1745 – Lindley Murray, American-English Quaker and grammarian (d. 1826), was an American Quaker lawyer, writer and grammarian, best known for his English language grammar-books used in schools in England and the United States.
• 1724 – Jane Colden, American botanist and author (d. 1766), was an American botanist,:53–4 described as the "first botanist of her sex in her country" by Asa Gray in 1843. Although not acknowledged in botanical publications, she wrote a number of letters resulting in botanist John Ellis writing to Carl Linnaeus of her work applying the Linnaean system of plant identification to American flora, "she deserves to be celebrated".:54 Contemporary scholarship maintains that she was the first female botanist working in America.
• 1416 – Francis of Paola, Italian friar and saint, founded Order of the Minims (d. 1507), was an Italian mendicant friar and the founder of the Roman Catholic Order of Minims. Unlike the majority of founders of men's religious orders, and like his patron saint, Francis was never ordained a priest.

Deaths

• 2016 – Mother Angelica, American Roman Catholic religious leader and media personality (b. 1923)
• 2015 – Johnny Helms, American trumpet player, bandleader, and educator (b. 1935)
• 2014 – James R. Schlesinger, American economist and politician, 12th United States Secretary of Defense and first United States Secretary of Energy (b. 1929)
• 2014 – Richard N. Frye, American scholar and academic (b. 1920)
• 2013 – Fay Kanin, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1917)
• 2013 – Yvonne Brill, Canadian-American scientist and engineer (b. 1924)
• 2012 – Adrienne Rich, American poet, essayist and feminist (b. 1929)
• 2011 – Farley Granger, American actor (b. 1925)
• 2010 – Dick Giordano, American illustrator (b. 1932)
• 2009 – Irving R. Levine, American journalist and author (b. 1922)
• 2007 – Paul Lauterbur, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1929)
• 2006 – Dan Curtis, American director and producer (b. 1928)
• 2002 – Billy Wilder, Austrian-born American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1906)
• 2002 – Milton Berle, American comedian and actor (b. 1908)
• 1998 – David McClelland, American psychologist and academic (b. 1917)
• 1997 – Lane Dwinell, American businessman and politician, 69th Governor of New Hampshire (b. 1906)
• 1994 – Lawrence Wetherby, American lawyer and politician, 48th Governor of Kentucky (b. 1908)
• 1993 – Paul László, Hungarian-American architect and interior designer (b. 1900)
• 1992 – James E. Webb, American colonel and politician, 16th Under Secretary of State (b. 1906)
• 1991 – Aldo Ray, American actor (b. 1926)
• 1990 – Percy Beard, American hurdler and coach (b. 1908)
• 1989 – Malcolm Cowley, American novelist, poet, and literary critic (b. 1898)
• 1989 – May Allison, American actress (b. 1890)
• 1988 – Charles Willeford, American author, poet, and critic (b. 1919)
• 1987 – William Bowers, American journalist and screenwriter (b. 1916)
• 1982 – Fazlur Khan, Bangladeshi-American engineer and architect, designed the John Hancock Center and Willis Tower (b. 1929)
• 1980 – Steve Fisher, American author and screenwriter (b. 1912)
• 1978 – Nat Bailey, Canadian businessman, founded the White Spot (b. 1902)
• 1977 – Diana Hyland, American actress (b. 1936)
• 1977 – Shirley Graham Du Bois, American author, playwright, and composer (b. 1896)
• 1958 – Leon C. Phillips, American lawyer and politician, 11th Governor of Oklahoma (b. 1890)
• 1952 – Kiichiro Toyoda, Japanese businessman, founded Toyota (b. 1894)
• 1945 – Vincent Hugo Bendix, American engineer and businessman, founded Bendix Corporation (b. 1881)
• 1938 – William Stern, German-American psychologist and philosopher (b. 1871)
• 1927 – Joe Start, American baseball player and manager (b. 1842)
• 1926 – Kick Kelly, American baseball player, manager, and umpire (b. 1856)
• 1918 – Henry Adams, American journalist, historian, and author (b. 1838)
• 1918 – Martin Sheridan, Irish-American discus thrower and jumper (b. 1881)
• 1913 – Richard Montgomery Gano, American minister, physician, and general (b. 1830)
• 1910 – Alexander Emanuel Agassiz, Swiss-American ichthyologist, zoologist, and engineer (b. 1835)
• 1900 – Joseph A. Campbell, American businessman, founded the Campbell Soup Company (b. 1817)
• 1878 – George Gilbert Scott, English architect, designed the Albert Memorial and St Mary's Cathedral (b. 1811)
• 1869 – James Harper, American publisher and politician, 65th Mayor of New York City (b. 1795)