March Almanac

Named for Mars, the Roman god of war.

 

March 1 – Italy is created in 222 B.C when the last Celtics are defeated and Italo-Roman troops reach the Alps.  Consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus is given a triumph for this feat.

                – The late Judge John Sirica who in 1972 broke the Watergate Scandal that destroyed the Nixon presidency is born in 1904.

                – Matronalia, the Roman celebration of marriage and motherhood. The classical Italians were the first to establish the social equality of women. On this day, husbands gave gifts to their wives.

                – Roman poet M. Valerius Martialis (Martial) is born around 38 BC

March 2 – Italian engineer/explorer Giovanni Battista Belzoni becomes the first European to enter the Pyramid of Cephren at Giza, Egypt (1818).

March 3 – Religious figure Fausto Socini dies in Poland in 1604.  His anti-Trinity arguments  were a basis for Unitarianism.

March 4 – In 1848, King Carlo Alberto of Sardinia, signs the Statuto Albertino, a code of law and civil rights that will serve as the Italian constitution until 1947

                – Antonio Vivaldi, classical composer of the Four Seasons opus, is born in 1678.

March 5 – In 1876, the first edition of the Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s oldest and most distinguished daily newspapers, is published at Milan.

March 6 – Comedian Lou Costello (née Cristillo) is born in 1908.

                – Renaissance artist and sculptor Michelangelo Buonaroti is born in 1475.

March 7 – Italian diplomat Guelfo Zamboni, honored by Israel for saving 280 Jews from Auschwitz during WW II, dies in 1994.

                – Alessandro Manzoni is born in 1785 in Milan.  His book, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), established the modern form of the standard Italian language.

March 8 – Composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo is born in 1857.

March 9 – In 1924, The Adriatic seaport of Fiume is formally annexed by the Italian Kingdom. After WW II it was handed over to Yugoslavia, now in Croatia.

                – Queen Mary of Scotland’s advisor David Rizzo(or Riccio)  is murdered by her jealous husband in 1566.

                – Explorer Amerigo Vespucci is born in 1454.  Two continents are named for him.

March 10 – Sicily becomes a part of Italy in 241 BC when the Roman legions under Consul Caius Lutatius Catulus and Praetor (Vice Consul) Quintus Valerius Falto defeat the Carthaginian navy at the Egadi Islands off Trapani, Sicily.

                  – Marcello Malpighi, founder of the science of microscopic anatomy, was born in 1628.

                  – Opera librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte is born in 1749

March 11 – In 1669, the most destructive eruption of Mt. Etna in recorded history begins, completely obliterating ten nearby towns and villages over the next several days.

                – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is born in 1936.

                – Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto premiers in 1851, at Venice.

March 12 – American singer Liza Minelli is born in 1946.

                  – Soldier/Poet/aviator Gabriele D’Annunzio is born in 1863, at Pescara, Italy

                  – Pioneer astronaut Wally Schirra is born in 1923.  The family name is of Italian Swiss origin.

March 13 – The Italian Stock Exchange is organized in 1913

                  – Joe Bellino is born in 1938. He was the first U.S. Naval Cadet to receive football’s Heisman Trophy in 1960.

March 14 – Eleven Italian-Americans are murdered by a New Orleans mob in 1891. Although they were found innocent in a court of law, the mob considered them mafiosi who assassinated the City’s Chief of Police.

                  – Prince Albert Grimaldi of Monaco is born in 1958

                – India’s Congress Party chooses Italian Sonia (Maino) Gandhi to lead the party in 1998

                 – Victor Emanuel II is proclaimed first king of Italy in 1860

March 15 – Emanuele Parodi, Giorgio Parodi and Carlo Guzzi establish MotoGuzzi motorcycle company at Mondello di Lario near Lake Como in 1921.

                  – In 44 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar’s dictatorship comes to a violent end with his assassination by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius, and other proponents of the Roman Republic.

                  – In 1847, as part of a series of civil reforms in the Papal States (Lazio, Umbria, Marches), Pope Pius IX relaxes the Church’s strict censorship laws to allow for a limited amount of freedom of the press.

                  – The Italian Soccer Federation is founded at Torino in 1898.

                  – In 1493, Columbus returns to Spain from his first voyage to the Americas.

March 16 – Communist Red Brigades murder former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978. The atrocity galvanizes the nation and leads to the defeat of the Red terror.

March 17 – In 1861, King Victor Emmanuel II proclaims the incorporation of the Italian Kingdom, politically reuniting the country from the Alps to Sicily since the Roman Empire.  The city of Rome remained in papal hands.

                   – Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, a leader of the Risorgimento in the south of Italy, is born in 1817

                   – On this day Romans held the Praenomina Ceremony in which all Roman boys around age 16 would be given their standard first names – Marcus, Quintus, Caius, etc.- symbolizing their arrival at manhood.

March 18 – In 1848, the people of Milan forcibly evict the occupying Austrian garrisons from their city.  With makeshift weapons and barricades of old furniture, they valiantly resist Austria’s powerful armies for five days.

                   – In 1896, Italian colonial troops defeat the Dervishes at Kassala near the Sudanese-Ethiopian border.

                   – In 1902, the voice of Enrico Caruso is preserved for posterity as the renowned tenor records ten arias for Gramophone Records at a Milan studio.

                  – Antonio Salviati is born in 1816. He established the island of Murano in Venice as the center of Italian glass manufacturing for mass production.

March 19 – In 1933, Italian leader Benito Mussolini proposes the creation of a Four-Power Pact, composed of the Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, as a better means of insuring international security.  (It was intended to rein in newly elected Hitler)

                  – Watergate Judge John Sirica is born in 1904.

                  – St. Joseph’s Day, when the birds fly back to Capistrano, California. The city was named for an Italian saint.

March 20 – In 1952, tensions in the Italian-Yugoslav dispute over the Adriatic port of Trieste are heightened as violent clashes between Italian students and the British police spawn four days of rioting. The city is eventually restored to Italy.

                   – In 1800, Italian physicist Alessandro Volta constructs the first electric battery.

March 21 – San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto issues the first proclamation of Earth Day in 1970, based on the Spring Equinox that normally occurs on March 21^st 

March 22 – The cornerstone is laid for the Victor Emmanuel Monument in Rome in 1885.  It is also the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Nicknamed the “Wedding Cake” for its white marble.

March 23 – In 1848, King Carlo Alberto of Savoia declares war on Austria, initiating the First War of Italian Independence.

                   – In 1919 – In reaction to the political crisis that rocks the Italian Kingdom in the aftermath of World War I, a group of angry army veterans, including journalist Benito Mussolini, form a new political party called the Fasci di Combatimento. 

March 24 – In 1891, a formal agreement is reached between Great Britain and Italy defining their respective, colonial interests in East Africa.

                   – 335 Italian civilians are massacred by Nazi soldiers in the Ardeatine caves near Rome in 1944

                   – Animator Joseph Barbera is born in 1911.  He and partner William Hanna created The Flintstones, Jetsons, Yogi bear, and many other cartoon characters.

March 25 – Conductor Arturo Toscanini is born in 1867

March 26 – Maria Grazia Lombardi, best known as Lella Lombardi, is born in Frugarolo, Italy in 1941.  She was the first female Formula One racecar driver.

March 27 – Francesco Zaccaria, noted theologian and Church historian, is born in 1714. 

March 28 – Media entrepreneur and founder the Forza Italia Party, Silvio Berlusconi, is elected prime minister of Italy in 1994.

                   – Wealthy Roman Senator Didius Julianus “buys” the emperorship from the Praetorian Guard in 193 AD. He is later beheaded when a Roman general Septimius Severus from North Africa demands the imperial purple.

March 29 – Italian troops occupy Adalia, Turkey in 1919 during the turmoil of post-WW I.

March 30 – A popular uprising in Palermo, Sicily ousts the French occupiers in 1282. The rebellion is known as the Sicilian Vespers. Legend has it that French spies were identified by rebels if they couldn’t pronounce the word ceci (chick peas)

                   – Singer Frankie Laine (nee` Francesco Paolo LoVecchio) is born in 1913.  He popularized songs such as Jezebel, Rawhide and Mule Train.

March 31 – American race-car driver Ralph DePalma dies in 1956. In 1919, DePalma broke the record for one mile at 149.875 mph. He won 2,557 races out of 2,889 during his lifetime.