10 March 1810: Birth of Samuel Ferguson, Irish Poet

Samuel Ferguson

Samuel Ferguson, poet, antiquarian, barrister and archivist, was born in Belfast on 10 March 1810. He was the youngest of the six children of John and Agnes Ferguson. His father’s family had lived in Ulster since the seventeenth century but their property in county Antrim did not provide them much towards the children’s [...]

9 March 1910: Birth of Samuel Barber, American Composer

Samuel Barber by Carl Van Vechten

Samuel Barber was born on 9 March 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA, the son of Samuel, a doctor, and Marguerite, a pianist. Barber learned to play the piano at an early age and was soon composing. At the age of ten he wrote The Rose, a short opera.

As [...]

8 March 1910: The First Woman to Receive a Pilot's Licence

Raymonde de Laroche

The “Baroness” Raymonde de Laroche was born on 22 August 1886 as Elise Raymonde Deroche and was the daughter of a plumber. On becoming an actress and singer as a young woman, Elise Deroche took the stage name of Raymonde de Laroche.

An interest in engineering and flight led de Laroche to take [...]

7 March 1810: Death of Cuthbert Colingwood, British Admiral

Cuthbert Collingwood

Cuthbert Collingwood was born on 26 September 1748 in Newcastle upon Tyne, the eighth child of Cuthbert and Milcah Collingwood. He was the eldest of three sons. After a schooling at the Newcastle Free School, Collingwood went to sea on the Shannon at the age of twelve on 28 August 1761. He was [...]

6 March 1900: Death of Gottlieb Daimler, German Engineer

Gottlieb Daimler

Gottlieb Daimler was born in Schorndorf, Württemberg on 17 March 1834. He trained as a gunsmith but had a fascination with engineering from an early age. After studying at the Stuttgart Polytechnic Institute he began a career in engineering.

The inventor of the four-stroke internal-combustion engine, Nikolaus A. Otto, employed Daimler as the technical [...]

5 March 1770: The Boston Massacre

The Boston Massacre by Paul Revere

A great deal of tension existed between the American colonies and the British government in the 1760s. In 1767 the Townshend Acts were passed by the British parliament in an attempt to enforce trade regulations and establish its right to tax the colonies.

The acts were unpopular with the colonists [...]

4 March 1890: Opening of the Forth Rail Bridge

The Forth Rail Bridge, 1890

Before 1890 the only direct route between Queensferry and North Queensferry in the east of Scotland was the ferry across the Firth of Forth. The crossing was slow and often dangerous and the four ferries, Queen Margaret, Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots and Sir William Wallace, were sometimes [...]

3 March 1920: Birth of James Doohan, Canadian Actor

James Doohan

James Montgomery Doohan was born in Vancouver, in the Canadian Province of British Columbia, on 3 March 1920. His parents, William and Sarah, had emigrated from Ireland and had three older children. The family later moved to Ontario where Doohan was educated at the Sarnia Collegiate Institute and Technical School.

During the Second World [...]

2 March 1970: Ian Smith Declared Rhodesia a Republic

Rhodesia

On 2 March 1970 Ian Smith, the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, announced the formation of the Republic of Rhodesia at a ceremony at Government House, Salisbury. With the signing of the proclamation, Smith dissolved Rhodesia’s parliament and brought into effect a new constitution.

Rhodesia, named after Cecil Rhodes, had been a British colony since the [...]

1 March 1810: Birth of Frédéric Chopin, Polish-French Composer

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin (or Fryderyk Franciszek Szopen in Polish) was born on 1 March 1810 in the Duchy of Warsaw to a French father and a Polish mother. His father, Nicholas, took work as a tutor to aristocratic families and later became a French teacher at the Warsaw lyceum.

Chopin loved music from an [...]

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