Daylight Saving Time
Woman's History
March History
March Birthdays
March Madness
March Trivia
St. Patrick's Day
200
This Founding Father of the United States is frequently credited with inventing Daylight Saving Time.
Who is Benjamin Franklin?
In a satirical essay in 1784, Mr Franklin suggested Parisians set their clocks forward an hour, as a means to poke fun at the French for being lazy. He wrote that the amount of sunlight that goes wasted each morning would likely come as a shock to readers who “have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon.”
200
This woman was the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic ocean.
Who is Amelia Earhart?
In 1932 she flew from Newfoundland to Ireland in a 15 hr journey. She had intended to land in Paris, but due to poor conditions throughout the flight and mechanical issues she was forced to look for another place to land. She later became the first person to fly across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans when she crossed from Honolulu, HI to Oakland, CA.200
On March 24, 1989, this oil tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska, resulting in 11 million gallons of oil leaking into the natural habitat over a stretch of 45 miles.
What is the Exxon Valdez?
The oil killed:
- An estimated 250,000 seabirds
- 2,800 sea otters
- 300 harbor seals
- 250 bald eagles
- As many as 22 killer whales
- Billions of salmon and herring eggs
200
This artist, born March 30th, in Zundert, Netherlands, painted over 2100 works in his 10-year career, including Starry Night, inspired by the view from his asylum bedroom.
Who was Vincent Van Gogh?
Van Gogh struggled with mental illness throughout his life, and is well known for having cut his ear off during a mental break. He died by suicide in 1890, but his sister-in-law was instrumental in advocating for his work (much criticized during his lifetime).
200
This many teams participate in March Madness.
What is 68?
200
This fragrant yellow flower is the flower of March.
What is a daffodil?
200
St. Patrick was said to have driven this animal out of Ireland.
What are snakes?
According to most experts snakes most likely haven’t lived in Ireland since before the last Ice Age.
Historians and theologians now consider it a parable, or allegory, for Saint Patrick driving Paganism from Ireland.
400
This was the first year Daylight Saving Time was observed in the United States.
What is 1918?
400
This scientist became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for physics in 1903.
Who was Marie Curie?
She made history again when she became the first person – man or woman – to be awarded the prestigious prize a second time when she was recognized for chemistry in 1911. She remains the only person to be honored in two separate sciences.
400
On March 31st, 1889, this iconic French landmark opened in Paris with the designer and a few hardy companions ascending the tower's stairs and raising an enormous French tricolor on the structure’s flagpole.
What is the Eiffel Tower?
Although initially criticized by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, it has since become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world The tower received 5,889,000 visitors in 2022. The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument with an entrance fee in the world: 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015.
400
This American playwright was born in Mississippi and was famous for, The Glass Menagerie, Night of the Iguana, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof .
Who was Tennessee Williams?
400
This team won the 2024 championship.
Who are the UConn Huskies?
They successfully defended their title to become the first repeat champion since Florida in 2007.
400
This March birthstone is a dark green gemstone with red or orange spots of oxidized iron, so don't worry, it's not as morbid as it sounds.
What is Bloodstone?
400
The European Government recognizes and protects these creatures.
What are leprechauns?
Leprechauns have been protected since 2009 in a European Directive. This directive also protects all the other flora and fauna located "The Sliabh Foy Loop" in Ireland.
600
This was the president who signed the Standard Time Act into law.
Who was Woodrow Wilson?
It was repealed after only 7 months.
The program was relaunched in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, the time change wasn't official until 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson signed a law to make the start and end dates of Daylight Saving Time uniform across the country.
600
In 1976 this barrier-breaking journalist became the first woman co-anchor of a network evening news program.
Who was Barbara Walters?
Due to criticism from her male colleagues, she was released from her contract after two years. She went on to co-host the ABC news program 20/20, and later to co-found a popular morning talk show called the View. Her most high-profile interviews include all the presidents and first ladies from the Nixons to the Obamas.600
March 1st, 1961, President John F. Kennedy created this organization which sends American Volunteers to developing countries.
What is the Peace Corps?
600
This inventor of the telephone was born on March 3rd, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Who is Alexander Graham Bell?
The first telephone conversation in history was made in Boston, the U.S. between Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson on March 10, 1876. "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you," said Bell into his experimental telephone to Watson who was in another room but out of earshot.
600
This team has won the most NCAA championships.
What is UCLA?
UCLA has won a total of 11 NCAA men's basketball championships, the last one in 1995.
600
The name for this March birthstone comes from the Latin words for 'water', and 'of the sea'.
What is Aquamarine?
600
During the Great Famine in Ireland in the late 1840s, this crop was impacted by a blight leading to a mass exodus of the population.
What are potatoes?
This was due both because of a blight, and the poverty of the Irish people and dependence on only potatoes due to British policies.
The population of Ireland on the eve of the famine was about 8.5 million; by 1901, it was just 4.4 million, and the current population of Ireland and Northern Island is just 7.2 million people.
Today around 9.2% of Americans, or 30.7 million people, identify as having Irish ancestry.
800
This is the number of American states that do not observe DST.
What is 2?
Hawaii and Arizona
Under the Uniform Time Act, states can either observe daylight saving time as currently practiced or stay on standard time year-round — meaning there’s no easy shortcut for those hoping for a permanent shift forward.
800
At 17 years old, this woman became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her “struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”
Who is Malala Yousafzai?
As a teenager, she spoke out against the Taliban's ban on girls' education in Pakistan. In 2012, when she was just 15, the Taliban shot her in the head while she was riding the bus home from school. She survived and has continued to advocate for women's education rights.
800
On March 30th, 1981, this newly-elected president was shot in the chest while walking to his limousine following a speech at a Washington, D.C. hotel.
Who is Ronald Reagan?
800
This German-born physicist and mathematician who developed the "world's most famous equation" was born March 14th, 1879.
Who is Albert Einstein?
E=mc2 (mass–energy equivalence formula)
800
This No.16 Seed beat the No. 1 seed in the 2023 tournament.
What is Fairleigh Dickenson University?
FDU beat Purdue in 2023, in what is considered the biggest upset in tournament history. They were defeated in the next round by Florida Atlantic University.
800
This day on the Roman calendar, which roughly marked the midpoint of the month, became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar, and became a turning point in Roman history.
What are the Ides of March, or March 15th?
According to Plutarch, a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar on the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "Well, the Ides of March are come", implying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, they are come, but they are not gone."
800
This meat is popular to eat around St. Patrick's day.
What is Corned Beef?
Before the wave of 19th century Irish immigration to the United States, many ethnic Irish immigrants did not consume corned beef dishes. The popularity of corned beef compared to back bacon among the Irish immigrant population may have been due to corned beef being considered a luxury product in their native land, while it was cheap and readily available in the United States.
The Jewish population produced similar corned beef brisket, also smoking it into pastrami. Irish immigrants often purchased corned beef from Jewish butchers.
1000
This US government department governs the “regulating, fostering, and promoting the widespread and uniform adoption and observance of standardized time”.
What is the US Department of Transportation?
Bonus fact: It is a common myth that DST was invented for farmers. In fact, farmers started a lobby to aggressively campaign against DST. They were successful after WWI, and DST was suspended until WWII.
1000
In 1987 this woman became the first female artist inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.
Who is Aretha Franklin?
Her career spanned more than six decades and earned her 18 Grammy awards.
1000
On March 28th, 1979, a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor occurred at this nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, becoming the worst nuclear accident in the United States.
What was Three Mile Island?
1000
This world-famous illusionist and "escapologist" was born Erik Weisz on March 26th, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary.
Who is Harry Houdini?
1000
This team won the first ever NCAA basketball tournament in 1939.
Who were the Oregon Webfoots?
They're now known as the Oregon Ducks.
1000
In the southern Hemisphere March occurs during this season.
What is Autumn?
1000
This city dyes its river each year for St. Patrick's day.
What is Chicago?
The “greening” of the Chicago River is a tradition that goes back to 1962, and was actually born from an effort to clean up the waterway at its most polluted. According to Chicago's St. Patrick's Day Parade website, Stephen Bailey, business manager of the local plumber union, came across a plumber whose normally white overalls were stained green. That plumber was part of a team pouring small amounts of green dye into the sewers to detect where waste was leaking into the river
The encounter with the overalled plumber inspired Bailey, childhood friend of then-mayor Richard J. Daley and chairman of this nascent St. Patrick's Day Parade, to have the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local 130 union dump this tracer dye into the Chicago River as part of the holiday celebration. The plumbers’ union still manages the dyeing today.
“When [this event] started, it was a way to, for a short period of time around a major holiday, convert something that was basically an eyesore into a decoration for Chicago’s downtown,” says Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club’s Illinois Chapter.