He is believed to have died on March 17, 460 AD and it is on this day that the Irish and those once a year Irish celebrate St. Patrick Day.

Even before St. Patrick, who is credited as banishing all snakes from the island, there weren’t any snakes so he couldn’t have banished any. He was a converted Christian and helped transform the island from their pagan beliefs to Christianity.

St. Patrick Day has a celebrated history of parades. The first St. Patrick Day parade was not in Ireland, but in New York City. On March 17, 1762 Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through the city.

Leprechauns and St. Patrick are classic symbols of Ireland. Now a natural combination. Leprechauns have their origins from old Celtic folklore and were cranky souls known for their trickery to protect their much-fabled treasure.
Until Walt Disney and the film Darby O’Gill & the Little People which introduced a cheerful, friendly leprechaun, they were not really a part of the Irish celebration.

Many of us will have Corn Beef and Cabbage on St. Patrick day, but this too is a fairly recent invention. Cabbage has long been a Irish food, it was usually served with bacon. That was until around the beginning of the 20th century when immigrants in New York City substituted corned beef to save money. The idea came from their Jewish neighbors.

In 1587 a small company made up of 90 men, 17 women and 9 children colonized the island of Roanoke just off the coast of North Carolina. John White, the governor of the second colony, went back to England to gather more supplies. He intended to return to Roanoke Island right away, but war between England and Spain delayed him. Three years later when returning with supplies the colony was gone. The only clue the word “Croatan” was carved on a tree.

On November 5, 1872 the Mary Celeste set sail from New York for Italy. A month later on December 5th it was discovered as a derelict. The ship was in perfect order with no sign of trouble and still carried ample supplies. The captain, his family and its 14-member crew have never been found.

In 1913 author Ambrose Bierce joined the army of Pancho Villa as an observer of the Mexican Revolution. It is known that he accompanied Villa’s army as far as Chihuahua since a letter to a close friend was sent from there on December 26, 1913. Afterward he vanished and investigations into the disappearance provided no answers.

On August 6, 1930 New York Supreme Court associate justice Joseph F. Crater was seen walking out of a New York restaurant. He entered a taxi after waving goodbye to some friends and was never seen again. In October, a grand jury began looking into the case and ended up calling 95 witnesses and amassing 975 pages of testimony. Some of the evidence uncovered was that a safe-deposit box had been emptied and two briefcases missing. The conclusion was: “The evidence is insufficient to warrant any expression of opinion as to whether Crater is alive or dead, or as to whether he has absented himself voluntarily, or is the sufferer from disease in the nature of amnesia, or is the victim of crime.”

On March 4, 1983 13-year-old Shannon Lee Potter of Parkville, Maryland climbed out of her bedroom window to attend a party. She has not been seen since.

While not a disappearance, the Legend of the Lost Dutchman’s mine in the Superstition Mountain of Arizona has caused a few disappearances with people lost trying to discover its location. In the 1870’s Jacob Waltz is said to have located a mine that he worked with his partner Jacob Weiser. Waltz was German, mistaken for Dutch, and he is the Dutchman where the name originated. Most stories place the mine in the vicinity of Weaver’s Needle, a well-known landmark in the mountains.

Bell’s experiments with the telegraph was an attempt to transmit multiple messages over the same wire at the same time. He felt that this could be done if each signal would have it’s own different pitch.

On the same day, February 14, 1876, Bell and Elisha Gray with his Western Electric Manufacturing Company, submitted their patients to the United States Patient Office in Washington DC. Bell’s paperwork with application fee was completed first, Gray’s caveat was entered first, but his filing fee was entered after Bell’s. On March 7, 1876, three days before the successful experiment, Bell received Patent Number 174,465.

Gray would file lawsuits challenging Bell’s patent. He would lose them all, mainly because it was determined that because he failed to take actions to complete his caveat until others had demonstrated a working unit. Gray still wasn’t left in the dark since he did receive a patent for the telautograph, a way to transmit handwriting through telegraph systems. It can be called the first fax machine

The Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877 and by 1886, 10 years after the first voice transmission, over 150,000 people in the United States owned telephones.

There really isn’t a sole inventor of the telephone. Bell’s ideas closely resembled Gray’s. The telephone’s transmitter was greatly improved when Edison’s carbon microphone was introduced. Not to mention that the entire idea of the telephone is really just an improvement and enhancement of Morse’s telegraph.

Why was March 4th chosen as Inauguration Day in the first place? Washington’s first Inauguration Day came nearly two months later on April 30th. When a date was chosen as the first day that the new Congress under the Constitution would meet, the first Wednesday in March was decided upon. The first Wednesday of March in 1789 was March 4th. The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, officially made the 4th of March Inauguration Day.

When March 4th fell on a Sunday, the Presidential Inauguration was moved to Monday March 5th. James Monroe and Zachary Taylor were both inaugurated on March 5th. Monroe in 1821 and Taylor in 1849. Rutherford Hayes took the oath on Saturday March 3, 1877. Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office on Sunday March 4, 1913. Both had a public inauguration on the 5th.

The 20th Amendment is sometimes called the “Lame Duck Amendment”. Between the national election in November to a March Inauguration over four months would pass. It was felt that the time before the beginning of the new terms (Both Presidential and Congressional) needed to be lessened. The amendment also clarified what would happen in the case of the President-Elect was not able to take office.

Some of the firsts that happened on the March 4th Inauguration are; The first Inauguration to be photographed was James Buchanan’s in 1857. William McKinley’s 1st Inauguration in 1897 was the first to be captured by a motion picture camera. Calvin Coolidge’s Inauguration in 1925 was the first to be broadcasted on national radio. Four years later Herbert Hoover’s Inauguration was recorded for talking newsreel.

As part of the 20th amendment the Vice-President began taking the oath of office at the same ceremony as the President’s. Prior to this the Vice-President’s oath was done in the Senate Chambers.

Washington was a member of the Second Continental Congress, but he didn’t participate nor sign the Declaration on Independence. On June 14, 1775, a year before the debate and adoption, he was named Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. He was however one of the prime movers to change the Articles of Confederation, which turned out to be the writing and the adoption of the new Constitution.

While Washington had false teeth, they were not made of wood. He did have ones made by Dr. John Greenwoodby of gold and hippopotamus ivory. Dr. John Greenwood is known as the “Father of Modern Dentistry”.

Mason Locke Weems also known as Parson Weems wrote “A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington.” Weems felt that Washington was the “greatest man that ever lived”. Some of the things he wrote about Washington was more about his character than actual truths. One of these is about a Young Washington cutting down his father’s cherry tree and not lying to his father about his actions. Did he do it, probably not, but Weems felt it fit Washington’s Character of being truthful.

The District of Columbia, or Washington DC, the capital of the United States was begun when he was President and he was involved in the design of the city and the White House, the President’s home. Washington never lived in the White House and probably never in the city itself. The Capitals of the United States while he was President were New York City (March 4, 1789 to December 5, 1790) and Philadelphia (December 6, 1790 to May 14, 1800).

Washington may have spent many years away from his home of Mount Vernon, Virginia, but other than a trip to Barbados in the West Indies when he was 19 he never left the soil of what would become the United States. He went to Barbados with ith his older half-brother, Lawrence, in hopes to improve Lawrence’s health. Lawrence would die within the year. He did travel to foreign soil as a soldier during the French-Indian War, but most, if not all of that area has become the United States. Even though there were battles fought in Canada during the American Revolution, Washington was not at any of those battles.

With four presidential births one may think that February could be the month with the most.  It is not. That honor goes to October, which has six. Jimmy Carter – October 1, Rutherford Hayes – October 4, Chester Arthur – October 14, Theodore Roosevelt – October 27 and John Adams – October 30.

Along with February the months of January, March, April and July has had 4 President born in them. November has had 4 different days with Presidential births with November 2nd being the only day in the year in which two Presidents were born.  This gives November 5 Presidential birth, the month with the second most.

July 4th, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is also the anniversary of the birth of Calvin Coolidge.

When George W. Bush took office in 2001, every one of the months could claim a birth of a President. He was born on June 12. The only other month with one Presidential birth is September with William Taft’s being on September 15.

Barack Obama’s birthday is on the 4th of August. August joins November as second with the most presidents born in this month with a total of 5. The others are Benjamin Harrison August 20, 1833, Herbert Hoover August 10, 1874, Lyndon B. Johnson August 27, 1908 and Bill Clinton August 19, 1946.