March 19 Birthday
On March 19, 2003, at 10:16 PM Baghdad time, American cruise missiles struck targets in Iraq. President Bush announced, "On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war." The stated reason for the invasion was weapons of mass destruction. No weapons were found. The intelligence that justified the war — aluminum tubes, yellowcake uranium, mobile biological weapons labs — was wrong or fabricated. The war lasted eight years, killed 4,431 American service members and an estimated 200,000 to 600,000 Iraqi civilians, and cost $2 trillion. Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003, tried, and executed in 2006. The power vacuum his removal created led to ISIS, which controlled territory the size of Britain, and to the Syrian civil war. The consequences of the invasion continue to unfold. Congress established standard time zones on March 19, 1918, with the Standard Time Act. Before the railroads, every town kept its own time, based on the sun. Noon was when the sun was highest. This was fine for a village, but disastrous for a railroad — a train traveling east to west crossed dozens of local time zones, and schedules were impossible to maintain. The railroads had adopted standard time zones in 1883, but they had no legal authority. The 1918 act made the four zones — Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific — federal law. It also established daylight saving time, which was repealed in 1919, reinstated during World War II, made optional in 1945, and standardized in 1966. The Sydney Harbour Bridge opened on March 19, 1932, connecting Sydney's north and south shores. The bridge is 440 feet above the water and 3,770 feet long. It was designed by John Bradfield and took eight years to build with a workforce of 1,400 men. Sixteen workers died during construction. At the opening ceremony, a retired cavalry officer named Francis de Groot rode forward on horseback and slashed the ribbon with his sword before the premier of New South Wales could cut it. He was a member of the New Guard, a fascist organization that opposed the Labor government. He was arrested, fined, and his sword was confiscated. The ribbon was tied back together and the official cutting proceeded. The bridge is nicknamed "the coathanger." Wyatt Earp, born this day in 1848, was a lawman in the American West. The gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, on October 26, 1881, lasted thirty seconds. Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and Doc Holliday faced the Clantons and McLaurys. Thirty shots were fired. Three men were killed. Earp was unhurt. The incident has been depicted in dozens of films, each less accurate than the last. Earp lived to be eighty and worked as a consultant on Hollywood westerns. People born on March 19 fall under the zodiac sign of Pisces. The birthstone is Aquamarine and the birth flower is Daffodil. Historical events on March 19 include 1918: US Congress establishes standard time zones and daylight saving time, 1932: Sydney Harbour Bridge officially opens, 2003: President Bush announces start of Iraq War ("on my orders, coalition forces have struck"). Famous people born on March 19 include Wyatt Earp (1848), Glenn Close (1947), Ursula Andress (1936).