March 3 Birthday
On March 3, 1991, Rodney King was beaten by four LAPD officers after a high-speed chase through Los Angeles. A resident named George Holliday filmed the eleven-minute beating from his balcony. The video showed King being struck fifty-six times with batons and kicked. Without the video, the incident would have been another routine police report. With it, the officers were charged. They were acquitted by a jury in Simi Valley on April 29, 1992. The acquittals triggered the Los Angeles riots, which killed sixty-three people, injured 2,383, and caused $1 billion in property damage. King appeared before cameras three days into the riots and asked, "Can we all get along?" He died in 2012 at forty-seven, found at the bottom of his swimming pool. The videotape changed everything — it was the first time police violence was documented by an ordinary citizen and broadcast to the world. Every phone camera since has been its descendant. In 1931, President Hoover signed a law designating "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem of the United States. The song was written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, after watching the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Key was a lawyer who had been negotiating a prisoner release and was held by the British during the bombardment. The poem was set to the tune of a British drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven." The song is notoriously difficult to sing — it spans an octave and a half, and the high notes defeat most untrained voices. Over forty bills had been introduced in Congress to designate a national anthem before this one succeeded. Florida became a state on March 3, 1845. It had been a US territory since 1821, when it was purchased from Spain for $5 million. Florida was admitted as a slave state, paired with Iowa as a free state to maintain the balance. Its population at statehood was about 60,000. The Seminole Wars, the longest and costliest Indian wars in American history, were fought partly to remove the Seminoles from Florida. About 3,000 Seminoles were forced west on the Trail of Tears. A few hundred retreated into the Everglades and never surrendered. Their descendants live there still. Alexander Graham Bell, born this day in 1847, was a teacher of the deaf — both his mother and his wife were deaf. His work with the visually and hearing impaired led him to experiments with sound transmission. He patented the telephone on March 7, 1876. He considered his invention a nuisance and refused to have one in his study. He died in 1922. On the day of his funeral, all telephone service in the US was suspended for one minute in his honor. People born on March 3 fall under the zodiac sign of Pisces. The birthstone is Aquamarine and the birth flower is Daffodil. Historical events on March 3 include 1845: Florida becomes 27th US state, 1931: "The Star-Spangled Banner" officially becomes US national anthem, 1991: Rodney King beaten by LAPD officers (captured on video). Famous people born on March 3 include Alexander Graham Bell (1847), Jean Harlow (1911), Miranda Richardson (1958).