GMT

Today in History: March 1

1692 Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are arrested for the supposed practice of witchcraft in Salem, Mass.

1875 Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, which is invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1883.

1912 Albert Berry completes the first in-flight parachute jump, from a Benoist plane over Kinlock Field in St. Louis, Missouri.

1921 The Allies reject a $7.5 billion reparations offer in London. German delegation decides to quit all talks.

1969 Mickey Mantle announces his retirement from baseball.

1974 A grand jury indicts seven of President Nixon's aides for the conspiracy on Watergate.

1985 The Pentagon accepts the theory that an atomic war would block the sun, causing a "nuclear winter."

1992 Bosnian Serbs begin sniping in Sarajevo, after Croats and Muslims vote for Bosnian independence.


Born on March 1

1810 Frédéric Chopin, composer and pianist.

1837 William Dean Howells, novelist.

1904 Glenn Miller, big band leader during the 1930s and '40s.

1914 Ralph Waldo Ellison, African-American author (Invisible Man).


JOTD
A priest, a minister, and a rabbi (not a rabbit) want to see who’s best at his job.

So they each go into the woods, find a bear, and attempt to convert it. Later they get together. The priest begins: “When I found the bear, I read to him from the Catechism and sprinkled him with holy water. Next week is his First Communion.”
“I found a bear by the stream,” says the minister, “and preached God’s holy word. The bear was so mesmerized that he let me baptize him.”
They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a gurney in a body cast. “Looking back,” he says, “maybe I shouldn’t have started with the circumcision.