Just a Day in March Trivia Quiz

Waltham Abbey was founded in the 7th Century, and, while no longer an abbey, is still an active parish church. The third version of the church was endowed by King Harold Godwinson who is reputed to have been buried there. The fifth version was built as an Augustinian Abbey in 1177, and was the last religious house to be dissolved by Henry VIII.

John Bartram was born in Darby, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. He traveled through the colonies collecting plants, becoming one of America's first botanical researchers and establishing Bartram's Garden in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania (now part of Philadelphia).

The garden is still in operation today, and was designated a national historic landmark in 1960. He sent specimens of American plants to European botanists. In 1939, John Bartram High School opened in Southwest Philadelphia and is still open as of 2024.

Now consisting of ten campuses, the University of California was established in Oakland on March 23, 1868, and moved to Berkeley in 1873. The main campus at Berkeley is a renowned research institution (berkelium, chemical element 97, discovered by Glen Seaborg and Albert Ghiroso, is named for the college), and is the site of the Hastings College of Law, the Alma mater of VP, and 2024 Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris. People affiliated with the University of California have won 214 Nobel Prizes - 110 of them affiliated with the Berkeley campus.

On March 23, 1903, nearly three weeks after leaving the Presidency, Theodore Roosevelt, three naturalists, a sharpshooter, and Roosevelt's son, Kermit, left on a safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. The expedition trapped or shot nearly 12,000 animals and preserved them to ship back to the United States (very different from the activities of today's naturalists).

The expedition lasted until 1911, but Roosevelt returned home in 1910 and a documentary film, called "Roosevelt in Africa" was released the same year.

Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was born in Prussia and earned his PhD from the University of Berlin in 1934. He joined the Nazi Party, and helped develop the V-2 rocket. He surrendered to the Americans in 1945, and eventually developed rockets for NASA, as well as developing movies about space travel with Walt Disney. Wernher von Braun died on June 16, 1977, in Alexandria, Virginia, USA.

Pakistan, a majority Muslim country, was partitioned from India on August 14, 1947, as part of the region's independence from British rule, and after several decades of independence movements in Pakistan. Initially formed as a democracy, Pakistan declared itself an Islamic Republic in its 1956 constitution. Since then, the country has gone through three eras of military rule and three more periods of democracy.

The name Pakistan comes from Punjab Afghania Kashmir Iran Singh BalochisTAN.

Mir, or, as it was often called in newscasts late in its life, The Troubled Space Station Mir, was a Russian space station which orbited the earth from 1986 until it was brought down to burn up in the earth's atmosphere in 2001. People lived on Mir for about 12 1/2 years, including a consecutive streak of 3,644 days.

It eventually consisted of seven modules, with the last being attached in 1996. Scientists from the USA, USSR (later the Russian Confederation), and ten other countries spent time on Mir, with the longest continuous stay being Valeri Polyakov's 437 days between 1994 and 1995.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as the ACA and Obamacare, is a law which expanded access to health insurance to tens of millions of Americans. The law expanded Medicare coverage (although states could refuse to do so and the accompanying money), allowed children to stay on their parents' policy to age 26 (extending through college and covering those whose jobs did not include health insurance), created exchanges where people could buy individual plans (with income based subsidies for some), and prohibited discrimination (by refusing to sell policies or charging exorbitant fees) to those with preexisting conditions.

The law also required coverage of health screening tests and essential services, outlawed lifetime coverage caps, and required coverage of contraception. While not perfect (insurance and health care costs continue to rise), the ACA was a major step forward.

On March 23, 2021, the container ship "Ever Given" ran aground, blocking the Suez Canal. One of the world's most important shipping routes was blocked for six days (and anyone who likes construction equipment was amused by the livestream for the same duration). Over 300 ships were unable to get through the canal on time and the damage to an already stretched supply chain cost billions of dollars.

Madeleine Albright (1937-2022) was the first woman to serve as US Secretary of State. Born in Prague, she emigrated with her family to the US in 1948, and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1975. Her government career began in 1978 when her former professor, Zbiginew Brzezinski, a member of the National Security Advisor, recruited her to be the Congressional liaison. After the 1980 election, she moved to think tank and academic positions, returning to government as the Ambassador to the United Nations in 1993. Bill Clinton's first Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, retired at the end of Clinton's first term and Albright became the first woman Secretary of State on January 23, 1997. After 2001, she returned to think tank work, and died on March 23, 2022, from cancer.

As Secretary of State, Albright's trademark was brooches which related to current issues or the countries with whose diplomats she was meeting.