March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Technological Milestone
March 4, 1877: Emile Berliner invented the microphone. (see Dec 5)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History
Department of Labor
March 4, 1913: the US Department of Labor established as a cabinet-level agency. Though established under President Taft, he signed the law after his defeat in the 1912 election. The Department will mostly emphasize the pro-labor stance of the incoming president, Woodrow Wilson, who appointed William B Wilson, the international secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America from 1900 to 1908, as the first Secretary of Labor. (US DoL article) (see Mar 6)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Feminism
Jeannette Rankin
March 4, 1917: Jeannette Rankin of Montana, first woman elected to Congress, formally joined the House of Representatives. Following her term in office, Rankin became the founding vice president of the American Civil Liberties Union and was re-elected to Congress in 1940 on an anti-war platform. (US HoR bio)
Voting Rights
March 4, 1917: “Grand Picket”–more than 1,000 women, in Washington, D.C., for Congressional Union-Woman’s Party Convention, march around White House for several hours in icy, driving rain waiting to present series of convention resolutions to Woodrow Wilson on eve of second inauguration. All gates to grounds locked; marchers fume when President Wilson and wife leave White House and drive through picket line without acknowledging them. (see March 17)
Suffragist protests legal
March 4, 1918: U.S. federal appeals court declared unconstitutional the arrests and detainment of all White House suffrage pickets. (see May 6)
Suffragists attacked
March 4, 1919: suffrage demonstrators brutally attacked by police, soldiers, and onlookers outside New York Metropolitan Opera House where President Wilson was speaking. (see May 21)
Frances Perkins
March 4, 1933: Frances Perkins became President Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, the first woman in U.S. history to hold a cabinet post. She favored a comprehensive, pro-labor agenda including minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, and abolition of child labor. Her influence on labor policy in the New Deal would be huge. She served from 1933 to 1945. (Perkins, see April 10, 1980; LH, see Mar 31; F, see May 24, 1934)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Black History
William Anderson lynched
March 4, 1921: a white mob in Baker County, Georgia searching the area to find and lynch a Black man named Zema Anthony came upon a Black man named William Anderson walking down the road and lynched him instead.
Two days before, allegations had spread that Mr. Anthony had killed a white sheriff and shot another white man in the town of Newton, Georgia. Without investigation or trial, a mob of white men intent on lynching him gathered and began searching the county with no success. After more than a day of the fruitless manhunt, the heavily armed white mob confronted Anderson as he was simply walking down the road. Terrified, Anderson ran from the mob and the white men quickly shot him to death.
Shortly after Anderson was killed, the body of his aunt was reportedly found floating in a stream. At least one newspaper reported that the same lynch mob had likely killed the Black woman for allegedly harboring Mr. Anthony and helping him to avoid capture. The press coverage did not report her name. [EJI article] (next BH & next Lynching, see Apr 5, or for for expanded chronology, see American Lynching 2)
Muhammad Ali
March 4, 1964: Cassius Clay told African and Asian delegates to the United Nations that he “couldn’t wait” to visit to their countries. “I’m champion of the whole world,” he said during a two-hour tour of the U.N., “and I want to meet the people I am champion of.”
Among those accompanying the champion were his brother, Rudolph; Archie Robinson, his personal secretary, and Malcolm X.
Asked to comment on a report that he had flunked his predraft Army psychological tests, Clay replied with a chuckle, “Do they think I’m crazy?” He said he had not heard from the Army and did not know what his draft situation was. [NYT article] (see Mar 6)
Rodney King
March 4, 1991: George Holliday delivered the video tape he recorded of the King beating to local television station, KTLA. (see, Mar 7)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Cold War
March 4, 1954: speaking before the 10th Inter-American Conference, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles warned that “international communism” is making inroads in the Western Hemisphere and asks the nations of Latin America to condemn this danger. Dulles’s speech was part of a series of actions designed to put pressure on the leftist government of Guatemala, a nation in which U.S. policymakers feared communism had established a beachhead. (see Mar 9)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
March 4, 1965: the U.S. Embassy submitted a formal request asking the South Vietnamese government to “invite” the United States to send the Marines. Premier Quat, a mere figurehead, had to obtain approval from the real power, Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, chief of the Armed Forces Council. Thieu approved, but asked that the Marines be “brought ashore in the most inconspicuous way feasible.” (see Mar 6)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
March 4 Music et al
The Beatles more popular than…
March 4, 1966: a John Lennon interview by reporter and Beatle friend Maureen Cleave appeared in the London Evening Standard newspaper. In the 1169-word article Lennon discussed many things. After a paragraph about George Harrison’s interest in Indian music and before a paragraph about shopping, there was this:
Experience has sown few seeds of doubt in him: not that his mind is closed, but it’s closed round whatever he believes at the time. ‘Christianity will go,’ he said. ‘It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.’ He is reading extensively about religion.
No one took notice of it in Britain. (Beatles, see Apr 1; interview, see July 29)
Rolling Stones Ruby Tuesday #1
March 4 – 10, 1967: “Ruby Tuesday” by the Rolling Stones #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
No Beatle reunion
March 4, 1996: Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, said no to an offer to do a tour as a reunion of The Beatles. The offer came from a group of American and German businessmen who wanted them to do a 22 city tour of the US, Japan and Europe. The offer was for $225 million dollars.
Paul McCartney said, “The size of the offer is scandalous, it’s ridiculous. From the money point of view, most people would do it. But to me, the three of us isn’t as exciting as the four of us. The Beatles were always the four of us. Of course people will say that we could get someone else to fill John’s place, but it just wouldn’t be the same.” (see Oct 22)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Symbionese Liberation Army
March 4, 1974: California governor Ronald Reagan, having earlier predicted that no one would take the food from P.I.N., accused the thousands of poor people who line up for free groceries of “aiding and abetting lawlessness.” (see SLA for expanded story)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH
License plates
March 4, 1975: the Maynards sued in the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief against enforcement of N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. 262:27-c, 263:1, insofar as these required displaying the state motto on their vehicle license plates, and made it a criminal offense to obscure the motto. (FS, see June 21; see Free Speech v License Plates for expanded story)
Pledge of Allegiance
March 4, 2003: the US Senate voted 94-0 that it “strongly” disapproved of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision not to reconsider its ruling that the addition of the phase “under God” to the The Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. (text of resolution) (see PoA for expanded chronology)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
AIDS
CDC report
March 4, 1983: in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report the CDC noted that most cases of AIDS had been reported among homosexual men with multiple sexual partners, injection drug users, Haitians, and hemophiliacs. (see July 14)
Cure?
March 4, 2019: for just the second time since the global epidemic had begun, a patient appeared to have been cured of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
The news came nearly 12 years to the day after the first patient known to be cured, a feat that researchers had long tried, and failed, to duplicate. The surprise success confirmed that a cure for H.I.V. infection was possible, if difficult, researchers said.
Publicly, the scientists described the case as a long-term remission. In interviews, most experts called it a cure, with the caveat that it is hard to know how to define the word when there are only two known instances.
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Iran–Contra Affair
March 4, 1987: President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation on the Iran-Contra affair, acknowledging his overtures to Iran had “deteriorated” into an arms-for-hostages deal. (see June 8)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
World Trade Center
Mohammad Salameh
March 4, 1993: authorities announced the capture of suspected World Trade Center bombing conspirator Mohammad Salameh. (2015 NY Daily News “flashback” article) (see March 4, 1994)
Convictions
March 4, 1994: Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal A. Ayyad, and Ahmad Ajaj convicted of charges related to the first World Trade Center bombing. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and interstate transportation of explosives. (2013 CBS News article) (see May 24)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services
March 4, 1998: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services. The Supreme Court ruled that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex. (Feminism, see July 22, 1999; LGBTQ, see Apr 1)
Alabama
March 4, 2016: the Alabama Supreme Court refused to defy the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, cutting off a conservative bid to prevent gay weddings in the state.
The court issued a one-sentence order dismissing a challenge by a probate judge and a conservative policy group that wanted the state to bar gay marriage despite the landmark federal decision.
Chief Justice Roy Moore, a Christian conservative who had repeatedly spoken out against same-sex unions, wrote that previous state orders barring gay marriage in Alabama remained. Most probate judges already were ignoring that directive, however, and hundreds of same-sex couples already had wed in Alabama. (LGBTQ, see Mar 7; Roy Moore, see May 6)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Women’s Health & TERRORISM
March 4, 2014: Zachary Klundt broke into All Families Healthcare in Kalispell, Montana and destroyed what he could get his hands on. He broke furniture, scattered office supplies and tore up diplomas, and art. He stabbed office workers’ personal items, including a photo of a child. (2017 Flathead Beacon article on restitution) (see Mar 11)
Louisiana
March 4, 2016: the US Supreme Court temporarily blocked a Louisiana law that its opponents said would leave the state with only one abortion clinic. The court gave no reasons, though it did say that its order was “consistent with” one last June that blocked part of a Texas abortion law.
The move came two days after the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Texas case, and abortion rights groups said they hoped that the development Friday was a sign that they had secured five votes to strike down the Texas law. (see Mar 30)
Women’s Health: France
March 4, 2024: France became the world’s first country to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution, the culmination of an effort that began in direct response to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Lawmakers from both houses of the French Parliament voted 780 to 72 in favor of the measure, easily clearing the three-fifths majority needed to amend the French constitution.
The vote, held during a special gathering of lawmakers at the Palace of Versailles was the final step in the legislative process. The French Senate and National Assembly had each overwhelmingly approved the amendment earlier this year. [CNN article] (next Women’s Health, see Mar 6)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
LSD
March 4, 2014: the results of the first study of the therapeutic use of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in humans in over 40 years were published online in the peer-reviewed Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.
Sponsored by the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), the double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study in 12 subjects found statistically significant reductions in anxiety associated with advanced stage illness following two LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions. The results also indicate that LSD-assisted psychotherapy can be safely administered in these subjects, and justify further research.
Principal Investigator Peter Gasser, M.D., a private practice psychiatrist in Solothurn, Switzerland reported that “The study was a success in the sense that we did not have any noteworthy adverse effects…. All participants reported a personal benefit from the treatment, and the effects were stable over time.” (MAPS site) (see November 29, 2016)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Environmental Issues
March 4, 2015: the Senate failed to override President Obama’s veto of a bill that would have approved construction of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline. A bipartisan majority of senators was unable to reach the two-thirds majority required to undo a presidential veto. The vote was 62 to 37. (see Mar 20)
March 4 Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History
March 4, 2021: in an attempt to prevent the detention of migrant families for weeks or months at a time, the Biden administration planned to release parents and children within 72 hours of their arrival in the United States, a new policy that already was being carried out along the Texas border.
The plan, confirmed by three Homeland Security officials, marked a significant departure from the handling of migrant families under the Trump and Obama administrations, when children often showed symptoms of depression and trauma after spending long periods in custody with their parents.
The decision to avoid lengthy detention of families comes amid a significant spike in the number arriving at the southwestern border in recent months that has posed an early test of President Biden’s pledge to create a more humanitarian approach to immigration. [NYT article] (next IH, see Apr 29)