Ridley's Believe It Or Not March 7 History National Cereal Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not—March 7, 2015 Trust your weekend is off to a great start though shorted by one hour as we start daylight savings time on Sunday morning at 2:00 a.m. and you are anxiously awaiting the start of the start of the Iditarod in 2 days (when it starts properly befitting my Alaskan heritage and homage to the Last Great Race on Earth I will post daily race standings). As always, I  hope you enjoy the holidays and observances, factoids of interest and a relevant quote from Judge Frank M. Johnson with a smile on your face, enjoying a bowl of your favorite cereal, blessed  with a positive attitude even though you know you will have to wade through tons of spam in your inbox, and secure in the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for any memorable event like birthdays, weddings, or anniversaries, you know that the Alaskanpoet can provide you with a unique customized poem at a great price tailored to the event and the recipient.  You need only contact me for details.
       1. Descendants’ Day—good day to look up the family tree and practice the art of genealogy; no wonder Ancestry.com is such a successful site.
       2. National Be Heard Day—celebrating the need for the 145 million small businesses in the United States to be heard in the media which does not focus on them and especially Washington, D.C. and the 50 state capitals which can only hear the voices of lobbyist or the sound of political contributions.
       3. 1975 Number One Song—celebrating the number one song on this day in 1975, as part of a brief 1 week run Have You Never Been Mellow by Olivia Newton John, that great petite Australian singer who thrilled us in the movie Grease and has sold over 100 million records and garnered four Grammies.
        4. National Cereal Day—although we Americans love our eggs and bacon, almost half of us start our day with a bowl of cereal which is loaded with fiber, iron, protein and B vitamins but sadly too often in some brands loaded with sugar.
        5. Swan Song Day—commemorating not the classic metaphor of the final gesture, performance or effort before death or retirement but rather the birthday on this day in 1952 of Lynn Swann, a Hall of Famer who played his entire professional career with the Pittsburgh Steelers.                                                     
On this day in
     a. 321 Roman Emperor Constantine I, the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity, proclaimed the joy of future generations, that dies Solis Invicti  (Sunday) would be a day of rest throughout the Roman Empire.    
     b. 1850 Senator Daniel Webster gave on the floor of the U.S. Senate what has become known as the Seventh of March Speech in support of the Compromise of 1850 which resulted in the postponement of the Civil War for 11 years. He referred to himself as “not a Massachusetts man, not a Northern man, but an American,” thoughts that our current crop of leaders in Washington, D.C. would find more appropriate than the Blue and Red partisanship.
     c. 1876 Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for an invention he called the “telephone.”

     d. 1965 on a day which became known as "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama a group of 600 peaceful civil rights marchers marching from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting rights were brutally attacked by police and dogs before they reached the Edmund Pettius Bridge and driven back into Selma; the event is graphically depicted in the movie Selma.      

     e. 1985 the song We Are the World written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson and performed by   over 45 of America’s musician was released and raised over 60 million dollars in humanitarian aid to Africa.
Reflections on the rights of Americans to peacefully petition their government to redress grievances: "The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups...and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways.” Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson in his ruling enjoining Alabama from preventing a march from Selma to Montgomery. As a result of his ruling on March 21, 1965 3,200 marchers marched out of Selma; when they reached Montgomery on March 25 the number had increased to 25,000 and in a stellar moment attesting to the power of nonviolent protest, five months later President Johnson signed Voting Rights Act of 1965.                            
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