Water is life, and clean water means health.

The lack of potable water is the second leading cause of death in many Third World countries (and it could be a lot sooner than you think in California.) World Water Day was first formally proposed in Agenda 21 of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.



So remember, after your morning coffee (or tea,) please remember to recycle your 'precious bodily fluids'.


Two leading lights of twentieth century musical theatre were born on March 22: Stephen Sondheim (1930), best known for his work on Gypsy, West Side Story, Company and Sweeney Todd and Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948), best known for Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats and Phantom of the Opera.













By some mysterious natural process of compensation, March 22 is also the birthday of Marcel Marceau (1923),



best known for Actor Trapped in a Role.


March 22, 1931 -
...A tree you pass by every day is just a tree. If you are to closely examine what a tree has and the life a tree has, even the smallest thing can withstand a curiosity, and you can examine whole worlds.....



William Shatner, arguably the world's (or at least Canada's) greatest actor was born today on this date.


March 22, 1963 -
The Beatles' first album, Please Please Me, was released in the UK on this date.  The album went to the top of the UK charts in two months and remained there for 30 weeks.



Please Please Me has been ranked in the top 50 of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" by Rolling Stone. In the US, most of the songs on Please Please Me were first issued on Vee-Jay Records' Introducing... The Beatles in 1964 and subsequently on Capitol Records' The Early Beatles in 1965.


March 22, 1978 –
The seminal mockumentary about The Pre-Fab Four, The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, directed by Eric Idle and Gary Weis and starring some people from Monty Python and some other people from SNL, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Neil Innes, Ricky Fataar and John Halsey regrouped in 1996 to record Archaeology, their satirical response to the Beatles' Anthology. It consisted of tunes not used in the movie, rearranged Innes solo songs and one song penned as a spoof of Free as a Bird. Eric Idle didn't take part; Dirk McQuickly, the album's press materials explained, had quit the music business to become a comedian.


March 22, 1984 -   
Queen filmed the video for I Want To Break Free at Limehouse Studio in London, England. Directed by David Mallet, it was a parody of the northern British soap opera Coronation Street with the band members dressed in drag.



Guitarist Brian May later claimed that the video ruined the band in America, and was initially banned by MTV in the US.


A word to the wise as 5 PM rolls around somewhere in the world


Today in History:
March 22, 1622 -
A band led by the Brothers of Powhatan slaughtered 347 settlers near Jamestown, a quarter of the population, in the first Native American massacre of European settlers on this date.

Just think if those indigenous people had just followed the thought all the way through ....


March 22, 1687 -
Classical music and vanity do not mix, if fact, they can really kill you.

In early January of 1687, Jean-Baptiste de Lully, court music and gossip to King Louis XIV of France and notorious buggerer (but that's another story ...) was conducting a musical piece, beating time on the floor with a long staff. This was the common practice at the time before hand-held batons became the norm. He slammed his big toe.



The wound abscessed and eventually turned gangrenous. He refused to have his toe amputated (as he first started as a court dancer) because he could not bear the thought of disfigurement. The wound turned gangrenous and the infection spread, killing him three months later, on this date.


March 22, 1895 -
Auguste and Louis Lumiere first demonstrated motion pictures in Paris using celluloid film. Unless it was March 19, 1895, or December 28, 1894, or cellulite instead of celluloid. And it may have been in Milan, or Warsaw, and it's possible it wasn't Louis and Auguste Lumiere, but Max and Emil Skladanowsky.





It depends who you ask. It wasn't much of a movie anyway—just footage of workers leaving the Lumiere Factory at the end of their shift—so the ambiguity surrounding its debut shouldn't be so surprising.



In honor of the Lumiere Bros 100 year anniversary, in 1995, 40 film directors created short films using the same type of camera the Lumiere brothers used. If you have the time, please seek out the film Lumiere and Company.


March 22, 1958 -
Michael Todd, movie producer, (and one of the myriad of husband's of Elizabeth Taylor) and three other people were killed in the crash of Todd's private plane Lucky Liz, near Grants, New Mexico, on this date. In his autobiography, Eddie Fisher, who considered himself to be Todd's best friend (and another one of the myriad of husbands of Elizabeth Taylor,) stated that no fragments of Todd had been found, and that his coffin contained only his ring.



The Los Angeles Times reported in 1977 that Fisher's story was false - remains of Todd were indeed found and buried. His remains were desecrated by robbers, who broke into his coffin looking for the ring. The bag containing Todd's remains was found under a tree near his plot.

How big was that bag?


March 22, 1960 –
The first laser was patented (US Patent #2,929,922) by Arthur Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes under the title Masers and Maser Communications System.

There is no mention of whether or not drugs were involved in the creation of the laser or what album they were listening to at the time.


March 22, 1972 -
National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended ending criminal penalties for possession of marijuana on this date.



Follow along (this may be on a different test) - so far, Alaska, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and Vermont impose no criminal or civil penalty for the private possession of small amounts of marijuana. Four additional states - Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Ohio - treat marijuana possession offenses as a fine-only misdemeanor offense. These states - Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island - have made private, non-medical possession of marijuana treated as a civil, non-criminal offense.


March 22, 1978 -
One of the Flying Wallendas, 73 year old Karl Wallenda, plunges to his death on a cable strung between two hotels in San Juan, PR on this date.



Oops!



And so it goes.


Before you go - Don't forget to check out today's quiz on the Russian Monarchy


One last thing - Today is the earliest day on which Easter Sunday may occur,



not that it occurs on this date this year; Easter is April 21st this year.


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