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This week in history

 March 13 in History

This Day in History provided by The Free Dictionary

 Today's birthday

Today's Birthday provided by The Free Dictionary

For the week of Mar. 7, 2010

Mar. 08
Holi: Hindu. This two-day holiday celebrates the coming of spring throughout India. Large *bonfires are lit, and coconuts and other foods are thrown into the fire. Games and folk dancing take place as well as the throwing of colored powder and water on friends. *

Mar. 08
International Womenis Day. The movement to create an International Womenis Day began as part of the socialist movement for greater womenis rights, particularly the right to vote. first designated as the last Sunday in February by the Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen, Denmark, in l910, it was later changed to be uniformly celebrated on March 8 to honor womenis role in the Russian Revolution. With the resurgence of feminism in the late 1960s, International Womenis Day gained renewed interest as a day to celebrate womenis lives and work.

Mar. 09
Raul Julia (1940-1994): Puerto Rican. Actor. One of the most versatile and successful actors of his generation, Julia won acclaim in dramatic and musical roles in the New York theater and for a variety of performances in films and television. His stage roles ranged from Shakespeareis Othello and Prospero to Mack the Knife in the Three Penny Opera and Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. His best known film roles include that of Gomez, the comically macabre father in The Adams Family, and Valentin, the courageous political prisoner in the drama Kiss of the Spider Women.

Mar. 10
Lorenzo da Ponta (1749-1838): Italian American. Librettist, businessman, and teacher. Da Ponte immigrated to the United States at the age of 57, having won fame in Europe as the librettist for Mozartis opera Le noose di figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte. After arriving in the United States, da Ponte worked as a grocer, impresario, and teacher of Italian at Columbia University. As one of the prime movers in the establishment of the Italian Opera House in New York in 1832, da Ponte helped to promote the appreciation of Italian culture in the United States.

Mar. 10
Harriet Tubman (1820-1913): African American. Tubman became the iconductori on the Underground Railroad, a clandestine system for helping slaves escape to freedom in the North. An escaped slave, she earned the name iMosesi for her heroic works in leading some 400 slaves to freedom. She died on this date.

Mar. 12
Sun Yat-senis Death (1866-1925): Peoples Republic of China. Revolutionary leader. Sun Yat-sen was the leader of Chinais 1911 revolution, which overthrew the Chiing Dynasty that had ruled China since 1644, and founder of the Republic of China. He is remembered on the anniversary of his death in 1925 in the People's Republic of China.

Mar. 14
Albert Einstein (1879-1955): Jewish German American. Physicist. The leading theoretical physicist of the twentieth century, Einstein received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921. When the Nazi government confiscated his property and deprived him of his German citizenship in 1933. Einstein immigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen and took a post at the Institute for Advanced Study in *Princeton, New Jersey. *