The Christian season of Lent begins today, 40 days before Easter (not counting Sundays). Many Christians attend church services on Ash Wednesday to receive ashes on their foreheads in the sign of the cross. (Ashes are a symbol of penance in the Old Testament and in pagan antiquity.) In the Roman Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting. In the sixth century, Christians who had committed grave faults were obliged to do public penance. On Ash Wednesday, they donned a hair shirt (which they wore for 40 days), and the local bishop blessed them and sprinkled them with ashes. Then, while others recited the Seven Penitential Psalms, the penitents were turned out of the holy place. They could not enter the church again until Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter), when they received absolution.
Daily Calendar for Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Died
- Crispus Attucks (first casualty of Boston Massacre) –
- Joseph Stalin (Russian leader) –
- Patsy Cline (singer) –
- John Belushi (actor) –
Born
- William Steinway (piano manufacturer) –
- Howard Pyle (illustrator) –
- Benjamin Franklin Norris (novelist) –
- Emmett J. Culligan (founder of the world’s largest water treatment organization) –
- Misao Okawa (Japanese woman who would later be recognized as the world’s oldest person of her time. She died on April 1, 2015, and lived to be 117 years old.) –
- Rex Harrison (actor) –
- Jack Cassidy (actor) –
- Dean Stockwell (actor) –
- Paul Sand (actor) –
- Robert Patrick "Rocky" Bleier (football player ) –
- Penn Jillette (magician) –
- Andy Gibb (musician) –
- Elise Burgin (tennis player) –
- Jake Lloyd (actor) –
Events
- Boston Massacre. Five American rioters killed in skirmish with British troops –
- Zachary Taylor was inaugurated as the 12th U.S. President; Millard Fillmore became Vice President –
- Impeachment proceedings of President Andrew Johnson began –
- First radio broadcast of a musical composition took place when Lee De Forest transmitted a performance of Rossini’s William Tell Overture from Telharmonic Hall in NY to the Brooklyn Navy Yard –
- Montana and Nevada enacted the first old age pensions in the U.S. –
- Fire destroyed more than 320 cars at an auto show in Los Angeles, California –
- The Gandhi-Irwin Pact between Mahatma Gandhi and Viceroy Edward Wood, Lord Irwin, brought a halt to the civil disobedience campaign with Gandhi accepting the federal constitution plan adopted by the conference in return for British efforts to lessen repression –
- In a speech at Missouri’s Westminster College, Winston Churchill introduced the phrase iron curtain to describe the repression of Soviet-dominated Europe –
- Hula hoop was patented –
- Ask President Carter, the first presidential phone-in radio show was broadcast on CBS –
- Voyager I relayed data from Jupiter, including photographs of its four largest moons –
- Standard Oil Co. of California and Gulf Corp. agreed to merge in a $13.3 billion transaction –
- Martha Stewart was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and two counts of making false statements in her trial determining if she and her ex-broker lied to the government about her sale of ImClone Systems stock in December 2001 –
Weather
- 6.96 inches of rain fell at Butlerville, Indiana –
- Calculations for the first computerized weather forecast began at a U.S. Army research laboratory. It took the computer about 24 hours to generate the forecast for the next 24 hours. Researchers were hopeful, however—two of the first four predictions were somewhat accurate. –
- On the morning and afternoon, thunderstorms dropped up to three inches of small hail around Colorado Springs. Later that evening, the southeastern Denver area experienced strong thunderstorms, with up to three inches of hail, 2.4 inches of rain, and wind gusts to 50 miles per hour. –
