Timeline Maryland
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Facts: http://www.50states.com/maryland.htm
State Archives: http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/
35 Million A meteorite impacted at what is now Chesapeake Bay and formed the largest impact crater in the US.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, p.A10)
1632 Jun 20, Britain granted 2nd Lord Baltimore rights to Chesapeake Bay area.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1634 Mar 25, English colonists sent by Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, arrived in present-day Maryland. Maryland was founded as a Catholic colony.
(HN, 3/24/98)(AP, 3/25/08)(AH, 4/07, p.30)
1645 Feb 14, Robert Ingle, commissioned by the English Parliament and captain of the tobacco ship Reformation, sailed to St. Mary’s (Maryland) and seized a Dutch trading ship. This marked the beginning of what came to known as “The Plundering Time."
(Arch, 1/05, p.48)
1647 Jun 24, Margaret Brent (d.1671), a niece of Lord Baltimore, was ejected from the Maryland Assembly after demanding a place and vote in the body. Brent, acted as attorney for Lord Baltimore, and saved the colony from mutinous soldiers and from a Protestant revolt against the Catholic government.
(AP, 6/24/97)(www.historyswomen.com/MargaretBrent.htm)
1648 Jan 21, In Maryland, the first woman lawyer in the colonies, Margaret Brent, was denied a vote in the Maryland Assembly. [see Jun 24, 1647]
(HN, 1/21/99)
1649 Apr 21, The Maryland Toleration Act, which provided for freedom of worship for all Christians, was passed by the Maryland assembly.
(AP, 4/21/97)(HN, 4/21/98)
1655 Mar 25, Puritans jailed Governor Stone after a military victory over Catholic forces in the colony of Maryland.
(HN, 3/25/99)
1656 Jan 24, Jacob Lumbrozo, 1st Jewish doctor in US, arrived in Maryland.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1657 Sep 24, The 1st autopsy and coroner's jury verdict was recorded in the state of Maryland.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1656 Sep 22, The General Provincial Court in session at Patuxent, Maryland, impaneled the first all-woman jury in the Colonies to hear evidence against Judith Catchpole, who was accused of murdering her child. The jury acquitted her after hearing her defense of never having been pregnant.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/22/98)(HN, 9/22/98)
1661 Cecil Calvert sent his son Charles Calvert (1637-1715), the 3rd Lord Baltimore, to Maryland. Charles replaced Philip Calvert as governor and remained the colonial governor until his father’s death in 1675.
(http://mdroots.thinkport.org/library/charlescalvert.asp)
1664 Sep 20, Maryland passed the 1st anti-amalgamation law to stop intermarriage of English women and black men.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1680 Maryland colonists ran out of supplies and survived starvation by eating oysters.
(SFC, 9/18/99, p.B3)
1689 Jul, Maryland colonist known as the Protestant Associators marched on St. Mary’s City and seized the State House while Lord Baltimore was in England. They went on to take over his plantation at Mattapany.
(Arch, 1/05, p.49)
1691 King William III sent a royal governor to Maryland.
(Arch, 1/05, p.50)
1704 Sep 28, Maryland allowed divorce if a wife displeased the clergyman or preacher.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1721 Apr 13, John Hanson, first U.S. President under the Articles of Confederation, was born in Maryland.
(HN, 4/13/98)(MC, 4/13/02)
1729 Jul 29, The city of Baltimore was founded.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1730 In Maryland William Fell, a Quaker ship’s carpenter, purchased a swampy promontory that became known as Baltimore’s Fell’s Point.
(WSJ, 12/1/07, p.W11)
1731 Nov 9, Benjamin Banneker was born in Maryland and grew up a free black man. From his farm near Baltimore, Banneker spent much of his time studying the stars. Although he lacked much of a formal education, he taught himself with borrowed books and became a noted mathematician, astronomer and inventor. Carving its gears with a pocket knife, he built a wooden clock in 1770 that was believed to have been the first built in America. Banneker began publishing scientific almanacs in 1791 after accurately predicting a solar eclipse. President George Washington appointed him to the District of Columbia Commission in 1789 to help survey the new capital city of Washington, D.C. Banneker, who died in 1806, also corresponded with Thomas Jefferson about his views against slavery.
(HNPD, 11/9/98)
1737 Sep 19, Charles Carroll (d.1832), American patriot and legislator, was born. He was the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration and his signature read Charles Carroll of Carrollton. He lived in Maryland where, as a Roman Catholic he was forbidden from voting and holding public office. However, the wealthy Carrolls moved in the highest social circle and entertained George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette at their estate.
(HNQ, 1/14/99)(MC, 9/19/01)
1754 Jun 19, The Albany Congress opened. New York colonial Gov. George Clinton called for the meeting to discuss better relations with Indian tribes and common defensive measures against the French. The attendees included Indians and representatives from Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Benjamin Franklin attended and presented his Plan of Union, which was adopted by the conference. The meeting ended on July 11.
(AH, 2/06, p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Congress)
1763 Nov 15, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon began surveying Mason-Dixon Line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. They surveyed 233 miles by 1767 when Indians of the Six nations told them they could not proceed any further west.
(MC, 11/15/01)(ON, 2/04, p.10)
1765 Nov 23, Frederick County, Md., became the first colonial entity to repudiate the British Stamp Act.
(AP, 11/23/07)
1767 Oct 9, The survey party of Mason and Dixon came to a halt after 233 miles when Indians of the Six Nations said they had reached the end of their commission. [see Oct 18]
(ON, 2/04, p.10)
1767 Oct 18, The boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Mason-Dixon line, was agreed upon. It was first surveyed in 1763 to 1767 by two British astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, in order to settle a dispute between the Calvert and Penn families, the owners at that time of the two states in question. The survey, begun in 1763 and completed four years later, done by English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to resolve a land-grant boundary dispute between the families of Lord Baltimore and William Penn, resulted in the Mason-Dixon Line. The line, extended in 1784, came to be known as the dividing line between free-soil states and slave states.
http://freespace.virgin.net/john.cletheroe/usa_can/usa/mas_dix.htm
(AP, 10/18/97)(HNQ, 9/8/99)
1773 Oct 14, Britain's East India Company tea ships' cargo was burned at Annapolis, Md.
(HN, 10/14/98)
1775 Apr 13, Lord North extended the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act forbade trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland.
(HN, 4/13/99)
1775 Jul 25, Maryland issued currency depicting George III trampling the Magna Carta.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1781 Mar 1, The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, following ratification by Maryland.
(AP, 3/1/08)
1782 Nov 5, The Continental Congress elected John Hanson of Maryland its chairman, giving him the title of "President of the United States in Congress Assembled."
(AP, 11/5/99)
1783 Nov 23, Annapolis, Md., became the US capital until June 1784. [see Nov 26, 1783]
(MC, 11/23/01)
1783 Nov 26, The city of Annapolis, Maryland, was the first peacetime U.S. capital. The U.S. Congress met at Annapolis November 26, 1783-June 3, 1784, following the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783, formally ending hostilities between Great Britain and her former colony. New York was the capital from 1785 until 1790, followed by Philadelphia until 1800 and then Washington, D.C.
(HNQ, 6/15/00)
1784 Jun 9, John Carroll was appointed supervisor of US Catholic Missions.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1784 Jun 24, In a tethered flight from Baltimore, Maryland, Edward Warren (13) became the 1st to fly in a balloon on US soil.
(NPub, 2002, p.3)
1784 Nov 1, Maryland granted citizenship to Lafayette and his descendents.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1788 Apr 28, Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the US constitution, but on condition that a Bill of Rights be added.
(AP, 4/28/07)(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A21)
1788 Dec 23, Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of the national government; about two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1790 Aug 2, The enumeration for the first US census began. It showed that 3,929,326 people were living in the US of which 697,681 were slaves, and that the largest cities were New York City with 33,000 inhabitants; Philadelphia, with 28,000; Boston, with 18,000; Charleston, South Carolina, with 16,000; and Baltimore, with 13,000. Census records for Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, and Virginia were lost sometime between 1790 and 1830.
(AP, 8/2/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_Census)
1794 George Washington established the first national armory at Springfield, Mass. He also authorized the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Md. (WVa), where the Shenandoah flows into the Potomac.
(WSJ, 9/12/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T7)
1796 Dec 18, The Baltimore Monitor appeared as the 1st US Sunday newspaper.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1806 In Baltimore, Maryland, ground was broken for a cathedral designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Bungles and war delayed dedication until 1821. In 1937 Pope Pius XI elevated the cathedral to a basilica.
(WSJ, 11/2/06, p.D8)
1809 Nov 22, Peregrine Williamson of Baltimore patented a steel pen.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1812 Jun 22, A pro-war mob destroyed Hanson‘s newspaper office, four days after America’s declaration of war against Great Britain. Revered American Revolutionary cavalry hero Henry “Light-Horse Harry" Lee was nearly beaten to death by a mob in Baltimore. Lee came to the aide of an anti-war newspaper publisher in Baltimore, Alexander Contee Hanson, defending his right to freedom of speech. When Hanson returned to Baltimore five weeks later to resume publication, his office was again besieged by vigilantes. After a tense standoff through the night of July 27, Hanson and his supporters, including Lee, were taken to a local jail. Later the mob stormed the jail, severely beating those being held. Lee, father of Robert E. Lee, never fully recovered from injuries sustained in the beating and died in 1818.
(HNQ, 9/17/99)
1813 Aug 9, After reports that British naval vessels were nearing St. Michaels, Md., to attack the shipbuilding town that night, the county militia placed lanterns on the tops of the tallest trees and on the masts of vessels in the harbor; and had all other lights extinguished. When the British attacked, they directed their fire too high and overshot the town.
(HNQ, 11/25/02)
1813 Aug 10, A number of British barges manned by marines shelled the town of St. Michaels, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay. Residents had hoisted lanterns to treetops and masts and caused the British canons to overshoot their mark. One house was hit by a cannonball on the roof and the ball rolled across the attic and down the staircase frightening Mrs. Merchant as she carried her infant daughter downstairs.
(SMBA, 1996)
1814 Aug 14, British marines landed near the mouth of the Patuxent River in Maryland and began marching overland to attack Washington, DC.
(ON, 6/08, p.1)
1814 Aug 24, 5,000 British troops under the command of General Robert Ross marched into Washington, D.C., after defeating an American force at Bladensburg, Maryland. It was in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. Meeting no resistance from the disorganized American forces, the British burned the White House, the Capitol and almost every public building in the city before a downpour extinguished the fires. President James Madison and his wife fled from the advancing enemy, but not before Dolly Madison saved the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. This wood engraving of Washington in flames was printed in London weeks after the event to celebrate the British victory.
(AP, 8/24/97)(HNPD, 8/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bladensburg)
1814 Sep 12, A British fleet under Sir Alexander Cochrane began the bombardment of Fort McHenry, the last American defense before Baltimore. Lawyer Francis Scott Key had approached the British attackers seeking the release of a friend who was being held for unfriendly acts toward the British. Key himself was detained overnight on September 13 and witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a guarded American boat.
(www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/hh/5/hh5h.htm)
1814 Sep 12, The Battle of North Point was fought near Baltimore during War of 1812. British General Ross was killed by a sniper’s bullet in a skirmish just prior to the main battle. The battle proved to be strategic American victory, but since they left the field in the hands of the British, tactically it was a defeat for the Americans.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_North_Point)
1814 Sep 13, British ships bombarded Ft. McHenry under the command of General Armistead. Francis Scott Key detained on a British ship watched the bombing. The British used red glaring Congreve rockets and air bursting bombs during the war.
(NG, Sept. 1939, p.392)(SFC, 6/22/96, p.E4)
1814 Sep 14, In the dawn light Francis Scott Key saw that the American flag still waved over Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. He looked on from the deck of a boat on the Patasco River nine miles away and wrote “The Star Spangled Banner." The lyrics were alter adopted to the British tune "To Anacreon in Heaven," which had also served as Irish drinking song and a number of other songs. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was officially recognized as the national anthem in 1931. The 40 feet long flag had been made by Baltimore widow Mary Young Pickersgill and her 13-year-old daughter just a month before the attack. In 1907 the flag was donated to the Smithsonian.
(https://www.youtube.com/embed/YaxGNQE5ZLA)(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A2)(AP, 9/14/97) (WSJ, 7/3/02, p.B1)
1816 Jul 11(Jun 11), Gas Light Co. of Baltimore was founded.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1817 Feb 14, Frederick Douglass (d.1895), "The Great Emancipator," was born in Maryland as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. He was the son of a slave and a white father who bought his own freedom and published “The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass" (1845) a memoir of his life as a slave. "The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous."
(AHD, 1971, p.394)(HN, 2/14/99)(AP, 2/20/99)(ON, 12/09, p.12)
1817 Feb 17, A street in Baltimore became the first to be lighted with gas from America's first gas company.
(AP, 2/17/98)
1819 Mar 6, The US Supreme Court ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that the state could not impose a tax on the notes of banks not chartered in the state. Luther Martin represented Maryland in the landmark case.
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCulloch_v._Maryland)
1821 Jan 4, The first native-born American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, died in Emmitsburg, Md.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1826 Jul 8, Luther Martin (b.1748), Maryland lawyer and former delegate to the Constitutional Convention, died in NYC. In 2008 Bill Kaufman authored “Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin."
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Martin)
1827 Feb 28, The first U.S. railroad chartered to carry passengers and freight, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co., was incorporated.
(AP, 2/28/98)
1827 Roger Brooke Taney became attorney general of Maryland.
(WSJ, 11/21/06, p.D8)
1828 Jul 4, Ground-breaking ceremonies were held in Baltimore for construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Charles Carroll, last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, turned the spade in Baltimore. At the groundbreaking, Carroll said, “I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to that of signing the Declaration of Independence, if even it be second to that." On the same day, in nearby Georgetown, President John Quincy Adams, with great fanfare, lifted the first shovel of dirt to begin construction of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal that would link Washington, Baltimore and Pittsburgh by water. The railroad went on to become one of the nation's longest rail lines, reaching St. Louis, Missouri, in 1857. The 185-mile canal, though it had many years of use, was quickly eclipsed as a transportation medium by the superior technology of the railroad.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)(HNQ, 10/4/99)
1829 Dec 21, The 1st stone arch railroad bridge in US was dedicated in Baltimore.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1829 Dec 22, The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad opened the first passenger railway line.
(HN, 12/22/98)
1830 Jan 7, 1st US Railroad Station opened in Baltimore.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1830 May 20, The 1st railroad timetable was published in the newspaper Baltimore American.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1830 May 24, The first passenger railroad in the United States began service between Baltimore and Elliott's Mills, Md.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1830 Aug 25, The “Tom Thumb" steam locomotive, designed by Peter Cooper, ran its famous race with a horse-drawn car. The horse won because the engine, which had been ahead, broke down. [see Sep 18]
(HN, 8/25/98)(ON, 1/01, p.12)
1830 Aug 28, “Tom Thumb," the 1st locomotive in US, ran from Baltimore to Ellicotts Mill.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1830 Sep 18, Tom Thumb" the first locomotive built in the United States, lost a nine-mile race in Maryland to a horse. [see Aug 25]
(HN, 9/18/98)
1832 A cholera epidemic hit Baltimore and at least 853 people were killed. Fundamentalist Christians blamed the deaths on the "judgement of God."
(SFEC, 3/5/00, Z1 p.4)
1834 Jan 29, President Jackson ordered the 1st use of US troops to suppress a labor dispute. Jackson ordered the War Department to put down a "riotous assembly" near Willamsport, Maryland, among Irish laborers constructing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
(HNQ, 1/23/99)(MC, 1/29/02)
1837 The B&O Railroad and the C&O Canal both reached Harper's Ferry. At this point the B&O built a bridge across the Potomac and began an inland route up the mountains to Martinsburg.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T7)
1838 May 10, John Wilkes Booth (d.1865), assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was born near Bel Air, Maryland.
(HN, 5/10/98)
1838 Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey escaped from slavery in Maryland and traveled to new England where he changed his name to Frederick Douglass.
(AHD, 1971, p.394)(ON, 7/02, p.6)
1839 Jacob D. Green (b.1813), a slave in Queen Anne’s County, Md., escaped from the plantation of Judge Charles Earle after his wife and 2 children were sold in his absence. In 1842 he was caught and returned to Judge Earle, who sold him to a new master in Tennessee. Green escaped and was captured a few more times before he finally reached Canada. In 1851 he emigrated to England and in 1964 published a 43-page account of his adventures.
(ON, 7/05, p.11)
1839 William Knabe opened his own piano company in Baltimore. It later became part of Samick Musical Instruments.
(SFC, 10/29/08, p.G2)
1840 A US no-bail-out policy forced some state into default. Several US states had loaded up on unsustainable debt following an extended period of easy credit. These states consequently found payments on their existing bonds increasingly unaffordable. Between 1841 and 1843 Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and one territory – a proto-state called Florida – defaulted.
(Econ, 2/11/12, p.57)(http://tinyurl.com/6pgf4wq)
1843 Jan 11, Francis Scott Key (63), poet of "The Star-Spangled Banner," died in Baltimore.
(HN, 1/11/99)(MC, 1/11/02)
1844 May 1, Samuel Morse (1791-1872) sent the 1st telegraphic message as a demonstration between Washington, DC, and Baltimore [see Jan 6, 1838]. The line officially opened on May 24, 1844.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse)
1844 May 24, Samuel F.B. Morse, before a crowd of dignitaries in the chambers of the Supreme Court, tapped out the message, "What hath God wrought?" to his partner in Baltimore, Alfred Vail. Congress had appropriated $30,000 for the experimental line built by Ezra Cornell between Washington and Baltimore. American portrait artist Samuel F.B. Morse developed the technology for electrical telegraphy in the 1830s, the first instantaneous form of communication. Using a key to hold open an electrical circuit for longer or shorter periods, an operator would tap out a message in a code composed of dots and dashes. Public demonstrations of the equipment were made in February 1838, but it was necessary for Morse to secure financial backing to build the first telegraph line to carry the signal over distance. In 1843, Congress appropriated the funds for a 37-mile line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. After underground telegraph wires proved unsuccessful, Morse switched to pole wires.
(AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/98)(HNPD, 2/6/99)(HNQ, 5/27/00)
1844 May 25, The first telegraphed news dispatch, sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, appeared in the Baltimore "Patriot."
(AP, 5/25/97)
1845 Oct 10, The U.S. Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Md., with fifty midshipmen students and seven professors.
(AP, 10/10/97)(HN, 10/10/98)(MC, 10/10/01)
1849 Oct 7, Author Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore, Md., at age 40. Never able to overcome his drinking habits, he was found in a delirious condition outside a saloon that was used as a voting place. The artist James Carling later illustrated his poem “The Raven." In 1996 a case was made in the Sept. issue of the Maryland Med. Journal that his symptoms indicated that he died of encephalitic rabies.
(FB, 9/12/96, p.A7)(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.T5)(AP, 10/7/97)(HN, 10/7/98)
1851 Jun 15, Jacob Fussell, Baltimore dairyman, set up the 1st ice-cream factory.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1854 Jun 10, The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, held its first graduation.
(HN, 6/10/98)
1854 Oct 17, James Simpson, a Baltimore inventor, received a patent for a multiwalled ice pitcher.
(SFC, 12/30/98, Z1 p.2)
1861 Jan 6, Governor of Maryland sends a message to the people of Maryland, strongly opposing Maryland’s secession from the Union.
(HN, 1/6/99)
1861 Feb 23, President-elect Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office after a suspected assassination plot was foiled in Baltimore. Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, may have saved Abraham Lincoln’s life by suspecting a plot to assassinate the president-elect in Baltimore, Md. At the detective’s suggestion, Lincoln avoided the threat by secretly slipping through the city at night. A few months later, Pinkerton joined Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s staff as chief intelligence officer. Using the name "Major Allen," the private detective remained with McClellan until late 1862, catching southern spies and running an espionage network in Confederate territory.
(AP, 2/23/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Plot)
1861 Apr 19, Baltimore riots resulted in four Union soldiers, 9 civilians killed. The 6th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, the first Union troops to pass through pro-secessionist Baltimore, Md., entered Baltimore expecting trouble. As they marched through the streets on their way to the defense of Washington, D.C., the troops were attacked by rock-throwing rioters bearing Confederate flags. Four soldiers and nine civilians were killed in the daylong melee.
(HN, 4/19/97)(HNPD, 4/23/99)
1861 Apr 29, The Maryland House of Delegates voted against seceding from the Union.
(AP, 4/29/98)(HN, 4/29/98)
1862 May 9, US Naval Academy was relocated from Annapolis MD to Newport, RI.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1862 Sep 4, Robert E. Lee's Confederate army invaded Maryland, starting the Antietam Campaign. New York Tribune reporter George Smalley scooped the world with his vivid account of the Battle of Antietam.
(HN, 9/4/98)
1862 Sep 5, Lee crossed Potomac & entered Maryland.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1862 Sep 6, Stonewall Jackson occupied Frederick, Maryland.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1862 Sep 13, Union troops in Frederick, Maryland, discovered General Robert E. Lee's attack plans for the invasion of Maryland wrapped around a pack of cigars. They gave the plans to General George B. McClellan who did nothing with them for the next 14 hours.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1862 Sep 14, At the battles of South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap, Maryland Union troops smashed into the Confederates as they closed in on what would become the Antietam battleground. Confederates delayed McClellan’s advance against Lee.
(HN, 9/14/98)(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1862 Sep 14, A contingent of Federal troops escaped from the beleaguered Harper's Ferry.
(www.nps.gov/hafe/jackson.htm)
1862 Sep 15, Confederates captured the Union weapon arsenal at Harpers Ferry, WV, securing the rear of Robert E. Lee's forces in Maryland.
(HN, 9/15/99)(MC, 9/15/01)
1862 Sep 17, The Battle of Antietam at Sharpsburg, Maryland, the bloodiest day in US history, commenced. Fighting in the corn field, Bloody Lane and Burnside’s Bridge raged all day as the Union and Confederate armies suffered a combined 26,293 (23,585) casualties. New York Tribune reporter George Smalley scooped the world with his vivid account of the Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg. During the battle an entire Union corps spent most of the bloodiest single day of the Civil War waiting to cross the creek over that bridge, opposed by a contingent of Georgia riflemen. Late in the day Gen. Ambrose Burnside sent his Union troops across the bridge in a major disaster. The rest of the Union IX Corps followed, but by day’s end, a Confederate flank attack sent the corps back across the river. Over 23,000 [23,110] men, both Union and Confederate, were killed or wounded. The battle resulted in about 10,000 Confederate and 12,000 Union casualties. The next day, Robert E. Lee began his retreat back across the Potomac River. 2,108 Union troops and 1,512 Confederates died. In 2002 James M. McPherson authored "Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam: The Battle that changed the Course of the Civil War."
(HN, 9/17/98)(HNPD, 9/17/98)(SFC, 7/7/96, T6)(AP, 9/17/97)(SFC, 9/22/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.D8)(WSJ, 9/17/02, p.D8)
1862 Sep 18, After waiting all day for a Union attack which never came at Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee began a retreat out of Maryland and back to Virginia. At Antietam, George McClellan and his 'bodyguard' dawdled throughout a long 'Fatal Thursday.'
(HN, 9/18/98)
1862 Oct 12, There was a skirmish at Monocacy, Maryland.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1862 Frederick August Otto Schwartz (FAO Schwartz) opened up a toy shop in Baltimore 6 years after arriving in America from Germany. In 1870 he moved to New York. In 1880 he moved to larger quarters on Union Square.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F3)(WSJ, 11/21/03, p.B1)
1863 Jun 3, Gen. Lee, with 75,000 Confederates, launched a second invasion of the North. On June 3rd, Lee led his troops into Maryland and then Pennsylvania, to meet the Army of the Potomac again, this time around a small town called Gettysburg. Learn more about the reenactment of Chancellorsville this weekend.
(HNQ, 9/22/00)
1863 Jun 17, On the way to Gettysburg, Union and Confederate forces skirmished at Point of Rocks, Maryland.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1863 Jun 29, Battle at Westminster, Maryland: Federal assault.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1863 Jul 7, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, in Hagerstown, Maryland, reported his defeat at Gettysburg to President Jefferson Davis.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1864 Feb 21, The 1st US Catholic parish church for blacks was dedicated in Baltimore.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1864 Jun 8, Abraham Lincoln was nominated for another term as president during the National Union (Republican) Party's convention in Baltimore.
(AP, 6/8/07)
1864 Jul 9, An informal force of Union troops was defeated by Jubal Early at Monocacy, Maryland. Gen’l. Lew Wallace was able to detain Confederate Lt. Gen’l. Jubal from an early advance on Washington. Federal casualties numbered 1959 vs. 400 Confederate.
(HT, 3/97, p.66)(AP, 7/11/97)(HN, 7/9/98)(MC, 7/9/02)
1864 Jul 11, Confederate General Jubal Early's army arrived in Silver Spring, Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and began to probe the Union line. Confederate forces led by Gen. Jubal Early began an invasion of Washington, D.C., turning back the next day.
(HT, 3/97, p.66)(AP, 7/11/97)(HN, 7/11/98)
1864 Oct 11, Slavery was abolished in Maryland. [see Oct 13]
(MC, 10/11/01)
1864 Oct 13, Maryland voters adopted a new constitution, including abolition of slavery. [see Oct 11]
(MC, 10/13/01)
1866 Aug 8, African-American Matthew Alexander Henson was born in Maryland. He and four Inuits accompanied U.S. Naval Commander Robert E. Peary when he planted the U.S. flag at the North Pole on April 6, 1909. Henson became an Arctic expert during Peary's first two failed expeditions. By the third attempt, which began in July 1908, Henson's strength, knowledge of the Eskimo language and dog driving skills made him an essential member of the team. Whether Peary's party actually reached the North Pole or missed it by as much as 60 miles due to a navigational miscalculation remains controversial to this day.
(HNPD, 8//99)(Internet)
1870 Oct 25, The Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md., opened and a horse named Preakness won the first stakes race on the program. 3 years later Pimlico honored that horse by naming a race for him.
(www.hickoksports.com/history/preaknes.shtml)
1872 Sep 21, John Henry Conyers of SC became the 1st black student at Annapolis.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1873 May 27, The first Preakness [horserace] was held at Pimlico. It later became part of the Triple Crown. Edward R. Bradley’s Kalitan was the 1st winner.
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(SFEC, 5/30/99, Z1 p.8)(WSJ, 11/21/00, p.A24)
1873 Oct 27, Emily Post (d.1960), authority on social behavior and writer, was born into high society in Baltimore. Md.
(WSJ, 10/16/08, p.A13)
1876 Johns Hopkins University was founded in Maryland. It handed out the first US graduate Pd.D.’s in 1878.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, Z1 p.2)
1877 Jul 21-1877 Jul 22, Pres. Rutherford Hayes sent federal troops and Marines to Baltimore to restore order against striking railroad workers. President Hayes then sent federal troops from city to city. They suppressed strike after strike until the strike ended in September, approximately 45 days after it had started.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877)
1880 Sep 12, H.L. Mencken (Henry Louis Mencken, d.1956), American author, social satirist, was born in Baltimore, Md. He worked for the "Baltimore Sun" and later edited the "Smart Set" magazine with George Jean Nathan. He wrote a philological work entitled "The American Language." Nietzschean iconoclast H.L. Mencken referred to "Boobus Americanus" and was cynical about American democracy. Mencken won fame as a journalist with the Baltimore Morning Herald and Baltimore Sun, editor of The American Mercury magazine and as a literary critic. Mencken's criticism was often directed at the American middle class and members of what he called...the "boobeoisie (BOOB-WA-ZEE)." Very popular in the post-WWI period, Mencken’s literary criticism was instrumental in bringing writers such as D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford and Sherwood Anderson to the fore.
(AP, 9/12/97)(HNQ, 6/20/98)(HN, 9/12/98)(www.todayinliterature.com)
1884 The B&O's passenger-car roundhouse was built in Baltimore. It was the largest circular industrial building in the world. It was later turned into a museum.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)(WSJ, 11/23/04, p.D11)
1885 Aug 10, Leo Daft opened America's first commercially operated electric streetcar, in Baltimore.
(AP, 8/10/99)
1890 The Wallville School, a one-room shack in Calvert County, was built. In 1999 it was the oldest existing black school in the county.
(SFC, 1/11/99, p.A3)
1892 Feb 2, Bottle cap with cork seal was patented by William Painter in Baltimore.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1892 Jul 1, James M. Cain (d.1977), fiction writer, was born in Annapolis, Maryland. His work included “The Postman Always Rings Twice" and “Mildred Pierce." As a member of the “hard-boiled" school of crime fiction of the 1930s and 1940s he is often associated with the equally popular writers Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
(HN, 7/1/98)(iUniv. 7/1/00)
1892 Aug 13, The first issue of the “Afro American" newspaper was published in Baltimore, Maryland.
(HN, 8/13/98)
1894 American writer Dashiell Hammett, creator of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, was born in Maryland in 1894, was a Pinkerton detective for eight years and served in the Ambulance Corps in World War I before he began his writing career. Author of The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1932), Hammett became heavily involved in left-wing political activity in 1934. He was later a trustee of the Civil Rights Congress. Hammett died in 1961.
(HNPD, 9/24/98)
1894 The first Maryland Hunt Cup steeplechase was run.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.B5)
1895 Feb 6, George Herman "Babe" Ruth, baseball's most dominant player, was born in Baltimore. He played with the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees and the Boston Braves and was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season.
(USAT, 1/29/97, p.1D)(AP, 2/6/97)(HN, 2/6/99)
1895 Oct 22, David Belasco's "Heart of Maryland," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1901 Jan 28, Byron Bancroft Johnson announced that the American League would play the 1901 baseball season as a major league and would not renew its membership in the National Agreement. The new league would include Baltimore and Washington, DC, recently abandoned by the National League. The league would also invade 4 cities where National League teams existed: Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. The 8 charter teams included: the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Americans, Chicago White Stockings, Cleveland Blues, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Athletics, and Washington Senators.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_League)
1901 Nov 2, Paul Ford, actor (Phil Silvers Show), was born in Baltimore, Md.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1902 In Baltimore Babe Ruth entered St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys at age 7. He was already smoking and drinking but was guided to adulthood by Brother Matthias.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.W13)
1902 The Baltimore Orioles baseball team was sold at the end of the season to former police chief Bill Devery and casino operator Frank Farrell of New York, and moved to NYC to play as the New York Highlanders.
(ON, 6/09, p.12)
1904 Feb 7, A fire in Baltimore raged for about 30 hours and destroyed more than 1,500 buildings over 80 blocks. The fired caused an estimated $80 million in damages.
(AP, 2/7/97)(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A23)(MC, 2/7/02)
1908 Mar 19, Maryland banned Christian Scientists from practicing medicine unless they had a medical diploma.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1911 A monument to Francis Scott Key was erected in Baltimore. It depicted Key in a rowboat handing his manuscript to Columbia, symbolizing the nation.
(SFC, 7/14/98, p.A4)
1912 Jan 13, A temp. of 40F (-40C), Oakland, Maryland, set a state record.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1912 Apr 12, Clara Barton (b.1821), the founder of the American Red Cross, died at her home in Glen Echo, Maryland at age 90.
(ON, 8/12, p.12)( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Barton)
1916 Feb 11, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presented its 1st concert.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1917 Apr 1, In Baltimore some 4,000 pro-war demonstrators stormed a meeting of the American League Against Militarism and threatened to hang the participants that included Stanford Univ. Chancellor David Starr Jordan.
(Ind, 4/12/03, 5A)
1920 May 18, In the 46th Preakness: Clarence Kummer aboard Man o' War won in 1:51.6.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1920 Arthur Perdue began a backyard egg business in Maryland. His son Frank (1920-2005) later turned it into one of the nation's largest poultry processors.
(AP, 4/1/05)(SFC, 4/2/05, p.B5)
1929 Nov, Harvey S. Ladew (1887-1976) purchased Pleasant Valley Farm in Maryland for his personal fox hunting estate. He converted 22 acres of the grounds to the most outstanding topiary garden in the US.
(www.ladewgardens.com/history.html)
1935 Nov 5, Maryland Court of Appeals ordered the Univ. of Maryland to admit (black) Donald Murray.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1937 Nov 30, Paul Stookey, singer (Peter, Paul & Mary), was born in Baltimore, Md.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1940 Dec 21, Frank Zappa, rocker (Mothers of Invention, Catholic Girls), was born in Baltimore.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1943-1965 Members of the Special Operations Division from Maryland’s Fort Detrick biological weapons program conducted over 200 tests during this period on the effectiveness of aerially dispersed pathogens. At least 4 men died during the years of the project. Some 658,039 animals were killed, including sheep, ferrets, cats, pigs, white mice and guinea pigs.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A11)(AH, 6/03, p.46)
1943-1986 Building E5625, the “Pilot Plant," at the US Army Aberdeen Proving Ground was built and used for experiments and production of agents in chemical and biological warfare. In 1977 public knowledge of the pathogen experiments caused citizen outrage.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A11)
1944 Jun, Members of the Special Operations Division from Maryland’s Fort Detrick biological weapons program conducted tests at Granite Peak, a 250-square-mile area near the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
(AH, 6/03, p.49)
1944 Nov 29, Johns Hopkins hospital performed the 1st open heart surgery. A surgical fix for a fetal heart defect, tetralogy of Fallot or blue baby syndrome, was first performed at Johns Hopkins by surgeon Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, a black assistant who perfected the procedure. Thomas authored an autobiography in 1985.
(BS, 5/12/01, p.1A)(MC, 11/29/01)
1945 Oct 19, Divine, [Harris Glenn Milstead], cross-dressing actor-actress (Pink Flamingo), was born in Baltimore, Md.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1947 May, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. began the 1st of three 4-year terms as mayor of Baltimore. Congressman Tommy D'Alesandro Jr., elected as mayor of Baltimore, was the city's 1st Italian-American and Catholic mayor and served for 12 years. In 2002 his daughter Nancy Pelosi became the 1st woman to lead a party in the US Congress after Democrats voted 177-29 in support of the liberal from SF. In 2006 Nancy Pelosi was named speaker for the 110th Congress.
(http://tinyurl.com/u6bdk)(SFC, 11/15/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/2/07, p.A6)
1947 John Trumpey moved to Annapolis, Md., and purchased the Annapolis Yacht Yard in Eastport with his sons. They manufactured the custom Trumpey houseboats and cruisers.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.4B)
1948 The Hearst Corp. acquired WBAL-TV, Baltimore, one of the country's first television stations.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1949 Jun 3, Wesley Anthony Brown became the 1st negro to graduate from US Naval Academy.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1950-1985 Property taxes in Baltimore, Maryland, were increased 21 times over this period. By 2008 some 30,000 housing units were abandoned and waited for demolition.
(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.A9)
1951 Oct 4, Henrietta Lacks, a black woman, died of cancer in Baltimore. Cells from her body, later known as HeLa cells, were cultivated for research. In 1974 Dr. Nelson-Rees (d.2009 at 80), a UC Berkeley geneticist, reported that the HeLa cells had contaminated other cell cultures in laboratories around the world. In 1986 Michael Gold authored “A Conspiracy of Cells," a chronicle of the Nelson-Rees study. In 2010 Rebecca Skloot authored “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."
(SFC, 1/28/09, p.B10)(SSFC, 2/14/10, p.F3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks)
1952 Jul 11, The Republican National Convention, meeting in Chicago, nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower for president and Richard M. Nixon for vice president. Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin (1900-1974), the governor of Maryland (1951-1959), gave the nominating speech.
(AP, 7/11/97)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_McKeldin)
1954 Sep 7-8, Integration of public schools began in Washington DC and Baltimore, Md.
(HN, 9/7/98)(www.courtinfo.ca.gov/presscenter/timeline.htm)
1955 Nov 20, The Maryland National Guard was ordered desegregated.
(HN, 11/20/98)
1956 Jul 4, US most intense rain fall (1.23" in 1 minute) at Unionville Maryland.
(Maggio)
1956 Brice and Shirley Phillips opened a crab shack in ocean City, Md. By 2006 Phillips Foods took in $160 million in revenue from food sales.
(WSJ, 1/21/07, p.A4)
1957 May 18, In the 83rd Preakness: Eddie Arcaro aboard Bold Ruler won in 1:56.2.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1957 Jul 17, Leona Gage (1939-2010) of Maryland won the Miss USA title as part of the Miss Universe Pageant in Long Beach, Ca. Officials soon stripped her of the title after learning that she was a mother of two and had lied about her age.
(SFC, 10/13/10, p.C5)(www.oocities.com/televisioncity/9699/mc57.htm)
1958 Dec 28, At Yankee Stadium the Baltimore Colts beat the NY Giants in the NFL championship game 23-17, after the game went into overtime for the first time. In 2008 Mark Bowden authored “The Best Game Ever: The Birth of the Modern NFL."
(WSJ, 6/9/08, p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_NFL_Championship_Game)
1958 Avalon Hill in Maryland published its war strategy game titled Tactics.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.W9)(www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1574/tactics-ii)
1961 Jun 19, The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a provision in Maryland's constitution requiring state officeholders to profess a belief in the existence of God.
(DT internet 6/19/97)
1962 The B&O Railroad merged with the Chesapeake & Ohio and disappeared completely in 1987.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)
1963 May 18, In the 89th Preakness: Bill Shoemaker aboard Candy Spots won in 1:56.2.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1963 Dec 8, Three fuel tanks exploded when a jetliner, struck by lightning, crashed near Elkton, Maryland. 81 people died. This was the only case of a lightning caused crash.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1963 Dr. Jesse Coggins died at age 88 and left a valuable estate to the Baltimore Keswick nursing home in a will that specified use by white patients only. Keswick erected an $11 million Coggins building and then faced a judgement in 1999 that the will could not be honored due to the whites only clause and that the estate go to the Maryland Medical Center.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A3)
1964 Apr 15, Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened as the world's longest bridge.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1967 Jul 24, Race riots took place in Cambridge, Maryland.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1967 Oct 27, 4 people from Baltimore poured blood on selective service records.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1967 In Maryland developer James W. Rouse started the town of Columbia, an experiment in urban idealism.
(WSJ, 4/5/08, p.A1)
1968 Mar 29, Students seized a building at Maryland’s Bowie State College.
(www.amoeba.com/blog/tags/baseball/page1.html)
1968 May 17, In Maryland the Catonsville Nine including Daniel and Phillip Berrigan (1921-2002), a Catholic priest, took hundreds of files from the draft board at the Knights of Columbus building and set them on fire with gasoline and soap chips.
(www.amazon.com/Trial-Catonsville-Nine-Daniel-Berrigan/dp/0823223310)(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A3)
1968 May 18, In Maryland’s 94th Preakness Ismael Valenzuela aboard Forward Pass won in 1:56.8.
(http://gallery.pictopia.com/bloodhorse/gallery/6826/photo/1259538/)
1968 Aug 8, Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Later that day, Nixon chose Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew to be his running mate.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1969 Jan 12, The New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
(AP, 1/12/99)
1969 Donald I. Fine (d.1997) founded Arbor House publishing company in Maryland with a $5000 loan. It sold to the Hearst Corp. in 1978 for 1.5 million.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbor_House)
1972 May 15, George Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer while campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, for the Democratic presidential primary. He was left paralyzed.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(SFC, 8/16/96, p.D11)(AP, 5/15/97)(HN, 5/15/98)
1972 Aug 4, Arthur Bremer (b.1950) was sentenced to 63 years for shooting Alabama Gov. Wallace and 3 bystanders on May 15, 1972, in Laurel, Maryland. An appeal reduced the sentence to 53 years. After 35 years of incarceration, Bremer was released from prison on parole on November 9, 2007. He remains on probation until 2025 and resides in a halfway house in Cumberland, Maryland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bremer#Release)
1972 Nov, Maryland ratified the Equal Rights Amendment.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/5bflsq)
1973 Jul 1, Maryland declared that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in the state.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/5ygqvd)
1973 Aug 8, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew branded as "damned lies" reports he had taken kickbacks from government contracts in Maryland and vowed not to resign. He eventually did resign.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1974 Feb 22, Samuel Joseph Byck (1930–1974), an unemployed former tire salesman, attempted to hijack a plane flying out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport. He intended to crash into the White House in hopes of killing US President Richard M. Nixon. Byck killed pilot Fred Jones and a aviation officer George Neal Ramsburg before he was shot and wounded by gunfire through the door of a Delta DC-9 airplane. Byck then shot himself in the head.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Byck)
1974 May 2, Former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew was disbarred by the Maryland Court of Appeals, effectively preventing him from practicing law anywhere in the United States.
(AP, 5/2/97)
1975 Mar 25, In Maryland sisters Sheila (12) and Katharine Lyon (10) vanished from the Wheaton Plaza Mall. On July 15, 2015, authorities announced an indictment on first-degree felony murder charges in the disappearances. Lloyd Michael Welch Jr. (58) said he was with the girls when they were abducted but denied any role in their deaths. Lloyd Welch told investigators that he left the mall with the two girls and that he saw his uncle sexually assaulting one of them at his home the next day.
(http://tinyurl.com/phqudb7)(SFC, 7/16/15, p.A5)
1976 Jul 6, US Naval Academy admitted women for the first time in its history with the induction of 81 female midshipmen.
(www.usna.edu/VirtualTour/150years/1970.htm)
1977 Oct 27, James M. Cain (b.1892), member of the "hard-boiled" school of crime fiction of the 1930s and 1940s, died in Maryland. Three of his novels, “The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1934), “Double Indemnity" (1936), and Mildred Pierce" (1941), were made into classics of the American screen.
(iUniv. 7/1/00)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jmcain.htm)
1978 Sep 17, US Pres. Carter, Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed agreements at Camp David, Md. Israel promised to withdraw gradually from Sinai and to establish some form of autonomous Palestinian territory on the West Bank. Sadat’s astrologer, Hasan al-Tuhami, was the only person Sadat trusted. In the Camp David Accord “Israel was the winner and Egypt the Loser." Thus wrote Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his 1997 book: “Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem: A Diplomat’s Story of the Struggle for Peace in the Middle East."
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)(TL, 1988, p.119)(SFC, 6/2/97, p.D5)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A17)
1980 Feb, The first implantable cardioconverter defibrillator (ICD) was implanted at John Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Levi Watkins.
(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantable_cardioverter-defibrillator)
1980 Jul 22, In Maryland David Theodore Belfield, a convert to Islam (Daoud Salahuddin), murdered Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former Iranian official and critic of the government of Ayatollah Khomeini. Belfield escaped to Canada and then to Iran. In 2001 Belfield appeared in the movie "Kandahar" made in Afghanistan as an actor named Hassan Tantai.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.D1)(http://iona.ghandchi.com/Tabatabai.htm)
1980 Sep 8, Lena Buckman (82) was stabbed 28 times at her daughter’s home in Pikeville. Eugene Colvin-El (35) was later convicted in the murder and sentenced to death. His execution was commuted in 2000.
(SFC, 6/8/00, p.C4)
1981 May 25, Rosa Ponselle (b.1897), Metropolitan Opera diva, died in Maryland.
(BS, 5/12/01, p.8D)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Ponselle)
1982 Jul 1, Cal Ripken (b.1960), drafted as a pitcher in 1981, began playing his shortstop position for the Baltimore Orioles. By Sep 20, 1998 he had played a record 2,632 consecutive games.
(http://tinyurl.com/2um6o6)(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A1)
1982 Jul, Bernard Webster (18) was identified as a rapist in Towson, Md. He denied the charges but was convicted in March, 2003. Webster was freed in 2002 following DNA tests that proved him innocent. He became the first person to be exonerated under Maryland's postconviction DNA statute.
(www.innocenceproject.org/Content/290.php)
1983 Oct 16, Kelso, Horse of the Year for 5 years straight (1960-1964), died and was buried in Maryland. In 2007 Linda Kennedy authored “Kelso: The Horse of Gold."
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.P8)
1984 Mar 29, The NFL Baltimore Colts moved to Indianapolis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_Colts)
1985 May 18, In the 111th Preakness: Pat Day aboard Tank's Prospect won in 1:53.4.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1985-5/1985-05-18-NBC-21.html)
1985 In Baltimore Flint Gregory Hunt murdered policeman Vincent Adolfo after he was stopped in a stolen car. He first chose the gas chamber for his execution, but as it approached in 1997 he changed his mind to lethal injection.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A2)
1986 Jun 5, A federal jury in Baltimore convicted Ronald W. Pelton of selling secrets to the Soviet Union. Pelton was sentenced to three life prison terms plus 10 years.
(AP, 6/5/97)
1986 Jun 19, University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, the first draft pick of the Boston Celtics, suffered a fatal cocaine-induced seizure.
(AP, 6/19/06)
1986 William Schaefer, mayor of Baltimore, was elected governor. Clarence Du Burns was appointed to fill out Schaefer’s term as mayor.
(SFC, 1/15/03, p.A18)
1986 Billy McComiskey of Baltimore, Maryland, won the all-Ireland, senior category, championship of the button accordion. He soon teamed with Liz Carroll, the 1991 All-Ireland senior fiddle champion and singer-guitarist Daithi Sproule to produce the self-titled album “Trian" in 1992 and “Trian II" in 1995. In 1985 McComiskey and his Baltimore band, Irish Tradition, recorded the album “The Times We’ve Had."
(WSJ, 3/13/07, p.D5)
1987 Jan 4, An Amtrak train bound from Washington to Boston collided with Conrail engines approaching from a side track in Chase, Md., and 16 people were killed.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1987 May 16, Kentucky Derby winner Alysheba captured the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. Alysheba fell short in the Belmont Stakes, failing to become the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed.
(AP, 5/16/97)
1987 Sep 6, Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore succeeded in separating 7-month-old Benjamin and Patrick Binder, twin brothers from Ulm, West Germany, who were joined at the head, after 22 hours of surgery.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1987 Sep 14, Cal Ripken (b.1960), baseball star for the Baltimore Orioles, ended his streak of 8,243 consecutive innings (908 games).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Ripken,_Jr.)
1987 Dec 8, Kurt Schmoke became the first African-American mayor of Maryland when he was elected the mayor of Baltimore. He was a Rhodes scholar and Harvard Law School graduate. He served 3 terms and decided to run for the Senate. He decided to step down in 1999.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A12)(HN, 12/8/98)
1987 Former Baltimore mayor William Donald Schaefer, who held the post for 15 years, began serving as governor.
(SFC, 4/26/99, p.A10)
1987 In South Baltimore the Cherry Hill Elementary School became the first public school in the country to adopt a school uniform.
(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W9)
1988 May 21, Risen Star won the Preakness Stakes.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1990 May 19, Summer Squall won the Preakness Stakes.
(www.lanesendstakes.com/milestones.html)
1991 Apr, Integrated Health Services (HIS), founded by Dr. Robert Elkins, went public. The federal Medicare reimbursement program changed in 1998 and in 2000 the company was forced into bankruptcy.
(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)
1992 Apr 6, Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened and Baltimore beat Cleveland 2-0.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1993 May 15, Prairie Bayou won the Preakness.
(AP, 5/15/98)
1993 Mildred Horn and nurse Janice Saunders were shot and killed in Silver Spring, Md. Trevor (8), Horn's quadriplegic son, died after his breathing tube was disconnected. Lawrence T. Horn, Trevor's father and Mildred's ex-husband, was sentenced to life in prison for hiring James Edward Perry of Detroit to commit the slayings. At Perry's trial prosecutors argued that he followed tips outlined in the book "Hit Man: A Technical Manual for the Independent Contractor." In 1999 Paladin Press agreed to settle a multimillion federal civil suit, to make contributions to 2 charities chosen by the plaintiffs and to turn over 700 remaining copies of the book.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A3)
1995 May 20, Timber Country won the Preakness at Pimlico.
(AP, 5/20/00)
1995 Sep 6, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record by playing his 2,131st consecutive game.
(AP, 9/6/00)
1995 Oct 8, On the final day of his fourth US pilgrimage, Pope John Paul the Second celebrated Mass at Oriole Park in Baltimore.
(AP, 10/8/00)
1995 Nov 24, The American Visionary Art Museum opened in Baltimore. It was founded by development consultant Rebecca Hoffberger,43, who succeeded in raising most of the $7.5 mil for the museum.
{Museums, Maryland, usa}
(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A20)(www.avam.org/stuff/whois.html)
1995 In Ohio Larry Wayne Harris was arrested in Lancaster for possession of bubonic plague bacteria. He ordered the bacteria with fake letterhead from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) in Rockville, Md. A search of his home found certificates identifying him as a member of the Aryan Nations Church. Richard Girnt Butler, founder and leader of the Aryan Nations, said that Harris had been a member since the early 1990s. The case led Congress to adopt a law in 1996 requiring that disease causing organisms be registered with the CDC when being shipped and received.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A8,9)(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A5)
1996 Feb 8, NFL and Cleveland allowed Art Modell to move his NFL franchise to Baltimore but he had to leave the Browns' name behind.
(http://tinyurl.com/bo3v9)
1996 Apr 27, William Egan Colby (76), CIA Director, disappeared while canoeing near his waterfront home in southern Maryland. His body was found 8 days later. In 2003 John Prados authored "Lost Crusador," a biography of Colby.
(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.D8)(www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wcolby.htm)
1996 May 5, The body of former CIA director William E. Colby was found on a riverbank near his southern Maryland vacation home, eight days after he'd disappeared.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1996 May 18, Louis Quatorze won the Preakness.
(AP, 5/18/97)
1996 Sep 17, Spiro Agnew (b. Nov 9, 1918), former governor of Maryland and US vice president (1969-1973), died in Berlin, Md., at age 77.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 David Rusk wrote "Baltimore Unbound," in which he advocated a regional government.
(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.A20)
1997 Apr 29, Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of raping six female trainees. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and dishonorably discharged.
(AP, 4/29/07)
1997 May 17, Silver Charm won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. However, he failed to win the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 5/17/98)
1997 Sep 19, Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr. (19) was found charred and dismembered in an Aspen Hill, Md., garage. One suspected killer, Samuel Sheinbein (17), fled to Israel. A 2nd suspect, Aaron B. Needle (17), was held in jail. In Oct. the attorney general decided to return Sheinbein to the US. The two young men were indicted on murder and conspiracy charges. Needle committed suicide by hanging in 1998. In 1999 the Israeli Supreme Court held that Sheinbein could not be extradited. Sheinbein agreed to plead guilty to murder and received a prison sentence of 24 years with possible parole after 16.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/20/97, p.A1)(SFC,10/31/97, p.A3)(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A18)(SFC, 2/25/99, p.A12)(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A10)
1997 Oct 8, Gueorgui Makharadze, a diplomat from the Republic of Georgia, pleaded guilty in Washington to charges stemming from a car crash that killed Maryland teen-ager Jovianne Waltrick. Makharadze was sentenced to seven years in prison; he initially served his term in a US prison, but was later transferred to Georgia, where he was paroled in 2002.
(AP, 10/8/07)
1998 May 16, "Real Quiet" won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. Real Quiet later failed to capture the Triple Crown, losing the Belmont Stakes to Victory Gallop by a nose.
(AP, 5/16/08)
1998 May, Tyson foods agreed to pay $6 million to the federal government to settle environmental violations from 1993-1997 at its 105-acre chicken processing plant in Berlin, 8 miles west of Ocean City. The plant was then owned by Hudson Foods.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.A5)
1998 Aug 31, In Gaithersburg, Md., boxer Mike Tyson assaulted 2 motorists following a minor chain-reaction collision. In 1999 he was convicted of assault and sentenced to one year in jail.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A1)
1998 Oct 26, Nutrient pollution known as eutrophication, the overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus, was noted on the Chesapeake Bay and estuaries around the world. A 7,000 sq. mile dead zone was reported to spread every summer across the Gulf of Mexico from the mouth of the Mississippi. In 2007 Louisiana crabbers complained of buckets of dead crabs and the condition in the Gulf of Mexico was expected to get worse due to rising demand for ethanol and increased corn production in Corn Belt states, which called for more nitrogen use.
(SFC, 10/25/98, p.A3)(SFC, 12/20/07, p.A26)
1998 At Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County a new $30 million building was constructed for the Defense Information School. The Pentagon now sends 3,500 military journalists there each year for training following consolidation of military journalism schools in Colorado, Indiana and Florida.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A7)
1999 Mar 28, In Cuba the Baltimore Orioles beat a Cuban baseball all-star team 3:2 in 11 innings. A rematch in Baltimore was scheduled for May 3.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A1)
1999 May 3, In Baltimore the Cuban baseball team beat the Baltimore Orioles 12-6. 7 members missed the departure the next day and one coach, Rigoberto Betancourt Herrera, was reported to have defected, as the others over slept. The 6 stragglers departed May 5.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A1,6)(SFC, 5/6/99, p.A7)
1999 May 15, Charismatic won the Preakness, finishing 1 1/2 lengths ahead of Menifee.
(AP, 5/15/00)
1999 Jul 1, Some 20,000 fish turned up dead in the tributaries of the Magothy and Patapsco Rivers. Drought conditions and the build up of phosphorus and nitrogen was suspected.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A8)
1999 Jul 22, Some 300,000 menhaden fish turned up dead at the mouth of the Pocomoke River in the Chesapeake Bay. Depleted oxygen in the water due to drought conditions was suspected. Nearly one million fish died in the tributaries of the Pocomoke.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A8)(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A14)
1999 Jul 30, In Maryland Linda Tripp was indicted for secretly taping conversations with Monica Lewinsky in 1977.
(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 9, Richard Spicknall II reported a carjacking near the Choptank River. He was charged the next day and confessed in the shooting death of his 2-year-old son. His 3-year-old daughter died the same day from her wounds.
(SFC, 9/11/99, p.A7)
1999 Dec 5, In Baltimore 5 women were found dead of multiple gunshot wounds.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.B2)
1999 Burt Solomon published "Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball."
(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.W7)
2000 Mar 7, In Baltimore Joseph C. Palczynski shot and killed 3 people following a breakup with a girlfriend. The next night he killed another woman and wounded a 2-year-old boy during an attempted carjacking. On Mar 17 Palczynski took 3 hostages and held off police for 3 days. He was fatally shot by police on Mar 21.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D3)(SFC, 3/20/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A3)
2000 May 20, “Red Bullet" won the Preakness Stakes, outpacing Kentucky Derby winner “Fusaichi Pegasus."
(AP, 5/20/01)
2000 Jun 5, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count under an agreement that dropped murder charges in the stabbing deaths of two men outside a Super Bowl party in Atlanta. Lewis was sentenced to a year of probation.
(AP, 6/5/01)
2000 Jun 7, Gov. Parris Glendening commuted the death sentence of convicted murderer Eugene Colvin-El.
(SFC, 6/8/00, p.C4)
2001 Jan 28, Super Bowl XXXV was played in Tampa. The Baltimore Ravens defeated the New York Giants 34-7.
(SSFC, 12/24/00, p.T8)
2001 Apr 12, Maryland banned farming of genetically modified fish in waters linked to other bodies.
(WSJ, 4/13/01, p.A1)
2001 May 6, An anonymous donor pledged $100 million to Johns Hopkins Univ. to develop a vaccine and new drugs for malaria.
(WSJ, 5/7/01, p.A1)
2001 May 19, "Point Given" won the Preakness as Derby winner "Monarchos" finished out of the money.
(AP, 5/19/02)
2001 Jul 18, In Baltimore a 60-car CSX freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed and caught fire in a tunnel near Camden Yards. 54 cars burned and phone cables were melted. The last burning car was pulled out July 23.
(SFC, 7/19/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 7/20/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/24/01, p.A4)
2001 Sep 24, In Maryland 2 college students, sisters, were killed by tornadoes at College Park. Gov. Parris Glendening toured the area the next day.
(SFC, 9/26/01, p.C3)
2001 Oct 28, The CDC reported a 13th case of anthrax in a New Jersey postal worker. Spores were found at the mail center in Landover, Md.
(SFC, 10/29/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 1, Anthrax spores were found in 4 mailrooms in Rockville, Md., a postal facility in Kansas City, 3 new locations in a Manhattan processing center and a 6th postal facility in Florida.
(WSJ, 11/2/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 16, It was reported that all the anthrax spores mailed to Capital Hill were identical to stocks from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. (USAMRIID), maintained since 1980.
(SSFC, 12/16/01, p.A9)
2002 Feb 12, The JAMA medical journal reported that gonorrhea was in an estimated 5.3% of the Baltimore population and that chlamydia infected 3%.
(SFC, 2/13/02, p.A5)
2002 Apr 1, Maryland won its first NCAA men's basketball championship with a 64-52 victory over Indiana.
(SFC, 4/2/02, p.C1)(AP, 4/1/03)
2002 Apr 28, Storms hit the Ohio and Tennessee valleys with tornadoes in Missouri and Maryland. At least 6 people were killed.
(SFC, 4/29/02, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/30/02, p.A1)(AP, 4/28/07)
2002 May 9, Gov. Parris Glendening declared a moratorium on executions. It was the 2nd state after Illinois to do so because of doubts over its fairness.
(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A5)
2002 May 13, In Baltimore, Dontee Stokes shot and wounded the Rev. Maurice Blackwell, a Roman Catholic priest. Stokes, who accused Blackwell of sexually abusing him as a boy, was later acquitted of attempted murder, but was convicted of gun charges and sentenced to house arrest.
(AP, 5/13/03)
2002 May 26, In Maryland Erika (25) and Benjamin Sifrit (25) killed and dismembered Joshua Ford (32) and Martha Crutchley (51), a tourist couple in Ocean City. Both were found guilty in 2003. Benjamin Sifrit received a total of 35 years in prison. Erika was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison.
(www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=25&sid=792917)(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)
2002 Jun 2, HBO’s first season of 'The Wire' began with a pilot episode titled “The Target." The series concentrated on the often-futile efforts of police to infiltrate a West Baltimore drug ring headed by Avon Barksdale and his lieutenant, Stringer Bell.
(www.hbo.com/thewire/about/)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Target_(The_Wire_episode))
2002 Jul 13, It was reported that some 100 northern snakehead fish, a meat-eater native to China, had been found in a Maryland pond.
(SFC, 7/13/02, p.A4)
2002 Sep 7, Pres. Bush met with British PM Tony Blair at Camp David, Md., to work out a strategy for taking action against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.A3)
2002 Sep 11, Johnny Unitas (b.1933), Hall of Fame football quarterback, died in Baltimore. In 2006 Tom Callahan authored “Johnny U, The Life and Times of John Unitas."
(SFC, 9/12/02, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/06, p.F3)
2002 Oct 2, James Martin (55) was shot to death by a sniper in Wheaton, Md. He was the 1st to die at the hands of a local serial killer. The next day, five people in the Washington D.C. area were shot dead, setting off a frantic manhunt. John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were later arrested for 10 killings and three woundings; Muhammad has been sentenced to death, Malvo to life in prison.
(NW, 10/21/02, p.28)(AP, 10/2/07)
2002 Oct 3, Police hunted for a "skilled shooter" who murdered five random victims over 16 hours with a high-powered rifle in Montgomery County, Maryland, just a short distance from Washington DC. A 6th victim was killed in DC. James Buchanon (39), Premkumar Walekar (54), Sarah Ramos (34), Lori Ann Lewis Rivera (25) and Pascal Charlot (72) became the 2nd to 6th victims.
(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A3)(SFC, 10/5/02, p.A3)(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.A4)(NW, 10/21/02, p.28)
2002 Oct 7, In Bowie, Md., a 13-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded by a sniper at Benjamin Tasker Middle School. The shooting was linked to 6 previous killings and a card was found nearby that said: “I am God."
(ADN, 10/8/02, p.A6)(SFC, 10/8/02, p.A1)(SFC, 10/9/02, p.A3)
2002 Oct 9, Dean Meyers (53) of Gaithersburg, Md., was shot to death in Manassas, Va., in a shooting that appeared to be linked to 6 previous sniper attacks in the area. In 2009 sniper John Allen Muhammad (48) was executed in Virginia for the killing of Meyers.
(SFC, 10/10/02, p.A1)(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.A4)(SFC, 11/11/09, p.A7)
2002 Oct 16, In Baltimore Angela Dawson (36) burned to death with 4 of her children after a drug pusher, Darrell Brooks (21), set fire to her home. Carnell Dawson Sr. (43) died from his burns Oct 23.
(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A3)(SFC, 10/24/02, p.A6)
2002 Oct 22, In Aspen Hill, Maryland, Conrad Everton Johnson (35), a bus driver, was shot in the chest and died during surgery. The shooting was suspected to be related to the serial sniper who already killed nine people this month. This was the 13th and final attack linked by authorities to the Washington-area sniper attacks.
(AP, 10/22/02)(SFC, 10/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 24, John Allen Muhammad (41), an Army veteran who recently converted to Islam, and John Lee Malvo (17) were arrested near Frederick, Maryland, in connection with the sniper shootings that left 10 dead and 3 wounded. In 2003 a judge ruled that Malvo could be tried as an adult. Muhammad began to argue his own defense on Oct 20. On Mar 9, 2004, John Allen Muhammad was sentenced to death. In 2006 Malvo was sentenced to life in prison for 6 murders in Maryland.
(AP, 10/24/02)(SFC, 10/25/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/16/03, p.A5)(SFC, 10/21/03, p.A7)(SFC, 3/10/04, p.A3)(SFC, 11/9/06, p.A3)
2002 Dec 6, Philip Berrigan (79), former Catholic priest, died in Baltimore. He helped galvanize opposition to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A3)
2002 Dec 16, A jury in Baltimore acquitted former altar boy Dontee Stokes of attempted murder in the shooting of a Roman Catholic priest he'd claimed molested him a decade earlier.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2002 Dr. P.M. Forni, an Italian immigrant, authored “Choosing Civility: The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct." The book was adopted by Columbia, Maryland, a city founded as an experiment in urban idealism.
(WSJ, 4/5/08, p.A1)
2002 The snakehead fish was first seen in Maryland, after an 18-inch adult was caught in a local pond. The powerful fish has no natural predators in the region and is also a determined survivalist, surviving for up to four days on land. It has since migrated to the nearby Potomac River and its tributaries. In 2012 the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Inland Fisheries (DNR) offered $200 gift cards through Bass Pro Shops to residents who capture and kill a snakehead.
(www.dnr.state.md.us/dnrnews/infocus/snakehead.asp)
2003 Jan 22, Maryland’s new governor, Robert Ehrlich, declared an end to a moratorium on executions instituted by Gov. Glendening.
(WSJ, 1/23/03, p.A1)(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A9)
2003 Mar 23, A Maryland nurse died 5 days after being vaccinated for smallpox. A 2nd nurse died Mar 27.
(SFC, 3/26/03, p.A6)(SFC, 3/28/03, p.A7)
2003 May 17, Funny Cide ran away from the field in the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. However, Funny Cide came up short at the Belmont Stakes, finishing third.
(AP, 5/17/04)
2003 May 22, Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich signed a bill that reduced criminal penalties for seriously ill people who smoke marijuana to a maximum $100 and no jail time.
(SFC, 5/23/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 4, Federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna was attacked after leaving his office in Baltimore around midnight. His body was found 6 hours later, stabbed 36 times apparently in a furious fight for his life before drowning in a Pennsylvania creek. Luna was involved in the prosecution of rapper Deon Lionel Smith (32) and Walter Oriley Poindexter.
(AP, 12/5/03)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A6)
2004 Jan 13, In Maryland a fiery explosion killed five on the northbound lanes of Interstate 95. A tanker carrying flammable material plunged off an overpass on Interstate 895, landing in the northbound lane of I-95.
(AP, 1/14/04)
2004 Jan 31, Harold Shapinsky (b.1925), abstract expressionist painter, died in Rockville.
(SFC, 2/9/04, p.B4)
2004 Mar 6, A water taxi carrying about 25 passengers capsized in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, killing one person. Three others were missing and presumed dead. Navy reservists rescued 21 people.
(AP, 3/6/04)(SFC, 3/08/04, p.A3)
2004 May 15, Smarty Jones won the Preakness by a record 11 1/2 lengths.
(AP, 5/16/04)
2004 May 27, In Baltimore 3 children were found dead. One was beheaded with a butcher knife and the others were nearly decapitated. Adan Espinoza Canela, 17, and Policarpio Espinoza, 22, were arrested on murder charges the next day.
(AP, 5/29/04)
2004 Jul 12, A foot or more of rain fell in parts of the Northeast. No injuries had been reported in the stricken areas of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Sep 22, The new $600 million Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center, named after the former Oregon Senator (1967-1997), opened in Bethesda, Md., as the latest addition to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
(SSFC, 3/27/05, Par p.17)(www.news-medical.net/?id=4963)
2004 Nov 11, Retired Judge Robert I.H. Hammerman (76), fearing memory loss and life in a nursing home, committed suicide in Pikesville, Md.
(SFC, 11/13/04, p.A2)
2004 Nov 17, In Maryland the first US small office of the Chinese Confucius Institute opened at the Univ. of Maryland. By 2009 there were over 60 such facilities across the country offering Chinese culture to the American public.
(http://english.people.com.cn/200411/19/eng20041119_164443.html)(Econ, 10/24/09, SR p.10)
2004 Dec 6, Arson fires hit a new housing development in Charles County, Md., 25 miles south of Washington, DC. 14 homes, priced from $400-500k, were damaged. A security guard and 5 others were later arrested on arson charges. Damages were estimated at $10 million. On Sep 2, 2005, Patrick Walsh (21) was found guilty of masterminding the fires.
(SFC, 12/8/04, p.A2)(SFC, 12/17/04, p.A3)(SFC, 12/21/04, p.A3)(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A3)
2004 In Maryland the first US small office of the Chinese Confucius Institute opened at the Univ. of Maryland. By 2009 there were over 60 such facilities across the country offering Chinese culture to the American public.
(Econ, 10/24/09, SR p.10)
2005 Mar 31, Frank Perdue, businessman, died in Salisbury, Maryland. He transformed his father’s backyard egg business into one of the nation's largest poultry processors using the folksy slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken."
(AP, 4/1/05)(SFC, 4/2/05, p.B5)
2005 May 21, Afleet Alex regained his footing and his drive after being cut off by Scrappy T in a frightening collision and breezed home to win the Preakness Stakes; Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo finished third.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2005 Aug 1, Rafael Palmeiro, Baltimore Orioles star, was suspended for 10 days for use of steroids. The action raised the possibility of a perjury probe.
(SFC, 8/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 3, The FBI raided the Maryland residence of Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar as part of a probe into whether a US congressman made or approved payments to officials in West Africa.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Dec 21, In Maryland 2 off-duty Baltimore police officers were shot to death at a suburban townhouse in Randallstown by a state officer for the Dept. of General Services. Eugene Victor Perry Jr. (33) surrendered shortly after the shootings. One of the victims was his former fiancee.
(SFC, 12/23/05, p.A3)
2006 Mar 9, Claude Allen, who stepped down last month as Bush's top domestic policy adviser, was arrested in Maryland on charges he swindled two stores out of more than $5,000.
(Reuters, 3/11/06)
2006 Apr 4, Maryland beat Duke, 78-75, in overtime to win its first NCAA women's basketball title.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2006 Apr 23, In Maryland Katrina Denise Powe (31) and Mystery Toma Hillian (9) were found dead in an apartment in District Heights. A 12-year-old boy was charged with the murders.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.A5)
2006 May 3, A burglary at a VA data analyst's home in Aspen Hill, Md., included loss of a laptop with personal data for 26.5 million veterans and military personnel. The burglary was disclosed May 22 and the VA first said the data was for 50,000 veterans and military personnel. On June 29 federal officials reported that the laptop was recovered.
(AP, 6/9/06)(SFC, 6/30/06, p.A1)
2006 May 20, In Maryland Barbaro, winner of the Kentucky Derby, fractured an ankle at the start of the Preakness; Bernardini won the race. Barbaro was euthanized Jan 29, 2007, due to medical complications.
(SSFC, 5/21/06, p.A1)(AP, 1/29/07)
2006 May 30, John Allen Muhammad was convicted of 6 Maryland sniper killings. He was already condemned to death in Virginia for his 2002 murder spree. On June 1 he was sentenced to 6 consecutive life terms without parole.
(WSJ, 5/31/06, p.A1)(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A5)
2006 Jun 29, East Coast rains, which began over the weekend, have been blamed for five deaths in Pennsylvania, four in Maryland, one in Virginia and three in New York.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Oct 29, In the northeast US thousands of homes and businesses had no electricity as a storm system blasted the region with winds gusting to more than 50 mph, knocking over trees and a construction crane. The storm was blamed for at least two deaths.
(AP, 10/29/06)
2006 Dec 19, Maryland suspended executions after a state appeals court ruled that lethal injection procedures didn’t get a proper hearing.
(WSJ, 12/20/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec, Javon Thompson (19 months) was starved to death in Baltimore after adults of a cult called 1 Mind Ministries stopped feeding him, in part because he refused to say amen after meals. In April 2007 police found his remains in a suitcase in Philadelphia. In 2008 his mother and 3 cult members were charged with murder.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.A6)
2006 In Jacksonville, Md., an underground gasoline leak led to medical and emotional claims by some 160 families and businesses. In 2011 a Baltimore County jury ordered Exxon Mobil to pay over $475 million in compensation.
(SFC, 6/30/11, p.A6)
2007 Mar 26, Four children and Pedro Rodriguez (28), their father, were found dead in the family's home in Frederick, Maryland. The mother Deysi M. Benitez (25) was missing. Her sister from El Salvador said she had been beaten by her husband and wanted to separate. Police concluded he had smothered the girls and killed the boy with a blow to the head, and then killed himself. The body of his wife, Deysi Benitez (25), an immigrant from El Salvador, was found Feb 29, 2008, 20 miles from their home in Frederick.
(AP, 3/28/07)(AP, 4/17/08)
2007 Apr 17, In Maryland a wall collapsed at the Tri-Star Mining open pit coal mine near Barton. 2 miners were killed.
(SFC, 4/21/07, p.A3)
2007 May 8, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley signed the nation’s first statewide living-wage bill.
(SFC, 5/9/07, p.A4)
2007 May 10, Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa (37), a Sri Lankan national, pleaded guilty in a Maryland court to charges he tried to smuggle US weapons to Tamil Tiger rebels. He was the last of six defendants in the plot to be convicted of trying to obtain military weapons in the 2006 scheme.
(AFP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 19 Curlin nipped Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense to win the Preakness Stakes.
(AP, 5/19/08)
2007 Jul 16, Mark Sneed (50), president of Phillips Foods, died of a heart attack at his home in Riva, Md. He drove the company’s expansion to Asian suppliers for crab.
(WSJ, 1/21/07, p.A4)
2007 Jul 23, Zhenli Ye Gon was arrested in a Maryland restaurant, four months after police discovered $207 million at his Mexico City mansion in what US officials have called the world's biggest seizure of drug cash. Mexican officials had 60 days to file their legal arguments for Ye Gon's extradition. Ye Gon has claimed that $150 million of the money belonged to Mexico's ruling party, and that he was forced to store it for party officials in his mansion under threat of death during the 2006 presidential race. Ye Gon later told US prosecutors he had sold tons of a chemical used to make methamphetamine on the black market.
(AP, 7/24/07)(AP, 10/23/09)
2007 Aug 28, A military court at Fort Meade, Md., acquitted Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan of failing to control US soldiers who abused detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but found him guilty of disobeying an order not to discuss the investigation. However, that conviction was later thrown out.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2007 Sep 18, Maryland’s highest court, in a 4-3 decision, upheld a law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman and said the 1973 ban on gay marriage does not discriminate on the basis of gender and does not deny any fundamental rights.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 22, On Thanksgiving day in Unity, Md., David Peter Brockdorff (40), shot and killed his ex-wife, their 3 children (6-12) and then himself as the woman prepared to hand over the children for a visit.
(SFC, 11/24/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 27, Pres. Bush declared that the time is right to relaunch Mideast peace talks to create a Palestinian state because "a battle is under way for the future" of the troubled region, in remarks prepared for the start of the US-arranged Annapolis Mideast peace conference. Delegations from 46 countries and int’l. organizations attended the conference. Israeli PM Olmert and Palestine’s Pres. Abbas agreed to launch formal talks on Dec 12 and committed to negotiating a peace treaty by the end of 2008.
(AP, 11/27/07)(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A15)(WSJ, 11/28/07, p.A4)
2008 Jan 24, Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute of Rockville, Md., reported that they have built from scratch a synthetic chromosome containing all the genetic material needed to produce the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, the tiniest bacteria ever found.
(SFC, 1/25/08, p.A1)(Econ, 1/26/08, p.76)
2008 Feb 1, In Cockeysville, Md., Nicholas Waggoner Browning (15) shot and killed his father John Browning (45) and mother Tamara (44) and his brothers Gregory (13) and Benjamin (11). On Oct 27 Browning pleaded guilty to first-degree murder charges and faced at least 2 decades in prison. On Jan 23, 2009, he was sentenced to 4 life terms, but could be eligible for parole in 23 years with good behavior.
(SFC, 2/4/08, p.A4)(SFC, 10/28/08, p.A6)(AP, 1/24/09)
2008 Feb 12, Barack Obama won 75% of the vote in Washington DC, nearly two-thirds in Virginia and approximately 60% in Maryland. McCain's victory in Virginia was a relatively close one, the result of an outpouring of religious conservatives who backed Mike Huckabee.
(AP, 2/13/08)
2008 Feb 16, In Maryland a car plowed into a crowd that had gathered to watch a drag race on a suburban road, killing 8 people and injuring at least four.
(AP, 2/16/08)(SSFC, 2/17/08, p.A2)
2008 Apr 7, In Ohio 9 mortgage lenders agreed to modify adjustable-rate mortgages for borrowers facing foreclosure. In Pennsylvania mortgage companies and consumer advocates opened talks to help cash-strapped homeowners avoid foreclosure. Last week Maryland’s Gov. signed a measure creating a 150-day moratorium on foreclosures.
(WSJ, 4/8/08, p.A4)
2008 Apr 15, Pope Benedict arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and was met by President Bush and Catholic dignitaries. Benedict turned 81 the next day.
(AP, 4/16/08)(SFC, 4/16/08, p.A2)
2008 Jun 16, Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley unveiled the BIO 2020 Initiative, America’s largest per-capita investment in biotech.
(www.choosemaryland.org/pressroom/pressreleases/BIO2020.html)
2008 Jul 29, US Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins died of an apparent overdoes of Tylenol at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty against Ivins in connection with anthrax mailings that killed five people. Ivins, who was developing a vaccine against the deadly toxin, committed suicide. On Feb 19, 2010, the FBI formally closed his case concluding that Ivins acted alone in the 2001 anthrax mailings.
(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 2/20/10)(SFC, 2/16/11, p.A6)
2008 Jul 29, In Maryland police raided the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing an unopened package containing 32 pounds of marijuana. The couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Maryland a medical helicopter crashed and killed 4 of 5 people on board.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A2)
2008 Dec 31, SF ended the year with 98 homicides. In Milwaukee, Wisc., the total number of homicides dropped 32%, from 105 in 2007 to 71 in 2008, the lowest number since 1985. Detroit had 344 slayings, a 13% drop from the 396 in 2007; Philadelphia's 332 killings were a 15% drop from the 392 in 2007; and the 234 homicides in Baltimore were 17% less than the 392 the year before. Cleveland recorded 102 homicides in 2008, down from a 13-year high of 134 in 2007. Homicides in New York rose 5.2%, to 522 from 496 the year before. Slayings in Los Angeles were down to 376 in 2008 compared to 400 the prior year. Preliminary data in Chicago showed 508 homicides were reported in 2008, the first time the city had more than 500 murders since 2003 and about 15% more than the 442 homicides reported in 2007. Washington, D.C., ended 2008 with 186 homicides, up from 181 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.1)(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 9, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon (55) was indicted on charges that she accepted illegal gifts, including travel, fur coats and gift cards intended for the poor that she allegedly used instead for a holiday shopping spree. Her trial began on Nov 9.
(AP, 1/10/09)(SFC, 11/10/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 30, The Republican Party chose former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as the first black national chairman in its history.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 31, In Maryland Goucher College President Sanford Ungar told faculty and students in an e-mail that Professor Leopold Munyakazi (59) was removed from teaching after officials learned he had been indicted in 2006 on genocide charges in Rwanda.
(AP, 2/3/09)
2009 Feb 27, Two members of the Final Exit Network appeared in a Maryland court and waived an extradition hearing on charges they aided the suicide of a 58-year-old Georgia man who suffered for years from cancer of the throat and mouth.
(AP, 2/27/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Middletown, Maryland, Christopher Alan Wood (34) killed his wife (33) and 3 children, then himself, in their home, leaving a gruesome scene that authorities said was found by the children's' grandfather on April 18.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Maryland a Loyola college student, her visiting parents and younger sister were found dead in a hotel room near Baltimore in an apparent murder suicide.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 27, In Maryland an indictment named Metro Dream Homes founder Andrew Hamilton Williams Jr. (58) of Hollywood, Fla.; financial officer Michael Anthony Hickson (46) of Commack, N.Y.; president Isaac Jerome Smith (46) of Spotsylvania, Va.; and vice president Alvita Karen Gunn (31) of Hanover, Md., for defrauding over 1,000 people out of about $70 million. They were given 48 hours to turn themselves in. Investors were told they were investing in ATM machines, television advertising and calling card kiosks that would raise money for the mortgage payments. Prosecutors said those businesses never made any money.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, Five members of the US Congress were arrested while protesting the expulsion of aid groups from Darfur in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC. The included Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, John Lewis of Georgia, Donna Edwards of Maryland and Lynn Woolsey of California.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 May 2, Jack Kemp (b.1935), Republican politician, died of cancer at his home in Maryland. A former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Kemp represented western NY for nine terms in Congress, leaving the House for an unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988.
(AP, 5/3/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A16)
2009 May 7, Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley signed legislation extending hate crimes protection to homeless people.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.A11)
2009 May 16, In Maryland Rachel Alexandra won the second leg of the Triple Crown. She joined an impressive list when she became the first filly in 85 years to win the Preakness.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 Sep 25, In Maryland 4 bodies were found in a home in Mount Airy. Police said Charles Dalton (38), a school janitor struggling to survive the recession, killed his sleeping wife and 2 children before shooting himself with a 12-guage shotgun.
(SSFC, 9/27/09, p.A8)
2009 Oct 19, American scientist Stewart D. Nozette (52) of Chevy Chase, Md., was arrested for attempted espionage after passing classified information to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence operative. In 2011 Nozette pleaded guilty to espionage and agreed to a 13-year prison term.
(SFC, 10/21/09, p.A5)(SFC, 9/8/11, p.A8)
2009 Dec 1, A Baltimore jury convicted Mayor Sheila Dixon of one count of embezzlement for stealing gift cards meant for poor residents. She was acquitted of other charges.
(SFC, 12/2/09, p.A12)
2009 Dec 25, In Maryland law enforcement found the body of Sarah H. Foxwell (11) near the Delaware state line three days after she was last seen at her home. Thomas J. Leggs Jr. (30), a known sex offender and former boyfriend of the girl's aunt, was charged on Dec 23 in Sarah's kidnapping.
(AP, 12/26/09)
2010 Jan 6, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon (56) resigned as part of a deal with prosecutors following allegations that she stole gift cards that had been donated to the poor.
(SFC, 1/7/10, p.A4)
2010 Feb 10, Snow, wind and slush hounded eastern commuters as blizzard warnings from Baltimore to New York City heralded the second major storm in a region already largely blanketed by weekend snowfall. Snow was falling from northern Virginia to Connecticut after crawling out of the Midwest, where the storm canceled hundreds of flights and was blamed for three traffic deaths in Michigan.
(AP, 2/10/10)
2010 Mar 22, In Maryland Renee Bowman (44) was sentenced to 2 consecutive life terms for killing her two adopted daughters and storing their bodies in a freezer. She had continued to collect subsidies paid to adoptive parents of special needs children.
(SFC, 3/23/10, p.A7)
2010 Mar 30, A gunman sprayed bullets from a moving vehicle into a crowd in southeastern Washington, killing four and wounding at least five others, before leading police on a chase into neighboring Maryland. Three people were arrested in the drive-by shooting.
(AP, 3/31/10)
2010 May 15, In Maryland jockey Martin Garcia rode “Lookin At Lucky" to victory in the Preakness Stakes.
(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 9, US regulators shut down 2 banks in Maryland, bringing to 88 the number of failed US banks this year.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.D3)
2010 Sep 1, In Maryland police shot and killed James J. Lee after he took 2 employees and a security officer hostage at the headquarters of the Discovery Channel. Lee had demanded that the network ask “the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it." All 3 hostages escaped unharmed.
(SFC, 9/2/10, p.A8)
2010 Sep 16, In Maryland Paul Warren Pardus (50), distraught by his mother’s health condition, shot and wounded her surgeon, Dr. David Cohen, and then killed his mother and himself at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 19, In Maryland Corey Ausby (16) was beaten while walking through a Baltimore neighborhood. In 2012 a trial opened for brothers Eliyahu (24) and Avi Werdesheim (21). Charging documents said they pulled up next to the black teenager in a vehicle, then got out and "surrounded him." The passenger threw the teen to the ground and the driver hit him in the head with a hand-held radio and patted him down. On May 3 Eliyahu was convicted of false imprisonment and 2nd degree assault. His brother was acquitted.
(AP, 4/23/12)(SFC, 5/4/12, p.A7)
2010 Dec 8, In Maryland federal authorities arrested Antonio Martinez (21) for attempting to blow up a military recruitment center in Catonsville, with what he thought was a vehicle bomb. On April 6, 2012, Martinez renounced terrorism, but was still sentenced to 25 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A22)(SFC, 4/7/12, p.A4)
2011 Mar 12, In Maryland police in Rockville found Brittany Norwood (28) tied up in a Lululemon Athletica shop and co-worker Jayna Murray (30) dead. Norwood said they had been attacked by 2 men. Police arrested Norwood on March 18 for murdering Murray.
(SFC, 3/22/11, p.A6)
2011 Jun 2, In Maryland Sukanya Roy (14) of South Abington Township, Pa., won the 84th Scripps national Spelling Bee.
(SFC, 6/3/11, p.A7)
2011 Jul 6, In Maryland the FBI arrested Mohammad Hassan Khalid (18), a high school honors student and legal immigrant from Pakistan, at his home near Baltimore for helping Colleen LaRose, aka “Jihad Jane," plot to kill Swedish artist Lars Vilks. LaRose (48) pleaded guilty this year to 4 federal charges. On May 4, 2012, Khalid pleaded guilty to helping LaRose. On April 17, 2014 Khalid was sentenced to five years in prison.
(SFC, 10/21/11, p.A11)(SFC, 5/4/12, p.A5)(SFC, 4/18/14, p.A7)
2011 Jul 9, In Maryland Barry Landau’s assistant Jason Savedoff (24) was caught stealing documents for the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. Multiple searches of Landau's NYC West 57th Avenue apartment by the FBI turned up thousands more documents. In 2012 Landau was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
(SFC, 5/15/13, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Landau)
2011 Jul 15, Thomas Drake (54), a former senior official for the national Security Agency (NSA), was sentenced to a year’s probation for leaking information about the NSA to the Baltimore Sun in 2006.
(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake)
2011 Aug 2, Robyn Gardner (35), of Frederick, Maryland, vanished after snorkeling with her companion off the western tip of Aruba. On Aug 6 police detained her traveling companion Gary V. Giordano (50), as he sought to fly back to the US. Giordano had an accidental-death insurance policy on Gardner for $1.5 million and sought to claim the money two days after reporting her missing.
(AP, 8/9/11)(AP, 8/18/11)
2011 Aug 28, Seawater surged into the streets of Manhattan as Tropical Storm Irene slammed into New York, downgraded from a hurricane but still unleashing furious wind and rain. The flooding threatened Wall Street and the heart of the global financial network. At least 16 people were reported killed in 6 states: 5 in North Carolina, 4 in Virginia, 3 in New Jersey, 2 in Florida and one each in Maryland and Connecticut.
(AP, 8/28/11)(SFC, 8/29/11, p.A10)
2011 Sep 8, Tropical Storm Lee dumped heavy rain in the Northeast. The Susquehanna River and its tributaries in New York and Pennsylvania swamped thousands of homes. At least 15 deaths were blamed on the storm and its aftermath: 7 in Pennsylvania, 3 in Virginia, one in Maryland and 4 others when it came ashore on the Gulf Coast a week earlier.
(SFC, 9/10/11, p.A6)
2011 Dec 9, In Maryland former Prince George’s County councilwoman Leslie Johnson was sentenced to a year in prison for obstructing an investigation into her husband’s corruption. Former County Executive Jack Johnson got over 7 years in prison this week for extorting hundreds of thousands in bribes from developers.
(SFC, 12/10/11, p.A6)
2011 Dec 28, Two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions were arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder. Dr. Steven Brigham, of Voorhees, N.J., was taken into custody and held in the Camden County jail. Authorities also arrested Dr. Nicola Riley in Salt Lake City. Each was awaiting an extradition hearing.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2012 Jan 6, Nadeem Akhtar (46), a Maryland businessman, was sentenced to over 3 years in prison for conspiring to export to Pakistan materials that can be used in nuclear reactors.
(SFC, 1/7/12, p.A5)
2012 Jan 9, In Maryland former US Army veteran Craig Benedict Baxam (24), who had done earlier tours in Iraq and South Korea, faced charges that he had tried to enlist with Somalia's al-Shabab terrorist group. Baxam, an Army vet trained in intelligence and cryptology, was arrested Jan 6 at Baltimore-Washington Int’l. Airport as he returned from a failed effort to get to Somalia.
(http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/11/us/soldier-al-shabaab/index.html)
2012 Mar 1, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley signed into a law a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.
(SFC, 3/2/12, p.A8)
2012 Mar 30, Lottery ticket-holders in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland each selected the winning numbers for the world record-breaking $640 million Mega Millions jackpot.
(AP, 3/31/12)
2012 Apr 3, Mitt Romney swept Republican primaries in Maryland (47%), Wisconsin (42%) and Washington, DC (70%).
(SFC, 4/4/12, p.A6)
2012 May 19, G8 leaders meeting in Maryland made progress on addressing the two biggest threats to their economies, the euro zone crisis and very high oil prices. G8 leaders sent a strong message to Iran that tough energy sanctions would be firmly applied, vowing to ensure oil markets are well supplied to prevent crude prices soaring. G8 leaders pledged to lift millions of Africans out of poverty by promoting investments in sustainable agriculture.
(AFP, 5/19/12)
2012 May 19, G8 leaders meeting in Maryland backed keeping Greece in the euro zone and vowed to take all steps necessary to combat financial turmoil while revitalizing a global economy increasingly threatened by Europe's debt crisis.
(Reuters, 5/19/12)
2012 May 25, In Maryland Alexander Kinyua (21), a student from Kenya, allegedly killed and ate parts of Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie (37), his Ghanaian housemate. On June 2 Kinyua was arrested after being charged with first-degree murder and other charges.
(AFP, 6/2/12)
2012 Jun 18, Rodney Hailey of Maryland faced trial in a $9.1 million fraud case for selling renewable fuel credits even though his company did not produce any renewable fuel.
(SFC, 6/18/12, p.A5)
2012 Jun 30, Millions across the mid-Atlantic region sweltered in the aftermath of violent storms that pummeled the eastern US with high winds and downed trees, killing 24 people and leaving 3 million without power during a heat wave. At least six of the dead were killed in Virginia. 2 young cousins in New Jersey were killed when a tree fell on their tent while camping. 2 were killed in Maryland, one in Ohio, one in Kentucky and one in Washington.
(AP, 6/30/12)(SFC, 7/3/12, p.A8)(Econ, 7/7/12, p.32)
2012 Aug 20, In Maryland a CSX freight train derailed near midnight buried under coal and killed 2 college friends (19), who were sitting near the tracks.
(SFC, 8/22/12, p.A6)
2012 Sep 16, It was reported that a 19th person has died at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., from an antibiotic-resistant strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae (KPC). The outbreak stemmed from a single patient carrying the superbug into the hospital last summer.
(SSFC, 9/16/12, p.A7)
2012 Sep 17, Russell Train (b.1920), renowned conservationist, died at his farm in Bozman, Md. He was widely considered the father of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 under pres. Nixon.
(SFC, 9/19/12, p.C6)
2012 Nov 2, Frustration grew for residents of Northeast states hit by superstorm Sandy as the death toll reached 102, millions were still without power and tempers frayed at a lack of fuel and guidance on when life might return to normal.
(Reuters, 11/2/12)
2012 Nov 6, Maine and Maryland became the first states to approve same sex marriage by popular vote.
(SFC, 11/7/12, p.A10)
2012 The FBI found 5 Baltimore police officers involved in a corruption racket.
(Econ., 5/2/15, p.23)
2013 Jan 1, Gay marriage became legal in Maryland, the first state south of the Mason-Dixon Line on New Year's Day.
(AP, 1/1/13)
2013 Feb 3, In New Orleans the Baltimore Ravens defeated the SF 49ers 43-31 in Super Bowl XLVII. The game was delayed for 34 minutes in the 3rd quarter when lights went out in the stadium. Some 109 million people watched the game.
(SFC, 2/4/13, p.A1)(Econ, 2/9/13, p.67)
2013 Feb 18, In Maryland Dr. Nikita A. Levy (54) was found dead. The gynecologist’s employment at Johns Hopkins was terminated on Feb 8 following reports of his surreptitiously photographing and videotaping his patients. In 2014 the John Hopkins Health System agreed to pay $190 million to some 8,000 women to settle the case.
(SFC, 2/19/13, p.A7)(SFC, 7/22/14, p.A4)
2013 May 2, Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley signed legislation to abolish the death penalty, making Maryland became the 18th US state to do so.
(SFC, 5/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Jun 19, The US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., charged 3 Navy football players with sexually assaulting a female midshipman at an off-campus house in April, 2012.
(SFC, 6/20/13, p.A7)
2013 Jul 30, In Maryland US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy, but was convicted on 20 of 22 other charges including espionage and theft. He faced up to 136 years in prison for spilling government information to WikiLeaks in 2010.
(SFC, 7/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Aug 14, In Maryland US soldier Bradley Manning told a military court "I'm sorry" for giving war logs and diplomatic secrets to the WikiLeaks website three years ago, the biggest breach of classified data in the nation's history.
(Reuters, 8/14/13)
2013 Aug 21, In Maryland a military judge sentenced Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for providing more than 700,000 government files to WikiLeaks.
(SFC, 8/22/13, p.A5)
2014 Jan 25, In Maryland a shooter at the Mall in Columbia killed 2 young employees of the Zumiez skateboard shop and then took his own life. On Jan 26 police identified the shooter as Darion Marcus Aguilar (19) of College Park.
(Reuters, 1/26/14)
2014 Mar 11, Jos. A. Bank of Hampstead, Md., and Men’s Wearhouse of Fremont, Ca., announced that Men’s Wearhouse will acquire Jos. A. Bank for $65/share or about $1.8 billion.
(SFC, 3/12/14, p.C1)
2014 Mar 18, The Mega Millions jackpot of $414 million, the third largest in the game’s history, went to two winners of tickets sold in Florida and Maryland.
(SFC, 3/20/14, p.A6)
2014 May 17, In Maryland 3-year-old California Chrome won the 139th Preakness at Pimlico Race Course making him eligible for the Triple Crown on June 7 at the Belmont Stakes.
(SSFC, 5/18/14, p.B1)
2014 Jul 8, US East Coast states experienced severe storms and high winds. 4 people were killed in New York and one in Maryland. CNN reported nearly 500,000 homes and businesses without power, mostly in Pennsylvania and New York state.
(AP, 7/9/14)
2014 Aug 12, A US federal judge upheld a Maryland ban on 45 assault weapons and a limit on gun magazines to 10 rounds.
(SFC, 8/13/14, p.A8)
2014 Sep 8, Ray Rice, running back for the Baltimore Ravens, was dropped indefinitely by the NFL after video footage emerged showing him punching his future wife unconscious in a casino lift. He had initially received a two-game suspension after being indicted in March for the assault. The charges were dropped after he agreed to counseling.
(Econ, 9/20/14, p.27)
2014 Oct 23, In Maryland a small plane and a helicopter collided before crashing. 3 people were killed.
(SFC, 10/24/14, p.A7)
2014 Dec 8, In Maryland a small private jet crashed into a house in Gaithersburg, Md. A woman, her two young sons and 3 people in the plane were killed.
(SFC, 12/9/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 22, A grand jury in Baltimore returned indictments against 22 people involved in a multi-state dog-fighting ring. 225 dogs and at least 20 weapons were recovered following raids in Baltimore and West Virginia.
(SFC, 12/23/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 27, In Maryland bicyclist Tom Palermo (41), a father of two, was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Episcopal Bishop Suffragan Heather Cook (58) was later charged with manslaughter and drunken driving.
(SFC, 1/10/15, p.A4)
2015 Feb 14, In Maryland Jason Hendrix (16) was killed in a shootout with police as they tried to pull him over for a speeding violation. This prompted a search at his home in Corbin, Ky., where police found the bodies of his parents and a younger sister. Hendrix was said to be angry at his parents for taking away his computer privileges.
(SFC, 2/16/15, p.A7)
2015 Mar 30, In Maryland one cross-dressing man was killed and another injured as they mistakenly crashed a stolen Ford Escape into a police cruiser at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade.
(SFC, 3/31/15, p.A6)
2015 Apr 6, In Maryland Rodney Todd (36) was found dead with his 7 children in Princess Anne following carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator they were using after the power company cut off their heat. The family was last seen on March 28 and Delmarva Power was subpoenaed to document its role.
(SFC, 4/7/15, p.A10)(SFC, 4/8/15, p.A12)
2015 Apr 19, In Baltimore, Maryland, Freddie Gray (25) died following his April 12 arrest when he somehow suffered an 80 percent severed spinal cord and three broken vertebrae. A video shot from nearby showed police restraining Gray on a sidewalk, then dragging him while yelling in pain to a police van.
(AFP, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 25, In Maryland thousands of protesters took to the streets of Baltimore to protest the fatal injury of Freddie Gray, who died on April 19 after sufering a fatal spinal injury while in police custody.
(SSFC, 4/26/15, p.A9)
2015 Apr 27, In Baltimore rioters plunged parts of the city into chaos torching a pharmacy and setting cars on fire, following the funeral of Freddie Gray, who died on April 19 after sufering a fatal spinal injury while in police custody. The governor declared a state of emergency and called in the National Guard to restore order.
(SFC, 4/28/15, p.A5)
2015 May 1, In Baltimore six police officers were charged over the April 19 death of Freddie Gray, an African-American man in their custody. Police made at least 15 arrests when some protesters defied a 10:00 pm curfew. On May 21 a grand jury indicted all six of the charged police officers.
(AFP, 5/2/15)(SFC, 5/22/15, p.A8)
2015 May 3, The mayor of Baltimore lifted a nightly curfew that was implemented after residents in the US city rioted following the death of a man in police custody.
(AP, 5/3/15)
2015 May 18, The US Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Maryland tax that has the effect of double-taxing income residents earn in other states.
(AP, 5/18/15)
2015 Jun 25, In Maryland Baltimore County police officers shot and killed Spencer Lee McCain (41) while responding to a call for potential domestic violence in Owings Mills. McCain was not armed.
(SFC, 6/26/15, p.A6)
2015 Jul 6, A US federal indictment said three members of the Salvadoran gang La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, killed two people in Maryland and wounded or threatened four others.
(AP, 7/6/15)
2015 Jul, Surgeons at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia completed a double-hand transplant for Zion Harvey (8) of Maryland, who had lost his hands and feet to a serious infection.
(SFC, 7/30/15, p.A6)
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Subject = Maryland
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ALHN: http://www.usgennet.org/~alhnmdus/md.html
Facts: http://www.50states.com/maryland.htm
State Archives: http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/
35 Million A meteorite impacted at what is now Chesapeake Bay and formed the largest impact crater in the US.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, p.A10)
1632 Jun 20, Britain granted 2nd Lord Baltimore rights to Chesapeake Bay area.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1634 Mar 25, English colonists sent by Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, arrived in present-day Maryland. Maryland was founded as a Catholic colony.
(HN, 3/24/98)(AP, 3/25/08)(AH, 4/07, p.30)
1645 Feb 14, Robert Ingle, commissioned by the English Parliament and captain of the tobacco ship Reformation, sailed to St. Mary’s (Maryland) and seized a Dutch trading ship. This marked the beginning of what came to known as “The Plundering Time."
(Arch, 1/05, p.48)
1647 Jun 24, Margaret Brent (d.1671), a niece of Lord Baltimore, was ejected from the Maryland Assembly after demanding a place and vote in the body. Brent, acted as attorney for Lord Baltimore, and saved the colony from mutinous soldiers and from a Protestant revolt against the Catholic government.
(AP, 6/24/97)(www.historyswomen.com/MargaretBrent.htm)
1648 Jan 21, In Maryland, the first woman lawyer in the colonies, Margaret Brent, was denied a vote in the Maryland Assembly. [see Jun 24, 1647]
(HN, 1/21/99)
1649 Apr 21, The Maryland Toleration Act, which provided for freedom of worship for all Christians, was passed by the Maryland assembly.
(AP, 4/21/97)(HN, 4/21/98)
1655 Mar 25, Puritans jailed Governor Stone after a military victory over Catholic forces in the colony of Maryland.
(HN, 3/25/99)
1656 Jan 24, Jacob Lumbrozo, 1st Jewish doctor in US, arrived in Maryland.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1657 Sep 24, The 1st autopsy and coroner's jury verdict was recorded in the state of Maryland.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1656 Sep 22, The General Provincial Court in session at Patuxent, Maryland, impaneled the first all-woman jury in the Colonies to hear evidence against Judith Catchpole, who was accused of murdering her child. The jury acquitted her after hearing her defense of never having been pregnant.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/22/98)(HN, 9/22/98)
1661 Cecil Calvert sent his son Charles Calvert (1637-1715), the 3rd Lord Baltimore, to Maryland. Charles replaced Philip Calvert as governor and remained the colonial governor until his father’s death in 1675.
(http://mdroots.thinkport.org/library/charlescalvert.asp)
1664 Sep 20, Maryland passed the 1st anti-amalgamation law to stop intermarriage of English women and black men.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1680 Maryland colonists ran out of supplies and survived starvation by eating oysters.
(SFC, 9/18/99, p.B3)
1689 Jul, Maryland colonist known as the Protestant Associators marched on St. Mary’s City and seized the State House while Lord Baltimore was in England. They went on to take over his plantation at Mattapany.
(Arch, 1/05, p.49)
1691 King William III sent a royal governor to Maryland.
(Arch, 1/05, p.50)
1704 Sep 28, Maryland allowed divorce if a wife displeased the clergyman or preacher.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1721 Apr 13, John Hanson, first U.S. President under the Articles of Confederation, was born in Maryland.
(HN, 4/13/98)(MC, 4/13/02)
1729 Jul 29, The city of Baltimore was founded.
(AP, 7/30/97)
1730 In Maryland William Fell, a Quaker ship’s carpenter, purchased a swampy promontory that became known as Baltimore’s Fell’s Point.
(WSJ, 12/1/07, p.W11)
1731 Nov 9, Benjamin Banneker was born in Maryland and grew up a free black man. From his farm near Baltimore, Banneker spent much of his time studying the stars. Although he lacked much of a formal education, he taught himself with borrowed books and became a noted mathematician, astronomer and inventor. Carving its gears with a pocket knife, he built a wooden clock in 1770 that was believed to have been the first built in America. Banneker began publishing scientific almanacs in 1791 after accurately predicting a solar eclipse. President George Washington appointed him to the District of Columbia Commission in 1789 to help survey the new capital city of Washington, D.C. Banneker, who died in 1806, also corresponded with Thomas Jefferson about his views against slavery.
(HNPD, 11/9/98)
1737 Sep 19, Charles Carroll (d.1832), American patriot and legislator, was born. He was the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration and his signature read Charles Carroll of Carrollton. He lived in Maryland where, as a Roman Catholic he was forbidden from voting and holding public office. However, the wealthy Carrolls moved in the highest social circle and entertained George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette at their estate.
(HNQ, 1/14/99)(MC, 9/19/01)
1754 Jun 19, The Albany Congress opened. New York colonial Gov. George Clinton called for the meeting to discuss better relations with Indian tribes and common defensive measures against the French. The attendees included Indians and representatives from Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Benjamin Franklin attended and presented his Plan of Union, which was adopted by the conference. The meeting ended on July 11.
(AH, 2/06, p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Congress)
1763 Nov 15, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon began surveying Mason-Dixon Line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. They surveyed 233 miles by 1767 when Indians of the Six nations told them they could not proceed any further west.
(MC, 11/15/01)(ON, 2/04, p.10)
1765 Nov 23, Frederick County, Md., became the first colonial entity to repudiate the British Stamp Act.
(AP, 11/23/07)
1767 Oct 9, The survey party of Mason and Dixon came to a halt after 233 miles when Indians of the Six Nations said they had reached the end of their commission. [see Oct 18]
(ON, 2/04, p.10)
1767 Oct 18, The boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Mason-Dixon line, was agreed upon. It was first surveyed in 1763 to 1767 by two British astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, in order to settle a dispute between the Calvert and Penn families, the owners at that time of the two states in question. The survey, begun in 1763 and completed four years later, done by English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to resolve a land-grant boundary dispute between the families of Lord Baltimore and William Penn, resulted in the Mason-Dixon Line. The line, extended in 1784, came to be known as the dividing line between free-soil states and slave states.
http://freespace.virgin.net/john.cletheroe/usa_can/usa/mas_dix.htm
(AP, 10/18/97)(HNQ, 9/8/99)
1773 Oct 14, Britain's East India Company tea ships' cargo was burned at Annapolis, Md.
(HN, 10/14/98)
1775 Apr 13, Lord North extended the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act forbade trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland.
(HN, 4/13/99)
1775 Jul 25, Maryland issued currency depicting George III trampling the Magna Carta.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1781 Mar 1, The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, following ratification by Maryland.
(AP, 3/1/08)
1782 Nov 5, The Continental Congress elected John Hanson of Maryland its chairman, giving him the title of "President of the United States in Congress Assembled."
(AP, 11/5/99)
1783 Nov 23, Annapolis, Md., became the US capital until June 1784. [see Nov 26, 1783]
(MC, 11/23/01)
1783 Nov 26, The city of Annapolis, Maryland, was the first peacetime U.S. capital. The U.S. Congress met at Annapolis November 26, 1783-June 3, 1784, following the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783, formally ending hostilities between Great Britain and her former colony. New York was the capital from 1785 until 1790, followed by Philadelphia until 1800 and then Washington, D.C.
(HNQ, 6/15/00)
1784 Jun 9, John Carroll was appointed supervisor of US Catholic Missions.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1784 Jun 24, In a tethered flight from Baltimore, Maryland, Edward Warren (13) became the 1st to fly in a balloon on US soil.
(NPub, 2002, p.3)
1784 Nov 1, Maryland granted citizenship to Lafayette and his descendents.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1788 Apr 28, Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the US constitution, but on condition that a Bill of Rights be added.
(AP, 4/28/07)(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A21)
1788 Dec 23, Maryland voted to cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of the national government; about two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1790 Aug 2, The enumeration for the first US census began. It showed that 3,929,326 people were living in the US of which 697,681 were slaves, and that the largest cities were New York City with 33,000 inhabitants; Philadelphia, with 28,000; Boston, with 18,000; Charleston, South Carolina, with 16,000; and Baltimore, with 13,000. Census records for Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, and Virginia were lost sometime between 1790 and 1830.
(AP, 8/2/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_Census)
1794 George Washington established the first national armory at Springfield, Mass. He also authorized the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Md. (WVa), where the Shenandoah flows into the Potomac.
(WSJ, 9/12/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T7)
1796 Dec 18, The Baltimore Monitor appeared as the 1st US Sunday newspaper.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1806 In Baltimore, Maryland, ground was broken for a cathedral designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Bungles and war delayed dedication until 1821. In 1937 Pope Pius XI elevated the cathedral to a basilica.
(WSJ, 11/2/06, p.D8)
1809 Nov 22, Peregrine Williamson of Baltimore patented a steel pen.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1812 Jun 22, A pro-war mob destroyed Hanson‘s newspaper office, four days after America’s declaration of war against Great Britain. Revered American Revolutionary cavalry hero Henry “Light-Horse Harry" Lee was nearly beaten to death by a mob in Baltimore. Lee came to the aide of an anti-war newspaper publisher in Baltimore, Alexander Contee Hanson, defending his right to freedom of speech. When Hanson returned to Baltimore five weeks later to resume publication, his office was again besieged by vigilantes. After a tense standoff through the night of July 27, Hanson and his supporters, including Lee, were taken to a local jail. Later the mob stormed the jail, severely beating those being held. Lee, father of Robert E. Lee, never fully recovered from injuries sustained in the beating and died in 1818.
(HNQ, 9/17/99)
1813 Aug 9, After reports that British naval vessels were nearing St. Michaels, Md., to attack the shipbuilding town that night, the county militia placed lanterns on the tops of the tallest trees and on the masts of vessels in the harbor; and had all other lights extinguished. When the British attacked, they directed their fire too high and overshot the town.
(HNQ, 11/25/02)
1813 Aug 10, A number of British barges manned by marines shelled the town of St. Michaels, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay. Residents had hoisted lanterns to treetops and masts and caused the British canons to overshoot their mark. One house was hit by a cannonball on the roof and the ball rolled across the attic and down the staircase frightening Mrs. Merchant as she carried her infant daughter downstairs.
(SMBA, 1996)
1814 Aug 14, British marines landed near the mouth of the Patuxent River in Maryland and began marching overland to attack Washington, DC.
(ON, 6/08, p.1)
1814 Aug 24, 5,000 British troops under the command of General Robert Ross marched into Washington, D.C., after defeating an American force at Bladensburg, Maryland. It was in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. Meeting no resistance from the disorganized American forces, the British burned the White House, the Capitol and almost every public building in the city before a downpour extinguished the fires. President James Madison and his wife fled from the advancing enemy, but not before Dolly Madison saved the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. This wood engraving of Washington in flames was printed in London weeks after the event to celebrate the British victory.
(AP, 8/24/97)(HNPD, 8/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bladensburg)
1814 Sep 12, A British fleet under Sir Alexander Cochrane began the bombardment of Fort McHenry, the last American defense before Baltimore. Lawyer Francis Scott Key had approached the British attackers seeking the release of a friend who was being held for unfriendly acts toward the British. Key himself was detained overnight on September 13 and witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a guarded American boat.
(www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/hh/5/hh5h.htm)
1814 Sep 12, The Battle of North Point was fought near Baltimore during War of 1812. British General Ross was killed by a sniper’s bullet in a skirmish just prior to the main battle. The battle proved to be strategic American victory, but since they left the field in the hands of the British, tactically it was a defeat for the Americans.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_North_Point)
1814 Sep 13, British ships bombarded Ft. McHenry under the command of General Armistead. Francis Scott Key detained on a British ship watched the bombing. The British used red glaring Congreve rockets and air bursting bombs during the war.
(NG, Sept. 1939, p.392)(SFC, 6/22/96, p.E4)
1814 Sep 14, In the dawn light Francis Scott Key saw that the American flag still waved over Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. He looked on from the deck of a boat on the Patasco River nine miles away and wrote “The Star Spangled Banner." The lyrics were alter adopted to the British tune "To Anacreon in Heaven," which had also served as Irish drinking song and a number of other songs. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was officially recognized as the national anthem in 1931. The 40 feet long flag had been made by Baltimore widow Mary Young Pickersgill and her 13-year-old daughter just a month before the attack. In 1907 the flag was donated to the Smithsonian.
(https://www.youtube.com/embed/YaxGNQE5ZLA)(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A2)(AP, 9/14/97) (WSJ, 7/3/02, p.B1)
1816 Jul 11(Jun 11), Gas Light Co. of Baltimore was founded.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1817 Feb 14, Frederick Douglass (d.1895), "The Great Emancipator," was born in Maryland as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. He was the son of a slave and a white father who bought his own freedom and published “The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass" (1845) a memoir of his life as a slave. "The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous."
(AHD, 1971, p.394)(HN, 2/14/99)(AP, 2/20/99)(ON, 12/09, p.12)
1817 Feb 17, A street in Baltimore became the first to be lighted with gas from America's first gas company.
(AP, 2/17/98)
1819 Mar 6, The US Supreme Court ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that the state could not impose a tax on the notes of banks not chartered in the state. Luther Martin represented Maryland in the landmark case.
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCulloch_v._Maryland)
1821 Jan 4, The first native-born American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, died in Emmitsburg, Md.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1826 Jul 8, Luther Martin (b.1748), Maryland lawyer and former delegate to the Constitutional Convention, died in NYC. In 2008 Bill Kaufman authored “Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin."
(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Martin)
1827 Feb 28, The first U.S. railroad chartered to carry passengers and freight, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co., was incorporated.
(AP, 2/28/98)
1827 Roger Brooke Taney became attorney general of Maryland.
(WSJ, 11/21/06, p.D8)
1828 Jul 4, Ground-breaking ceremonies were held in Baltimore for construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Charles Carroll, last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, turned the spade in Baltimore. At the groundbreaking, Carroll said, “I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to that of signing the Declaration of Independence, if even it be second to that." On the same day, in nearby Georgetown, President John Quincy Adams, with great fanfare, lifted the first shovel of dirt to begin construction of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal that would link Washington, Baltimore and Pittsburgh by water. The railroad went on to become one of the nation's longest rail lines, reaching St. Louis, Missouri, in 1857. The 185-mile canal, though it had many years of use, was quickly eclipsed as a transportation medium by the superior technology of the railroad.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)(HNQ, 10/4/99)
1829 Dec 21, The 1st stone arch railroad bridge in US was dedicated in Baltimore.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1829 Dec 22, The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad opened the first passenger railway line.
(HN, 12/22/98)
1830 Jan 7, 1st US Railroad Station opened in Baltimore.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1830 May 20, The 1st railroad timetable was published in the newspaper Baltimore American.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1830 May 24, The first passenger railroad in the United States began service between Baltimore and Elliott's Mills, Md.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1830 Aug 25, The “Tom Thumb" steam locomotive, designed by Peter Cooper, ran its famous race with a horse-drawn car. The horse won because the engine, which had been ahead, broke down. [see Sep 18]
(HN, 8/25/98)(ON, 1/01, p.12)
1830 Aug 28, “Tom Thumb," the 1st locomotive in US, ran from Baltimore to Ellicotts Mill.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1830 Sep 18, Tom Thumb" the first locomotive built in the United States, lost a nine-mile race in Maryland to a horse. [see Aug 25]
(HN, 9/18/98)
1832 A cholera epidemic hit Baltimore and at least 853 people were killed. Fundamentalist Christians blamed the deaths on the "judgement of God."
(SFEC, 3/5/00, Z1 p.4)
1834 Jan 29, President Jackson ordered the 1st use of US troops to suppress a labor dispute. Jackson ordered the War Department to put down a "riotous assembly" near Willamsport, Maryland, among Irish laborers constructing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
(HNQ, 1/23/99)(MC, 1/29/02)
1837 The B&O Railroad and the C&O Canal both reached Harper's Ferry. At this point the B&O built a bridge across the Potomac and began an inland route up the mountains to Martinsburg.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T7)
1838 May 10, John Wilkes Booth (d.1865), assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was born near Bel Air, Maryland.
(HN, 5/10/98)
1838 Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey escaped from slavery in Maryland and traveled to new England where he changed his name to Frederick Douglass.
(AHD, 1971, p.394)(ON, 7/02, p.6)
1839 Jacob D. Green (b.1813), a slave in Queen Anne’s County, Md., escaped from the plantation of Judge Charles Earle after his wife and 2 children were sold in his absence. In 1842 he was caught and returned to Judge Earle, who sold him to a new master in Tennessee. Green escaped and was captured a few more times before he finally reached Canada. In 1851 he emigrated to England and in 1964 published a 43-page account of his adventures.
(ON, 7/05, p.11)
1839 William Knabe opened his own piano company in Baltimore. It later became part of Samick Musical Instruments.
(SFC, 10/29/08, p.G2)
1840 A US no-bail-out policy forced some state into default. Several US states had loaded up on unsustainable debt following an extended period of easy credit. These states consequently found payments on their existing bonds increasingly unaffordable. Between 1841 and 1843 Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and one territory – a proto-state called Florida – defaulted.
(Econ, 2/11/12, p.57)(http://tinyurl.com/6pgf4wq)
1843 Jan 11, Francis Scott Key (63), poet of "The Star-Spangled Banner," died in Baltimore.
(HN, 1/11/99)(MC, 1/11/02)
1844 May 1, Samuel Morse (1791-1872) sent the 1st telegraphic message as a demonstration between Washington, DC, and Baltimore [see Jan 6, 1838]. The line officially opened on May 24, 1844.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse)
1844 May 24, Samuel F.B. Morse, before a crowd of dignitaries in the chambers of the Supreme Court, tapped out the message, "What hath God wrought?" to his partner in Baltimore, Alfred Vail. Congress had appropriated $30,000 for the experimental line built by Ezra Cornell between Washington and Baltimore. American portrait artist Samuel F.B. Morse developed the technology for electrical telegraphy in the 1830s, the first instantaneous form of communication. Using a key to hold open an electrical circuit for longer or shorter periods, an operator would tap out a message in a code composed of dots and dashes. Public demonstrations of the equipment were made in February 1838, but it was necessary for Morse to secure financial backing to build the first telegraph line to carry the signal over distance. In 1843, Congress appropriated the funds for a 37-mile line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. After underground telegraph wires proved unsuccessful, Morse switched to pole wires.
(AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/98)(HNPD, 2/6/99)(HNQ, 5/27/00)
1844 May 25, The first telegraphed news dispatch, sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, appeared in the Baltimore "Patriot."
(AP, 5/25/97)
1845 Oct 10, The U.S. Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Md., with fifty midshipmen students and seven professors.
(AP, 10/10/97)(HN, 10/10/98)(MC, 10/10/01)
1849 Oct 7, Author Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore, Md., at age 40. Never able to overcome his drinking habits, he was found in a delirious condition outside a saloon that was used as a voting place. The artist James Carling later illustrated his poem “The Raven." In 1996 a case was made in the Sept. issue of the Maryland Med. Journal that his symptoms indicated that he died of encephalitic rabies.
(FB, 9/12/96, p.A7)(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.T5)(AP, 10/7/97)(HN, 10/7/98)
1851 Jun 15, Jacob Fussell, Baltimore dairyman, set up the 1st ice-cream factory.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1854 Jun 10, The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, held its first graduation.
(HN, 6/10/98)
1854 Oct 17, James Simpson, a Baltimore inventor, received a patent for a multiwalled ice pitcher.
(SFC, 12/30/98, Z1 p.2)
1861 Jan 6, Governor of Maryland sends a message to the people of Maryland, strongly opposing Maryland’s secession from the Union.
(HN, 1/6/99)
1861 Feb 23, President-elect Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office after a suspected assassination plot was foiled in Baltimore. Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, may have saved Abraham Lincoln’s life by suspecting a plot to assassinate the president-elect in Baltimore, Md. At the detective’s suggestion, Lincoln avoided the threat by secretly slipping through the city at night. A few months later, Pinkerton joined Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s staff as chief intelligence officer. Using the name "Major Allen," the private detective remained with McClellan until late 1862, catching southern spies and running an espionage network in Confederate territory.
(AP, 2/23/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Plot)
1861 Apr 19, Baltimore riots resulted in four Union soldiers, 9 civilians killed. The 6th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, the first Union troops to pass through pro-secessionist Baltimore, Md., entered Baltimore expecting trouble. As they marched through the streets on their way to the defense of Washington, D.C., the troops were attacked by rock-throwing rioters bearing Confederate flags. Four soldiers and nine civilians were killed in the daylong melee.
(HN, 4/19/97)(HNPD, 4/23/99)
1861 Apr 29, The Maryland House of Delegates voted against seceding from the Union.
(AP, 4/29/98)(HN, 4/29/98)
1862 May 9, US Naval Academy was relocated from Annapolis MD to Newport, RI.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1862 Sep 4, Robert E. Lee's Confederate army invaded Maryland, starting the Antietam Campaign. New York Tribune reporter George Smalley scooped the world with his vivid account of the Battle of Antietam.
(HN, 9/4/98)
1862 Sep 5, Lee crossed Potomac & entered Maryland.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1862 Sep 6, Stonewall Jackson occupied Frederick, Maryland.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1862 Sep 13, Union troops in Frederick, Maryland, discovered General Robert E. Lee's attack plans for the invasion of Maryland wrapped around a pack of cigars. They gave the plans to General George B. McClellan who did nothing with them for the next 14 hours.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1862 Sep 14, At the battles of South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap, Maryland Union troops smashed into the Confederates as they closed in on what would become the Antietam battleground. Confederates delayed McClellan’s advance against Lee.
(HN, 9/14/98)(AM, 11/04, p.28)
1862 Sep 14, A contingent of Federal troops escaped from the beleaguered Harper's Ferry.
(www.nps.gov/hafe/jackson.htm)
1862 Sep 15, Confederates captured the Union weapon arsenal at Harpers Ferry, WV, securing the rear of Robert E. Lee's forces in Maryland.
(HN, 9/15/99)(MC, 9/15/01)
1862 Sep 17, The Battle of Antietam at Sharpsburg, Maryland, the bloodiest day in US history, commenced. Fighting in the corn field, Bloody Lane and Burnside’s Bridge raged all day as the Union and Confederate armies suffered a combined 26,293 (23,585) casualties. New York Tribune reporter George Smalley scooped the world with his vivid account of the Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg. During the battle an entire Union corps spent most of the bloodiest single day of the Civil War waiting to cross the creek over that bridge, opposed by a contingent of Georgia riflemen. Late in the day Gen. Ambrose Burnside sent his Union troops across the bridge in a major disaster. The rest of the Union IX Corps followed, but by day’s end, a Confederate flank attack sent the corps back across the river. Over 23,000 [23,110] men, both Union and Confederate, were killed or wounded. The battle resulted in about 10,000 Confederate and 12,000 Union casualties. The next day, Robert E. Lee began his retreat back across the Potomac River. 2,108 Union troops and 1,512 Confederates died. In 2002 James M. McPherson authored "Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam: The Battle that changed the Course of the Civil War."
(HN, 9/17/98)(HNPD, 9/17/98)(SFC, 7/7/96, T6)(AP, 9/17/97)(SFC, 9/22/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.D8)(WSJ, 9/17/02, p.D8)
1862 Sep 18, After waiting all day for a Union attack which never came at Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee began a retreat out of Maryland and back to Virginia. At Antietam, George McClellan and his 'bodyguard' dawdled throughout a long 'Fatal Thursday.'
(HN, 9/18/98)
1862 Oct 12, There was a skirmish at Monocacy, Maryland.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1862 Frederick August Otto Schwartz (FAO Schwartz) opened up a toy shop in Baltimore 6 years after arriving in America from Germany. In 1870 he moved to New York. In 1880 he moved to larger quarters on Union Square.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F3)(WSJ, 11/21/03, p.B1)
1863 Jun 3, Gen. Lee, with 75,000 Confederates, launched a second invasion of the North. On June 3rd, Lee led his troops into Maryland and then Pennsylvania, to meet the Army of the Potomac again, this time around a small town called Gettysburg. Learn more about the reenactment of Chancellorsville this weekend.
(HNQ, 9/22/00)
1863 Jun 17, On the way to Gettysburg, Union and Confederate forces skirmished at Point of Rocks, Maryland.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1863 Jun 29, Battle at Westminster, Maryland: Federal assault.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1863 Jul 7, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, in Hagerstown, Maryland, reported his defeat at Gettysburg to President Jefferson Davis.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1864 Feb 21, The 1st US Catholic parish church for blacks was dedicated in Baltimore.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1864 Jun 8, Abraham Lincoln was nominated for another term as president during the National Union (Republican) Party's convention in Baltimore.
(AP, 6/8/07)
1864 Jul 9, An informal force of Union troops was defeated by Jubal Early at Monocacy, Maryland. Gen’l. Lew Wallace was able to detain Confederate Lt. Gen’l. Jubal from an early advance on Washington. Federal casualties numbered 1959 vs. 400 Confederate.
(HT, 3/97, p.66)(AP, 7/11/97)(HN, 7/9/98)(MC, 7/9/02)
1864 Jul 11, Confederate General Jubal Early's army arrived in Silver Spring, Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and began to probe the Union line. Confederate forces led by Gen. Jubal Early began an invasion of Washington, D.C., turning back the next day.
(HT, 3/97, p.66)(AP, 7/11/97)(HN, 7/11/98)
1864 Oct 11, Slavery was abolished in Maryland. [see Oct 13]
(MC, 10/11/01)
1864 Oct 13, Maryland voters adopted a new constitution, including abolition of slavery. [see Oct 11]
(MC, 10/13/01)
1866 Aug 8, African-American Matthew Alexander Henson was born in Maryland. He and four Inuits accompanied U.S. Naval Commander Robert E. Peary when he planted the U.S. flag at the North Pole on April 6, 1909. Henson became an Arctic expert during Peary's first two failed expeditions. By the third attempt, which began in July 1908, Henson's strength, knowledge of the Eskimo language and dog driving skills made him an essential member of the team. Whether Peary's party actually reached the North Pole or missed it by as much as 60 miles due to a navigational miscalculation remains controversial to this day.
(HNPD, 8//99)(Internet)
1870 Oct 25, The Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md., opened and a horse named Preakness won the first stakes race on the program. 3 years later Pimlico honored that horse by naming a race for him.
(www.hickoksports.com/history/preaknes.shtml)
1872 Sep 21, John Henry Conyers of SC became the 1st black student at Annapolis.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1873 May 27, The first Preakness [horserace] was held at Pimlico. It later became part of the Triple Crown. Edward R. Bradley’s Kalitan was the 1st winner.
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(SFEC, 5/30/99, Z1 p.8)(WSJ, 11/21/00, p.A24)
1873 Oct 27, Emily Post (d.1960), authority on social behavior and writer, was born into high society in Baltimore. Md.
(WSJ, 10/16/08, p.A13)
1876 Johns Hopkins University was founded in Maryland. It handed out the first US graduate Pd.D.’s in 1878.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, Z1 p.2)
1877 Jul 21-1877 Jul 22, Pres. Rutherford Hayes sent federal troops and Marines to Baltimore to restore order against striking railroad workers. President Hayes then sent federal troops from city to city. They suppressed strike after strike until the strike ended in September, approximately 45 days after it had started.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877)
1880 Sep 12, H.L. Mencken (Henry Louis Mencken, d.1956), American author, social satirist, was born in Baltimore, Md. He worked for the "Baltimore Sun" and later edited the "Smart Set" magazine with George Jean Nathan. He wrote a philological work entitled "The American Language." Nietzschean iconoclast H.L. Mencken referred to "Boobus Americanus" and was cynical about American democracy. Mencken won fame as a journalist with the Baltimore Morning Herald and Baltimore Sun, editor of The American Mercury magazine and as a literary critic. Mencken's criticism was often directed at the American middle class and members of what he called...the "boobeoisie (BOOB-WA-ZEE)." Very popular in the post-WWI period, Mencken’s literary criticism was instrumental in bringing writers such as D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford and Sherwood Anderson to the fore.
(AP, 9/12/97)(HNQ, 6/20/98)(HN, 9/12/98)(www.todayinliterature.com)
1884 The B&O's passenger-car roundhouse was built in Baltimore. It was the largest circular industrial building in the world. It was later turned into a museum.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)(WSJ, 11/23/04, p.D11)
1885 Aug 10, Leo Daft opened America's first commercially operated electric streetcar, in Baltimore.
(AP, 8/10/99)
1890 The Wallville School, a one-room shack in Calvert County, was built. In 1999 it was the oldest existing black school in the county.
(SFC, 1/11/99, p.A3)
1892 Feb 2, Bottle cap with cork seal was patented by William Painter in Baltimore.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1892 Jul 1, James M. Cain (d.1977), fiction writer, was born in Annapolis, Maryland. His work included “The Postman Always Rings Twice" and “Mildred Pierce." As a member of the “hard-boiled" school of crime fiction of the 1930s and 1940s he is often associated with the equally popular writers Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
(HN, 7/1/98)(iUniv. 7/1/00)
1892 Aug 13, The first issue of the “Afro American" newspaper was published in Baltimore, Maryland.
(HN, 8/13/98)
1894 American writer Dashiell Hammett, creator of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, was born in Maryland in 1894, was a Pinkerton detective for eight years and served in the Ambulance Corps in World War I before he began his writing career. Author of The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1932), Hammett became heavily involved in left-wing political activity in 1934. He was later a trustee of the Civil Rights Congress. Hammett died in 1961.
(HNPD, 9/24/98)
1894 The first Maryland Hunt Cup steeplechase was run.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.B5)
1895 Feb 6, George Herman "Babe" Ruth, baseball's most dominant player, was born in Baltimore. He played with the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees and the Boston Braves and was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season.
(USAT, 1/29/97, p.1D)(AP, 2/6/97)(HN, 2/6/99)
1895 Oct 22, David Belasco's "Heart of Maryland," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1901 Jan 28, Byron Bancroft Johnson announced that the American League would play the 1901 baseball season as a major league and would not renew its membership in the National Agreement. The new league would include Baltimore and Washington, DC, recently abandoned by the National League. The league would also invade 4 cities where National League teams existed: Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. The 8 charter teams included: the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Americans, Chicago White Stockings, Cleveland Blues, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Athletics, and Washington Senators.
(ON, 6/09, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_League)
1901 Nov 2, Paul Ford, actor (Phil Silvers Show), was born in Baltimore, Md.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1902 In Baltimore Babe Ruth entered St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys at age 7. He was already smoking and drinking but was guided to adulthood by Brother Matthias.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.W13)
1902 The Baltimore Orioles baseball team was sold at the end of the season to former police chief Bill Devery and casino operator Frank Farrell of New York, and moved to NYC to play as the New York Highlanders.
(ON, 6/09, p.12)
1904 Feb 7, A fire in Baltimore raged for about 30 hours and destroyed more than 1,500 buildings over 80 blocks. The fired caused an estimated $80 million in damages.
(AP, 2/7/97)(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A23)(MC, 2/7/02)
1908 Mar 19, Maryland banned Christian Scientists from practicing medicine unless they had a medical diploma.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1911 A monument to Francis Scott Key was erected in Baltimore. It depicted Key in a rowboat handing his manuscript to Columbia, symbolizing the nation.
(SFC, 7/14/98, p.A4)
1912 Jan 13, A temp. of 40F (-40C), Oakland, Maryland, set a state record.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1912 Apr 12, Clara Barton (b.1821), the founder of the American Red Cross, died at her home in Glen Echo, Maryland at age 90.
(ON, 8/12, p.12)( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Barton)
1916 Feb 11, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presented its 1st concert.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1917 Apr 1, In Baltimore some 4,000 pro-war demonstrators stormed a meeting of the American League Against Militarism and threatened to hang the participants that included Stanford Univ. Chancellor David Starr Jordan.
(Ind, 4/12/03, 5A)
1920 May 18, In the 46th Preakness: Clarence Kummer aboard Man o' War won in 1:51.6.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1920 Arthur Perdue began a backyard egg business in Maryland. His son Frank (1920-2005) later turned it into one of the nation's largest poultry processors.
(AP, 4/1/05)(SFC, 4/2/05, p.B5)
1929 Nov, Harvey S. Ladew (1887-1976) purchased Pleasant Valley Farm in Maryland for his personal fox hunting estate. He converted 22 acres of the grounds to the most outstanding topiary garden in the US.
(www.ladewgardens.com/history.html)
1935 Nov 5, Maryland Court of Appeals ordered the Univ. of Maryland to admit (black) Donald Murray.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1937 Nov 30, Paul Stookey, singer (Peter, Paul & Mary), was born in Baltimore, Md.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1940 Dec 21, Frank Zappa, rocker (Mothers of Invention, Catholic Girls), was born in Baltimore.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1943-1965 Members of the Special Operations Division from Maryland’s Fort Detrick biological weapons program conducted over 200 tests during this period on the effectiveness of aerially dispersed pathogens. At least 4 men died during the years of the project. Some 658,039 animals were killed, including sheep, ferrets, cats, pigs, white mice and guinea pigs.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A11)(AH, 6/03, p.46)
1943-1986 Building E5625, the “Pilot Plant," at the US Army Aberdeen Proving Ground was built and used for experiments and production of agents in chemical and biological warfare. In 1977 public knowledge of the pathogen experiments caused citizen outrage.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.A11)
1944 Jun, Members of the Special Operations Division from Maryland’s Fort Detrick biological weapons program conducted tests at Granite Peak, a 250-square-mile area near the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
(AH, 6/03, p.49)
1944 Nov 29, Johns Hopkins hospital performed the 1st open heart surgery. A surgical fix for a fetal heart defect, tetralogy of Fallot or blue baby syndrome, was first performed at Johns Hopkins by surgeon Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, a black assistant who perfected the procedure. Thomas authored an autobiography in 1985.
(BS, 5/12/01, p.1A)(MC, 11/29/01)
1945 Oct 19, Divine, [Harris Glenn Milstead], cross-dressing actor-actress (Pink Flamingo), was born in Baltimore, Md.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1947 May, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. began the 1st of three 4-year terms as mayor of Baltimore. Congressman Tommy D'Alesandro Jr., elected as mayor of Baltimore, was the city's 1st Italian-American and Catholic mayor and served for 12 years. In 2002 his daughter Nancy Pelosi became the 1st woman to lead a party in the US Congress after Democrats voted 177-29 in support of the liberal from SF. In 2006 Nancy Pelosi was named speaker for the 110th Congress.
(http://tinyurl.com/u6bdk)(SFC, 11/15/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/2/07, p.A6)
1947 John Trumpey moved to Annapolis, Md., and purchased the Annapolis Yacht Yard in Eastport with his sons. They manufactured the custom Trumpey houseboats and cruisers.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.4B)
1948 The Hearst Corp. acquired WBAL-TV, Baltimore, one of the country's first television stations.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1949 Jun 3, Wesley Anthony Brown became the 1st negro to graduate from US Naval Academy.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1950-1985 Property taxes in Baltimore, Maryland, were increased 21 times over this period. By 2008 some 30,000 housing units were abandoned and waited for demolition.
(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.A9)
1951 Oct 4, Henrietta Lacks, a black woman, died of cancer in Baltimore. Cells from her body, later known as HeLa cells, were cultivated for research. In 1974 Dr. Nelson-Rees (d.2009 at 80), a UC Berkeley geneticist, reported that the HeLa cells had contaminated other cell cultures in laboratories around the world. In 1986 Michael Gold authored “A Conspiracy of Cells," a chronicle of the Nelson-Rees study. In 2010 Rebecca Skloot authored “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."
(SFC, 1/28/09, p.B10)(SSFC, 2/14/10, p.F3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks)
1952 Jul 11, The Republican National Convention, meeting in Chicago, nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower for president and Richard M. Nixon for vice president. Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin (1900-1974), the governor of Maryland (1951-1959), gave the nominating speech.
(AP, 7/11/97)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_McKeldin)
1954 Sep 7-8, Integration of public schools began in Washington DC and Baltimore, Md.
(HN, 9/7/98)(www.courtinfo.ca.gov/presscenter/timeline.htm)
1955 Nov 20, The Maryland National Guard was ordered desegregated.
(HN, 11/20/98)
1956 Jul 4, US most intense rain fall (1.23" in 1 minute) at Unionville Maryland.
(Maggio)
1956 Brice and Shirley Phillips opened a crab shack in ocean City, Md. By 2006 Phillips Foods took in $160 million in revenue from food sales.
(WSJ, 1/21/07, p.A4)
1957 May 18, In the 83rd Preakness: Eddie Arcaro aboard Bold Ruler won in 1:56.2.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1957 Jul 17, Leona Gage (1939-2010) of Maryland won the Miss USA title as part of the Miss Universe Pageant in Long Beach, Ca. Officials soon stripped her of the title after learning that she was a mother of two and had lied about her age.
(SFC, 10/13/10, p.C5)(www.oocities.com/televisioncity/9699/mc57.htm)
1958 Dec 28, At Yankee Stadium the Baltimore Colts beat the NY Giants in the NFL championship game 23-17, after the game went into overtime for the first time. In 2008 Mark Bowden authored “The Best Game Ever: The Birth of the Modern NFL."
(WSJ, 6/9/08, p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_NFL_Championship_Game)
1958 Avalon Hill in Maryland published its war strategy game titled Tactics.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.W9)(www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1574/tactics-ii)
1961 Jun 19, The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a provision in Maryland's constitution requiring state officeholders to profess a belief in the existence of God.
(DT internet 6/19/97)
1962 The B&O Railroad merged with the Chesapeake & Ohio and disappeared completely in 1987.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)
1963 May 18, In the 89th Preakness: Bill Shoemaker aboard Candy Spots won in 1:56.2.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1963 Dec 8, Three fuel tanks exploded when a jetliner, struck by lightning, crashed near Elkton, Maryland. 81 people died. This was the only case of a lightning caused crash.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1963 Dr. Jesse Coggins died at age 88 and left a valuable estate to the Baltimore Keswick nursing home in a will that specified use by white patients only. Keswick erected an $11 million Coggins building and then faced a judgement in 1999 that the will could not be honored due to the whites only clause and that the estate go to the Maryland Medical Center.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A3)
1964 Apr 15, Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened as the world's longest bridge.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1967 Jul 24, Race riots took place in Cambridge, Maryland.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1967 Oct 27, 4 people from Baltimore poured blood on selective service records.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1967 In Maryland developer James W. Rouse started the town of Columbia, an experiment in urban idealism.
(WSJ, 4/5/08, p.A1)
1968 Mar 29, Students seized a building at Maryland’s Bowie State College.
(www.amoeba.com/blog/tags/baseball/page1.html)
1968 May 17, In Maryland the Catonsville Nine including Daniel and Phillip Berrigan (1921-2002), a Catholic priest, took hundreds of files from the draft board at the Knights of Columbus building and set them on fire with gasoline and soap chips.
(www.amazon.com/Trial-Catonsville-Nine-Daniel-Berrigan/dp/0823223310)(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A3)
1968 May 18, In Maryland’s 94th Preakness Ismael Valenzuela aboard Forward Pass won in 1:56.8.
(http://gallery.pictopia.com/bloodhorse/gallery/6826/photo/1259538/)
1968 Aug 8, Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Later that day, Nixon chose Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew to be his running mate.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1969 Jan 12, The New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
(AP, 1/12/99)
1969 Donald I. Fine (d.1997) founded Arbor House publishing company in Maryland with a $5000 loan. It sold to the Hearst Corp. in 1978 for 1.5 million.
(SFC, 8/19/97, p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbor_House)
1972 May 15, George Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer while campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, for the Democratic presidential primary. He was left paralyzed.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(SFC, 8/16/96, p.D11)(AP, 5/15/97)(HN, 5/15/98)
1972 Aug 4, Arthur Bremer (b.1950) was sentenced to 63 years for shooting Alabama Gov. Wallace and 3 bystanders on May 15, 1972, in Laurel, Maryland. An appeal reduced the sentence to 53 years. After 35 years of incarceration, Bremer was released from prison on parole on November 9, 2007. He remains on probation until 2025 and resides in a halfway house in Cumberland, Maryland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bremer#Release)
1972 Nov, Maryland ratified the Equal Rights Amendment.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/5bflsq)
1973 Jul 1, Maryland declared that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in the state.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/5ygqvd)
1973 Aug 8, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew branded as "damned lies" reports he had taken kickbacks from government contracts in Maryland and vowed not to resign. He eventually did resign.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1974 Feb 22, Samuel Joseph Byck (1930–1974), an unemployed former tire salesman, attempted to hijack a plane flying out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport. He intended to crash into the White House in hopes of killing US President Richard M. Nixon. Byck killed pilot Fred Jones and a aviation officer George Neal Ramsburg before he was shot and wounded by gunfire through the door of a Delta DC-9 airplane. Byck then shot himself in the head.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Byck)
1974 May 2, Former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew was disbarred by the Maryland Court of Appeals, effectively preventing him from practicing law anywhere in the United States.
(AP, 5/2/97)
1975 Mar 25, In Maryland sisters Sheila (12) and Katharine Lyon (10) vanished from the Wheaton Plaza Mall. On July 15, 2015, authorities announced an indictment on first-degree felony murder charges in the disappearances. Lloyd Michael Welch Jr. (58) said he was with the girls when they were abducted but denied any role in their deaths. Lloyd Welch told investigators that he left the mall with the two girls and that he saw his uncle sexually assaulting one of them at his home the next day.
(http://tinyurl.com/phqudb7)(SFC, 7/16/15, p.A5)
1976 Jul 6, US Naval Academy admitted women for the first time in its history with the induction of 81 female midshipmen.
(www.usna.edu/VirtualTour/150years/1970.htm)
1977 Oct 27, James M. Cain (b.1892), member of the "hard-boiled" school of crime fiction of the 1930s and 1940s, died in Maryland. Three of his novels, “The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1934), “Double Indemnity" (1936), and Mildred Pierce" (1941), were made into classics of the American screen.
(iUniv. 7/1/00)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jmcain.htm)
1978 Sep 17, US Pres. Carter, Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed agreements at Camp David, Md. Israel promised to withdraw gradually from Sinai and to establish some form of autonomous Palestinian territory on the West Bank. Sadat’s astrologer, Hasan al-Tuhami, was the only person Sadat trusted. In the Camp David Accord “Israel was the winner and Egypt the Loser." Thus wrote Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his 1997 book: “Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem: A Diplomat’s Story of the Struggle for Peace in the Middle East."
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)(TL, 1988, p.119)(SFC, 6/2/97, p.D5)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A17)
1980 Feb, The first implantable cardioconverter defibrillator (ICD) was implanted at John Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Levi Watkins.
(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantable_cardioverter-defibrillator)
1980 Jul 22, In Maryland David Theodore Belfield, a convert to Islam (Daoud Salahuddin), murdered Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former Iranian official and critic of the government of Ayatollah Khomeini. Belfield escaped to Canada and then to Iran. In 2001 Belfield appeared in the movie "Kandahar" made in Afghanistan as an actor named Hassan Tantai.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.D1)(http://iona.ghandchi.com/Tabatabai.htm)
1980 Sep 8, Lena Buckman (82) was stabbed 28 times at her daughter’s home in Pikeville. Eugene Colvin-El (35) was later convicted in the murder and sentenced to death. His execution was commuted in 2000.
(SFC, 6/8/00, p.C4)
1981 May 25, Rosa Ponselle (b.1897), Metropolitan Opera diva, died in Maryland.
(BS, 5/12/01, p.8D)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Ponselle)
1982 Jul 1, Cal Ripken (b.1960), drafted as a pitcher in 1981, began playing his shortstop position for the Baltimore Orioles. By Sep 20, 1998 he had played a record 2,632 consecutive games.
(http://tinyurl.com/2um6o6)(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A1)
1982 Jul, Bernard Webster (18) was identified as a rapist in Towson, Md. He denied the charges but was convicted in March, 2003. Webster was freed in 2002 following DNA tests that proved him innocent. He became the first person to be exonerated under Maryland's postconviction DNA statute.
(www.innocenceproject.org/Content/290.php)
1983 Oct 16, Kelso, Horse of the Year for 5 years straight (1960-1964), died and was buried in Maryland. In 2007 Linda Kennedy authored “Kelso: The Horse of Gold."
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.P8)
1984 Mar 29, The NFL Baltimore Colts moved to Indianapolis.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_Colts)
1985 May 18, In the 111th Preakness: Pat Day aboard Tank's Prospect won in 1:53.4.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1985-5/1985-05-18-NBC-21.html)
1985 In Baltimore Flint Gregory Hunt murdered policeman Vincent Adolfo after he was stopped in a stolen car. He first chose the gas chamber for his execution, but as it approached in 1997 he changed his mind to lethal injection.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A2)
1986 Jun 5, A federal jury in Baltimore convicted Ronald W. Pelton of selling secrets to the Soviet Union. Pelton was sentenced to three life prison terms plus 10 years.
(AP, 6/5/97)
1986 Jun 19, University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, the first draft pick of the Boston Celtics, suffered a fatal cocaine-induced seizure.
(AP, 6/19/06)
1986 William Schaefer, mayor of Baltimore, was elected governor. Clarence Du Burns was appointed to fill out Schaefer’s term as mayor.
(SFC, 1/15/03, p.A18)
1986 Billy McComiskey of Baltimore, Maryland, won the all-Ireland, senior category, championship of the button accordion. He soon teamed with Liz Carroll, the 1991 All-Ireland senior fiddle champion and singer-guitarist Daithi Sproule to produce the self-titled album “Trian" in 1992 and “Trian II" in 1995. In 1985 McComiskey and his Baltimore band, Irish Tradition, recorded the album “The Times We’ve Had."
(WSJ, 3/13/07, p.D5)
1987 Jan 4, An Amtrak train bound from Washington to Boston collided with Conrail engines approaching from a side track in Chase, Md., and 16 people were killed.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1987 May 16, Kentucky Derby winner Alysheba captured the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. Alysheba fell short in the Belmont Stakes, failing to become the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed.
(AP, 5/16/97)
1987 Sep 6, Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore succeeded in separating 7-month-old Benjamin and Patrick Binder, twin brothers from Ulm, West Germany, who were joined at the head, after 22 hours of surgery.
(AP, 9/6/97)
1987 Sep 14, Cal Ripken (b.1960), baseball star for the Baltimore Orioles, ended his streak of 8,243 consecutive innings (908 games).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Ripken,_Jr.)
1987 Dec 8, Kurt Schmoke became the first African-American mayor of Maryland when he was elected the mayor of Baltimore. He was a Rhodes scholar and Harvard Law School graduate. He served 3 terms and decided to run for the Senate. He decided to step down in 1999.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A12)(HN, 12/8/98)
1987 Former Baltimore mayor William Donald Schaefer, who held the post for 15 years, began serving as governor.
(SFC, 4/26/99, p.A10)
1987 In South Baltimore the Cherry Hill Elementary School became the first public school in the country to adopt a school uniform.
(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W9)
1988 May 21, Risen Star won the Preakness Stakes.
(AP, 5/21/98)
1990 May 19, Summer Squall won the Preakness Stakes.
(www.lanesendstakes.com/milestones.html)
1991 Apr, Integrated Health Services (HIS), founded by Dr. Robert Elkins, went public. The federal Medicare reimbursement program changed in 1998 and in 2000 the company was forced into bankruptcy.
(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)
1992 Apr 6, Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened and Baltimore beat Cleveland 2-0.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1993 May 15, Prairie Bayou won the Preakness.
(AP, 5/15/98)
1993 Mildred Horn and nurse Janice Saunders were shot and killed in Silver Spring, Md. Trevor (8), Horn's quadriplegic son, died after his breathing tube was disconnected. Lawrence T. Horn, Trevor's father and Mildred's ex-husband, was sentenced to life in prison for hiring James Edward Perry of Detroit to commit the slayings. At Perry's trial prosecutors argued that he followed tips outlined in the book "Hit Man: A Technical Manual for the Independent Contractor." In 1999 Paladin Press agreed to settle a multimillion federal civil suit, to make contributions to 2 charities chosen by the plaintiffs and to turn over 700 remaining copies of the book.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A3)
1995 May 20, Timber Country won the Preakness at Pimlico.
(AP, 5/20/00)
1995 Sep 6, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record by playing his 2,131st consecutive game.
(AP, 9/6/00)
1995 Oct 8, On the final day of his fourth US pilgrimage, Pope John Paul the Second celebrated Mass at Oriole Park in Baltimore.
(AP, 10/8/00)
1995 Nov 24, The American Visionary Art Museum opened in Baltimore. It was founded by development consultant Rebecca Hoffberger,43, who succeeded in raising most of the $7.5 mil for the museum.
{Museums, Maryland, usa}
(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A20)(www.avam.org/stuff/whois.html)
1995 In Ohio Larry Wayne Harris was arrested in Lancaster for possession of bubonic plague bacteria. He ordered the bacteria with fake letterhead from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) in Rockville, Md. A search of his home found certificates identifying him as a member of the Aryan Nations Church. Richard Girnt Butler, founder and leader of the Aryan Nations, said that Harris had been a member since the early 1990s. The case led Congress to adopt a law in 1996 requiring that disease causing organisms be registered with the CDC when being shipped and received.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A8,9)(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A5)
1996 Feb 8, NFL and Cleveland allowed Art Modell to move his NFL franchise to Baltimore but he had to leave the Browns' name behind.
(http://tinyurl.com/bo3v9)
1996 Apr 27, William Egan Colby (76), CIA Director, disappeared while canoeing near his waterfront home in southern Maryland. His body was found 8 days later. In 2003 John Prados authored "Lost Crusador," a biography of Colby.
(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.D8)(www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wcolby.htm)
1996 May 5, The body of former CIA director William E. Colby was found on a riverbank near his southern Maryland vacation home, eight days after he'd disappeared.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1996 May 18, Louis Quatorze won the Preakness.
(AP, 5/18/97)
1996 Sep 17, Spiro Agnew (b. Nov 9, 1918), former governor of Maryland and US vice president (1969-1973), died in Berlin, Md., at age 77.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)(AP, 9/17/97)
1996 David Rusk wrote "Baltimore Unbound," in which he advocated a regional government.
(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.A20)
1997 Apr 29, Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of raping six female trainees. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and dishonorably discharged.
(AP, 4/29/07)
1997 May 17, Silver Charm won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. However, he failed to win the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 5/17/98)
1997 Sep 19, Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr. (19) was found charred and dismembered in an Aspen Hill, Md., garage. One suspected killer, Samuel Sheinbein (17), fled to Israel. A 2nd suspect, Aaron B. Needle (17), was held in jail. In Oct. the attorney general decided to return Sheinbein to the US. The two young men were indicted on murder and conspiracy charges. Needle committed suicide by hanging in 1998. In 1999 the Israeli Supreme Court held that Sheinbein could not be extradited. Sheinbein agreed to plead guilty to murder and received a prison sentence of 24 years with possible parole after 16.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/20/97, p.A1)(SFC,10/31/97, p.A3)(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A18)(SFC, 2/25/99, p.A12)(SFC, 8/25/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A10)
1997 Oct 8, Gueorgui Makharadze, a diplomat from the Republic of Georgia, pleaded guilty in Washington to charges stemming from a car crash that killed Maryland teen-ager Jovianne Waltrick. Makharadze was sentenced to seven years in prison; he initially served his term in a US prison, but was later transferred to Georgia, where he was paroled in 2002.
(AP, 10/8/07)
1998 May 16, "Real Quiet" won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. Real Quiet later failed to capture the Triple Crown, losing the Belmont Stakes to Victory Gallop by a nose.
(AP, 5/16/08)
1998 May, Tyson foods agreed to pay $6 million to the federal government to settle environmental violations from 1993-1997 at its 105-acre chicken processing plant in Berlin, 8 miles west of Ocean City. The plant was then owned by Hudson Foods.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.A5)
1998 Aug 31, In Gaithersburg, Md., boxer Mike Tyson assaulted 2 motorists following a minor chain-reaction collision. In 1999 he was convicted of assault and sentenced to one year in jail.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A1)
1998 Oct 26, Nutrient pollution known as eutrophication, the overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus, was noted on the Chesapeake Bay and estuaries around the world. A 7,000 sq. mile dead zone was reported to spread every summer across the Gulf of Mexico from the mouth of the Mississippi. In 2007 Louisiana crabbers complained of buckets of dead crabs and the condition in the Gulf of Mexico was expected to get worse due to rising demand for ethanol and increased corn production in Corn Belt states, which called for more nitrogen use.
(SFC, 10/25/98, p.A3)(SFC, 12/20/07, p.A26)
1998 At Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County a new $30 million building was constructed for the Defense Information School. The Pentagon now sends 3,500 military journalists there each year for training following consolidation of military journalism schools in Colorado, Indiana and Florida.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A7)
1999 Mar 28, In Cuba the Baltimore Orioles beat a Cuban baseball all-star team 3:2 in 11 innings. A rematch in Baltimore was scheduled for May 3.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A1)
1999 May 3, In Baltimore the Cuban baseball team beat the Baltimore Orioles 12-6. 7 members missed the departure the next day and one coach, Rigoberto Betancourt Herrera, was reported to have defected, as the others over slept. The 6 stragglers departed May 5.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A1,6)(SFC, 5/6/99, p.A7)
1999 May 15, Charismatic won the Preakness, finishing 1 1/2 lengths ahead of Menifee.
(AP, 5/15/00)
1999 Jul 1, Some 20,000 fish turned up dead in the tributaries of the Magothy and Patapsco Rivers. Drought conditions and the build up of phosphorus and nitrogen was suspected.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A8)
1999 Jul 22, Some 300,000 menhaden fish turned up dead at the mouth of the Pocomoke River in the Chesapeake Bay. Depleted oxygen in the water due to drought conditions was suspected. Nearly one million fish died in the tributaries of the Pocomoke.
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.A8)(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A14)
1999 Jul 30, In Maryland Linda Tripp was indicted for secretly taping conversations with Monica Lewinsky in 1977.
(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 9, Richard Spicknall II reported a carjacking near the Choptank River. He was charged the next day and confessed in the shooting death of his 2-year-old son. His 3-year-old daughter died the same day from her wounds.
(SFC, 9/11/99, p.A7)
1999 Dec 5, In Baltimore 5 women were found dead of multiple gunshot wounds.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.B2)
1999 Burt Solomon published "Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball."
(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.W7)
2000 Mar 7, In Baltimore Joseph C. Palczynski shot and killed 3 people following a breakup with a girlfriend. The next night he killed another woman and wounded a 2-year-old boy during an attempted carjacking. On Mar 17 Palczynski took 3 hostages and held off police for 3 days. He was fatally shot by police on Mar 21.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D3)(SFC, 3/20/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A3)
2000 May 20, “Red Bullet" won the Preakness Stakes, outpacing Kentucky Derby winner “Fusaichi Pegasus."
(AP, 5/20/01)
2000 Jun 5, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count under an agreement that dropped murder charges in the stabbing deaths of two men outside a Super Bowl party in Atlanta. Lewis was sentenced to a year of probation.
(AP, 6/5/01)
2000 Jun 7, Gov. Parris Glendening commuted the death sentence of convicted murderer Eugene Colvin-El.
(SFC, 6/8/00, p.C4)
2001 Jan 28, Super Bowl XXXV was played in Tampa. The Baltimore Ravens defeated the New York Giants 34-7.
(SSFC, 12/24/00, p.T8)
2001 Apr 12, Maryland banned farming of genetically modified fish in waters linked to other bodies.
(WSJ, 4/13/01, p.A1)
2001 May 6, An anonymous donor pledged $100 million to Johns Hopkins Univ. to develop a vaccine and new drugs for malaria.
(WSJ, 5/7/01, p.A1)
2001 May 19, "Point Given" won the Preakness as Derby winner "Monarchos" finished out of the money.
(AP, 5/19/02)
2001 Jul 18, In Baltimore a 60-car CSX freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed and caught fire in a tunnel near Camden Yards. 54 cars burned and phone cables were melted. The last burning car was pulled out July 23.
(SFC, 7/19/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 7/20/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/24/01, p.A4)
2001 Sep 24, In Maryland 2 college students, sisters, were killed by tornadoes at College Park. Gov. Parris Glendening toured the area the next day.
(SFC, 9/26/01, p.C3)
2001 Oct 28, The CDC reported a 13th case of anthrax in a New Jersey postal worker. Spores were found at the mail center in Landover, Md.
(SFC, 10/29/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 1, Anthrax spores were found in 4 mailrooms in Rockville, Md., a postal facility in Kansas City, 3 new locations in a Manhattan processing center and a 6th postal facility in Florida.
(WSJ, 11/2/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 16, It was reported that all the anthrax spores mailed to Capital Hill were identical to stocks from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. (USAMRIID), maintained since 1980.
(SSFC, 12/16/01, p.A9)
2002 Feb 12, The JAMA medical journal reported that gonorrhea was in an estimated 5.3% of the Baltimore population and that chlamydia infected 3%.
(SFC, 2/13/02, p.A5)
2002 Apr 1, Maryland won its first NCAA men's basketball championship with a 64-52 victory over Indiana.
(SFC, 4/2/02, p.C1)(AP, 4/1/03)
2002 Apr 28, Storms hit the Ohio and Tennessee valleys with tornadoes in Missouri and Maryland. At least 6 people were killed.
(SFC, 4/29/02, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/30/02, p.A1)(AP, 4/28/07)
2002 May 9, Gov. Parris Glendening declared a moratorium on executions. It was the 2nd state after Illinois to do so because of doubts over its fairness.
(SFC, 5/10/02, p.A5)
2002 May 13, In Baltimore, Dontee Stokes shot and wounded the Rev. Maurice Blackwell, a Roman Catholic priest. Stokes, who accused Blackwell of sexually abusing him as a boy, was later acquitted of attempted murder, but was convicted of gun charges and sentenced to house arrest.
(AP, 5/13/03)
2002 May 26, In Maryland Erika (25) and Benjamin Sifrit (25) killed and dismembered Joshua Ford (32) and Martha Crutchley (51), a tourist couple in Ocean City. Both were found guilty in 2003. Benjamin Sifrit received a total of 35 years in prison. Erika was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison.
(www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=25&sid=792917)(SFC, 5/14/09, p.A4)
2002 Jun 2, HBO’s first season of 'The Wire' began with a pilot episode titled “The Target." The series concentrated on the often-futile efforts of police to infiltrate a West Baltimore drug ring headed by Avon Barksdale and his lieutenant, Stringer Bell.
(www.hbo.com/thewire/about/)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Target_(The_Wire_episode))
2002 Jul 13, It was reported that some 100 northern snakehead fish, a meat-eater native to China, had been found in a Maryland pond.
(SFC, 7/13/02, p.A4)
2002 Sep 7, Pres. Bush met with British PM Tony Blair at Camp David, Md., to work out a strategy for taking action against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.A3)
2002 Sep 11, Johnny Unitas (b.1933), Hall of Fame football quarterback, died in Baltimore. In 2006 Tom Callahan authored “Johnny U, The Life and Times of John Unitas."
(SFC, 9/12/02, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/06, p.F3)
2002 Oct 2, James Martin (55) was shot to death by a sniper in Wheaton, Md. He was the 1st to die at the hands of a local serial killer. The next day, five people in the Washington D.C. area were shot dead, setting off a frantic manhunt. John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were later arrested for 10 killings and three woundings; Muhammad has been sentenced to death, Malvo to life in prison.
(NW, 10/21/02, p.28)(AP, 10/2/07)
2002 Oct 3, Police hunted for a "skilled shooter" who murdered five random victims over 16 hours with a high-powered rifle in Montgomery County, Maryland, just a short distance from Washington DC. A 6th victim was killed in DC. James Buchanon (39), Premkumar Walekar (54), Sarah Ramos (34), Lori Ann Lewis Rivera (25) and Pascal Charlot (72) became the 2nd to 6th victims.
(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A3)(SFC, 10/5/02, p.A3)(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.A4)(NW, 10/21/02, p.28)
2002 Oct 7, In Bowie, Md., a 13-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded by a sniper at Benjamin Tasker Middle School. The shooting was linked to 6 previous killings and a card was found nearby that said: “I am God."
(ADN, 10/8/02, p.A6)(SFC, 10/8/02, p.A1)(SFC, 10/9/02, p.A3)
2002 Oct 9, Dean Meyers (53) of Gaithersburg, Md., was shot to death in Manassas, Va., in a shooting that appeared to be linked to 6 previous sniper attacks in the area. In 2009 sniper John Allen Muhammad (48) was executed in Virginia for the killing of Meyers.
(SFC, 10/10/02, p.A1)(SSFC, 10/12/02, p.A4)(SFC, 11/11/09, p.A7)
2002 Oct 16, In Baltimore Angela Dawson (36) burned to death with 4 of her children after a drug pusher, Darrell Brooks (21), set fire to her home. Carnell Dawson Sr. (43) died from his burns Oct 23.
(SFC, 10/18/02, p.A3)(SFC, 10/24/02, p.A6)
2002 Oct 22, In Aspen Hill, Maryland, Conrad Everton Johnson (35), a bus driver, was shot in the chest and died during surgery. The shooting was suspected to be related to the serial sniper who already killed nine people this month. This was the 13th and final attack linked by authorities to the Washington-area sniper attacks.
(AP, 10/22/02)(SFC, 10/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Oct 24, John Allen Muhammad (41), an Army veteran who recently converted to Islam, and John Lee Malvo (17) were arrested near Frederick, Maryland, in connection with the sniper shootings that left 10 dead and 3 wounded. In 2003 a judge ruled that Malvo could be tried as an adult. Muhammad began to argue his own defense on Oct 20. On Mar 9, 2004, John Allen Muhammad was sentenced to death. In 2006 Malvo was sentenced to life in prison for 6 murders in Maryland.
(AP, 10/24/02)(SFC, 10/25/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/16/03, p.A5)(SFC, 10/21/03, p.A7)(SFC, 3/10/04, p.A3)(SFC, 11/9/06, p.A3)
2002 Dec 6, Philip Berrigan (79), former Catholic priest, died in Baltimore. He helped galvanize opposition to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s.
(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A3)
2002 Dec 16, A jury in Baltimore acquitted former altar boy Dontee Stokes of attempted murder in the shooting of a Roman Catholic priest he'd claimed molested him a decade earlier.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2002 Dr. P.M. Forni, an Italian immigrant, authored “Choosing Civility: The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct." The book was adopted by Columbia, Maryland, a city founded as an experiment in urban idealism.
(WSJ, 4/5/08, p.A1)
2002 The snakehead fish was first seen in Maryland, after an 18-inch adult was caught in a local pond. The powerful fish has no natural predators in the region and is also a determined survivalist, surviving for up to four days on land. It has since migrated to the nearby Potomac River and its tributaries. In 2012 the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Inland Fisheries (DNR) offered $200 gift cards through Bass Pro Shops to residents who capture and kill a snakehead.
(www.dnr.state.md.us/dnrnews/infocus/snakehead.asp)
2003 Jan 22, Maryland’s new governor, Robert Ehrlich, declared an end to a moratorium on executions instituted by Gov. Glendening.
(WSJ, 1/23/03, p.A1)(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A9)
2003 Mar 23, A Maryland nurse died 5 days after being vaccinated for smallpox. A 2nd nurse died Mar 27.
(SFC, 3/26/03, p.A6)(SFC, 3/28/03, p.A7)
2003 May 17, Funny Cide ran away from the field in the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. However, Funny Cide came up short at the Belmont Stakes, finishing third.
(AP, 5/17/04)
2003 May 22, Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich signed a bill that reduced criminal penalties for seriously ill people who smoke marijuana to a maximum $100 and no jail time.
(SFC, 5/23/03, p.A5)
2003 Dec 4, Federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna was attacked after leaving his office in Baltimore around midnight. His body was found 6 hours later, stabbed 36 times apparently in a furious fight for his life before drowning in a Pennsylvania creek. Luna was involved in the prosecution of rapper Deon Lionel Smith (32) and Walter Oriley Poindexter.
(AP, 12/5/03)(SFC, 12/5/03, p.A6)
2004 Jan 13, In Maryland a fiery explosion killed five on the northbound lanes of Interstate 95. A tanker carrying flammable material plunged off an overpass on Interstate 895, landing in the northbound lane of I-95.
(AP, 1/14/04)
2004 Jan 31, Harold Shapinsky (b.1925), abstract expressionist painter, died in Rockville.
(SFC, 2/9/04, p.B4)
2004 Mar 6, A water taxi carrying about 25 passengers capsized in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, killing one person. Three others were missing and presumed dead. Navy reservists rescued 21 people.
(AP, 3/6/04)(SFC, 3/08/04, p.A3)
2004 May 15, Smarty Jones won the Preakness by a record 11 1/2 lengths.
(AP, 5/16/04)
2004 May 27, In Baltimore 3 children were found dead. One was beheaded with a butcher knife and the others were nearly decapitated. Adan Espinoza Canela, 17, and Policarpio Espinoza, 22, were arrested on murder charges the next day.
(AP, 5/29/04)
2004 Jul 12, A foot or more of rain fell in parts of the Northeast. No injuries had been reported in the stricken areas of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Sep 22, The new $600 million Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center, named after the former Oregon Senator (1967-1997), opened in Bethesda, Md., as the latest addition to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
(SSFC, 3/27/05, Par p.17)(www.news-medical.net/?id=4963)
2004 Nov 11, Retired Judge Robert I.H. Hammerman (76), fearing memory loss and life in a nursing home, committed suicide in Pikesville, Md.
(SFC, 11/13/04, p.A2)
2004 Nov 17, In Maryland the first US small office of the Chinese Confucius Institute opened at the Univ. of Maryland. By 2009 there were over 60 such facilities across the country offering Chinese culture to the American public.
(http://english.people.com.cn/200411/19/eng20041119_164443.html)(Econ, 10/24/09, SR p.10)
2004 Dec 6, Arson fires hit a new housing development in Charles County, Md., 25 miles south of Washington, DC. 14 homes, priced from $400-500k, were damaged. A security guard and 5 others were later arrested on arson charges. Damages were estimated at $10 million. On Sep 2, 2005, Patrick Walsh (21) was found guilty of masterminding the fires.
(SFC, 12/8/04, p.A2)(SFC, 12/17/04, p.A3)(SFC, 12/21/04, p.A3)(SFC, 9/3/05, p.A3)
2004 In Maryland the first US small office of the Chinese Confucius Institute opened at the Univ. of Maryland. By 2009 there were over 60 such facilities across the country offering Chinese culture to the American public.
(Econ, 10/24/09, SR p.10)
2005 Mar 31, Frank Perdue, businessman, died in Salisbury, Maryland. He transformed his father’s backyard egg business into one of the nation's largest poultry processors using the folksy slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken."
(AP, 4/1/05)(SFC, 4/2/05, p.B5)
2005 May 21, Afleet Alex regained his footing and his drive after being cut off by Scrappy T in a frightening collision and breezed home to win the Preakness Stakes; Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo finished third.
(AP, 5/21/06)
2005 Aug 1, Rafael Palmeiro, Baltimore Orioles star, was suspended for 10 days for use of steroids. The action raised the possibility of a perjury probe.
(SFC, 8/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 3, The FBI raided the Maryland residence of Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar as part of a probe into whether a US congressman made or approved payments to officials in West Africa.
(AP, 8/28/05)
2005 Dec 21, In Maryland 2 off-duty Baltimore police officers were shot to death at a suburban townhouse in Randallstown by a state officer for the Dept. of General Services. Eugene Victor Perry Jr. (33) surrendered shortly after the shootings. One of the victims was his former fiancee.
(SFC, 12/23/05, p.A3)
2006 Mar 9, Claude Allen, who stepped down last month as Bush's top domestic policy adviser, was arrested in Maryland on charges he swindled two stores out of more than $5,000.
(Reuters, 3/11/06)
2006 Apr 4, Maryland beat Duke, 78-75, in overtime to win its first NCAA women's basketball title.
(AP, 4/4/07)
2006 Apr 23, In Maryland Katrina Denise Powe (31) and Mystery Toma Hillian (9) were found dead in an apartment in District Heights. A 12-year-old boy was charged with the murders.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.A5)
2006 May 3, A burglary at a VA data analyst's home in Aspen Hill, Md., included loss of a laptop with personal data for 26.5 million veterans and military personnel. The burglary was disclosed May 22 and the VA first said the data was for 50,000 veterans and military personnel. On June 29 federal officials reported that the laptop was recovered.
(AP, 6/9/06)(SFC, 6/30/06, p.A1)
2006 May 20, In Maryland Barbaro, winner of the Kentucky Derby, fractured an ankle at the start of the Preakness; Bernardini won the race. Barbaro was euthanized Jan 29, 2007, due to medical complications.
(SSFC, 5/21/06, p.A1)(AP, 1/29/07)
2006 May 30, John Allen Muhammad was convicted of 6 Maryland sniper killings. He was already condemned to death in Virginia for his 2002 murder spree. On June 1 he was sentenced to 6 consecutive life terms without parole.
(WSJ, 5/31/06, p.A1)(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A5)
2006 Jun 29, East Coast rains, which began over the weekend, have been blamed for five deaths in Pennsylvania, four in Maryland, one in Virginia and three in New York.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Oct 29, In the northeast US thousands of homes and businesses had no electricity as a storm system blasted the region with winds gusting to more than 50 mph, knocking over trees and a construction crane. The storm was blamed for at least two deaths.
(AP, 10/29/06)
2006 Dec 19, Maryland suspended executions after a state appeals court ruled that lethal injection procedures didn’t get a proper hearing.
(WSJ, 12/20/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec, Javon Thompson (19 months) was starved to death in Baltimore after adults of a cult called 1 Mind Ministries stopped feeding him, in part because he refused to say amen after meals. In April 2007 police found his remains in a suitcase in Philadelphia. In 2008 his mother and 3 cult members were charged with murder.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.A6)
2006 In Jacksonville, Md., an underground gasoline leak led to medical and emotional claims by some 160 families and businesses. In 2011 a Baltimore County jury ordered Exxon Mobil to pay over $475 million in compensation.
(SFC, 6/30/11, p.A6)
2007 Mar 26, Four children and Pedro Rodriguez (28), their father, were found dead in the family's home in Frederick, Maryland. The mother Deysi M. Benitez (25) was missing. Her sister from El Salvador said she had been beaten by her husband and wanted to separate. Police concluded he had smothered the girls and killed the boy with a blow to the head, and then killed himself. The body of his wife, Deysi Benitez (25), an immigrant from El Salvador, was found Feb 29, 2008, 20 miles from their home in Frederick.
(AP, 3/28/07)(AP, 4/17/08)
2007 Apr 17, In Maryland a wall collapsed at the Tri-Star Mining open pit coal mine near Barton. 2 miners were killed.
(SFC, 4/21/07, p.A3)
2007 May 8, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley signed the nation’s first statewide living-wage bill.
(SFC, 5/9/07, p.A4)
2007 May 10, Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa (37), a Sri Lankan national, pleaded guilty in a Maryland court to charges he tried to smuggle US weapons to Tamil Tiger rebels. He was the last of six defendants in the plot to be convicted of trying to obtain military weapons in the 2006 scheme.
(AFP, 5/11/07)
2007 May 19 Curlin nipped Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense to win the Preakness Stakes.
(AP, 5/19/08)
2007 Jul 16, Mark Sneed (50), president of Phillips Foods, died of a heart attack at his home in Riva, Md. He drove the company’s expansion to Asian suppliers for crab.
(WSJ, 1/21/07, p.A4)
2007 Jul 23, Zhenli Ye Gon was arrested in a Maryland restaurant, four months after police discovered $207 million at his Mexico City mansion in what US officials have called the world's biggest seizure of drug cash. Mexican officials had 60 days to file their legal arguments for Ye Gon's extradition. Ye Gon has claimed that $150 million of the money belonged to Mexico's ruling party, and that he was forced to store it for party officials in his mansion under threat of death during the 2006 presidential race. Ye Gon later told US prosecutors he had sold tons of a chemical used to make methamphetamine on the black market.
(AP, 7/24/07)(AP, 10/23/09)
2007 Aug 28, A military court at Fort Meade, Md., acquitted Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan of failing to control US soldiers who abused detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but found him guilty of disobeying an order not to discuss the investigation. However, that conviction was later thrown out.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2007 Sep 18, Maryland’s highest court, in a 4-3 decision, upheld a law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman and said the 1973 ban on gay marriage does not discriminate on the basis of gender and does not deny any fundamental rights.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 22, On Thanksgiving day in Unity, Md., David Peter Brockdorff (40), shot and killed his ex-wife, their 3 children (6-12) and then himself as the woman prepared to hand over the children for a visit.
(SFC, 11/24/07, p.A3)
2007 Nov 27, Pres. Bush declared that the time is right to relaunch Mideast peace talks to create a Palestinian state because "a battle is under way for the future" of the troubled region, in remarks prepared for the start of the US-arranged Annapolis Mideast peace conference. Delegations from 46 countries and int’l. organizations attended the conference. Israeli PM Olmert and Palestine’s Pres. Abbas agreed to launch formal talks on Dec 12 and committed to negotiating a peace treaty by the end of 2008.
(AP, 11/27/07)(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A15)(WSJ, 11/28/07, p.A4)
2008 Jan 24, Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute of Rockville, Md., reported that they have built from scratch a synthetic chromosome containing all the genetic material needed to produce the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, the tiniest bacteria ever found.
(SFC, 1/25/08, p.A1)(Econ, 1/26/08, p.76)
2008 Feb 1, In Cockeysville, Md., Nicholas Waggoner Browning (15) shot and killed his father John Browning (45) and mother Tamara (44) and his brothers Gregory (13) and Benjamin (11). On Oct 27 Browning pleaded guilty to first-degree murder charges and faced at least 2 decades in prison. On Jan 23, 2009, he was sentenced to 4 life terms, but could be eligible for parole in 23 years with good behavior.
(SFC, 2/4/08, p.A4)(SFC, 10/28/08, p.A6)(AP, 1/24/09)
2008 Feb 12, Barack Obama won 75% of the vote in Washington DC, nearly two-thirds in Virginia and approximately 60% in Maryland. McCain's victory in Virginia was a relatively close one, the result of an outpouring of religious conservatives who backed Mike Huckabee.
(AP, 2/13/08)
2008 Feb 16, In Maryland a car plowed into a crowd that had gathered to watch a drag race on a suburban road, killing 8 people and injuring at least four.
(AP, 2/16/08)(SSFC, 2/17/08, p.A2)
2008 Apr 7, In Ohio 9 mortgage lenders agreed to modify adjustable-rate mortgages for borrowers facing foreclosure. In Pennsylvania mortgage companies and consumer advocates opened talks to help cash-strapped homeowners avoid foreclosure. Last week Maryland’s Gov. signed a measure creating a 150-day moratorium on foreclosures.
(WSJ, 4/8/08, p.A4)
2008 Apr 15, Pope Benedict arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and was met by President Bush and Catholic dignitaries. Benedict turned 81 the next day.
(AP, 4/16/08)(SFC, 4/16/08, p.A2)
2008 Jun 16, Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley unveiled the BIO 2020 Initiative, America’s largest per-capita investment in biotech.
(www.choosemaryland.org/pressroom/pressreleases/BIO2020.html)
2008 Jul 29, US Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins died of an apparent overdoes of Tylenol at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty against Ivins in connection with anthrax mailings that killed five people. Ivins, who was developing a vaccine against the deadly toxin, committed suicide. On Feb 19, 2010, the FBI formally closed his case concluding that Ivins acted alone in the 2001 anthrax mailings.
(AP, 8/1/08)(AP, 2/20/10)(SFC, 2/16/11, p.A6)
2008 Jul 29, In Maryland police raided the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing an unopened package containing 32 pounds of marijuana. The couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients.
(AP, 8/8/08)
2008 Sep 28, In Maryland a medical helicopter crashed and killed 4 of 5 people on board.
(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A2)
2008 Dec 31, SF ended the year with 98 homicides. In Milwaukee, Wisc., the total number of homicides dropped 32%, from 105 in 2007 to 71 in 2008, the lowest number since 1985. Detroit had 344 slayings, a 13% drop from the 396 in 2007; Philadelphia's 332 killings were a 15% drop from the 392 in 2007; and the 234 homicides in Baltimore were 17% less than the 392 the year before. Cleveland recorded 102 homicides in 2008, down from a 13-year high of 134 in 2007. Homicides in New York rose 5.2%, to 522 from 496 the year before. Slayings in Los Angeles were down to 376 in 2008 compared to 400 the prior year. Preliminary data in Chicago showed 508 homicides were reported in 2008, the first time the city had more than 500 murders since 2003 and about 15% more than the 442 homicides reported in 2007. Washington, D.C., ended 2008 with 186 homicides, up from 181 in 2007.
(SFC, 1/2/09, p.1)(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 9, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon (55) was indicted on charges that she accepted illegal gifts, including travel, fur coats and gift cards intended for the poor that she allegedly used instead for a holiday shopping spree. Her trial began on Nov 9.
(AP, 1/10/09)(SFC, 11/10/09, p.A8)
2009 Jan 30, The Republican Party chose former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as the first black national chairman in its history.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 31, In Maryland Goucher College President Sanford Ungar told faculty and students in an e-mail that Professor Leopold Munyakazi (59) was removed from teaching after officials learned he had been indicted in 2006 on genocide charges in Rwanda.
(AP, 2/3/09)
2009 Feb 27, Two members of the Final Exit Network appeared in a Maryland court and waived an extradition hearing on charges they aided the suicide of a 58-year-old Georgia man who suffered for years from cancer of the throat and mouth.
(AP, 2/27/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Middletown, Maryland, Christopher Alan Wood (34) killed his wife (33) and 3 children, then himself, in their home, leaving a gruesome scene that authorities said was found by the children's' grandfather on April 18.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Maryland a Loyola college student, her visiting parents and younger sister were found dead in a hotel room near Baltimore in an apparent murder suicide.
(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 27, In Maryland an indictment named Metro Dream Homes founder Andrew Hamilton Williams Jr. (58) of Hollywood, Fla.; financial officer Michael Anthony Hickson (46) of Commack, N.Y.; president Isaac Jerome Smith (46) of Spotsylvania, Va.; and vice president Alvita Karen Gunn (31) of Hanover, Md., for defrauding over 1,000 people out of about $70 million. They were given 48 hours to turn themselves in. Investors were told they were investing in ATM machines, television advertising and calling card kiosks that would raise money for the mortgage payments. Prosecutors said those businesses never made any money.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 Apr 27, Five members of the US Congress were arrested while protesting the expulsion of aid groups from Darfur in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC. The included Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, John Lewis of Georgia, Donna Edwards of Maryland and Lynn Woolsey of California.
(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 May 2, Jack Kemp (b.1935), Republican politician, died of cancer at his home in Maryland. A former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Kemp represented western NY for nine terms in Congress, leaving the House for an unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988.
(AP, 5/3/09)(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.A16)
2009 May 7, Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley signed legislation extending hate crimes protection to homeless people.
(SFC, 5/8/09, p.A11)
2009 May 16, In Maryland Rachel Alexandra won the second leg of the Triple Crown. She joined an impressive list when she became the first filly in 85 years to win the Preakness.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 Sep 25, In Maryland 4 bodies were found in a home in Mount Airy. Police said Charles Dalton (38), a school janitor struggling to survive the recession, killed his sleeping wife and 2 children before shooting himself with a 12-guage shotgun.
(SSFC, 9/27/09, p.A8)
2009 Oct 19, American scientist Stewart D. Nozette (52) of Chevy Chase, Md., was arrested for attempted espionage after passing classified information to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence operative. In 2011 Nozette pleaded guilty to espionage and agreed to a 13-year prison term.
(SFC, 10/21/09, p.A5)(SFC, 9/8/11, p.A8)
2009 Dec 1, A Baltimore jury convicted Mayor Sheila Dixon of one count of embezzlement for stealing gift cards meant for poor residents. She was acquitted of other charges.
(SFC, 12/2/09, p.A12)
2009 Dec 25, In Maryland law enforcement found the body of Sarah H. Foxwell (11) near the Delaware state line three days after she was last seen at her home. Thomas J. Leggs Jr. (30), a known sex offender and former boyfriend of the girl's aunt, was charged on Dec 23 in Sarah's kidnapping.
(AP, 12/26/09)
2010 Jan 6, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon (56) resigned as part of a deal with prosecutors following allegations that she stole gift cards that had been donated to the poor.
(SFC, 1/7/10, p.A4)
2010 Feb 10, Snow, wind and slush hounded eastern commuters as blizzard warnings from Baltimore to New York City heralded the second major storm in a region already largely blanketed by weekend snowfall. Snow was falling from northern Virginia to Connecticut after crawling out of the Midwest, where the storm canceled hundreds of flights and was blamed for three traffic deaths in Michigan.
(AP, 2/10/10)
2010 Mar 22, In Maryland Renee Bowman (44) was sentenced to 2 consecutive life terms for killing her two adopted daughters and storing their bodies in a freezer. She had continued to collect subsidies paid to adoptive parents of special needs children.
(SFC, 3/23/10, p.A7)
2010 Mar 30, A gunman sprayed bullets from a moving vehicle into a crowd in southeastern Washington, killing four and wounding at least five others, before leading police on a chase into neighboring Maryland. Three people were arrested in the drive-by shooting.
(AP, 3/31/10)
2010 May 15, In Maryland jockey Martin Garcia rode “Lookin At Lucky" to victory in the Preakness Stakes.
(SFC, 5/17/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 9, US regulators shut down 2 banks in Maryland, bringing to 88 the number of failed US banks this year.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.D3)
2010 Sep 1, In Maryland police shot and killed James J. Lee after he took 2 employees and a security officer hostage at the headquarters of the Discovery Channel. Lee had demanded that the network ask “the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it." All 3 hostages escaped unharmed.
(SFC, 9/2/10, p.A8)
2010 Sep 16, In Maryland Paul Warren Pardus (50), distraught by his mother’s health condition, shot and wounded her surgeon, Dr. David Cohen, and then killed his mother and himself at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
(SFC, 9/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Nov 19, In Maryland Corey Ausby (16) was beaten while walking through a Baltimore neighborhood. In 2012 a trial opened for brothers Eliyahu (24) and Avi Werdesheim (21). Charging documents said they pulled up next to the black teenager in a vehicle, then got out and "surrounded him." The passenger threw the teen to the ground and the driver hit him in the head with a hand-held radio and patted him down. On May 3 Eliyahu was convicted of false imprisonment and 2nd degree assault. His brother was acquitted.
(AP, 4/23/12)(SFC, 5/4/12, p.A7)
2010 Dec 8, In Maryland federal authorities arrested Antonio Martinez (21) for attempting to blow up a military recruitment center in Catonsville, with what he thought was a vehicle bomb. On April 6, 2012, Martinez renounced terrorism, but was still sentenced to 25 years in prison.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A22)(SFC, 4/7/12, p.A4)
2011 Mar 12, In Maryland police in Rockville found Brittany Norwood (28) tied up in a Lululemon Athletica shop and co-worker Jayna Murray (30) dead. Norwood said they had been attacked by 2 men. Police arrested Norwood on March 18 for murdering Murray.
(SFC, 3/22/11, p.A6)
2011 Jun 2, In Maryland Sukanya Roy (14) of South Abington Township, Pa., won the 84th Scripps national Spelling Bee.
(SFC, 6/3/11, p.A7)
2011 Jul 6, In Maryland the FBI arrested Mohammad Hassan Khalid (18), a high school honors student and legal immigrant from Pakistan, at his home near Baltimore for helping Colleen LaRose, aka “Jihad Jane," plot to kill Swedish artist Lars Vilks. LaRose (48) pleaded guilty this year to 4 federal charges. On May 4, 2012, Khalid pleaded guilty to helping LaRose. On April 17, 2014 Khalid was sentenced to five years in prison.
(SFC, 10/21/11, p.A11)(SFC, 5/4/12, p.A5)(SFC, 4/18/14, p.A7)
2011 Jul 9, In Maryland Barry Landau’s assistant Jason Savedoff (24) was caught stealing documents for the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. Multiple searches of Landau's NYC West 57th Avenue apartment by the FBI turned up thousands more documents. In 2012 Landau was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
(SFC, 5/15/13, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Landau)
2011 Jul 15, Thomas Drake (54), a former senior official for the national Security Agency (NSA), was sentenced to a year’s probation for leaking information about the NSA to the Baltimore Sun in 2006.
(SFC, 7/16/11, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake)
2011 Aug 2, Robyn Gardner (35), of Frederick, Maryland, vanished after snorkeling with her companion off the western tip of Aruba. On Aug 6 police detained her traveling companion Gary V. Giordano (50), as he sought to fly back to the US. Giordano had an accidental-death insurance policy on Gardner for $1.5 million and sought to claim the money two days after reporting her missing.
(AP, 8/9/11)(AP, 8/18/11)
2011 Aug 28, Seawater surged into the streets of Manhattan as Tropical Storm Irene slammed into New York, downgraded from a hurricane but still unleashing furious wind and rain. The flooding threatened Wall Street and the heart of the global financial network. At least 16 people were reported killed in 6 states: 5 in North Carolina, 4 in Virginia, 3 in New Jersey, 2 in Florida and one each in Maryland and Connecticut.
(AP, 8/28/11)(SFC, 8/29/11, p.A10)
2011 Sep 8, Tropical Storm Lee dumped heavy rain in the Northeast. The Susquehanna River and its tributaries in New York and Pennsylvania swamped thousands of homes. At least 15 deaths were blamed on the storm and its aftermath: 7 in Pennsylvania, 3 in Virginia, one in Maryland and 4 others when it came ashore on the Gulf Coast a week earlier.
(SFC, 9/10/11, p.A6)
2011 Dec 9, In Maryland former Prince George’s County councilwoman Leslie Johnson was sentenced to a year in prison for obstructing an investigation into her husband’s corruption. Former County Executive Jack Johnson got over 7 years in prison this week for extorting hundreds of thousands in bribes from developers.
(SFC, 12/10/11, p.A6)
2011 Dec 28, Two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions were arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder. Dr. Steven Brigham, of Voorhees, N.J., was taken into custody and held in the Camden County jail. Authorities also arrested Dr. Nicola Riley in Salt Lake City. Each was awaiting an extradition hearing.
(AP, 12/31/11)
2012 Jan 6, Nadeem Akhtar (46), a Maryland businessman, was sentenced to over 3 years in prison for conspiring to export to Pakistan materials that can be used in nuclear reactors.
(SFC, 1/7/12, p.A5)
2012 Jan 9, In Maryland former US Army veteran Craig Benedict Baxam (24), who had done earlier tours in Iraq and South Korea, faced charges that he had tried to enlist with Somalia's al-Shabab terrorist group. Baxam, an Army vet trained in intelligence and cryptology, was arrested Jan 6 at Baltimore-Washington Int’l. Airport as he returned from a failed effort to get to Somalia.
(http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/11/us/soldier-al-shabaab/index.html)
2012 Mar 1, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley signed into a law a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.
(SFC, 3/2/12, p.A8)
2012 Mar 30, Lottery ticket-holders in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland each selected the winning numbers for the world record-breaking $640 million Mega Millions jackpot.
(AP, 3/31/12)
2012 Apr 3, Mitt Romney swept Republican primaries in Maryland (47%), Wisconsin (42%) and Washington, DC (70%).
(SFC, 4/4/12, p.A6)
2012 May 19, G8 leaders meeting in Maryland made progress on addressing the two biggest threats to their economies, the euro zone crisis and very high oil prices. G8 leaders sent a strong message to Iran that tough energy sanctions would be firmly applied, vowing to ensure oil markets are well supplied to prevent crude prices soaring. G8 leaders pledged to lift millions of Africans out of poverty by promoting investments in sustainable agriculture.
(AFP, 5/19/12)
2012 May 19, G8 leaders meeting in Maryland backed keeping Greece in the euro zone and vowed to take all steps necessary to combat financial turmoil while revitalizing a global economy increasingly threatened by Europe's debt crisis.
(Reuters, 5/19/12)
2012 May 25, In Maryland Alexander Kinyua (21), a student from Kenya, allegedly killed and ate parts of Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie (37), his Ghanaian housemate. On June 2 Kinyua was arrested after being charged with first-degree murder and other charges.
(AFP, 6/2/12)
2012 Jun 18, Rodney Hailey of Maryland faced trial in a $9.1 million fraud case for selling renewable fuel credits even though his company did not produce any renewable fuel.
(SFC, 6/18/12, p.A5)
2012 Jun 30, Millions across the mid-Atlantic region sweltered in the aftermath of violent storms that pummeled the eastern US with high winds and downed trees, killing 24 people and leaving 3 million without power during a heat wave. At least six of the dead were killed in Virginia. 2 young cousins in New Jersey were killed when a tree fell on their tent while camping. 2 were killed in Maryland, one in Ohio, one in Kentucky and one in Washington.
(AP, 6/30/12)(SFC, 7/3/12, p.A8)(Econ, 7/7/12, p.32)
2012 Aug 20, In Maryland a CSX freight train derailed near midnight buried under coal and killed 2 college friends (19), who were sitting near the tracks.
(SFC, 8/22/12, p.A6)
2012 Sep 16, It was reported that a 19th person has died at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., from an antibiotic-resistant strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae (KPC). The outbreak stemmed from a single patient carrying the superbug into the hospital last summer.
(SSFC, 9/16/12, p.A7)
2012 Sep 17, Russell Train (b.1920), renowned conservationist, died at his farm in Bozman, Md. He was widely considered the father of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 under pres. Nixon.
(SFC, 9/19/12, p.C6)
2012 Nov 2, Frustration grew for residents of Northeast states hit by superstorm Sandy as the death toll reached 102, millions were still without power and tempers frayed at a lack of fuel and guidance on when life might return to normal.
(Reuters, 11/2/12)
2012 Nov 6, Maine and Maryland became the first states to approve same sex marriage by popular vote.
(SFC, 11/7/12, p.A10)
2012 The FBI found 5 Baltimore police officers involved in a corruption racket.
(Econ., 5/2/15, p.23)
2013 Jan 1, Gay marriage became legal in Maryland, the first state south of the Mason-Dixon Line on New Year's Day.
(AP, 1/1/13)
2013 Feb 3, In New Orleans the Baltimore Ravens defeated the SF 49ers 43-31 in Super Bowl XLVII. The game was delayed for 34 minutes in the 3rd quarter when lights went out in the stadium. Some 109 million people watched the game.
(SFC, 2/4/13, p.A1)(Econ, 2/9/13, p.67)
2013 Feb 18, In Maryland Dr. Nikita A. Levy (54) was found dead. The gynecologist’s employment at Johns Hopkins was terminated on Feb 8 following reports of his surreptitiously photographing and videotaping his patients. In 2014 the John Hopkins Health System agreed to pay $190 million to some 8,000 women to settle the case.
(SFC, 2/19/13, p.A7)(SFC, 7/22/14, p.A4)
2013 May 2, Maryland’s Gov. Martin O’Malley signed legislation to abolish the death penalty, making Maryland became the 18th US state to do so.
(SFC, 5/3/13, p.A7)
2013 Jun 19, The US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., charged 3 Navy football players with sexually assaulting a female midshipman at an off-campus house in April, 2012.
(SFC, 6/20/13, p.A7)
2013 Jul 30, In Maryland US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy, but was convicted on 20 of 22 other charges including espionage and theft. He faced up to 136 years in prison for spilling government information to WikiLeaks in 2010.
(SFC, 7/31/13, p.A6)
2013 Aug 14, In Maryland US soldier Bradley Manning told a military court "I'm sorry" for giving war logs and diplomatic secrets to the WikiLeaks website three years ago, the biggest breach of classified data in the nation's history.
(Reuters, 8/14/13)
2013 Aug 21, In Maryland a military judge sentenced Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for providing more than 700,000 government files to WikiLeaks.
(SFC, 8/22/13, p.A5)
2014 Jan 25, In Maryland a shooter at the Mall in Columbia killed 2 young employees of the Zumiez skateboard shop and then took his own life. On Jan 26 police identified the shooter as Darion Marcus Aguilar (19) of College Park.
(Reuters, 1/26/14)
2014 Mar 11, Jos. A. Bank of Hampstead, Md., and Men’s Wearhouse of Fremont, Ca., announced that Men’s Wearhouse will acquire Jos. A. Bank for $65/share or about $1.8 billion.
(SFC, 3/12/14, p.C1)
2014 Mar 18, The Mega Millions jackpot of $414 million, the third largest in the game’s history, went to two winners of tickets sold in Florida and Maryland.
(SFC, 3/20/14, p.A6)
2014 May 17, In Maryland 3-year-old California Chrome won the 139th Preakness at Pimlico Race Course making him eligible for the Triple Crown on June 7 at the Belmont Stakes.
(SSFC, 5/18/14, p.B1)
2014 Jul 8, US East Coast states experienced severe storms and high winds. 4 people were killed in New York and one in Maryland. CNN reported nearly 500,000 homes and businesses without power, mostly in Pennsylvania and New York state.
(AP, 7/9/14)
2014 Aug 12, A US federal judge upheld a Maryland ban on 45 assault weapons and a limit on gun magazines to 10 rounds.
(SFC, 8/13/14, p.A8)
2014 Sep 8, Ray Rice, running back for the Baltimore Ravens, was dropped indefinitely by the NFL after video footage emerged showing him punching his future wife unconscious in a casino lift. He had initially received a two-game suspension after being indicted in March for the assault. The charges were dropped after he agreed to counseling.
(Econ, 9/20/14, p.27)
2014 Oct 23, In Maryland a small plane and a helicopter collided before crashing. 3 people were killed.
(SFC, 10/24/14, p.A7)
2014 Dec 8, In Maryland a small private jet crashed into a house in Gaithersburg, Md. A woman, her two young sons and 3 people in the plane were killed.
(SFC, 12/9/14, p.A6)
2014 Dec 22, A grand jury in Baltimore returned indictments against 22 people involved in a multi-state dog-fighting ring. 225 dogs and at least 20 weapons were recovered following raids in Baltimore and West Virginia.
(SFC, 12/23/14, p.A5)
2014 Dec 27, In Maryland bicyclist Tom Palermo (41), a father of two, was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Episcopal Bishop Suffragan Heather Cook (58) was later charged with manslaughter and drunken driving.
(SFC, 1/10/15, p.A4)
2015 Feb 14, In Maryland Jason Hendrix (16) was killed in a shootout with police as they tried to pull him over for a speeding violation. This prompted a search at his home in Corbin, Ky., where police found the bodies of his parents and a younger sister. Hendrix was said to be angry at his parents for taking away his computer privileges.
(SFC, 2/16/15, p.A7)
2015 Mar 30, In Maryland one cross-dressing man was killed and another injured as they mistakenly crashed a stolen Ford Escape into a police cruiser at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade.
(SFC, 3/31/15, p.A6)
2015 Apr 6, In Maryland Rodney Todd (36) was found dead with his 7 children in Princess Anne following carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator they were using after the power company cut off their heat. The family was last seen on March 28 and Delmarva Power was subpoenaed to document its role.
(SFC, 4/7/15, p.A10)(SFC, 4/8/15, p.A12)
2015 Apr 19, In Baltimore, Maryland, Freddie Gray (25) died following his April 12 arrest when he somehow suffered an 80 percent severed spinal cord and three broken vertebrae. A video shot from nearby showed police restraining Gray on a sidewalk, then dragging him while yelling in pain to a police van.
(AFP, 4/20/15)
2015 Apr 25, In Maryland thousands of protesters took to the streets of Baltimore to protest the fatal injury of Freddie Gray, who died on April 19 after sufering a fatal spinal injury while in police custody.
(SSFC, 4/26/15, p.A9)
2015 Apr 27, In Baltimore rioters plunged parts of the city into chaos torching a pharmacy and setting cars on fire, following the funeral of Freddie Gray, who died on April 19 after sufering a fatal spinal injury while in police custody. The governor declared a state of emergency and called in the National Guard to restore order.
(SFC, 4/28/15, p.A5)
2015 May 1, In Baltimore six police officers were charged over the April 19 death of Freddie Gray, an African-American man in their custody. Police made at least 15 arrests when some protesters defied a 10:00 pm curfew. On May 21 a grand jury indicted all six of the charged police officers.
(AFP, 5/2/15)(SFC, 5/22/15, p.A8)
2015 May 3, The mayor of Baltimore lifted a nightly curfew that was implemented after residents in the US city rioted following the death of a man in police custody.
(AP, 5/3/15)
2015 May 18, The US Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Maryland tax that has the effect of double-taxing income residents earn in other states.
(AP, 5/18/15)
2015 Jun 25, In Maryland Baltimore County police officers shot and killed Spencer Lee McCain (41) while responding to a call for potential domestic violence in Owings Mills. McCain was not armed.
(SFC, 6/26/15, p.A6)
2015 Jul 6, A US federal indictment said three members of the Salvadoran gang La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, killed two people in Maryland and wounded or threatened four others.
(AP, 7/6/15)
2015 Jul, Surgeons at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia completed a double-hand transplant for Zion Harvey (8) of Maryland, who had lost his hands and feet to a serious infection.
(SFC, 7/30/15, p.A6)
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Subject = Maryland
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