On March 1, 1921, Harry Houdini was granted patent #1,370,316 for a diver’s suit.
March 3 is World Wildlife Day, to celebrate all the world’s wild animals and plants and the contribution that they make to our lives and the health of the planet. This year is the 50th anniversary of CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, signed in 1973.
March 8 is International Women’s Day. The latest available Sustainable Development Goal 5 data show that the world is not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030. COVID-19 and the backlash against women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights are further diminishing the outlook for gender equality.
March 11 is the 133rd birthday of Vannevar Bush, the U.S. engineer who first proposed the idea of hypertext.
World Glaucoma Week is March 12 to 18. Glaucoma is the most common cause of irreversible blindness.
On March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein was born. March 14 is also Pi Day.
The equinox on March 20 marks the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere.
March 21 is the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
March 23 marks the 141st birthday of Emmy Noether, who was described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl, and Norbert Wiener as the most important woman in the history of mathematics.
March 24 is World TB Day, commemorating the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch astounded the scientific community by announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. TB remains an epidemic in much of the world, causing the deaths of nearly one-and-a-half million people each year, mostly in developing countries.
March 26 is Purple Day, an international grassroots effort dedicated to increasing awareness about epilepsy worldwide. (Canada is the only country in the world that officially recognizes March 26th as Purple Day through the Purple Day Act implemented on June 28, 2012.)
On March 31, the world observes Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) to raise awareness about transgender people.
If you celebrate any of these, or have suggestions for upcoming celebrations or observances, please drop us a line or send a picture to CriticalLinks@centreforinquiry.ca.