NOW YOU KNOW

• On march 8, 1965,  the United States landed its first combat troops in South Vietnam as 3,500 Marines were brought in to defend the U.S. air base at Da Nang.
• On March 9, 1959,  Mattel's Barbie doll, created by Ruth Handler, made its public debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
• On March 10,2010,  Ten Years ago, Pope John Paul 2nd, approved sainthood for Katherine Drexel, a Philadelphia socialite who had taken a vow of poverty and devoted her fortune to helping poor blacks and American Indians.
• On March 11, 1985,  Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.
• On March 12, 1980,  a Chicago jury found John Wayne Gacy Jr. guilty of the murders of 33 men and boys.  (The next day, Gacy was sentenced to death; he was executed in May 1994.)
• On March 14, 1980,  a Polish airliner crashed while making an emergency landing near Warsaw, killing 87 people aboard, including 22 members of a U.S. amateur boxing team.
• On March 15, 2010,  On this date in 44 B.C.,  Roman dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of nobles that included Brutus and Cassius.
• On March 16, 1985,  Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, was abducted in Beirut; he was released in Dec. 1991.
• On March 17, 2010,  on this date in A.D. 461 (or A.D. 493, depending on sources), St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, died in Saul.
• On March 18, 2010,  five years ago, doctors in Flordia, acting on orders of a state judge, removed Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.  Schiavo, an Archbiship Wood grad., died on March 31, 2005, at age 41.