23 rd. March. World Meteorological Day

1775 Patrick Henry uttered: “Give me liberty or give me death!”

1910 Akira Kurosawa was born.

1912 Wemher von Braun was born. (See March 16th entry.)

1942 The U. S. Army moved Japanese-Americans to interment camps.

1964 The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

1978 The U. S. Senate raised the retirement age to seventy. (See April 6th entry.)

When the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said on this day in 1964, that “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools,” he was voicing the spirit which lies behind today’s observance of United Nations’ World Meteorological Day. Meteorologists and weather experts know that, regardless of national boundaries, we all share the same weather cycles.

On this day in 1775, at the Virginia convention, a fire-breathing lawyer named Patrick Henry rose and spoke the words that generations of Americans remember as the heart of our national heritage: “Is life so dear,” asked Patrick Henry, “or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Yet, in 1942, the U. S. Army moved Japanese-American citizens from their homes on the California, Oregon, and Washington coasts to internment camps high in the Sierra Mountains because people feared a potential conspiracy based on ethnic origins. As the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said on this day in 1964: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Today is the birthday of an inspired filmmaker who, in turn, has inspired the film industry. In 1920, Akira Kurosawa was born in Tokyo, Japan. Besides being the first Japanese film director to receive international acclaim, Kurosawa’s films have inspired some of the world’s most famous American and Italian productions. The Seven Samurai inspired the western classic The Magnificent Seven. Yojimbo and Sanjuro spurred Sergio Leone to create The Man with No Name series starring Clint Eastwood and another American production company to produce Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis. And Kurosawa’s classic, The Hidden Fortress, served as the basis for the Star Wars trilogy.