Bartenders bi-weekly blog – JiuJiu Icebreaker – 2nd March 2019

March 5, 1946 – The “Iron Curtain” speech was delivered by Winston Churchill at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Churchill used the term to describe the boundary in Europe between free countries of the West and nations of Eastern Europe under Soviet Russia’s control.

March 6, 1836 – Fort Alamo fell to Mexican troops led by General Santa Anna. The Mexicans had begun the siege of the Texas fort on February 23rd, ending it with the killing of the last defender. “Remember the Alamo” became a rallying cry for Texans who went on to defeat Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto in April.

Mar 8^th 2014 – In what is regarded as the greatest aviation mystery of all time, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing that lost contact with air traffic control on 8 March 2014 at 01:20 MYT, less than an hour after takeoff. At 07:24, Malaysia Airlines reported the flight missing.The aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 14 nations. There has been no confirmation of any flight debris and no crash site has been found. A multinational search and rescue effort, later reported as the largest in history,began in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea.The search has been laborious with just a few clues to carry on the mission. No debris or body has been found as of now.

On 11th March 2011, a 9.0-magnitude quake and subsequent tsunami hit the east of Japan, killing over 15,000 and leaving another 9,000 missing. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded to have hit Japan, and the fifth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900.The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tohoku’s Iwate Prefecture,and which, in the Sendai area, travelled up to 10 km (6 mi) inland. The earthquake moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 2.4 m (8 ft) east and shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cm (4 in) and 25 cm (10 in), and generated sound waves detected by the low orbiting GOCE satellite. The tsunami caused nuclear accidents, primarily the level 7 meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex, and the associated evacuation zones affecting hundreds of thousands of residents. Early estimates placed insured losses from the earthquake alone at US$14.5 to $34.6 billion.The Bank of Japan offered US$183 billion to the banking system on 14 March in an effort to normalize market conditions. The World Bank’s estimated economic cost was US$235 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster in world history.

3/2/19             National Employee Appreciation Day – First Friday in March

3/8/19             International Women’s Day
3/17/19           St. Patrick’s Day