The concept of value
Calculating the value of something can be a difficult process. Look at these two quarters.
Coins are graded on something called the Sheldon Coin Grading Scale. The scale runs from 0 to 70. A coin in Mint State (MS)-70 is absolutely perfect. A coin graded as zero is recognizable as a coin. Obviously the F-15 coin is nowhere near as good as the VF-35. That makes it easy to figure that the one currently priced at $4,375 is the one that's graded VF-35 and the one graded F-15 is priced at only $3,100.
Are these good prices? Depends on how much someone is willing to pay for them. In this case, value isn't just a function of supply and demand. There are some collectors who only collect coins with a grade of MS-60 and above. Those collectors would place no value on these coins. They would never buy them. Investors who want to "turn and burn" will be buyers only at a price where they can sell it for a profit. A collector who focuses on collecting coins graded F-15 or better might want the cheaper one, or might want to pay more for the better example. I bought a quarter just like this a long, long time ago. While I sold it at a large profit, I made nowhere near as much as I would have if I still owned it today. Was the amount I received for it when I sold it equivalent to what I could get for it today, based on inflation? Uh...no.
I only mention this because I want to look at the underlying value of a purchase Facebook recently made. FB paid $19 billion for Whatsapp. $19 billion for a company that has yet to show any significant profits. So what is FB paying for? Users. Roughly $42 per user of Whatsapp. That is in line with prices on a per user basis that were paid to purchase other tech companies. YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr. If users are worth more than $42 each to the company purchasing them, it's a good deal. But that probably is not the case.
There's a concept involved in evaluating the stock of a company known as a Price to Earnings Ratio (P/E). Market price per share divided by annual earnings per share = P/E. The average P/E ratio of companies listed in the NYSE Composite Index is 19.
A recent snapshot of some tech company P/E ratios is very telling. LinkedIn has a P/E ratio of 941. Netflix is at 232. Amazon is at 612. Google at only 31. Facebook at a healthy 105. Then there's Overstock.com which is at a P/E of 5. Bet you are glad you didn't buy in to Overstock when the price was $35.60 per share. I'll bet even more that you wish you'd bought in when the price was $10.89 per share. Those highs and lows are both within the last year of trading.
One last little illustration. Market capitalization (market cap) is an equation to calculate the total value of a company based on its share price multiplied by the number of outstanding shares. As of this past Friday, Facebook's market cap was $171.4 billion, with a P/E ratio of 105. Then there's Google which has a market cap of $397.5 billion with a P/E ratio of 30. Conventional wisdom says that Facebook is overpriced. Some market experts say that the old ways of valuing companies have to be ignored because e-commerce is the wave of the future and there are untold billions to be earned by these companies in the future.
Isn't that what they said right before the first dot-com bust?
* * *
As long as we're talking about the concept of value, let's turn our attention to Detroit Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer. The Tigers just did their best to insure he will be pitching elsewhere in 2015 as he will be a free agent at the end of this season. He turned down a deal that would have paid him $144 million over six years. That's $24 million a season.
Scherzer isn't Clayton Kershaw, but he's one of the best pitchers in baseball. Kershaw will average over $30 million during those same six seasons. Why is Kershaw worth so much more? Some will point to age. Kershaw is 25. Scherzer will turn 30 in July. Some say that it isn't that big a deal, Scherzer is in great shape and has a lifetime pitch count lower than Kershaw's.
I'm of the mind that when a pitcher turns 30, it's time for teams to try to pay them more over shorter periods. Paying Scherzer somewhere in the range of $27 million to $29 million for the next three seasons makes more sense. Give him non-guaranteed options for those other seasons. Then let him be the one to buy the injury insurance to prevent his future windfall from being wiped out by a disaster.
The first pitcher to become a $100 million player was Kevin Brown. He got $105 million from the Dodgers for seven seasons. If you do the math, it works out to about $1.7 million per victory, more than a decade ago. Now it's true that Kershaw is averaging "only" 16 wins per season over the last four season, and at $32 million per, that's close to $2 million per win. Then again, Kershaw has won 2 of the last 3 Cy Young awards, let the majors in ERA for three straight seasons and so on.
Then again, Max Scherzer has won the same number of games as Clayton Kershaw did over the last four seasons, 64. His ERA isn't as good as Kershaw's but he does pitch in the American League versus the National League.
So is Max Scherzer right or wrong to reject $144 million over six years? I think he is. But we won't know for six years if he made the right decision or not. Who knows, maybe he'll become the latest Jody Reed. http://articles.latimes.com/1994-03-13/sports/sp-33669_1_jody-reed
* * *
It is becoming one of the most used phrases in our language. "There's an app for that." Want to avoid your ex? Need to make sure the boss doesn't see you out having fun on a day you are playing hooky from work? There is now an app for that, if your ex and/or boss use Foursquare or Instagram. Cloak notifies you when the check-ins of selected individuals puts them in close proximity to you, so you can avoid them.
Lonely men in Korea can spend $1.99 and get four daily video messages from a virtual girlfriend named Mina. Want to fart loudly and can't do it on command? iFart Mobile is right there to handle it for you. iAmAMan tracks the menstrual cycles and other important information about multiple women, and has individualized passwords for each. That way if your girlfriend forces you to put in a password so she can see the app, her password will show only her. Dog Whistler turns your iPhone into a dog whistle to annoy your pet. Want to text while drunk? iDrunkTxt is available.
Just makes me shake my head and wonder what weird app is coming next.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Restaurant industry insiders claim that the biggest markup people dining out face is on a glass of wine. It may be priced as much as six times what the restaurant paid to put the glass in front of you. Now I'm really glad I don't drink alcohol.
What did Anne Hathaway do to that poor parrot?
Would someone tell Michael Waltrip that if you aren't sure a person is the celebrity you think they are, don't walk up to them?
Why are people surprised when Jerry "The King" Lawler says the late Andre the Giant was a drinker of epic proportions? After all, Andre did stand 7'4" and weigh 500 lbs, so he had a lot of room to hold his liquor.
When he was in high school, Huey Lewis scored an 800 on the SAT math exam. Guess it's hip to be smart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB5YkmjalDg for the younger crowd who won't get the reference).
Sean Connery is in favor of Scottish independence. No surprise there. But I'm curious to see if he's going to try to buy the large collection of Bond cars up for sale. They are expected to fetch $33 million.
Then again, maybe he'll be turned off by this sentence in a story about the sale. "Bond’s affinity for Aston Martins is well accounted for in Dezer’s collection, which features Sean Connery’s DB5 from “Goldeneye” and the DBS driven by one-time bond George Lazenby’s in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” " Connery drove the DB5 in "Goldfinger", and was done playing Bond long before "Goldeneye" was released in 1995.
It's interesting to note that the leading scorer this season in NCAA men's basketball is technically a "walk-on." Doug McDermott was given an additional year of eligibility but Creighton's scholarships were all used up and his father's tenure as the head coach there wasn't long enough to qualify for tuition remission. So his family coughed up the $40 grand for him to attend.
Political pollster Nate Silver says Republicans will take control of the Senate in the 2014 elections. Or so some media outlets are trying to claim. A more careful reading of his blog entry shows that the GOP is only a slight favorite to grab the six seats they need to take control. The media outlets who are fear-mongering this way are trying to help encourage big donors to Democratic causes to step up now and help to outspend the Koch Brothers. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just pointing out what's real and what's "spin."
Why in the world would anyone remake "The Amityville Horror" again, just ten years after the first big remake?
The two radio hosts in Canada who asked listeners to vote and decide if they would give $5,000 (Canadian) to a listener or just burn the money shouldn't have actually burned the money. Not in a world where so many go hungry or without shelter each day.
Mitt Romney is certainly free to criticize President Obama over his handling of Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. However, his criticism that the President should have consulted with allies about sanctions ahead of time is pettifoggery. His claim that President Obama could have "shaped" events to prevent the annexation is ridiculous.
The first Westboro Baptist Church protest after the death of Fred Phelps, Sr., was faced with counterdemonstrators holding up signs that read simply "Sorry for your loss" and "Live your life and be awesome." I suspect Mr. Phelps is looking up from his perch in Hell and frowning.
* * *
March 24th in History:
1401 – Turko-Mongol emperor Timur sacks Damascus.
1603 – James VI of Scotland also becomes James I of England, upon the death of Elizabeth I.
1603 – Tokugawa Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun from Emperor Go-Yozei, and establishes the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo, Japan.
1663 – The Province of Carolina is granted by charter to eight Lords Proprietor in reward for their assistance in restoring Charles II of England to the throne.
1707 – The Acts of Union 1707 is signed, officially uniting the Kingdoms of England and Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1720 – Count Frederick of Hesse-Kassel is elected King of Sweden by the Riksdag of the Estates, after his consort Ulrika Eleonora abdicated the throne on 29 February. She had been wanting to rule jointly with her husband in the same manner as William and Mary in the British Isles, but after the Riksdag of the Estates said no to this, she chose to abdicate the throne in his favour instead.
1721 – Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated six concertos to Christian Ludwig, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, now commonly called the Brandenburg concertos, BWV 1046-1051.
1731 – Naturalization of Hieronimus de Salis Parliamentary Act is passed.
1765 – American Revolution: The Kingdom of Great Britain passes the Quartering Act that requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops.
1829 – Catholic Emancipation: The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, allowing Catholics to serve in Parliament.
1832 – In Hiram, Ohio a group of men beat, tar and feather Mormon leader Joseph Smith.
1837 – Canada gives African Canadian men the right to vote.
1854 – In Venezuela, slavery was abolished
1860 – Sakuradamon incident: Assassination of Japanese Chief Minister (Tairō) Ii Naosuke.
1869 – The last of Titokowaru's forces surrendered to the New Zealand government, ending his uprising.
1878 – The British frigate HMS Eurydice sinks, killing more than 300.
1882 – Robert Koch announces the discovery of mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis.
1885 – Sino-French War: Chinese victory in the Battle of Bang Bo on the Tonkin-Guangxi border.
1896 – A. S. Popov makes the first radio signal transmission in history.
1900 – Mayor of New York City Robert Anderson Van Wyck breaks ground for a new underground "Rapid Transit Railroad" that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.
1907 – The first issue of the Georgian Bolshevik newspaper Dro is published.
1922 – Irish War of Independence: In Belfast, Northern Irish policemen break into the home of a Catholic family and shoot all eight males inside.
1927 – Nanking Incident: Foreign warships bombard Nanjing, China, in defense of the foreign citizens within the city.
1934 – United States Congress passes the Tydings–McDuffie Act allowing the Philippines to become a self-governing commonwealth.
1944 – Ardeatine massacre: German troops murder 335 Italian civilians in Rome.
1944 – World War II: In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 Allied prisoners of war begin breaking out of the German camp Stalag Luft III.
1946 – The British Cabinet Mission, consisting of Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and A. V. Alexander, arrives in India to discuss and plan for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership.
1958 – Rock'N'Roll teen idol Elvis Presley is drafted in the U.S. Army.
1959 – The Party of the African Federation is launched by Léopold Sédar Senghor and Modibo Keïta.
1965 – NASA spacecraft Ranger 9, equipped to convert its signals into a form suitable for showing on domestic television, brings images of the Moon into ordinary homes before crash landing.
1972 – The United Kingdom imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland.
1973 – Kenyan athlete Kip Keino defeats Jim Ryun at the first-ever professional track meet in Los Angeles.
1976 – In Argentina, the armed forces overthrow the constitutional government of President Isabel Perón and start a 7-year dictatorial period self-styled the National Reorganization Process. Since 2006, a public holiday known as Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice is held on this day.
1980 – Archbishop Óscar Romero is killed while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.
1986 – The Loscoe gas explosion leads to new UK laws on landfill gas migration and gas protection on landfill sites.
1989 – Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Prince William Sound in Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (38,000 m3) of petroleum after running aground.
1993 – Discovery of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9.
1998 – Jonesboro massacre: Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, aged 11 and 13 respectively, fire upon teachers and students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas; five people are killed and ten are wounded.
1998 – A tornado sweeps through Dantan in India killing 250 people and injuring 3000 others.
1999 – Mont Blanc Tunnel fire kills 39 people.
1999 – Kosovo War: NATO commences aerial bombardment against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.
2000 – S&P 500 index reaches an intraday high of 1,552.87, a peak that, due to the collapse of the dot-com bubble, it will not reach again for another seven-and-a-half years.
2003 – The Arab League votes 21-1 in favor of a resolution demanding the immediate and unconditional removal of U.S. and British soldiers from Iraq.
2008 – Bhutan officially becomes a democracy, with its first ever general election.
Famous Folk born on March 24th:
John Harrison
Rufus King
Fanny Crosby
Ignacio Zaragoza
Andrew W. Mellon
Harry Houdini (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUKyaji79zI)
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
George Sisler (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDAjqaqQkoI)
Thomas E. Dewey
Clyde Barrow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GbjX9lHjlE)
Joseph Barbera
Vasily Smyslov (great chess player)
Murray Hamilton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eVzHtmJR7g)
Norman Fell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vob9SmnfcWc)
Steve McQueen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0tobSb4BP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk6l301jwOk)
William Smith (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ6Tlh9XA0U)
Don Jardine
Bob Mackie
R. Lee Ermey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TNhS81w4bM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TNhS81w4bM)
Curtis Hanson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh09vEGNrXc)
Nick Lowe
Tommy Hilfiger
Dougie Thomson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFOsvL67ZH0)
Robert Carradine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh-WMdpzXRQ)
Donna Pescow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LozOUxMaUyQ)
Steve Ballmer
Nena (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IRDDnEPR4&list=RDFG-3LeJvfzU)
Kelly LeBrock (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnognVbh7T8)
Star Jones
Mark Calaway (WWE's The Undertaker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIqv_DR6ij0)
Lara Flynn Boyle
Sharon Corr (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnognVbh7T8 love this song!)
Jim Parsons
Alyson Hannigan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEl0Xyq50xE)
Peyton Manning
Jessica Chastain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5PA-qKoqiM)
Lake Bell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpFNTvA93iY)
Jack Swagger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4dnPKz5eOg)
Chris Bosh
They are both the rare 1824 Capped Bust Quarter where the engraver at the U. S. Mint was too lazy to make a new die, so he just engraved a 4 over the last 2 on a die from an 1822 quarter. Both are currently listed for sale on www.ebay.com. Coins are graded on something called the Sheldon Coin Grading Scale. The scale runs from 0 to 70. A coin in Mint State (MS)-70 is absolutely perfect. A coin graded as zero is recognizable as a coin. Obviously the F-15 coin is nowhere near as good as the VF-35. That makes it easy to figure that the one currently priced at $4,375 is the one that's graded VF-35 and the one graded F-15 is priced at only $3,100.
Are these good prices? Depends on how much someone is willing to pay for them. In this case, value isn't just a function of supply and demand. There are some collectors who only collect coins with a grade of MS-60 and above. Those collectors would place no value on these coins. They would never buy them. Investors who want to "turn and burn" will be buyers only at a price where they can sell it for a profit. A collector who focuses on collecting coins graded F-15 or better might want the cheaper one, or might want to pay more for the better example. I bought a quarter just like this a long, long time ago. While I sold it at a large profit, I made nowhere near as much as I would have if I still owned it today. Was the amount I received for it when I sold it equivalent to what I could get for it today, based on inflation? Uh...no.
I only mention this because I want to look at the underlying value of a purchase Facebook recently made. FB paid $19 billion for Whatsapp. $19 billion for a company that has yet to show any significant profits. So what is FB paying for? Users. Roughly $42 per user of Whatsapp. That is in line with prices on a per user basis that were paid to purchase other tech companies. YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr. If users are worth more than $42 each to the company purchasing them, it's a good deal. But that probably is not the case.
There's a concept involved in evaluating the stock of a company known as a Price to Earnings Ratio (P/E). Market price per share divided by annual earnings per share = P/E. The average P/E ratio of companies listed in the NYSE Composite Index is 19.
A recent snapshot of some tech company P/E ratios is very telling. LinkedIn has a P/E ratio of 941. Netflix is at 232. Amazon is at 612. Google at only 31. Facebook at a healthy 105. Then there's Overstock.com which is at a P/E of 5. Bet you are glad you didn't buy in to Overstock when the price was $35.60 per share. I'll bet even more that you wish you'd bought in when the price was $10.89 per share. Those highs and lows are both within the last year of trading.
One last little illustration. Market capitalization (market cap) is an equation to calculate the total value of a company based on its share price multiplied by the number of outstanding shares. As of this past Friday, Facebook's market cap was $171.4 billion, with a P/E ratio of 105. Then there's Google which has a market cap of $397.5 billion with a P/E ratio of 30. Conventional wisdom says that Facebook is overpriced. Some market experts say that the old ways of valuing companies have to be ignored because e-commerce is the wave of the future and there are untold billions to be earned by these companies in the future.
Isn't that what they said right before the first dot-com bust?
* * *
As long as we're talking about the concept of value, let's turn our attention to Detroit Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer. The Tigers just did their best to insure he will be pitching elsewhere in 2015 as he will be a free agent at the end of this season. He turned down a deal that would have paid him $144 million over six years. That's $24 million a season.
Scherzer isn't Clayton Kershaw, but he's one of the best pitchers in baseball. Kershaw will average over $30 million during those same six seasons. Why is Kershaw worth so much more? Some will point to age. Kershaw is 25. Scherzer will turn 30 in July. Some say that it isn't that big a deal, Scherzer is in great shape and has a lifetime pitch count lower than Kershaw's.
I'm of the mind that when a pitcher turns 30, it's time for teams to try to pay them more over shorter periods. Paying Scherzer somewhere in the range of $27 million to $29 million for the next three seasons makes more sense. Give him non-guaranteed options for those other seasons. Then let him be the one to buy the injury insurance to prevent his future windfall from being wiped out by a disaster.
The first pitcher to become a $100 million player was Kevin Brown. He got $105 million from the Dodgers for seven seasons. If you do the math, it works out to about $1.7 million per victory, more than a decade ago. Now it's true that Kershaw is averaging "only" 16 wins per season over the last four season, and at $32 million per, that's close to $2 million per win. Then again, Kershaw has won 2 of the last 3 Cy Young awards, let the majors in ERA for three straight seasons and so on.
Then again, Max Scherzer has won the same number of games as Clayton Kershaw did over the last four seasons, 64. His ERA isn't as good as Kershaw's but he does pitch in the American League versus the National League.
So is Max Scherzer right or wrong to reject $144 million over six years? I think he is. But we won't know for six years if he made the right decision or not. Who knows, maybe he'll become the latest Jody Reed. http://articles.latimes.com/1994-03-13/sports/sp-33669_1_jody-reed
* * *
It is becoming one of the most used phrases in our language. "There's an app for that." Want to avoid your ex? Need to make sure the boss doesn't see you out having fun on a day you are playing hooky from work? There is now an app for that, if your ex and/or boss use Foursquare or Instagram. Cloak notifies you when the check-ins of selected individuals puts them in close proximity to you, so you can avoid them.
Lonely men in Korea can spend $1.99 and get four daily video messages from a virtual girlfriend named Mina. Want to fart loudly and can't do it on command? iFart Mobile is right there to handle it for you. iAmAMan tracks the menstrual cycles and other important information about multiple women, and has individualized passwords for each. That way if your girlfriend forces you to put in a password so she can see the app, her password will show only her. Dog Whistler turns your iPhone into a dog whistle to annoy your pet. Want to text while drunk? iDrunkTxt is available.
Just makes me shake my head and wonder what weird app is coming next.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Restaurant industry insiders claim that the biggest markup people dining out face is on a glass of wine. It may be priced as much as six times what the restaurant paid to put the glass in front of you. Now I'm really glad I don't drink alcohol.
What did Anne Hathaway do to that poor parrot?
Would someone tell Michael Waltrip that if you aren't sure a person is the celebrity you think they are, don't walk up to them?
Why are people surprised when Jerry "The King" Lawler says the late Andre the Giant was a drinker of epic proportions? After all, Andre did stand 7'4" and weigh 500 lbs, so he had a lot of room to hold his liquor.
When he was in high school, Huey Lewis scored an 800 on the SAT math exam. Guess it's hip to be smart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB5YkmjalDg for the younger crowd who won't get the reference).
Sean Connery is in favor of Scottish independence. No surprise there. But I'm curious to see if he's going to try to buy the large collection of Bond cars up for sale. They are expected to fetch $33 million.
Then again, maybe he'll be turned off by this sentence in a story about the sale. "Bond’s affinity for Aston Martins is well accounted for in Dezer’s collection, which features Sean Connery’s DB5 from “Goldeneye” and the DBS driven by one-time bond George Lazenby’s in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” " Connery drove the DB5 in "Goldfinger", and was done playing Bond long before "Goldeneye" was released in 1995.
It's interesting to note that the leading scorer this season in NCAA men's basketball is technically a "walk-on." Doug McDermott was given an additional year of eligibility but Creighton's scholarships were all used up and his father's tenure as the head coach there wasn't long enough to qualify for tuition remission. So his family coughed up the $40 grand for him to attend.
Political pollster Nate Silver says Republicans will take control of the Senate in the 2014 elections. Or so some media outlets are trying to claim. A more careful reading of his blog entry shows that the GOP is only a slight favorite to grab the six seats they need to take control. The media outlets who are fear-mongering this way are trying to help encourage big donors to Democratic causes to step up now and help to outspend the Koch Brothers. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just pointing out what's real and what's "spin."
Why in the world would anyone remake "The Amityville Horror" again, just ten years after the first big remake?
The two radio hosts in Canada who asked listeners to vote and decide if they would give $5,000 (Canadian) to a listener or just burn the money shouldn't have actually burned the money. Not in a world where so many go hungry or without shelter each day.
Mitt Romney is certainly free to criticize President Obama over his handling of Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. However, his criticism that the President should have consulted with allies about sanctions ahead of time is pettifoggery. His claim that President Obama could have "shaped" events to prevent the annexation is ridiculous.
The first Westboro Baptist Church protest after the death of Fred Phelps, Sr., was faced with counterdemonstrators holding up signs that read simply "Sorry for your loss" and "Live your life and be awesome." I suspect Mr. Phelps is looking up from his perch in Hell and frowning.
* * *
March 24th in History:
1401 – Turko-Mongol emperor Timur sacks Damascus.
1603 – James VI of Scotland also becomes James I of England, upon the death of Elizabeth I.
1603 – Tokugawa Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun from Emperor Go-Yozei, and establishes the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo, Japan.
1663 – The Province of Carolina is granted by charter to eight Lords Proprietor in reward for their assistance in restoring Charles II of England to the throne.
1707 – The Acts of Union 1707 is signed, officially uniting the Kingdoms of England and Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1720 – Count Frederick of Hesse-Kassel is elected King of Sweden by the Riksdag of the Estates, after his consort Ulrika Eleonora abdicated the throne on 29 February. She had been wanting to rule jointly with her husband in the same manner as William and Mary in the British Isles, but after the Riksdag of the Estates said no to this, she chose to abdicate the throne in his favour instead.
1721 – Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated six concertos to Christian Ludwig, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, now commonly called the Brandenburg concertos, BWV 1046-1051.
1731 – Naturalization of Hieronimus de Salis Parliamentary Act is passed.
1765 – American Revolution: The Kingdom of Great Britain passes the Quartering Act that requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops.
1829 – Catholic Emancipation: The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, allowing Catholics to serve in Parliament.
1832 – In Hiram, Ohio a group of men beat, tar and feather Mormon leader Joseph Smith.
1837 – Canada gives African Canadian men the right to vote.
1854 – In Venezuela, slavery was abolished
1860 – Sakuradamon incident: Assassination of Japanese Chief Minister (Tairō) Ii Naosuke.
1869 – The last of Titokowaru's forces surrendered to the New Zealand government, ending his uprising.
1878 – The British frigate HMS Eurydice sinks, killing more than 300.
1882 – Robert Koch announces the discovery of mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis.
1885 – Sino-French War: Chinese victory in the Battle of Bang Bo on the Tonkin-Guangxi border.
1896 – A. S. Popov makes the first radio signal transmission in history.
1900 – Mayor of New York City Robert Anderson Van Wyck breaks ground for a new underground "Rapid Transit Railroad" that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.
1907 – The first issue of the Georgian Bolshevik newspaper Dro is published.
1922 – Irish War of Independence: In Belfast, Northern Irish policemen break into the home of a Catholic family and shoot all eight males inside.
1927 – Nanking Incident: Foreign warships bombard Nanjing, China, in defense of the foreign citizens within the city.
1934 – United States Congress passes the Tydings–McDuffie Act allowing the Philippines to become a self-governing commonwealth.
1944 – Ardeatine massacre: German troops murder 335 Italian civilians in Rome.
1944 – World War II: In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 Allied prisoners of war begin breaking out of the German camp Stalag Luft III.
1946 – The British Cabinet Mission, consisting of Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and A. V. Alexander, arrives in India to discuss and plan for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership.
1958 – Rock'N'Roll teen idol Elvis Presley is drafted in the U.S. Army.
1959 – The Party of the African Federation is launched by Léopold Sédar Senghor and Modibo Keïta.
1965 – NASA spacecraft Ranger 9, equipped to convert its signals into a form suitable for showing on domestic television, brings images of the Moon into ordinary homes before crash landing.
1972 – The United Kingdom imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland.
1973 – Kenyan athlete Kip Keino defeats Jim Ryun at the first-ever professional track meet in Los Angeles.
1976 – In Argentina, the armed forces overthrow the constitutional government of President Isabel Perón and start a 7-year dictatorial period self-styled the National Reorganization Process. Since 2006, a public holiday known as Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice is held on this day.
1980 – Archbishop Óscar Romero is killed while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.
1986 – The Loscoe gas explosion leads to new UK laws on landfill gas migration and gas protection on landfill sites.
1989 – Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Prince William Sound in Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (38,000 m3) of petroleum after running aground.
1993 – Discovery of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9.
1998 – Jonesboro massacre: Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, aged 11 and 13 respectively, fire upon teachers and students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas; five people are killed and ten are wounded.
1998 – A tornado sweeps through Dantan in India killing 250 people and injuring 3000 others.
1999 – Mont Blanc Tunnel fire kills 39 people.
1999 – Kosovo War: NATO commences aerial bombardment against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.
2000 – S&P 500 index reaches an intraday high of 1,552.87, a peak that, due to the collapse of the dot-com bubble, it will not reach again for another seven-and-a-half years.
2003 – The Arab League votes 21-1 in favor of a resolution demanding the immediate and unconditional removal of U.S. and British soldiers from Iraq.
2008 – Bhutan officially becomes a democracy, with its first ever general election.
Famous Folk born on March 24th:
John Harrison
Rufus King
Fanny Crosby
Ignacio Zaragoza
Andrew W. Mellon
Harry Houdini (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUKyaji79zI)
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
George Sisler (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDAjqaqQkoI)
Thomas E. Dewey
Clyde Barrow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GbjX9lHjlE)
Joseph Barbera
Vasily Smyslov (great chess player)
Murray Hamilton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eVzHtmJR7g)
Norman Fell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vob9SmnfcWc)
Steve McQueen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0tobSb4BP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk6l301jwOk)
William Smith (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ6Tlh9XA0U)
Don Jardine
Bob Mackie
R. Lee Ermey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TNhS81w4bM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TNhS81w4bM)
Curtis Hanson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh09vEGNrXc)
Nick Lowe
Tommy Hilfiger
Dougie Thomson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFOsvL67ZH0)
Robert Carradine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh-WMdpzXRQ)
Donna Pescow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LozOUxMaUyQ)
Steve Ballmer
Nena (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IRDDnEPR4&list=RDFG-3LeJvfzU)
Kelly LeBrock (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnognVbh7T8)
Star Jones
Mark Calaway (WWE's The Undertaker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIqv_DR6ij0)
Lara Flynn Boyle
Sharon Corr (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnognVbh7T8 love this song!)
Jim Parsons
Alyson Hannigan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEl0Xyq50xE)
Peyton Manning
Jessica Chastain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5PA-qKoqiM)
Lake Bell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpFNTvA93iY)
Jack Swagger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4dnPKz5eOg)
Chris Bosh
posted by me at 3:13 PM
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