Alexander Campbell (born 1872)

In 1872, in the year that Alexander Campbell was born, on March 1st, Yellowstone National Park became the first national park in the U.S. and perhaps the world's first national park. Established by Congress and signed into law by President Grant, Yellowstone is one of the most spectacular areas in the U.S., filled with natural wonders and wildlife.

In 1881, on February 19th, Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcohol - the prohibition lasted statewide until 1948.

In 1906, author Upton Sinclair exposed the public-health threat of the meat-packing industry in his book The Jungle. While his intent was to show the lives of exploited lives of immigrants in Chicago and other industrialized cities, most people were horrified by how the meat that ended up on their tables was handled. There was such an outcry that legislation was passed to regulate meat packing. Sinclair said " "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

In 1932, on February 27th, actress Elizabeth Taylor was born in London. Her parents were Americans living in London and when she was 7, the family moved to Los Angeles. Her first small part in a movie was in There's One Born Every Minute in 1942 but her first starring role was in National Velvet in 1944. She became as famous for her 8 marriages (to 7 people) as she was for her beauty and films.

In 1979, on March 28th, a partial nuclear meltdown occurred at the power plant at Three Mile Island Pennsylvania. Radiation leaked into the environment, resulting in a rating of 5 on a scale of 7 ("Accident With Wider Consequences") . It ended up costing $1 billion to clean up the site.