Green Warren Martin (born 1850)

In 1850, in the year that Green Warren Martin was born, on March 7th, Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts delivered the "Seventh of March" speech. Trying to avoid a civil war, he endorsed "slave states" and "free states" and the Fugitive Slave Law, which directed federal officials to "recapture and return runaway slaves".

In 1871, on October 8th, 4 major fires started on the shores of Lake Michigan - in Chicago (Illinois), Peshtigo (Wisconsin), Holland (Michigan) and Manistee (Michigan). The Chicago fire is the most well known of them because it left almost 100,000 people homeless. But the Peshtigo Fire killed around 2,500 people. The casualty count made it the deadliest fire in US history.

In 1907, radiometric dating, a recently discovered technology that could date rocks, found that the earth was 2.2 billion years old which was dramatically older than previously thought. Later refinements and advancements in science would date the age of the earth at over 4.5 billion years.

In 1941, on December 7th, the Japanese attacked the military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The surprise aerial attack damaged 8 U.S. battleships (6 later returned to service), including the USS Arizona, and destroyed 188 aircraft. 2,402 American citizens died and 1,178 wounded were wounded. On December 8th, the U.S. declared war on Japan and on December 11th, Germany and Italy (allies of Japan) declared war on the United States. World War II was in full swing.

In 1965, the television show "I Spy" premiered in the fall season on NBC. The stars were Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, making Cosby the first African American to headline a television show. Four stations - in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama - refused to air the show.