Jeff Davis Installed As Confederate President
1861

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"Huckleberry Finn" Published
1885

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Ninth Planet Discovered
1930

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Chicago Seven Acquitted
1970

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Ash Wednesday (Lent Begins)

This is the first day of Lent, which lasts forty days and represents a time of penance. Devout Catholics attend Mass on the morn of Ash Wednesday and allow the priest to inscribe a cross on their foreheads with moist ashes as a symbol of that penance. The day is variously observed, usually without ashes, by Anglicans and Protestants as well.

The forty day period, ending on Palm Sunday, represents the trials of Moses and Elijah and, most of all, the fasting of Christ during his time in the desert, resisting the entreaties of evil.

The ashes are normally produced by burning palm fronds saved from the previous year's Palm Sunday, a full circle in that Palm Sunday represents Christ's return from the wilderness and entry into Jerusalem.