March 15, 1959 (Sunday)
- Robert Foster, 32, set a record for holding his breath, remaining underwater for 13 minutes, 42.5 seconds (13:42.5), at San Rafael, California The record stood for 48 years, until broken by Arvydas and Diana Gaiciunas in Druskininkai, Lithuania, on June 16, 2007, at almost 16 minutes (15:58). Both Foster and the Gaiciunas siblings hyperventilated with pure oxygen beforehand in order to drive carbon dioxide from their lungs. The recognized record without such preparations is 11 minutes, 35 seconds, by freediver Stéphane Mifsud on June 8, 2009
- The prison at the Curragh Camp, where Ireland detained suspected terrorists without formal charges, was formally closed.
- Born: Harold Baines, American baseball player, in Easton, Maryland
- Died: Duncan Hines, 78, restaurant critic who later lent his name to a line of cake mixes
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Famous quotes containing the word march:
“As high as mind stands above nature, so high does the state stand above physical life. Man must therefore venerate the state as a secular deity.... The march of God in the world, that is what the State is.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)