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Albert Kesselring (1885–1960) was a Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall during World War II. In a military career that spanned both World Wars, Kesselring became one of Nazi Germany's most skillful commanders, being one of 27 soldiers awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. Kesselring joined the German Army as an officer cadet in 1904, and served in the artillery branch. During World War I, he served on both the Western and Eastern fronts and was posted to the General Staff, despite not having attended the War Academy. During World War II he commanded air forces in the invasions of Poland and France, the Battle of Britain, and Operation Barbarossa. As Commander-in-Chief South, he was overall German commander in the Mediterranean theatre, which included the operations in North Africa. Kesselring conducted a stubborn defensive campaign against the Allied forces in Italy until he was injured in an accident in October 1944. He won the respect of his Allied opponents for his military accomplishments, but his record was marred by massacres committed by troops under his command in Italy. After the war, Kesselring was tried for war crimes and sentenced to death. The sentence was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment. (more...)

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March 14: Laetare Sunday and Mothering Sunday (Western Christianity, 2010); New Year's Day in the Sikh Nanakshahi calendar; White Day in Japan; Pi Day

• 1794 – American inventor Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin (pictured), the first ever machine that quickly and easily separated cotton fibers from their seedpods.
• 1915 – World War I: British forces cornered and sank the SMS Dresden, the last remnant of the German East Asia Squadron, near the Chilean island of MĂĄs a Tierra.
• 1937 – Pope Pius XI officially issued the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, condemning antisemitism, criticizing Nazism, listing breaches of an agreement signed with the Roman Catholic Church.
• 1945 – The British Royal Air Force first used the Grand Slam, a 22,000 lb (9.98 t) earth quake bomb, on a strategic railroad viaduct in Bielefeld, Germany.
• 1991 – The "Birmingham Six", wrongly convicted of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings in Birmingham, England, were released after sixteen years in prison.
• 1994 – Version 1.0.0 of the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel, was released, becoming one of the most prominent examples of open source software.

More anniversaries: March 13 – March 14 – March 15