By Annie Walker
This Christian observance falls on the Sunday before Easter and is the sixth and last Sunday of Lent, which began on Ash Wednesday. The beginning of Holy Week, Palm Sunday marks the day when Christ rode into Jerusalem a week before his death and resurrection and was greeted by its people, who strewed cloaks and tree branches along his path to honor him as their king. This event is known as the Triumphal Entry.
Nowadays, Palm Sunday service often includes the blessing of palm leaves (or substitute branches from yews, willows, or other plants) before a procession into or in the church, after which hymns are sung and readings that focus on Christ’s final week are given. In many Christian denominations, palm fronds are burned at the end of the service; the ashes are saved for use on the next Ash Wednesday.
Palm Sunday is also called Passion, Branch, Yew, Willow, Blossom, or Fig Sunday, as well as Flower Day and several other names.
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Died
- Queen Elizabeth I (English monarch) –
- Jules Verne (author) –
- Archbishop Oscar Romero (Salvadorian human rights activist) –
- Richard Widmark (actor) –
- Robert Culp (actor) –
- Garry Shandling (comedian) –
- Marie-Claire Kirkland-Casgrain (Canadian politician) –
Born
- Horace Gray (Supreme Court justice) –
- John Wesley Powell (explorer) –
- Harry Houdini (magician) –
- Edward Weston (photographer) –
- Fatty Arbuckle (comedian) –
- George Sisler (baseball player) –
- Ub Iwerks (animator, cartoonist) –
- Thomas E. Dewey (politician) –
- Clyde Barrow (bank robber) –
- Joseph Barbera (cartoonist, producer) –
- Steve McQueen (actor) –
- Billy Stewart (singer) –
- Tommy Hilfiger (fashion designer) –
- Jim Parsons (actor) –
- Peyton Manning (football player) –
- Keisha Castle-Hughes (actress) –
Events
- Roger Williams granted charter for colony Rhode Island–
- Clement Hardy was issued a patent for a rotary disk plow–
- NYC Mayor Robert A. Van Wyck formally broke ground for construction of the NYC subway system–
- President FDR issued statement appealing to Hungarians to help Jews escape from Nazis (WWII)–
- Nicholas Alkemade survived an 18,000-foot fall from a plane–
- The Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened on Broadway, with Barbara Bel Geddes as Maggie, Ben Gazarra as Brick, and Burl Ives as Big Daddy–
- Entertainer Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Army–
- Maser patented–
- Senator Robert Kennedy was first to reach summit of Mt. Kennedy in Yukon Territory–
- U.S. spacecraft Ranger 9 crash-landed precisely on target in the Alphonsus crater of the moon after transmitting to Earth 5,814 photographs of the crater region–
- The beaver became a symbol of Canadian sovereignty–
- French premier Jacques Chirac signed a contract to build the first Disneyland-type amusement park in Europe, on the outskirts of Paris–
- The largest oil spill in U.S. history, initially estimated at 240,000 barrels, occurred after the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound–
- An 18.7-inch-long goldfish set a world record –
- Boston archbishop Sean O’Malley was elevated to cardinal at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square in Rome–
Weather
- Eighty-three degrees F at Plymouth, Indiana–
- Twenty-five inches of snow, Kansas City, Missouri–
- 92 degrees F in St. Louis, Missouri–
- Snow in the mid-Atlantic states covered cherry blossoms, which had bloomed in the previous week’s 80-degree temperatures–
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