On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot in the
chest outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by a drifter named
John Hinckley Jr.

The president had just finished addressing a labor meeting
at the Washington Hilton Hotel and was walking with his
entourage to his limousine when Hinckley, standing among
a group of reporters, fired six shots at the president, hitting
Reagan and three of his attendants. White House Press
Secretary James Brady was shot in the head and critically
wounded, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy was
shot in the side, and District of Columbia policeman 
Thomas Delahanty was shot in the neck.

After firing the shots, Hinckley was overpowered and pinned
against a wall, and President Reagan, apparently unaware
that he’d been shot, was shoved into his limousine by a
Secret Service agent and rushed to the hospital.

The president was shot in the left lung, and the .22 caliber
bullet just missed his heart.

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
(October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969)

Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States and
one of the most highly regarded American generals of World War
II, died in Washington, D.C. of congestive heart failure at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., at age 78.

March 27, 1912: In Washington, D.C., Helen Taft, wife of President
William Taft, and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern
bank of the Potomac River, near the Jefferson Memorial.

The event was held in celebration of a gift, by the Japanese
government, of  3,020 cherry trees to the U.S. government.

The planting of Japanese cherry trees along the Potomac was
first proposed by socialite Eliza Scidmore, who raised money
for the endeavor. Helen

Taft had lived in Japan while her husband was president of the
Philippine Commission, and knowing the beauty of cherry
blossoms she embraced Scidmore’s idea. After learning of
the first lady’s interest, the Japanese consul in New York
suggested making a gift of the trees to the U.S. government
from the city of Tokyo.

MIKE GRACIA

On this day in 1751, James Madison, drafter of the Constitution,
recorder of the Constitutional Convention, author of the Federalist 
Papers and fourth president of the United States, was born on a
plantation in Virginia.

Madison first distinguished himself as a student at the College
of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he successfully completed a four-year course of study in two years and, in 1769,
helped found the American Whig Society, the second literary and
debate society at Princeton (and the world), to rival the previously established Cliosophic Society.