March 14th

1489: The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice. She gets free gondola rides and 1,000 pigeons in return.


1794: Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin... mostly by government officials who thought it was a drink.


2005: In the Cedar Revolution, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese go into the streets of Beirut to demonstrate against the Syrian military presence in Lebanon and against the government. Then they remember that CNN will only cover the protest if they blame everything on Israel and the Jews.