On this day March 11

CEBU, Philippines – In 1892, piratical Hollywood director Raoul Walsh was born in New York. While working assistant to D. W. Griffith, he was dispatched to pay the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa a $500 retainer in gold bullion for the film rights of his life. Just before he went, he was told that the last courier had never returned! Fortunately, Walsh survived the trip, won Villa's respect, and played the title role in the film. He got the famous pirate patch over his eye when a jackrabbit smashed through his car windscreen while he was on location filming "The Cisco Kid." He had to have the eyeball removed. When he returned to Hollywood, fellow director John Ford suggested he'd been stabbed in the eye while looking through a keyhole!

. In 1888, a devastating blizzard hit the Eastern seaboard, with winds gusting up to 100 miles per hour, snow drifts reaching 20 feet, and temperatures staying well below zero for three days. More than 400 froze to death, New York closed down, and fire alarms ceased to raise any help. Scores were drowned as boats were driven ashore, and nine families in Brooklyn just sat waiting to die when their roofs blew away. One man, Roscoe Conkling, thought nothing of it and set off to walk from Wall Street to his Twenty-fifth Street club. He collapsed through the club's doors four hours later, and within a month he was dead!- from Today's the Day! By Jeremy Beadle

In Christian history. In the year 843, ending an 89-year controversy a Greek Orthodox synod repealed the iconoclastic decrees of the fifth Council of Constantinople (754), thus restoring the use of icons in Christian worship within the Eastern churches. - from This Day in Christian History  By William D. Blake    

In the Philippines - In 1947, the Filipino people ratified in a nationwide plebiscite the "parity amendment" to the 1935 Constitution. This amendment granted United States citizens equal rights with the Filipinos in the utilization and exploitation of natural resources in the United States and the Philippines.- (www.kahimyang.info)

In Cebu - In 1898, a secret meeting of the Katipunan in Cebu was held, with Candido Padilla, Luis Flores, Francisco Llamas, Jacinto Pacaña, and others attending. The Katipunan leaders decided to start the local anti-Spain uprising on April 8, Good Friday.

 In 1904, in ceremonies held in the Cebu Cathedral, Thomas A. Hendrick was installed as Bishop of Cebu. - from Cebuano Studies Center, University of San Carlos