Failure™ Magazine

This Day in Failure

March 12

2009: Three months after his arrest for swindling investors out of billions of dollars in the largest Ponzi scheme in Wall Street history, Bernard Madoff, 70, pleads guilty to charges that include fraud, perjury and money-laundering. Following his prepared plea Madoff goes directly to jail, a decision that meets with the approval of defrauded investors sitting in the courtroom, who lead spectators in applauding the judge’s decision to deny Madoff the opportunity to remain free on bail while awaiting sentencing.

2008: Not a single voter casts a ballot in an annexation referendum for an unincorporated Broward County (Florida) community. If just one of the 68 registered voters had shown up, that one vote would have decided the neighborhood’s fate. The cost of keeping a polling site open for 12 hours: $2,500.

2002: As it moves away, astronomers discover a 165-foot-wide asteriod that passed within 288,000 miles of earth on March 8. The astronomers didn’t notice the asteroid’s approach because it came from the direction of the sun. A similar-size object flattened a 20-mile-wide portion of Siberia in 1908.

1888: The worst blizzard in New York City history dumps 40 inches of snow over a period of 36 hours, causing hundreds of deaths and isolating the city for several weeks.