Former crematorium

Leitmeritz was the largest subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, operated by Nazi Germany in Leitmeritz, Reichsgau Sudetenland (now Litoměřice, Czech Republic). Established on 24 March 1944 as part of an effort to disperse and increase war production, its prisoners were forced to work in the caverns Richard I and II, producing Maybach HL230 tank engines for Auto Union (now Audi) and preparing the second site for intended production of tungsten and molybdenum wire and sheet metal by Osram. Of the 18,000 prisoners who passed through the camp, about 4,500 died due to disease, malnutrition, and accidents caused by the disregard for safety by the SS staff who administered the camp. In the last weeks of the war, the camp became a hub for death marches. The camp operated until 8 May 1945, when it was dissolved by the German surrender. (Full article...)

• 2 March 1978 – Vladimír Remek becomes the first man in space from a country other than the United States and USSR
• 6 March 1645 – One of the bloodiest battles of the Thirty Years' War, the Battle of Jankau takes place 50km from Prague
• 16 March 1939 – The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is established following the end of the Second Czechoslovak Republic
• 29 March 1896 – The first Prague derby is played between Sparta and Slavia. The match ends 0–0
• 30 March 1968 – Ludvík Svoboda (pictured) is elected President of Czechoslovakia

Gregor Johann Mendel OSA (/ˈmɛndəl/; Czech: Řehoř Jan Mendel; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was an Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno (Brünn), Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was born in a German-speaking family in the Silesian part of the Austrian Empire (today's Czech Republic) and gained posthumous recognition as the founder of the modern science of genetics. Though farmers had known for millennia that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favor certain desirable traits, Mendel's pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863 established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.

Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants: plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color. Taking seed color as an example, Mendel showed that when a true-breeding yellow pea and a true-breeding green pea were cross-bred, their offspring always produced yellow seeds. However, in the next generation, the green peas reappeared at a ratio of 1 green to 3 yellow. To explain this phenomenon, Mendel coined the terms "recessive" and "dominant" in reference to certain traits. In the preceding example, the green trait, which seems to have vanished in the first filial generation, is recessive, and the yellow is dominant. He published his work in 1866, demonstrating the actions of invisible "factors"—now called genes—in predictably determining the traits of an organism. (Full article...)

• ...that, although Mozart never visited Kroměříž, much of the Academy Award-winning film Amadeus was filmed at the local episcopal residence?
• ... that in 2013, the Czech Republic plans to directly elect its president for the first time in its history?
• ... that footballer Petr Vrabec won six Czechoslovak league titles with Sparta Prague?
• ... that a 1926 voyage to Java inspired Czech poet Konstantin Biebl for the remainder of his life?