Saturday, March 31, 2012

31st of March

It is the 90th day of the year, with only 275 days remaining until the new year.

1492 - Queen Isabella of Castille issues the Alhambra decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.

1774 - The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed pursuant to the Boston Port Act.

1854 - Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.

1889 - The Eiffel Tower is officially opened.

1906 - The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, later the National Collegiate Athletic Association, is established to set rules for college sports in the United States.

1917 - The U.S. takes possession of the Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to Denmark, and renamed the territory the United States Virgin Islands.

1918 - Daylight savings time goes into effect in the United States for the first time.

1930 - The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion, and violence in film, in the U.S., for the next thirty eight years.

1933 - The Civilian Conservation Corps is established with the mission of relieving rampant unemployment.

1945 - A defecting German pilot delivers a Messerschmitt Me 262A-1, the world's first operational jet-powered aircraft, to the Americans, the first to fall into Allied hands.

1951 - Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.

1966 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.

1970 - Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit.

1979 - The last British soldier leaves the Maltese Islands.  Malta declares its Freedom Day, Jum il-Helsien.

1992 - The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.

1994 - The journal, Nature, reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull.

Friday, March 30, 2012

30th of March

It is the 89th day of the year, with only 276 days remaining.

1822 - The Florida Territory is created in the United States.

1842 - Anesthesia is used for the first time, in an operation by the American surgeon Dr. Crawford Long.

1855 - "Border Ruffians" from Missouri invade Kansas and force the election of a pro-slavery legislature.

1867 - Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about 2 cents an acre, by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.

1870 - Texas is readmitted to the Union following Reconstruction.

1939 - The German Heinkel He 100 fighter, sets a world airspeed record of 463 mph.

1949 - When Iceland decides to join NATO, a riot breaks out in Austurvollur square in Reykjavik.

1965 - A car bomb explodes in front of the US Embassy, Saigon, killing 22 and wounding 183 others.

1972 - The Easter Offensive begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone of South Vietnam.

1981 - President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr.  Regan and three others were shot and wounded, and the President survives with only a punctured lung.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

29th of March

It is the 88th day of the year, with only 277 days remaining until the end of the year.

1500 - Cesare Borgia is given the title of Captain General and Gonfalonier by his father Rodrigo Borgia after returning from his conquests in the Romagna.

1847 - United States forces led by General Winfield Scott take Veracruz after a siege of the city, during the Mexican-American War.

1865 - Federal forces under Major General Philip Sheridan move to flank Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee as the Appomattox Campaign begins.

1886 - Dr. John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta, Georgia.

1911 - The M1911, .45 ACP pistol becomes the official U.S. Army side arm.

1936 - In Germany, Adolf Hitler receives 99% of the votes in a referendum to ratify Germany's illegal reoccupation of the Rhineland, receiving 44.5 million votes out of 45.5 million registered voters.

1951 - Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.

1961 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, allowed residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in the presidential elections.

1971 - Lieutenant William Calley is convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.

1971 - A Los Angeles, California jury recommends the death penalty for Charles Manson and the three female followers.

1973 - The last United States combat soldiers leave South Vietnam.

1974 - NASA's Mariner 10, becomes the first space probe to fly by Mercury.  It was launched at the beginning of November the previous year.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

28th of March

It is the 87th day of the year, with only 278 days remaining.

193 - Roman Emperor Pertinax is assassinated by Praetorian Guards, who then sell the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus.

1802 - Heinrich Wilhelm Matthaus Olbers discovers 2 Pallas, the second asteroid known to man.

1862 - Battle of Glorieta Pass occurs, when Union forces stop the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory, starting two days earlier.

1910 - Henri Fabre becomes the first person to fly a seaplane, the Fabre Hydravion, after taking off from a water runway near Martigues, France.

1930 - Constantinople and Angora, decides to change their names to Istanbul and Ankara.

1946 - The United States State Department releases the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power.

1979 - Operators of Three Mile Island's Unit 2 nuclear reactor outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania fail to recognize that a relief valve in the primary coolant system has stuck open following an unexpected shutdown.  As a result, enough coolant drains out of the system to allow the core to overheat and partially melt down.

1990 - President George H. W. Bush posthumously awards Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

27th of March

Today is the 86th day of the year, with only 279 days remaining until the end of the year.

1794 - The United States government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.

1814 - In central Alabama, U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson defeats the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

1836 - Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texas Prisoners of War at Goliad, Texas.

1886 - Famous Apache warrior, Geronimo, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.

1915 - Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, is put in quarantine, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

1977 - Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 passengers.  61 people survived on the Pan Am flight.

Monday, March 26, 2012

26th of March

Today is the 85th day of the year, with only 280 days remaining until the new year.

1484 - William Caxton prints his translation of Aesop's Fables.

1830 - The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.

1917 - British troops are halted after 17,000 Turks block their advance at the First Battle of Gaza.

1942 - In Poland, the first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz.

1982 - A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, D.C.

1997 - Thirty-nine bodies are found in the Heaven's Gate cult suicides.  It was a UFO religion based in San Diego, California.  Members felt that in order to reach an alien aircraft which they believed was following the Comet Hale-Bopp, they could hitch a ride.

1999 - The "Melissa worm" infects Microsoft word processing and e-mail systems around the world.

1999 - A jury in Michigan finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

25th of March

It is the 84th day of the year, with only 281 days remaining until the end of the year.

421 - According to legend, Venice is founded at twelve o'clock noon.

1199 - Richard I of England, known as Richard the Lionheart, is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France, leading to his death in a few weeks.

1306 - Robert the Bruce becomes the King of Scotland.

1584 - Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia.

1634 - The first settlers arrive in Maryland.

1807 - The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.

1865 - In Virginia, Confederate forces temporarily capture Fort Stedman from the Union.

1948 - The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.

1949 - The extensive deportation campaign known as March deportation, is conducted in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to force collectivisation by way of terror.  The Soviet authorities deport more than 92,000 people from the Baltics to remote areas of the Soviet Union.

1957 - United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" on the grounds of obscenity.

1965 - Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr., successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery.

1971 - The South Vietnamese abandon an attempt to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.

1992 - Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth after a 10-month stay aboard the Mir space station.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

24th of March

Today is the 83rd day of the year, with only 282 days remaining until the new year.

For many nations, this date is the last day of the year throughout many European implementations of the Julian calendar.  It was the form of time used before the Gregorian calendar was accepted.

1603 - Tokugawa Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun from Emperor Go-Yozei, and establishes the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo, Japan.

1765 - The Kingdom of Great Britain passes the Quartering Act that requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops.

1832 - In Hiram, Ohio, a group of men beat, tar, and feather Mormon leader Joseph Smith Jr.

1882 - Robert Koch announces the discovery of mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis.

1896 - A. A. Popov makes the first radio signal transmission in history.

1944 - In an event known as Ardeatine Massacre, German troops kill 335 Italian civilians in Rome.

1944 - Later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 prisoners begin breaking out of the real Stalag Luft III.

1958 - Rock and Roll idol Elvis Presley is drafted in the U.S. Army.

1989 - In Prince William Sound in Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels of petroleum after running aground.

Friday, March 23, 2012

23rd of March

Today is the 82nd day of the year, with only 283 days remaining until the new year.

1775 - Patrick Henry delivers his speech - "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" - at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia.

1801 - Tsar Paul I of Russia is struck with a sword, then strangled, and finally trampled to death in his bedroom at St. Michael's Castle.

1806 - After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase, and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery, begin their arduous journey home.

1857 - Elisha Otis' first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway, New York City.

1862 - The First Battle of Kernstown, Virginina, marks the start of Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign.

1909 - Theodore Roosevelt leaves New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa.  The trip is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.

1933 - The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany and gaining plenary power.

1962 - NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace initiative.

1965 - NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States first two-man space flight with a crew of Gus Grissom and John Young.

1983 - President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.

1989 - Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announces their discovery of cold fusion at the University of Utah.

2001- The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

22nd of March

It is the 81st day of the year, with only 284 days remaining until the end of the year.

1621 - The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony sign a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.

1622 - Known as the Jamestown Massacre, Algonquian Indians kill 347 English settlers, a third of the colony's population.

1630 - The Massachusetts Bay Colony outlaws the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables.

1638 - Anne Hutchinson is expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.

1765 - The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act that introduces a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies.

1894 - The first playoff game for the Stanley Cup starts.

1916 - The last Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicates the throne and the Republic of China is restored.

1923 - The first radio broadcast of ice hockey is made by Foster Hewitt.

1943 - The entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by German occupation forces.

1960 - Arhtur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.

1972 - The U.S. Congress sends the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification.

1989 - Clint Malarchuk, goalie of the Buffalo Sabres, suffers a near-fatal injury when another player's skate accidentally slashes his internal jugular vein.  Many goalies began wearing neck protector plates, hanging from the mask, in order to avoid this injury

1993 - The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips (80586), featuring a 60 MHz clock speed, 100+ MIPS, and a 64 bit data path.

1995 - Cosmonaut Valeriy Polyakov returns to earth after setting a record of 438 days in space.

1997 - Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and 10 months, becomes the youngest champion women's World Figure Skating Champion.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

21st of March

Today is the 80th day of the year, with only 285 days remaining until the end of the year.

It is also the most common date of the March equinox, although astronomically the equinox is more likely to fall on the day before in all but the most easterly longitudes.  In astrology, the day of the equinox is the first full day of the sign of Aries.  It is also the traditional beginning of the astrological year.

1857 - An earthquake in Tokyo, Japan kills over 100,000 people.

1871 - Otto von Bismarck is appointed Chancellor of the German Empire.

1918 - The first phase of the German Spring Offensive, Operation Michael, begins.

1928 - Charles Lindbergh is presented with the Medal of Honor for the first solo trans-Atlantic flight.

1933 - Construction of Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed.

1943 - Wehrmacht officer Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler by using a suicide bomb, but the plan falls through.  Von Gersdorff is able to defuse the bomb in time and avoid suspicion.

1945 - Operation Carthage commences, when British planes bomb Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark.  They also hit a school and 125 civilians are killed.

1946 - The Los Angeles Rams sign Kenny Washington, making him the first African-American player in American football since 1933.

1952 - Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.

1963 - Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.

1965 - Martin Luther King Jr., leads 3200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

1970 - The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by Mayor of San Francisco, Joseph Alioto.

1980 - President Jimmy Carter announces a boycott on the Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Arghanistan.

1980 - On the season finale of the soap opera Dallas, the infamous character J.R. Ewing is shot by an unseen assailant, leading to the catchphrase "Who shot J.R.?"

1989 - Sports Illustrated reports allegations tying baseball player Pete Rose to baseball gambling.

1999 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, becomes the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air baloon.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

20th of March

It is the 79th day of the year, with only 286 days remaining.

1616 - Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment.

1815 - After escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule.

1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is published.

1916 - Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.

1922 - The USS Langley (CV-1) is commissioned as the first United State Navy aircraft carrier.

1923 - The Arts Club of Chicago hosts the opening of Pablo Picasso's first United States showing, entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso, becoming an early proponent of modern art in the U.S.

1942 - General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, makes his famous speech regarding the fall of the Phillipines, in which he says, "I came out of Bataan and I shall return."

1985 - Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

1985 - Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.

Monday, March 19, 2012

19th of March

Today is the 78th day of the year and there are only 287 days remaining.

1687 - Explorer Robert Cavalier de La Salle, searching for the mouth of the Mississippi River, is murdered by his own men.

1863 - The SS Georgiana, said to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser, is destroyed on her maiden voyage with a cargo of munitions, medicines, and merchandise then valued at over $1,000.000.

1916 - Eight American planes take off in pursuit of Pancho Villa, the first United States air-combat mission in history.

1918 - Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight savings time.

1931 - Gambling is legalized in Nevada.

1941 - The 99th Pursuit Squadron also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the first all-black unit of the Army Air Corp, is activated.

1943 - Frank Nittim the Chicago Outfit Boss after Al Capone, commit suicide at the Chicago Central Railroad.

1945 - Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 724 of her crew.  Badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the United States under her own power.

1945 - Adolf Hitler issues his "Nero Decree" ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities, and communications facilities in Germany are to be destroyed.

1954 - Joey Giardello knocks out Willie Troy in round seven at Madison Square Garden in the first televised prize boxing fight shown in color.

1965 - The wreck of the SS Georgiana, valued at over $50,000,000 and said to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser, is discovered by then teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence, exactly 102 years after its destruction.

1966 - Texas Western becomes the first college basketball team to win the Final Four with an all-black starting lineup.

1979 - The United States House of Representatives begins broadcasting its day-to-day business via the cable television C-SPAN.

2003 - United States President George W. Bush orders the start of war against Iraq.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

18th of March

Today is the 77th day of the year, with only 288 days remaining until the new year.

1314 - Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.

1766 - British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act.

1850 - American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.

1865 - The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time.

1893 - Former Governor General Lord Stanley pledges to donate a silver challenge cup, later named after him, as an award for the best hockey team in Canada, originally presented to amateur champions.  The aptly named Stanley Cup, ha been awarded to the top pro team since 1910, and since 1926, only to National Hockey League teams.

1922 - In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience.  He would serve only two years.

1937 - The human-powered aircraft, Pedaliante, flies .62 miles outside of Milan, Italy.

1940 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meets at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.

1945 - A total of 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.

1965 - Cosmonaut Aleksi Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.

1989 - In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found nearby the Pyramid of Cheops.

1990 - In the largest art heist in U.S. history, 12 paintings worth around $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

2002 - During the War in Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda ends, after two weeks, killing 500 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters with only 11 allied troop fatalities.

2003 - FBI agents raid the corporate headquarters of HealthSouth Corporation in Birmingham, Alabama on suspicion of massive corporate fraud led by the company's top executives.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

17th of March

Today is the 76th day of the year, with only 289 days remaining.

45 BC - In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.

180 AD - Marcus Aurelius dies, leaving Commodus the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.

1776 - British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.

1891 - The SS Utopia collides with HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar and sinks, killing 562 of the 880 passengers on board.

1941 - In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin Roosevelt.

1947 - The first flight of the B-45 Tornado strategic bomber.

1950 - Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name "Californium."

1960 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

1969 - Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.

1970 - The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.

Friday, March 16, 2012

16th of March

Today is the 75th day of the year, with only 290 days remaining.

37 - Eccentric ruler, Caligula, becomes Roman Emperor after the death of his great uncle, Tiberius.

1621 - Samoset, a Mohegan Indian, visited the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, "Welcome Englishmen! My name is Samoset!"

1802 - The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.

1861 -Edward Clark becomes Governor of Texas, replacing Sam Houston, who has been evicted from the office for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy.

1865 - The Battle of Averasborough began as Confederate forces suffer irreplaceable casualties in the final months of the American Civil War.

1916 - John J. Pershing's 7th and 10th cavalry regiments, crossed the border and join the hunt for Pancho Villa.

1926 - Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.

1935 - Adolf Hitler orders Germany, to rearm herself in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles.  Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht,

1940 - James Isbister, is the first person killed in a German bombing raid during World War II.  It occurs during a raid on Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands.

1942 - The first V-2 rocket test launch.  It explodes at lift-off.

1945 - The Battle of Iwo Jima ends, but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.

1945 - In only 20 minutes, 90% of Wurzberg, Germany is destroyed by RAF bombers.  It is estimated that 5,000 people are killed.

1958 - The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.

1963 - Mount Agung erupts on Bai, killing 11,000 inhabitants.

1968 - In the My Lai Massacre, between 350 and 500 Vietnamese villagers are killed by American troops.

1968 - General motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.

1985 - Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut.  He is released five years, eight months, and eighteen days later.

1988 - Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

1998 - The Kurdish town of Halbjah in Iraq, is attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents on the orders of Saddam Hussein, killing 5000 people and injuring nearly 10,000.

1995 - Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

15th of March

It is the 74th day of the year, with only 291 days remaining.

In the Roman calendar, this date was known as the Ides of March.

44 BC - Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, is stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus, and several other Roman senators.

1781 AD - Near Greensboro, North Carolina, 1,900 British troops under General Charles Cornwallis defeat an American force numbering 4,400 at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

1783 - In an emotional speech in Newburgh, New York, George Washington asks his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy.  The plea is successful and the threatened coup-d'etat never takes place.

1820 - Maine becomes the 23rd state of the Union.

1906 - Rolls-Royce Limited is incorporated.

1916 - President Woodrow Wilson sends 4,800 United States troops over the southern border to pursue Pancho Villa.

1939 - German troops occupy the remaining part of Bohemia and Moravia, Czechoslovakia ceases to exist.

1952 - In Cilaos, Reunion a record 73 inches of rain falls in a 24-hour period.

1985 - The first Internet domain name is registered, symbolics.com.

1990 - Irag hangs British journalist Farzad Bazoft for spring.

1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first President of the Soviet Union.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

14th of March

Today is the 73rd day of the year, with only 292 days remaining until the new year.

1780 - Spanish forces capture Fort Charlotte in Mobile, Alabama.  It is the last British frontier post capable of threatening New Orleans in Spanish Louisiana.

1794 - Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin.

1942 - Orvan Hess and John Bumstead, become the first people in the world to successfully treat a patient, Anne Miller, utilizing penicilin.

1951 - For the second time, United Nations troops recapture Seoul in Korea.

1964 - A jury in Dallas, Texas, finds jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy.

1995 - Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American astronaut to ride to space on-board a Russian launch vehicle.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

13th of March

It is the 72nd day of the year, with only 293 days remaining until the end of the year.

1862 - The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers to return fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.

1865 - The Confederate States of America finally agree to the use of African-American troops.

1925 - A new law in the state of Tennessee prohibits the teaching of evolution.

1933 - Banks in the United States begin to re-open after they were declared "on holiday."

1943 - German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Krakow, Poland.

1954 - At the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Viet Minh forces attack the French forces.

1991 - The United States Department of Justice, announces that Exxon had agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

2003 - The journal, Nature, reports that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human have been found in Italy.

Monday, March 12, 2012

12th of March

Today is the 71st day of the year, with only 294 days remaining until the new year.

1622 - Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Jesuits, are canonized as saints by the Catholic Church.

1918 - Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after Saint Petersburg held this status for 215 years.

1930 - Mahatma Ghandi leads a 200-mile march, known as the Salt March, to the sea in defiance of British opposition, to protest the British monopoly on salt.

1933 - Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President.  This is also his first "fireside chat."

1938 - German troops occupy the nearby land of Austria.

1947 - The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed, in order to help stem the spread of Communism.

1964 - The state of New Hampshire becomes the first U.S. state to legally sell lottery tickets in the 20th century.

1993 - Snow begins to fall across the eastern portion of the US with tornadoes, thunder snow storms, high winds, and record low temperatures.  The storm lasts for nearly 30 hours.

1999 - Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland join NATO.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

11th of March

Today i the 70th day of the year, with only 295 days remaining.

1824 - The United States Department of War creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1861 - The Constitution of the Confederate States is adopted.

1941 - President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing american-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.

1945 - The Imperial Japanese Navy attempts a large-scale kamikaze attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet anchored at Ulithi atoll in Operation Tan No. 2.

1990 - Lithuania declares its independence from the USSR.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

10th of March

It is the 69th day of the year, with 296 days remaining.

1762 - French Huguenot Jean Calas, who had been wrongly convicted of killing his son, dies after being tortured by authorities; the event inspired Voltaire, to begin a campaign for religious tolerance and legal reform.

1804 - In St. Louis, Missouri, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territroy from France to the U.S.

1848 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Mexican-American War.

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell, makes the first successful telephone call, by saying "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."

1922 - Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in India, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years in prison, only to be released after nearly two years for an appendicitis operation.

1945 - The U.S. Army Air Force firebombs Tokyo, and the resulting firestorm kills more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians.

1959 - Fearing an abduction attempt by China, 300,000 Tibetans surround the Dalai Lama's palace to prevent his removal.

1969 - In Memphis, Tennessee, James Eral Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr.  He later retracts his plea.

1970 - Captain Ernest Medina is charged by the U.S. Military with My Lai war crimes.

2006 - The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrives at Mars.

Friday, March 9, 2012

9th of March

It is the 68th day of the year with 297 days remaining.

1765 - After a campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son.  Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son may have actually committed suicide.

1841 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegal.

1842 - The first documented discovery of gold in California occurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the Gold Rush.

1847 - The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz.

1862 - The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (USS Merrimack) fight to draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.

1916 - Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico.

1933 - Franklin Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.

1954 - CBS television broadcast the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy," produced by Fred Friendly.

1959 - The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York City.

1960 - Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner implants for the first time a shunt he invented into a patient, which allows the patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular bassis.

1990 - Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and Hispanic American to serve in that position.

2011 - Space Shuttle Discovery, makes its final landing after nearly 39 flights in operation.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

8th of March

Today is the 67th day of the year with 298 days remaining.

1618 - Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion, the square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

1655 - John Casor becomes the first legally-recognized slave in England's North American colonies.

1775 - An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes "African Slavery in America," the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.

1817 - The New York Stock Exchange drafts its constitution.

1862 - The iron-clad CSS Virginia, formerly the USS Merrimack, is launched at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

1910 - French aviator Raymonde de Laroche, becomes the first woman to receive a pilot's license.

1936 - Daytona Beach Road Course holds its first oval stock car race.

1949 - Mildred Gillars, Axis Sally, is condemned to prison for treason.

1979 - Philips demonstrates the Compact Disc publicly for the first time.

1983 - President Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union an "evil empire."

1999 - The Supreme Court upholds the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

7th of March

It is the 66th day of the year, with only 299 days remaining until the end of the year.

161 - Emperor Antoninus Pius dies and is succeeded by his adoptive sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.

1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte captures Jaffa in Palestine and his troops proceed to kill more than 2,000 Albanian captives.

1850 - Senator Daniel Webster gives his speech endorsing the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent what many people believe to be looming civil war.

1862 - Union forces defeat Confederate troops at Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas.

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention he calls the telephone.

1900 - The German liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, becomes the first ship to send wireless signals to shore.

1965 - A group of 600 civil rights marchers are forcefully broken up in Selma, Alabama.

1968 - The United States and South Vietnamese military forces begin operation Truong Cong Dinh to root out Viet Cong forces from the area surrounding My Tho.

1985 - The song "We Are the World." has its international release.

1994 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.

2007 - The British House of Commons votes to make the upper chamber, the House of Lords, 100% elected.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

6th of March

Today is the 65th day of the year, with exactly 300 days remaining until the new year.

1521 - Ferdinand Magellan arrives in Guam.

1788 - The First Fleet arrives at Norfolk Island in order to found a convict settlement.

1820 - The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe.  The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, but makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free.

1836 - After a thirteen-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers defending the Alamo are defeated and the fort is captured.

1857 - The Supreme Court rules in the Dred Scott Vs. Sanford case.

1869 - Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.

1899 - Bayer registers aspirin as a trademark.

1946 - Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonmous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.

1951 - The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins.

1964 - Nation of Islam's Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay, the name Muhammad Ali.

1967 - Joseph Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, defects to the United States.

1975 - For the first time ever, the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, is shown in motion to a national TV audience b Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory.

1981 - After 19 years of presenting the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite signs off for the last time.

Monday, March 5, 2012

5th of March

It is the 64th day of the year, with only 301 days remaining until the new year.

363 - Roman Emperor Julian, moves from Antioch with an army of 90,000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a campaign which would bring about his own death.

1770 - Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks (a black man), and a boy are killed by trigger happy British troops in an event that led to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War five years later.  It is known as the Boston Massacre.

1836 - Samuel Colt makes the first production-model revolver, the .34-caliber.

1872 - George Westinghouse patents the air brake.

1933 - President Franklin Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday," closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions.

1933 - Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party receives 43.0% at the Reichstag elections.  This later allows the Nazis to pass the Enabling Act and establish a dictatorship.

1946 - Winston Churchill uses the phrase "Iron Curtain" in his speech at Westminster College, Missouri.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

4th of March

Today is the 63rd day of the year, with only 302 days remaining until the new year.

1493 - Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship the Nina, from his voyage to what is now the Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.

1519 - Hernan Cortes arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and their vast wealth.

1628 - The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a royal charter.

1681 - Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.

1776 - The Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston.

1789 - In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect.

1791 - Vermont is admitted to the U.S. as the 14th state.

1794 - The Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution is passed by Congress.

1797 - In the first ever peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders in modern times, John Adams is sworn in as the Second President.

1861 - The first national flag of the Confederate States of America, "The Stars and Bars" is adopted.

1917 - Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.

1918 - The first case of Spanish flu occurs, the start of the devastating worldwide pandemic.

1933 - Frances Perkins becomes the Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet.

1974 - People magazine is published for the first time.

1985 - The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS, used since then for screening all blood donations in the U.S.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

3rd of March

Today is the 62nd day of the year, with only 303 days remaining until the end of the year.

1776 - The first amphibious landing of the U.S. Marine Corps begins the Battle of Nassau.

1820 - Congress passes the Missouri Compromise.

1845 - Florida is admitted as the 27th state to the Union.

1873 - Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.

1875 - The first ever organized indoor game of ice hockey is played in Montreal, Canada as recorded by the Montreal Gazette.

1885 - The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York.

1904 - Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a sound recording of a political document, using a phonograph cylinder.

1923 - TIME magazine is published for the first time.

1931 - The United States adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.

1938 - Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.

1951 - Jackie Brenston, with Ike Turner and his band, records "Rocket 88."  It is often cited as the "first rock and roll record."  It was tracked at Sam Philips' recording studios in Memphis, Tennessee.

2005 - Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly an airplane non-stop around the world solo without refueling.

Friday, March 2, 2012

2nd of March

Today is the 61st day of the year, with only 304 days remaining.

1797 - The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound banknotes.

1836 - Marks the declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexican control.

1867 - The U.S. Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act.

1933 - The film King Kong opens at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

1946 - Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.

1949 - The first automatic street light is installed in New Milford, Connecticut.

1953 - The Academy Awards are first broadcast on television by NBC.

1956 - Morocco gains its independence from France.

1962 - Wilt Chamberlain sets the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.

1965 - The US and South Vietnamese begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

1983 - Compact Disc players and discs are released for the first time in the United States and other markets.

1990 - Nelson Mandela is elected deputy President of the African National Congress.

1991 - The Battle at Rumaila Oil Field brings an end to the Gulf War.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

1st of March

It is the 60th day of the year, with only 305 days remaining until the new year.  It is also the beginning of the third month of the year.

752 BC - Romulus, legendary first king of Rome, celebrates the first Roman triumph after his victory over the Caeninenses, following The Rape of the Sabine Women.

1692 AD - Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba are brought before local magistrate in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning the Salem witch trials.

1781 - The Continental Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation.

1790 - The first United States Census is authorized.

1803 - Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state.

1845 - President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.

1847 - The state of Michigan formally abolishes capital punishment.

1867 - Nebraska becomes the 37th U.S. state.

1872 - Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park.

1873 - E. Remington and Sons in Ilion, New York begins production of the first practical typewriter.

1893 - Nikola Tesla gives the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis, Missouri.

1896 - Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity.

1912 - Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump from a moving airplane.

1917 - The U.S. government releases the unencrypted text of the Zimmerman Telegram to the public.

1932 - Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, the son of Charles Lindbergh is kidnapped.

1936 - The Hoover Dam is completed.

1941 - W47NV, now known as WSM-Fm begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee becoming the first FM radio station in the United States.

1950 - Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union by disclosing top secret atomic bomb data.

1953 - Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses.  He will die four days later.

1961 - President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.

1974 - Seven people are indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.

1995 - Yahoo! is incorporated.

2006 - The English-language Wikipedia, reaches its one millionth article, written about the Jordanhill railway station.