Events in History
- Mar 1 3 day Battle of Java Sea ends, US suffers a major naval defeat
- Mar 1 J Milton Cage Jr's "Imaginary Landscape No 3" premieres in Chicago
- Mar 1 Japanese troops occupy Kalidjati airport in Java
- Mar 2 Admiral Helfrich departs Java for Ceylon
- Mar 3 1st combat flight for Canadian British-built Avro Lancaster bomber
- Mar 5 Japanese troop march into Batavia
- Mar 5 Josip Tito establishes 3rd Proletarian Brigade in Bosnia
- Mar 7 15 Mk-VB Spitfires reach Malta
- Mar 7 1st cadets graduated from flying school at Tuskegee, Alabama
- Mar 8 Japanese forces capture Rangoon, Burma
- Mar 8 KNIL, Dutch colonial army on Java, surrenders to Japanese armies
- Mar 9 Construction of the Alaska Highway begins
- Mar 11 1st deportation train leaves Paris for Auschwitz Concentration Camp
- Mar 11 Japanese troops land on North Sumatra
- Mar 12 British troops vacate the Andaman Islands in Gulf of Bengal
- Mar 13 Julia Flikke of the Nurse Corps, becomes 1st woman colonel in US army
- Mar 17 Bełżec Concentration Camp opens with the transport of 30,000 Lublin Polish Jews
- Mar 17 General Doug MacArthur arrives in Australia to become supreme commander
- Mar 18 Illegal Free Netherlands announces boycott of theaters
Historic Event
Mar 18 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9102, creating the War Relocation Authority, which was charged with overseeing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II
'I Shall Return'
Mar 20 General Douglas MacArthur vows "I came through and I shall return" after escaping Japanese-occupied Philippines
- Mar 20 Major German assault on Malta
- Mar 21 Convoy QP9 departs Great Britain to Murmansk
- Mar 23 2,500 Jews of Lublin massacred or deported
- Mar 23 Japanese forces occupy Andaman Islands in Indian Ocean
- Mar 24 US government begins moving native-born citizens with Japanese ancestry into detention centres under Executive Order 9066, with intention of preventing home-grown espionage
- Mar 25 1st 700 Jews from Polish Lvov district reach the Bełżec Concentration camp
- Mar 26 Explosion of 20 tons of gelignite in a stone quarry at Easton, Pennsylvania, kills 21
'The Banality of Evil'
Mar 26 First "Eichmann transport" to Auschwitz & Birkenau concentration camps
Battle of Interest
Mar 26 German offensive in North Africa under General Erwin Rommel
- Mar 27 -28] Allies raid German submarine base in St Nazaire
- Mar 27 Japan forces Java to use "Tokyo time" 1½ hour forward
- Mar 28 -29] 234 RAF bombers attack Lubeck
- Mar 28 British naval forces raid Nazi occupied French port of St Nazaire
- Mar 28 St. Nazaire Raid (Operation Chariot): obsolete British destroyer HMS Campbeltown, rigged with explosives and flying German flags, rams gates of German occupied St Nazaire port in France, and self detonates; kills 360 Germans, and disables the dry dock for duration of the war
- Mar 29 Bombing of Lübeck in World War II was the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany and a German city
- Mar 29 British cruiser HMS Trinidad torpedoes itself in the Barents Sea
- Mar 29 German submarine U-585 sinks
- Mar 30 1st RSHA-transport from France arrives in camp Birkenau
- Mar 30 SS murders 200 inmates of Trawniki concentration camp
Birthdays in History
- Mar 1 Richard Bowman Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
- Mar 2 John Irving, American short-story writer (The World According to Garp; The Cider House Rules), born in Exeter, New Hampshire
- Mar 2 Kwang Jo Choi, the founder of Choi Kwang- do and is one of the twelve original Masters of Taekwon-Do.
- Mar 3 Vladimir Vasilyevich Kovolyonok, USR, cosmonaut (Soyuz 25, 29/31, T-4)
- Mar 4 Charles C. Krulak, 31st Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, born at Quantico, Virginia
- Mar 5 Felipe González, Prime Minister of Spain, 1982-96, born in Seville
- Mar 5 Michael "Mike" Resnick, American sci-fi author (Sideshow; Eros Ascending), born in Chicago, Illinois
- Mar 7 Charles R. Boutin, American politician (Maryland), born in Troy, New York
- Mar 7 Paul Preuss, American sci-fi author (Medusa Encounter, Starfire)
- Mar 7 Tommy F. Robinson, American politician (Rep-D-AR, 1985-91), born in Little Rock, Arkansas
Ratko Mladić
Mar 12 Ratko Mladić, Bosnian Serb general during the Bosnian War (found guilty of war crimes 2017), born in Božanovići, Croatia
John Wayne Gacy
Mar 17 John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer who killed 33 young men, born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1994)
- Mar 17 Sidney Barthelemy, American politician (Mayor of New Orleans), born in New Orleans, Louisiana
- Mar 19 David Minge, American judge and politician (Rep-D-Minnesota 1993-2001), born in Clarkfield, Minnesota
- Mar 21 Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemeni politician and 1st President of Yemen (1990-2012), born in Bait el-Ahmar, Kingdom of Yemen (d. 2017)
- Mar 22 Dick Pound, Canadian chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency
- Mar 23 Walter Rodney, Guyanese historian and political figure (d. 1980)
- Mar 26 Erica Jong [Mann], American author (Fear of Flying), born in NYC, New York
- Mar 27 Michael Jackson, British writer and journalist, born in Wetherby, Yorkshire (d. 2007)
- Mar 27 Raymond J. McGrath, U.S. House of Representatives from New York, born in Valley Stream, New York
- Mar 27 Sir John E. Sulston, British molecular biologist, co-recipient of 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (roundworm genome sequencing), born in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire (d. 2018)
- Mar 28 Conrad Schumann, East German border guard, born in Zschochau, Saxony, Nazi Germany (d. 1998)
- Mar 28 Daniel Dennett, American philosopher, born in Boston, Massachusetts
- Mar 28 Neil Kinnock, Leader of the British opposition (Labour Party), born in Tredegar, Wales
- Mar 29 Larry Pressler, American politician, United States Senator from South Dakota, born in Humboldt, South Dakota
- Mar 30 George Esson, Scottish Chief Constable (Dumfries & Galloway - headed police investigation into Lockerbie Bombing)
- Mar 31 Michael Savage [Michael A Wiener], American talk radio host and commentator, born in The Bronx, New York
- Mar 31 Ulla Hoffmann, Swedish politician
Weddings in History
Indira Gandhi
Mar 26 Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi (25) weds politician and journalist Feroze Gandhi (29) at Anand Bhavan
Deaths in History
- Mar 1 George S. Rentz, U.S. Navy Chaplain (awarded the Navy Cross during WW II), dies at 59
- Mar 3 Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, viceroy (Ethiopia), dies at 43
- Mar 10 William Henry Bragg, English physicist (Nobel 1915-analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays), dies at 79
- Mar 12 Robert Bosch, German industrialist (b. 1861)
- Mar 19 Clinton Hart Merriam, American zoologist and ornithologist, dies at 86
- Mar 23 Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, President of Argentina (1922-28), dies at 73
- Mar 28 Herman Adriaan van Karnebeek, Dutch minister of Foreign affairs (1918-27), dies at 67
- Mar 28 Miguel Hernadez Gilabert, Spanish poet (Viento del Pueblo), dies at 31
- Mar 30 Alfred Coville, French historian (Lesson premier Valois), dies at 81
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists