On This Day

March 1986 in History

Events in History

  • Mar 2 1st million-dollar purse for a handicap race won at Santa Anita
  • Mar 2 Protesters try to stop Land Rover motor company being sold to US
  • Mar 5 "Today" tabloid launched (Britain's 1st national colour newspaper); it folded in 1995
  • Mar 6 Ken Ludwig's "Lend me a Tenor" premieres in London
  • Mar 6 USSR's Vega 1 flies by Halley's Comet at 8,889 km
  • Mar 7 South-Africa emergency crisis in Brabant & Limburg ends
  • Mar 8 4 French TV crew members are abducted in west Beirut Lebanon
  • Mar 8 Japanese probe Suisei passes Halley's Comet at 109,800 km
  • Mar 9 16th Easter Seal Telethon raises $30,100,000
  • Mar 9 NASA announces searchers found remains of Challenger astronauts
  • Mar 9 Soviet probe Vega 2 flies by Halley's Comet at 8,030 km
  • Mar 11 1 million days since the foundation of Rome on April 21st, 753 BC
  • Mar 11 187.27 million shares traded in NY Stock Exchange
  • Mar 11 Japanese probe Sakigake flies by Halley's Comet at 6.8 million km
  • Mar 12 210.25 million shares traded in NY Stock Exchange
  • Mar 12 Susan Butcher wins 1,158 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
  • Mar 13 Microsoft has its Initial public offering.
  • Mar 13 Soyuz T-15 carries 2 cosmonauts to Soviet space station Mir
  • Mar 14 European Space Agency's Giotto flies by Halley's Comet (605 km)
  • Mar 15 Funeral services held for murdered Swedish PM Olaf Palme
  • Mar 17 Haemers gang robs gold transport in Belgium of 35 million BF
  • Mar 18 US Treasury Department announces plans to alter paper money
  • Mar 20 228 KPH gust of wind strikes Cairngorm (UK record)

Event of Interest

Mar 20 Jacques Chirac forms French government

Jacques Chirac
President of France Jacques Chirac
  • Mar 20 New York City passes its first lesbian and gay rights legislation
  • Mar 21 199.22 million shares traded in NY Stock Exchange
  • Mar 21 Kania skates ladies world record 500 m (39.52 sec) & 3 km (4:18.02)
  • Mar 22 Ehrig skates ladies world record 5 km (7:20.99)
  • Mar 22 Kania skates ladies' world record 1500m (1:59.30)
  • Mar 22 Ladies' Figure Skating Championship in Geneva won by Debi Thomas (USA)
  • Mar 24 NASA publishes "Strategy for Safely Returning the Space Shuttle to Flight Status"
  • Mar 24 Suriname army capt Etienne Boerenveen arrested for cocaine smuggling
  • Mar 24 US & Libya clash in Gulf of Sidra
  • Mar 25 Supreme Court rules Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes
  • Mar 28 Extremist Sikhs kill 13 Hindus in Ludhiana, India
  • Mar 28 John N McMahon, ends term as deputy director of CIA
  • Mar 31 167 die when Mexicana Airlines Boeing 727 crashes
  • Mar 31 English Hampton Court palace badly damaged by fire, 1 dead
  • Mar 31 Six metropolitan county councils are abolished in England.

Birthdays in History

Mike KriegerMike Krieger (37 years old)

Mar 4 Brazilian-American entrepreneur and software engineer who co-founded Instagram, born in São Paulo, Brazil

Mike Krieger
  • Mar 13 Chiaki Kyan, Japanese gravure idol, born in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, Japan
  • Mar 25 Megan Gibson, American softball player
  • Mar 26 Jessica McClure, American baby rescued after being trapped in a well in Texas (1987), born in Midland, Texas
  • Mar 27 Melissa Stern [Baby M]/[Sara Whitehead], surrogate baby
  • Mar 28 Robert Bowdrie "Bowe" Bergdahl, American soldier held captive in Afghanistan, born in Sun Valley, Idaho

Deaths in History

  • Mar 2 Marcel Liebman, Belgian historian, dies at 56
  • Mar 2 Zafer Masri, mayor of Nablus, murdered
  • Mar 4 Ding Ling, Chinese writer (The Sun Shines Over the Sanggan River), dies at 81

Elizabeth SmartElizabeth Smart (1913-1986)

Mar 4 Canadian author (By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept), dies of a heart attack at 72

Elizabeth Smart
  • Mar 4 Henri Knap, Dutch journalist and writer, dies at 75

Georgia O’KeeffeGeorgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)

Mar 6 American sculptor and painter (Cow's Skull, Flowers), dies at 98

Georgia O’Keeffe
  • Mar 7 Jacob K Javits, American politician (Sen-R-NY), dies in Palm Beach, Florida at 81
  • Mar 8 Hubert Fichte, German writer, dies of an AIDS related illness at 50
  • Mar 13 Alvaro Fayad Delgado, Colombian guerilla leader (M-19), dies
  • Mar 17 John Bagot Glubb, British commandant and writer (A soldier with the Arabs), dies at 88
  • Mar 18 Bernard Malamud, American novelist (The Fixer, The Natural, Pulitzer 1967), dies at 71
  • Mar 21 August De Boodt, Belgian politician (Minister of Reconstruction), dies at 90
  • Mar 22 Harriette Arnow, American novelist and historian (Dollmaker), dies at 77
  • Mar 27 Cass Canfield, US publisher, dies at 88
  • Mar 30 John Ciardi, American poet and interpreter (Dante), dies at 69

Historical Figures

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