Today's Events in History
- 141 6th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
Black Death
1345 Conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, thought by scholars at the University of Paris to be the "cause of the plague epidemic" known as the Black Death. Actual cause was the bacterium yersinia pestis spread by fleas, rats and other animals.
Walter Raleigh Released
1616 Walter Raleigh released from Tower of London to seek gold in Guyana
- 1627 France & Spain sign accord for fighting protestantism
Robert Hooke Appointed Professor of Geometry
1664 Scientist Robert Hooke is appointed Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London
- 1697 Willem de Vlamingh returns to Batavia after exploring "South Land"
- 1703 Akō incident: 46 of the 47 surviving Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their master's death in Edo
- 1739 Iranian ruler Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne
- 1760 Great Fire of Boston destroys 349 buildings
- 1774 The British parliament passes first of the Intolerable Acts: the Boston Port Act, which closed Boston harbor until colonists would pay for damages following the Boston Tea Party
Electric Battery Discovered
1800 Alessandro Volta reports his discovery of the electric battery in a letter to Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of London
- 1816 US Supreme Court affirms its right to review state court decisions
Welcome Shoppers, But No Whistling Please
1819 London’s famous Burlington Arcade opens, the world’s 1st shopping arcade
- 1833 US & Siam sign commercial treaty
War Breaks Out Behind Uncle Tom's Cabin
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" published in Boston
- 1854 Anti-slavery activists within the US Whig political party opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act form new Republican Party; notable politicians who switched allegiance include Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison
- 1854 Boston Public Library opens in Boston, Massachusetts as the first large free municipal library in the US [1]
- 1861 An earthquake completely destroys Mendoza, Argentina
- 1865 2nd day of Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina
- 1865 Michigan authorizes workers' cooperatives
Jesse James Gang
1868 Jesse James Gang robs a bank in Russellville, Kentucky, of $14,000
- 1883 Jan Matzeliger receives his 1st patent (number 274,207) for shoe lasting machine which mechanized shoe production
- 1883 Unity treaty of Paris signed: protects industrial property
- 1886 1st AC power plant in US begins commercial operation in Massachusetts
- 1890 General Federation of Women's Clubs founded in the United States
- 1896 Marines land in Nicaragua to protect US citizens
- 1896 Uprising in Matabeleland
- 1897 1st US orthodox Jewish Rabbinical seminary (RIETS) incorporates in NY
Franco-Ethiopian Convention
1897 France signs treaty with Emperor Menelik II of Abyssinia establishing a common border between French held Djibouti and Ethiopia
- 1900 US Secretary of State John Hay announces that all nations to whom he sent notes calling for an 'open door' policy in China have essentially accepted his stand
- 1902 France and Russia issue a joint declaration that approves the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, but stipulates that they have the right to protect interests in China and Korea
Captain Brassbound's Conversion
1906 George Bernard Shaw's play "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" premieres in London
Wilson Meets with Cabinet
1917 After the sinking of 3 more American merchant ships, US President Woodrow Wilson meets with cabinet, who agree that war is inevitable
- 1920 1st flight from London to South Africa lands (took 1½ months)
- 1920 US Ladies' Figure Skating championship won by Theresa Weld
- 1921 Upper Silesia votes for amalgamation with Germany in a plebiscite that is 63% in favor
- 1922 USS Langley is commissioned, US Navy's 1st aircraft carrier
- 1922 WIP-AM in Philadelphia PA begins radio transmissions
- 1923 Bavarian minister of interior refuses to forbid Nazi Sturm Abteilung
- 1923 Belgian Senate rejects Dutch University in Ghent
- 1924 Finnair begins scheduled flight of Helsinki-Tallinn
Sanders Court & Café
1930 American fast food restaurant chain "KFC" [Kentucky Fried Chicken] is founded as Sanders Court & Café by Colonel Harland Sanders in North Corbin, Kentucky
- 1930 Clessie Cummins sets diesel engine speed record of 129.39 kph
- 1931 Bishop Schreiber warns against national-socialism in Berlin
- 1932 Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Region in RSFSR becomes Kara-Kalpak ASSR
- 1933 Dachau the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed
- 1934 Rudolf Kuhnold demonstrates radar in Kiel Germany
Battle of Interest
1937 Franco offensive at Guadalajara, Spain
"I Shall Return"
1942 General Douglas MacArthur vows "I came through and I shall return" after escaping Japanese-occupied Philippines
- 1942 Major German assault on Malta
- 1943 German U-384 bombed & sinks
- 1944 2,500 women trample guards and floorwalkers to purchase 1,500 alarm clocks announced for sale in a Chicago Illinois department store
- 1944 Bus falls off bridge into Passaic River NJ, killing 16
- 1945 US 70th Infantry Division captures Saarbrucken, immediately prior the invasion of Germany by the western Allies
- 1947 180 tonne blue whale (record) caught in South Atlantic
- 1951 Fujiyoshida, a city located in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, in the center of the Japanese main island of Honshū is founded
- 1951 Indonesian army offensive against Darul Islam on Java
- 1952 Final ratification of peace treaty restoring sovereignty to Japan by US Senate
- 1954 1st newspaper vending machine used (Columbia Pennsylvania)
- 1956 Edward Ochab succeeds Bolesław Bierut as 1st secretary of the Polish Communist Party
- 1956 Mount Bezymianny on Kamchatka Peninsula (USSR) erupts
- 1956 Tunisia gains independence from France when the Protocol agreement signed between the two countries
- 1956 Union workers ended a 156-day strike at Westinghouse Electric Corp
- 1956 USSR performs nuclear test
- 1957 Britain accepts NATO offer to mediate in Cyprus, but Greece rejects it
- 1958 50 inches of snow falls across the Mason–Dixon line
- 1958 Clandestine Burasi Bizim Radio (communist) begins transmitting
- 1958 Greek Clandestine Radio (communist), Voice of Truth 1st transmission
- 1963 1st "Pop Art" exhibition (NYC)
- 1964 ESRO established, European Space Research Organization
Historic Publication
1965 Civil and Women's Rights Activist Dorothy Height has her first column published in the weekly African-American newspaper called the "New York Amsterdam News"
- 1965 Venkataraghavan takes 8-72 v NZ at Delhi
- 1968 Military intervene in South-Yemen (leftist ministers resign)
Event of Interest
1971 Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark resigns in protest at what he views as a limited security response by the British government
- 1972 19 mountain climbers killed on Japan's Mount Fuji during an avalanche
- 1972 Donegall Street bombing: the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonate its first car bomb on Donegall Street in Belfast; four civilians, two RUC officers and a UDR soldier killed while 148 people were wounded
- 1972 S Mansholt succeeds Malfatti as chairman of European Committee
- 1974 "The Super Cops" directed by Gordon Parks premieres in NYC, New York
Historic Publication
1976 American publishing heiress Patty Hearst convicted of armed robbery for her part in a 1974 California heist
- 1976 Jevgeni Kulikov skates world record 1000m (1:15.70)
- 1977 Communists and socialists win French municipal elections
Election of Interest
1977 Parisians elect former PM Jacques Chirac as 1st mayor in a century
Election of Interest
1977 Premier Indira Gandhi loses election in India
- 1980 The Mi Amigo ship containing England's pirate radio Caroline sinks
- 1980 US appeals to International Court on hostages in Iran
- 1981 Argentine ex-president Isabel Peron sentenced to 8 years
- 1981 Jean Harris sentenced 15-to-life for slaying of Scarsdale Diet Dr
- 1982 1st-class debut of Richie Richardson, Leeward Is v Barbados
- 1982 France performs nuclear test
- 1982 Rev Andries Treurnicht forms Conservative Party of South Africa
- 1984 Andy Kaufman and Fred Blassie's film "My Breakfast With Blassie" premieres
- 1984 Nigerian Major-General Babatunde Idiagbon launches a campaign on ‘National Consciousness and Enlightenment’
- 1984 US Senate rejects amendment to permit spoken prayer in public schools
- 1985 Libby Riddles is 1st woman to win Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race
- 1986 228 KPH gust of wind strikes Cairngorm (UK record)
- 1986 Jacques Chirac forms French government
- 1986 New York City passes its first lesbian and gay rights legislation
- 1987 FDA approves sale of AZT (AIDS treatment)
- 1987 NASA launches Palapa B2P
- 1988 David Henry Hwang's "M. Butterfly," premieres in NYC
- 1988 Eritrean War of Independence: Having defeated the Nadew Command, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front enters the town of Afabet, victoriously concluding the Battle of Afabet.
- 1989 Richard J Kerr replaces Robert M Gates as deputy director of CIA
- 1991 Supreme Court rules unanimously employers can't exclude women from jobs where exposure to toxic chemicals could potentially damage fetus
- 1991 US forgives $2 billion in loans to Poland
- 1992 Janice Pennington is awarded $1.3M for accident on Price is Right set
A First Lady Goes Shoplifting
1992 Manuel Noriega's wife Felicidad arrested for stealing buttons from dresses
- 1993 IRA-bomb kills 3 year old in Warrington, England
- 1994 El Salvador's 1st presidential election following 12-year-old civil war
- 1994 Mashonaland U-24 beat Matabeleland on 1st inning to win Logan Cup
- 1994 Zulu-king Goodwill Zwelithini founds realm in South Africa
- 1995 Dow-Jones hits record 4083.68
- 1995 Members of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo release sarin gas on three lines of the Tokyo subway, killing 13 people and injuring over 1,000
- 1996 Erik & Lyle Menendez found guilty of killing their parents
- 1996 UK admits humans can catch CJD (Mad Cow Disease)
- 1997 Liggett admits cigarettes are addictive
- 1997 World Mens Figure Skating Championship in Lausanne won by Elvis Stojko of Canada
- 1999 Legoland, California, the first Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California
- 2000 Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown, is captured after a gun battle that leaves a Georgia sheriff's deputy dead
Papal Visit
2000 Pope John Paul II visits Holy Land - Jordan, Israel, Palestine
- 2001 Petrobras 36 Oil Platform, the world's largest oil rig, sinks with 400,000 US gallons of fuel and crude oil aboard, after suffering three explosions on March 15
Invasion of Iraq
2003 A US-led coalition launches a ground invasion of Iraq after an ultimatum for Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq expires
Event of Interest
2004 Stephen Harper wins the leadership of the newly created Conservative Party of Canada, becoming the party's first leader.
Event of Interest
2006 Over 150 Chadian soldiers are killed in eastern Chad by members of the rebel UFDC. The rebel movement sought to overthrow Chadian president Idriss Deby.
- 2012 50 people are killed and 240 injured in a wave of terror attacks across 10 cities in Iraq
- 2013 First Breakthrough Prizes, world's most generous science prize worth $3 million, awarded in Mathematics, Life Sciences and Physics established by Julia and Yuri Milner
- 2013 Pierre Deligne wins the 2013 Abel Prize in mathematics
Obama Visits Cuba
2016 Barack Obama becomes the first US President to visit Cuba since 1928, arriving for a 3 day tour
- 2017 Indian rivers Yamuna and the Ganges declared "living entities" by court in the state of Uttarakhand
Meeting of Interest
2018 Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with US President Donald Trump at the White House
- 2019 A woman who can smell Parkinson's disease has helped researchers identify molecules on the skin of people with the disease in Manchester, England
- 2019 Finland is the world's happiest country, South Sudan is world's least happy, according to annual World Happiness Report
- 2019 Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts calls the state's flooding "the most widespread destruction we have ever seen in our state's history"
- 2020 India hangs four men for 2012 gang rape and murder of woman on a bus in New Delhi, country's first hanging since 2013
- 2020 Smoke from Australian bushfires killed more people than the fires - 417 vs 33 according to new study published in "Medical Journal of Australia"
- 2021 Miami Beach imposes a state of emergency and a curfew as large crowds descend on the area for spring break
- 2021 Overseas spectators will not be allowed to attend the Tokyo Summer Olympics due to the pandemic Japanese organizers confirm
- 2021 Severe one-in-a-hundred-year flooding in Sydney and the surrounding state of New South Wales prompts evacuation orders
- 2022 Intense fighting in Ukrainian city of Mariupol continues as Russian forces encircle the city, trapping 300,000 people [1]
Articles on Events in March
Dr Livingstone, I Presume?
Explorer David Livingstone, born on this day, spawned one of the most famous encounters when he was found in Africa by journalist Henry Stanley.
March 19, 1813
Welcome Shoppers, But No Whistling Please
Burlington Arcade, one of London's finest shopping streets, was opened on this day, partly as a deterrent to litter louts.
March 20, 1819
A First Lady Goes Shoplifting
While former Panama military dictator Manuel Noriega was awaiting his fate on racketeering charges, his wife Felicidad was having her own run-in with the law.
March 20, 1992
The Most Expensive Divorce in History
Beautiful and rich, Eleanor of Aquitaine had one fault according to the King of France: she had not produced a son. So on this day they were divorced.
March 21, 1152