Event of Interest
1616 Walter Raleigh released from Tower of London to seek gold in Guyana
Walter Raleigh
- 1627 France & Spain sign accord for fighting protestantism
Appointment of Interest
1664 Scientist Robert Hooke is appointed Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London
Robert Hooke
- 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
- 1800 French army defeats Turks at Helipolis & advance to Cairo
Scientific Discovery
1800 Alessandro Volta reports his discovery of the electric battery in a letter to Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of London
Alessandro Volta
Joseph Banks
Napoléon Bonaparte
Historic Publication
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" published in Boston
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Event of Interest
1868 Jesse James Gang robs a bank in Russellville, Kentucky, of $14,000
Jesse James
- 1883 Unity treaty of Paris signed: protects industrial property
- 1885 Jan Ernst Matzeliger received patent number 274,207 for his lasting machine which creates wood or stone molds of customers' feet
- 1886 1st AC power plant in US begins commercial operation in Massachusetts
- 1890 General Federation of Womens' Clubs founded
Event of Interest
1890 German Emperor Wilhelm II fires chancellor Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Wilhelm II
- 1896 Marines land in Nicaragua to protect US citizens
- 1896 Uprising in Matabeleland
- 1897 1st US orthodox Jewish Rabbinical seminary (RIETS) incorporates in NY
- 1897 France signs treaty with Emperor Menelik II of Abyssinia
- 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
Event of Interest
1906 George Bernard Shaw's "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" premieres in London
George Bernard Shaw
Meeting of Interest
1917 After the sinking of 3 more American merchant ships, US President Woodrow Wilson meets with cabinet, who agree that war is inevitable
Woodrow Wilson
- 1920 1st flight from London to South Africa lands (took 1½ months)
- 1920 US Ladies' Figure Skating championship won by Theresa Weld
- 1920 US Men's Figure Skating championship won by Sherwin Badger
- 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
- 1930 Clessie Cummins sets diesel engine speed record of 129.39 kph
Event of Interest
1930 American fast food restaurant chain "KFC" [Kentucky Fried Chicken] is founded by Colonel Harland Sanders in North Corbin, Kentucky
Colonel Sanders
Battle of Interest
1937 Franco offensive at Guadalajara, Spain
Francisco Franco
'I Shall Return'
1942 General Douglas MacArthur vows "I came through and I shall return" after escaping Japanese-occupied Philippines
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- 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
- 1944 Mount Vesuvius in Italy erupts
- 1945 US 70th Infantry division and 7th Armour division attack Saar
- 1947 180 tonne blue whale (record) caught in South Atlantic
- 1951 Indonesian army offensive against Darul Islam on Java
- 1951 Fujiyoshida, a city located in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, in the center of the Japanese main island of Honshū is founded
- 1952 Final ratification of peace treaty restoring sovereignty to Japan by US Senate
- 1954 1st newspaper vending machine used (Columbia Pennsylvania)
- 1956 E Ochab succeeds Beirut as 1st secretary of Polish CP
- 1956 Mount Bezymianny on Kamchatka Peninsula (USSR) explodes
- 1956 Tunisia gains independence from France
- 1956 USSR performs nuclear test
- 1956 Union workers ended a 156-day strike at Westinghouse Electric Corp
- 1957 Britain accepts NATO offer to mediate in Cyprus, but Greece rejects it
- 1958 50" snow 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
- 1965 Venkataraghavan takes 8-72 v NZ at Delhi
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"
Dorothy Height
Lyndon B. Johnson
- 1968 Military intervene in South-Yemen (leftist ministers resign)
- 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 S Mansholt succeeds Malfatti as chairman of European Committee
- 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
- 1974 "The Super Cops" directed by Gordon Parks premieres in NYC, New York
- 1976 Jevgeni Kulikov skates world record 1000m (1:15.70)
- 1976 Patricia Hearst convicted of armed robbery
- 1977 Communists and socialists win French municipal elections
Election of Interest
1977 Parisians elect former PM Jacques Chirac as 1st mayor in a century
Jacques Chirac
Election of Interest
1977 Premier Indira Gandhi loses election in India
Indira Gandhi
- 1979 Columbia flies on Shuttle carrier aircraft to Kennedy Space Center
- 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 A Treurnicht forms Conservative Party of South Africa
- 1984 Andy Kaufman & Fred Blassie's "My Breakfast With Blassie" premieres
- 1984 Senate rejects amendment to permit spoken prayer in public schools
- 1984 Nigerian Major-General Babatunde Idiagbon launches a campaign on ‘National Consciousness and Enlightenment’
- 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
- 1987 Yvonne van Gennip skates ladies' world record 5 km (7:20.36)
- 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
Manuel Noriega
- 1993 Dan Jansen skates world record 500m (36.02 sec)
- 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 Poison Gas released in Tokyo subway 12 killed, 4,700 injured
- 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 Mens Figure Skating Championship in Lausanne won by Elvis Stojko (CAN)
- 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
John Paul II
- 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
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Event of Interest
2004 Stephen Harper wins the leadership of the newly created Conservative Party of Canada, becoming the party's first leader.
Stephen Harper
- 2005 A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Fukuoka, Japan, its first major quake in over 100 years. One person is killed, hundreds are injured and evacuated.
- 2006 Cyclone Larry makes landfall in eastern Australia, destroying most of the country's banana crop.
- 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 Pierre Deligne wins the 2013 Abel Prize in mathematics
Obama Family Visit Cuba
2016 Barack Obama becomes the first US President to visit Cuba since 1928, arriving for a 3 day tour
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- 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
Mohammed bin Salman
Donald Trump
- 2019 Finland is the world's happiest country, South Sudan is world's least happy, according to annual World Happiness Report
- 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 Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts calls the state's flooding "the most widespread destruction we have ever seen in our state's history"
March in History
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, 1813A 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, 1992Welcome 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, 1819The 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
