Event of Interest
1497 Nicolaus Copernicus' 1st recorded astronomical observation
Nicolaus Copernicus
Historic Expedition
1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral departs Lisbon, Portugal at the head of a 13 ship expedition to India that will also claim Brazil for Portugal
Pedro Álvares Cabral
The Protestant Reformation
1522 Martin Luther begins preaching his "Invocavit Sermons" in the German city of Wittenberg, reminding citizens to trust God's word rather than violence and thus helping bring to a close the revolutionary stage of the Reformation
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- 1551 Emperor Karel appoints son Philip as heir to the throne
- 1562 Kissing in public banned in Naples (punishable by death)
- 1566 David Rizzio, the private secretary to Mary I of Scotland, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland
- 1617 Sweden & Russia sign Peace of Stolbowa
- 1640 Pierre Corneilles "Horace" premieres in Paris
- 1642 English Queen Henriette Maria arrives in Hellevoetsluis, Netherlands
- 1689 Thomas Shadwell appointed second English Poet Laureate by William and Mary after John Dryden refuses to swear The Oath allegiance
- 1701 France, Cologne & Bavaria sign alliance
- 1721 British Chancellor Exchequer John Aislabie confined in London Tower
- 1741 British fleet under admiral Ogle begins assault on Cartagena
- 1745 Bells for 1st American carillon shipped from England to Boston
Event of Interest
1776 Publication of influential economics book "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith
Adam Smith
- 1798 Dr George Balfour becomes 1st naval surgeon in the US navy
- 1820 -11) Philippines chases out foreigners; about 125 die
- 1822 Charles Graham of NY granted first US patent for artificial teeth
- 1834 French Foreign Legion is founded.
- 1839 Prussian government limits work week for children to 51 hours
- 1841 US Supreme Court rules the kidnapped slaves from the Spanish schooner the Amistad are free
- 1856 Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded in the Johnston Mansion House on the University of Alabama
- 1858 Albert Potts of Philadelphia patents the street mailbox
- 1860 1st Japanese ambassador arrives in San Francisco en route to Washington
- 1861 Confederate currency authorized - $50, $100, $500, $1,000
- 1862 USS Monitor and CSS Merrimack battle in Hampton Roads
Appointment of Interest
1864 Ulysses S. Grant is appointed commander of Union Army
Ulysses S. Grant
- 1889 Battle at Gallabat (Metema): Mahdi's beat Abyssinian emperor John IV
- 1889 Kansas passes 1st general antitrust law in US
- 1891 Great Blizzard of 1891 begins in England (lasts until 13th March; 200 people and 6,000 animals killed)
- 1893 Congo cannibals kill thousands of Arabs
- 1897 Cleveland Spiders sign Louis Sockalexis, full-blooded Penobscot
- 1897 Indians fans start calling the team "Indians" (in 1915 becomes official)
- 1907 1st involuntary sterilization law enacted, Indiana
- 1907 Lady Gregory's "Rising of the Moon" premieres in Dublin
- 1914 Henry Colijn appointed as director of Bataafsche Petroleum Co
Event of Interest
1914 US Senator albert fall (Teapot Dome) demands "Cubanisation of Mexico"
Albert B. Fall
- 1916 Mexican General Francisco "Pancho" Villa invades US (18 killed)
- 1916 Germany declares war against Portugal
- 1918 Russian Bolshevik Party becomes the Communist Party
- 1918 Ukrainian mobs massacre Jews of Seredino Buda
- 1918 Wageningen Agricultural College Neth opens
- 1922 Eugene O'Neill's "Hairy Ape" premieres in NYC
- 1922 KJR-AM in Seattle Washington begins radio transmissions
- 1923 Amsterdam taxi strike ends
- 1923 Elmer Rice's "Adding Machine" premieres in NYC
- 1924 South Slavia aproves Italy's annexation of Fiume (Rijeka)
- 1925 Pink's War, the first RAF operation conducted independently of the Army or Navy, begins
- 1926 Bertha Landes elected 1st woman mayor of Seattle
- 1929 Marcel Pagnol's "Marius" premieres in Paris
Event of Interest
1932 Eamon De Valera becomes President of Ireland
Éamon de Valera
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Event of Interest
1935 Adolf Hitler publically announces the creation of a new air force, the Luftwaffe
Adolf Hitler
Firebombing of Tokyo
1945 334 US B-29 Superfortresses attack Tokyo with 120,000 fire bombs
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- 1945 Japanese proclaim "independence" of Indo-China
- 1946 Dutch troops land at Batavia/Semarang
- 1947 US Ladies' Figure Skating championship won by Gretchen Merrill
- 1947 US Men's Figure Skating championship won by Richard Button
- 1948 Provisionary Indonesian government installed in Batavia
- 1949 Brigadier General Edwin K Wright, USA, ends term as deputy director of CIA
- 1949 England beat South Africa by scoring 174 runs in 94 minutes
Event of Interest
1950 Willie Sutton robs Manufacturers Bank of $64,000 in NYC
Willie Sutton
Event of Interest
1951 Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam submit a classified paper at the Los Alamos lab, in which they proposed their revolutionary new design, staged implosion, for a practical megaton-range hydrogen bomb
Edward Teller
Joseph Stalin
Event of Interest
1954 Edward R Murrow criticizes Sen Joseph McCarthy (See it Now)
Joseph McCarthy
- 1956 Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus arrested & exiled to Seychelles
- 1956 Weather forecasting phone line set up in London England
- 1957 8.1 earthquake shakes Andreanof Islands, Alaska
- 1959 1st known radar contact is made with Venus
- 1959 Barbie makes her debut at the American Toy Fair in New York. Over a billion have been sold worldwide since.
- 1961 Soviet flight Sputnik 9 carries and returns from orbit a dog named Chernushka (Blackie), frogs and a guinea pig
- 1961 Mine cave-in in Japan, kills 72
- 1962 Egyptian President Nasser declares Gaza belongs to Palestinians
- 1962 US advisors in South-Vietnam join the fight
- 1964 1st Ford Mustang produced
- 1964 Creighton's Paul Silas grabs Midwest record 27 rebounds against Okla
- 1964 Supreme Court issues NY Times vs Sullivan decision, public officials must prove malice to claim libel & recover damages
- 1966 Andrew Brimmer becomes 1st black governor of Federal Reserve Board
- 1967 Svetlana Allilueva, Stalin's daughter, defected to the West
- 1971 J M Noreiga takes 9-95 WI v India at Port-of-Spain
- 1971 Three off-duty Scottish soldiers are killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army; 4000 shipyard workers take to the streets to demand internment in response
- 1972 Four members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) die in a premature explosion at a house in Clonard Street, Lower Falls, Belfast
- 1974 Last Japanese soldier, a guerrilla operating in Philippines, surrenders, 29 years after World War II ended
- 1975 Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
- 1977 Hanafi Muslims invade 3 buildings in Washington, D.C., siege ended Mar 11th
- 1977 Adm Stansfield Turner, USN (Ret), becomes 12th director of CIA replacing acting director Knoche
- 1978 Ice Pairs Championship at Ottawa won by Rodnina & Zaitsev (Soviet Union)
- 1978 Ladies Figure Skating Champions in Ottawa won by Anett Pötzsch (East Germany)
- 1978 Men's Figure Skating Champions in Ottawa won by Charles Tickner (USA)
- 1979 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- 1980 Flemish and Walloon battle in Belgium, 40 injured
- 1983 Caryl Churchill's "Fen" premieres in London
- 1983 Zimbabwe opposition leader Joshua Nkomo flees to Botswana
- 1984 Emile Gumbs' Anguilla National Alliance wins elections
- 1984 The Competitive Enterprise Institute in founded in Washington, D.C.
- 1985 Ladies' Figure Skating Championship in Tokyo won by Katarina Witt (East Germany)
- 1986 16th Easter Seal Telethon raises $30,100,000
- 1986 NASA announces searchers found remains of Challenger astronauts
- 1986 Soviet probe Vega 2 flies by Halley's Comet at 8,030 km
- 1987 Chrysler Corp offered to buy American Motors Corp for $1 billion
Event of Interest
1988 President Reagan presides at unveiling of Knute Rockne stamp
Ronald Reagan
- 1989 Eastern Airlines files for bankruptcy
Event of Interest
1989 US Senate rejects President George H. W. Bush's nomination of John Tower as Defense Secretary
George H. W. Bush
Event of Interest
1993 Rodney King in Simi Valley court says he thinks he heard cops yell racial slurs
Rodney King
- 1994 IRA launch 1st of 3 mortar attacks on London's Heathrow Airport
- 1995 Mexican peso worth 7.55 pesos to a dollar (record)
- 1995 President Konstantine Karamanlis (88) of Greece, resigns
- 1996 NASA space shuttle STS-75 (Columbia 19) lands
- 2006 Liquid water is discovered on Enceladus, the sixth largest moon of Saturn
- 2007 The US Justice Department releases an internal audit that found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had acted illegally in its use of the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens
- 2011 Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights
- 2012 Senior members of hacking group Lulz Sec are arrested, including one member of the FBI, in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland
- 2013 19 people are killed in two suicide bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan
- 2013 Asteroid 2013 ET comes within 960,000 km from the Earth’s surface
Event of Interest
2015 US President Barack Obama signs an executive order declaring Venezuela a national security threat to the US
Barack Obama
- 2016 Eighth Democratic presidential candidates debate hosted by Univision and the Washington Post and held in Miami, Florida
- 2016 EU Migrant Crisis: Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia close their borders to migrants trying to reach Northern Europe
March in History
Sinatra Snaps the Fight of the Century
Sinatra does it his way and secures a ringside seat as a photographer for the "Fight of the Century" between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.
March 8, 1971One-Man War Finally Ends
Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda finally surrendered on this day – nearly 30 years after the Second World War had ended.
March 9, 1974Mr. Watson come here, I want you
Alexander Graham Bell spoke only briefly by phone to his assistant on this day in 1876, but it proved to be a pioneering moment in telecoms history.
March 10, 1876Wave of Doubt over Britannia
The composer who put "Rule, Britannia!" to music was born on this day, but the original words are not quite what they bellow out at the Last Night of the Proms.
March 12, 1710
