On this day March Events

John A Silkstone

Mi General
MI.Net Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2004
Messages
1,184
Points
103
March 1st

1642 - York, Maine became the first incorporated American city.

1780 - Pennsylvania became the first U.S. state to abolish slavery.

1781 - The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation.

1790 - Congress authorized the first U.S. Census.

1803 - Ohio became the 17th state.

1845 - President John Tyler signed a congressional resolution to annex the Republic of Texas.

1867 - Nebraska became the 37th state.

1872 - Yellowstone became the first area in the world to be designated a national park, established by an act of Congress.

1932 - The infant son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was kidnapped from their home in New Jersey.

1954 - In the U.S. Capitol, four members of an extremist Puerto Rican nationalist group opened fire at the floor of the House of Representatives from a visitors' gallery, injuring five U.S. representatives.

1954 - The first American hydrogen bomb was "officially" detonated at the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

1966 - Venera 3, a Soviet probe, collided with Venus. It was the first unmanned spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.

2002 - NASA said its Mars Odyssey spacecraft had found evidence that vast regions of Mars may have had water.

2004 - Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide stepped down.

Silky
 
March 2nd

1807 - The U.S. Congress abolished the African slave trade.

1836 - Texas declared its independence from Mexico.

1867 - The first Reconstruction Act was passed by Congress.

1877 - Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote. Congress accepted an electoral commission's decision that Hayes won the disputed election. Hayes was the only U.S. president to be elected by this particular process.

1889 - Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Bill, proclaiming unassigned lands in the public domain, the first step toward the famous Oklahoma Land Rush.

1899 - Congress established Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state.

1917 - Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship.

1923 - "Time" magazine made its debut.

1925 - State and federal highway officials developed a nationwide route-numbering system and adopted the familiar U.S. shield-shaped numbered marker.

1958 - The British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic expedition, led by Dr. Vivian Fuchs, completed the first surface crossing of the South Pole.

1969 - The French-built Concorde made its maiden flight.

1970 - Rhodesia proclaimed itself a republic.

1973 - The Vietnam peace treaty was signed in Paris.

1977 - The U.S. House of Representatives adopted a strict code of ethics.

1984 - The first McDonald's franchise was closed -- in Des Plaines, Illinois.

1985 - The government approved a screening test for AIDS that detected antibodies to the virus, allowing possibly contaminated blood to be excluded from the blood supply.

1987 - Government officials reported that the median price for a new home had topped $100,000 for the first time.

Silky
 
March 3rd

1791 - Congress established the U.S. Mint.

1791 - The District of Columbia was organized, establishing a non-partisan home for the federal government.

1820 - Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, a bill that temporarily resolved the slavery issue in the U.S. and succeeded in keeping the Union together for more than 30 years.

1845 - Florida became the 27th state.

1849 - U.S. Department of the Interior, initially called the Home Department, was established.

1849 - Congress created the Minnesota Territory.

1861 - Czar Alexander II abolished serfdom.

1863 - U.S. Congress passed a conscription act that produced the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history.

1885 - The U.S. Post Office began offering special delivery for first-class mail.

1918 - Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, abandoning the Allied war effort and granting independence to its Polish and Baltic territories, the Ukraine, and Finland.

1931 - "The Star-Spangled Banner" officially became the national anthem of the United States.

1969 - Apollo 9 was launched to test the lunar landing module.

1991 - After police pursuit, robbery parolee Rodney King was stopped and beaten, and the police brutality was captured on video.

1991 - Latvia and Estonia voted to secede from the Soviet Union.

1999 - Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky appeared on national television to explain her affair with President Bill Clinton.

2002 - Voters in Switzerland approved joining the United Nations, after almost 200 years of formal neutrality.

Silky
 
March 4th

1461 - Henry VI was deposed and the Duke of York proclaimed King Edward IV.

1681 - England's King Charles II granted a charter to William Penn for an area of land that later became Pennsylvania.

1766 - The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, the cause of bitter and violent opposition in the colonies.

1789 - The Constitution of the United States of America went into effect as the first Federal Congress met in New York.

1789 - Until the passage of the 20th Amendment in 1837, March 4 was the official date set by the Constitution of the United States of America for presidential inaugurations. When the fourth fell on a Sunday, then the inauguration was on March 5. George Washington, however, was inaugurated on April 30, because Congress was unable to count the electoral ballots as early as anticipated.

1791 - Vermont became the 14th state.

1801 - Thomas Jefferson became the first President to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C.

1861 - The Confederate States of America adopted the "Stars and Bars" flag.

1863 - President Abraham Lincoln signed an act creating Idaho Territory.

1877 - The Russian Imperial Ballet staged the first performance of "Swan Lake" in Moscow.

1877 - Emile Berliner announced his invention of the microphone.

1902 - The American Automobile Association (AAA) was founded in Chicago.

1933 - President Franklin Roosevelt added the first woman to serve in the Cabinet, Labour Secretary Frances Perkins.

1968 - Tennis authorities voted to admit professional players to Wimbledon, previously open only to amateur players.

1974 - "People" magazine began publication.

1987 - President Ronald Reagan accepted full responsibility for the Iran-Contra Affair scandal.

1989 - Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. announced plans to merge into the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate.

Silky
 
March 5th

1750 - The first Shakespearean play in America was presented at the Nassau Street Theatre in New York City, "King Richard III."

1766 - Spanish official Don Antonio de Ulloa arrived in New Orleans to take possession of the Louisiana Territory from the French.

1770 - The Boston Massacre took place. British soldiers, who had been taunted by colonists (Patriots) and hit with snowballs, opened fire and killed five people.

1872 - George Westinghouse patented the air brake.

1918 - The Soviets moved the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.

1933 - The Nazi Party won almost half the seats in the German elections. It was the last free election in Germany until after World War II.

1946 - Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech at Westminster College in Missouri.

1960 - Elvis Presley returned to civilian life after two years in the U.S. Army.

1970 - A nuclear non-proliferation treaty went into effect after 43 nations ratified it.

2004 - Martha Stewart was found guilty on four counts of obstruction of justice, stemming from her December 2001 sale of shares of biotech stock ImClone.

Silky
 
March 6th

1521 - Ferdinand Magellan discovered Guam.

1834 - The city of York in Canada was incorporated as Toronto.

1836 - Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna recaptured the Alamo, ending a 13-day siege.

1857 - In its "Dred Scott" decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a slave, could not sue for his freedom in federal court.

1884 - Over 100 suffragists, led by Susan B. Anthony, presented President Chester A. Arthur with a demand that he voice support for female suffrage.

1899 - Aspirin was patented by chemist Felix Hoffman.

1930 - Clarence Birdseye's first frozen foods went on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1946 - France recognized Vietnam as a free state within the French Indochina Federation.

1981 - Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as principal anchorman of "The CBS Evening News."

Silky
 
March 7th

161 - On the death of Antoninus at Lorium, Marcus Aurelius became emperor of Rome.

1869 - The Suez Canal, the waterway across Egypt connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, was opened.

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the telephone.

1917 - The first gramophone record of a jazz band was released, by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.

1926 - The first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation took place, between New York City and London.

1933 - The board game Monopoly was invented by Charles Darrow.

1936 - Nazi leader Adolf Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by sending German military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany.

1965 - About 525 people began a 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery, demonstrating for African-American voting rights and to commemorate the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, shot three weeks earlier by an state trooper while trying to protect his mother at a civil rights demonstration.

1994 - The Supreme Court ruled that parodies that poke fun at an original work can be considered "fair use," therefore not requiring permission from the copyright holder.

2001 - Ariel Sharon took office as the prime minister of Israel.


Silky
 
March 8th

1765 - The British House of Lords passed the Stamp Act.

1801 - During the Napoleonic Wars, combined British and Ottoman forces successfully established a foothold in French-occupied Egypt.

1894 - A dog license law was enacted in the state of New York, a first in the U.S.

1910 - In Britain, the first man received a pilot's certificate, John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, while in France, Mme Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to be issued a pilot's license.

1913 - The Internal Revenue Service began to levy and collect income taxes.

1917 - In Russia, the "February Revolution" (known as such because of Russia's then use of the Julian calendar) began when riots and strikes over the scarcity of food erupted in Petrograd.

1917 - The U.S. Senate voted to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule.

1930 - In India, Mahatma Gandhi began the campaign of civil disobedience.

1950 - The USSR declared they had built an atomic bomb.

1962 - The Beatles performed for the first time on the BBC in Great Britain.

1965 - Around 3500 Marines landed at Da Nang in South Vietnam and became the first U.S. combat troops in Vietnam.

1971 - Joe Frazier, of Philadelphia, won a boxing decision over Muhammad Ali, who had been previously undefeated.

2001 - The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted for an across-the-board tax cut of nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.

Silky
 
March 9th

1822 - Charles M. Graham of New York City received a patent for artificial teeth.

1841 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the African slaves who seized control of the Amistad slave ship had been illegally forced into slavery, and thus were free under American law.

1862 - During the Civil War, the Virginia, a captured and rebuilt Union steam frigate formerly known as the Merrimac, fought the USS Monitor in the first battle between iron-fortified naval vessels. They fought to a draw.

1864 - General Ulysses Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.

1916 - Mexican bandit Pancho Villa led 1,500 horsemen on a raid of Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17 US soldiers and citizens.

1954 - The first colour television commercial was broadcast, for Castro Decorators of New York City.

1959 - The Barbie doll debuted.

1964 - The first Ford Mustang rolled off the assembly line.

1967 - Svetlana Alliluyeva, Josef Stalin's daughter, defected to the United States.

1975 - Work began on the Alaskan oil pipeline.

1990 - Dr. Antonia Novello was sworn in as Surgeon General, becoming the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the job.

Silky
 
March 10th

49 B.C.E. - Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and invaded Italy.

1496 - Christopher Columbus left Hispaniola for Spain, concluding his second visit to the Western Hemisphere.

1629 - England's King Charles I dissolved Parliament and did not call it back for 11 years.

1785 - Thomas Jefferson was appointed minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.

1792 - John Stone patented the pile driver.

1862 - The first paper money was issued in the U.S.: $5, $10, and $20 bills.

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call -- calling his assistant in another room by saying, "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you."

1880 - The Salvation Army arrived in the United States from England.

1903 - Harry C. Gammeter of Cleveland patented the multigraph duplicating machine.

1969 - James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the assassination of African American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Three days later, he attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, but his motion was denied, as were his dozens of other requests for a new trial over the years.

1987 - The Vatican condemned surrogate parenting as well as test-tube and artificial insemination.

1997 - The Spice Girls, a British all-girl band, made music history by becoming the first group to have their first four singles top the charts.

Silky
 
March 11th

1779 - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was established.

1824 - The U.S. War Department created the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1861 - The Confederate convention in Montgomery, Alabama, adopted a constitution.

1865 - In the Civil War, General William T. Sherman captured the town of Fayetteville, North Carolina.

1888 - The famous "Blizzard of '88" hit the northeastern United States with approximately 40 inches of snow; around 400 people died.

1930 - President Howard Taft became the first U.S. President to be buried in the National Cemetery in {Arlington, Virginia.

1941 - President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis Powers.

1942 - In World War II, General Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia as Japanese forces advanced, vowing "I shall return."

1985 - Mikhail Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.

1990 - Lithuania proclaimed its independence from the USSR, the first Soviet republic to do so.

1990 - American tennis player Jennifer Capriati, aged 13, became the youngest-ever finalist in a professional contest.

2004 - Spain is the victim of terrorists when at least 10 bombs explode on four commuter trains in Madrid during rush hour, killing 202 people and wounding more than 2,000. An Arabic newspaper reports it received a fax alleging that al-Qaeda was behind the attack.

Silky
 
March 12th

1609 - Bermuda became a British colony.

1664 - New Jersey became a British colony as King Charles II granted the land to his brother James, the Duke of York.

1884 - Mississippi authorized the first state-supported college for women, the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College.

1894 - Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time.

1901 - Industrialist Andrew Carnegie offered New York City $5.2 million for the construction of 65 branch libraries.

1912 - Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Guides, which later became the Girl Scouts of America.

1930 - India's Mohandas Gandhi began a defiant march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt and symbolic of his defiance of British rule in India.

1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the first of his radio "Fireside Chats."

1938 - German troops marched into Austria to annex the German-speaking nation for the Third Reich. This was called the "Anschluss."

1947 - President Harry Truman established what became known as the "Truman Doctrine" to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.

1951 - "Dennis the Menace," created by cartoonist Hank Ketcham, made its syndicated debut in 16 newspapers.

1993 - Janet Reno was sworn in as the first female attorney general of the U.S..

1994 - The Church of England ordained its first female priests.

1999 - Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic joined NATO.

Silky
 
March 13th

1639 - Harvard University was named for clergyman John Harvard.

1781 - The planet Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel.

Uncle Sam made his debut as a cartoon character in the New York "Lantern."

1868 - The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the U. S. Senate.

1877 - Ear mufflers were patented by Chester Greenwood of Maine.

1878 - The first collegiate golf match was played; Oxford University defeated Cambridge University.

1884 - Standard Time was adopted throughout the United States.

1935 - Tennessee outlawed the teaching of evolution.

1974 - The five-month oil embargo by Arab countries was lifted. The embargo was in retaliation for the U.S. support of Israel during the 1973 Middle East war.

1996 - A gunman burst into an elementary school in Scotland and opened fire on a class of young children, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.

Silky
 
March 14th

1743 - The first recorded town meeting in America was held, at Faneuil Hall in Boston.

1794 - Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin.

1812 - The first War Bonds were authorized by the United States government.

1900 - Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act.

1939 - The Republic of Czechoslovakia was dissolved, opening the way for Nazi occupation.

1947 - Philippine military and naval bases were leased to the U.S..

1964 - Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald -- the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy -- was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. (The decision was later reversed, but Ruby spent the rest of his life in prison.)

1967 - John F. Kennedy's body was moved from a temporary grave to a permanent one in Arlington Cemetery.

1991 - The "Birmingham Six," imprisoned for 16 years for their alleged part in an IRA pub bombing, were set free after a court agrees that the police fabricated evidence.

Silky
 
March 15th

1820 - Maine became the 23rd state.

1892 - American inventor Jesse Reno patented the first escalator.

1913 - President Woodrow Wilson held the first open presidential news conference.

1917 - During the February Revolution, Czar Nicholas II, ruler of Russia since 1894, was forced to abdicate the throne by the Petrograd insurgents.

1919 - The American Legion was founded, in Paris.

1937 - The first blood bank was established, in Chicago's Cook County Hospital.

1964 - Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor married (each other) for the first time.

1965 - President Lyndon Johnson called for new legislation to guarantee every American's right to vote.

2002 - Andrea Yates of Houston, Texas, was sentenced to life in prison for drowning her five children in the bathtub.

Silky
 
March 16th

1521 - Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Philippines; he was killed by natives the following month.

1534 - England severed relations with the Roman Catholic Church.

1802 - Congress authorized the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

1833 - Susan Hayhurst became the first woman to graduate from a pharmacy college (Philadelphia College of Pharmacy).

1910 - Harry Houdini became the first man to fly an airplane in Australia.

1915 - The Federal Trade Commission was organized.

1926 - American Robert H. Goddard successfully launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.

1945 - During World War II, the Allies secured Iwo Jima.

1968 - During the Vietnam War, the My Lai Massacre was carried out by U.S. troops under the command of Lieutenant William L. Calley, Jr.

1978 - Italian politician Aldo Moro was kidnapped by left-wing urban guerrillas, who later murdered him.

1985 - Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, was abducted in Beirut; he was released in December 1991.

Silky
 
March 17th

1328 - Scotland won its independence from England.

1762 - Irish soldiers serving in the British army held the first parade honouring St. Patrick, in New York City.

1776 - During the American Revolution, British forces were compelled to evacuate Boston; they fled to Nova Scotia.

1870 - The Massachusetts legislature authorized the incorporation of Wellesley Female Seminary, which later became Wellesley College.

1899 - The first-ever radio distress call was sent, summoning assistance for a merchant ship off the coast of England.

1905 - Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, married Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1910 - The Camp Fire Girls organization was founded in Lake Sebago, Maine.

1941 - The National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D.C.

1959 - The (14th) Dalai Lama fled Tibet and went to India.

1969 - Golda Meir became prime minister of Israel.

2003 - U.S. President George W. Bush gave Iraq's Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave his country, but the ultimatum was rejected.

Silky
 
March 18th

1662 - The first public bus service began operating, in Paris.

1766 - Britain's Parliament repealed the Stamp Act after widespread protest in America.

1813 - David Melville of Newport, Rhode Island, patented the gas streetlight.

1865 - The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourned for the last time.

1881 - Barnum and Bailey's "Greatest Show on Earth" opened in Madison Square Garden.

1909 - Einar Dessau of Denmark used a shortwave transmitter to talk with a government radio post -- in what is believed to have been the first broadcast by a "ham" operator.

1922 - Mohandas Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years' imprisonment for civil disobedience; he was released after serving two years.

1930 - American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto.

1931 - Schick marketed the first electric razor.

1939 - Georgia finally ratified the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government. (Connecticut and Massachusetts, the other holdouts, also ratified the Bill of Rights in 1939.)

1940 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agreed to join Germany's war against France and Britain.

1949 - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed.

1953 - Major League Baseball announced the first team relocation since 1903: Boston Braves to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1962 - France and the leaders of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) signed a peace agreement to end the seven-year Algerian War. It ended 130 years of colonial French rule in Algeria.

1965 - The first spacewalk took place -- by Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov from Voskhod II.

Silky
 
March 19th

721 B.C.E. - The first-ever recorded solar eclipse was seen from Babylon.

1628 - The New England Company was formed in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1831 - The first bank robbery in America was reported, at The City Bank of New York City, which lost $245,000 in the heist.

1918 - U.S. Congress approved Standard Time Act, which established Daylight Saving Time.

1920 - The U.S. Senate rejected American involvement in the League of Nations.

1931 - Nevada legalized gambling in an attempt to lift the state out of the hard times of the Great Depression.

1953 - The Academy Awards ceremony was televised for the first time, with comedian Bob Hope serving as host.

1970 - "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" debuted on television.

1976 - Buckingham Palace announced the separation of Princess Margaret and her husband, the Earl of Snowdon, after 16 years of marriage.

2003 - A U.S.-led coalition initiated a war against Iraq, launching cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs aimed at Saddam Hussein near Baghdad.

Silky
 
March 20th

1413 - Henry IV of England was succeeded by his son, Henry V.

1602 - The Dutch government founded the Dutch East India Company.

1751 - King George II ascended to the throne of England.

1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris, returning from his exile on the island of Elba, and began his 100-day rule which ended disastrously.

1816 - The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed its right to review state court decisions.

1841 - Edgar Allen Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," considered the first detective story, to be published.

1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's influential novel about slavery, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was published.

1865 - A plan by John Wilkes Booth to abduct President Abraham Lincoln was foiled when Lincoln changed plans and failed to appear at the Soldier's Home near Washington, D.C. Booth would later assassinate the President while Lincoln was attending a performance at Ford's Theatre in the nation's capital.

1897 - The first intercollegiate basketball game to use five players per team was held; Yale University beat University of Pennsylvania.

1899 - Martha M. Place of Brooklyn, New York, became the first woman to be executed in the electric chair; she had murdered her stepdaughter.

1956 - Tunisia achieved independence from France.

1969 - John Lennon married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.

1976 - Kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was convicted of armed robbery for her part in a San Francisco bank hold-up.

1982 - American scientists returned from Antarctica with the first land mammal fossils found there.

1987 - The Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of AZT, a drug shown to prolong the lives of some AIDS patients.

1995 - A terrorist group released nerve gas on the Japanese underground subway system, resulting in the death of 12 people and the illness of 5,500 others.

1999 - Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of Britain became the first aviators to fly a hot-air balloon around the world non-stop.

2003 - U.S. and British forces invaded Iraq from Kuwait.

Silky
 

Similar threads

Back
Top