Category: Today

April 5

1566 – 200 Dutch noblemen, led by Hendrick van Brederode, force themselves into the presence of Margaret of Parma – Governor of the Netherlands – and present the Petition of Compromise, denouncing the Spanish Inquisition in the Seventeen Provinces.

1614 – In Virginia, Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, marries English colonist John Rolfe.

1621 – The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts on a return trip to England.

1722 – On Easter Sunday, Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovers Easter Island. And now you know how it got its name.

1792 – President Washington exercises his authority to veto a bill for determining allotment of members in the House of Representatives, the first time this power is used. The veto is not overridden, and Congress rewrites the bill to satisfy the President.

1879 – Chile declares war on Bolivia and Peru, starting the 5 year long War of the Pacific.

1910 – The Transandine Railway connecting Chile and Argentina is inaugurated.

1915 – Boxing challenger Jess Willard knocks out Jack Johnson in Havana, Cuba to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World.

1922 – The American Birth Control League, forerunner of Planned Parenthood, is incorporated.

1933 – Assuming authority under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the Emergency Banking Act in March 1933. President Roosevelt signs executive order 6102 “forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates” by U.S. citizens.

1936 – An F5 power tornado kills 233 people in Tupelo, Mississippi.

1949 – A fire in St. Anthony’s hospital in Effingham, Illinois, kills 77 people and leads to nationwide fire code improvements.

1951 – Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union.

1977 – In the case of Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip, the Supreme Court rules that congressional legislation that diminished the size of the Sioux people’s reservation terminates the tribe’s jurisdictional authority over the area.

1986 – 2 of the 3 people killed  and 79 of the 229 injured in the bombing of the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin, Germany by Libyan government operatives are U.S. servicemembers

2010 – 29 miners are killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Coal Mine in West Virginia.

2018 – Agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid a slaughterhouse in Tennessee, detaining nearly 100 undocumented Hispanic workers in one of the largest workplace raids in U.S. history

April 4

801 – During the Reconquista, Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne and King of the Franks, recaptures Barcelona from the Moors after a siege lasting several months.

1581 – Francis Drake is knighted by Queen Elizabeth I for completing a circumnavigation of Earth.

1818 – The U.S. Congress, affirming the Second Continental Congress, adopts the redesign of the flag of the United States to reduce the flag to 13 red and white stripes to honor the original colonies and one star for each state.

1841 – President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, becoming the first to die in office, and setting the record for the briefest administration, 31 days after inauguration.

1865 – A day after Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, President Lincoln visits the Confederate capital.

1887 – Argonia, Kansas elects Susanna M. Salter as the first female mayor in the United States.

1933 – U.S. Navy dirigible airship USS Akron is wrecked off the New Jersey coast due to severe weather, resulting in the loss of 73 or the 76 aircrew aboard including Rear Admiral William A. Moffett MH, known as the architect of naval aviation.

1945 – American troops of the 4th Armored and 89th Infantry Divisions liberate the Ohrdruf, Germany concentration camp, while troops of the 80th Infantry Division capture Kassel northeast of Frankfurt am Main.

1949 –  12 nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty creating NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

1969 – At St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston, Texas, with no transplantable heart available, Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart in patient Haskell Karp, who lives for 65 hours.

1973 – The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City are officially dedicated.
A USAF Lockheed C-141 Starlifter, dubbed the Hanoi Taxi, makes the last flight of Operation Homecoming, returning U.S. Prisoners of War from Vietnam.

1975 – A USAF Lockheed C-5A Galaxy making the first flight of orphans during Operation Babylift, crashes on approach during an emergency landing at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, South Vietnam killing 138 of the 314 passengers and crew aboard.
Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

1977 – Southern Airways Flight 242, a Douglas DC-9, crashes during a forced landing on a highway in New Hope, Paulding County, Georgia, killing 63 of the 85 passengers and crew aboard and 9 more on the ground.

1983 – Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on STS-6, its maiden voyage, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

1984 – President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.

1988 – Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona is convicted in his impeachment trial and removed from office.

1991 – Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and 6 others are killed when a helicopter collides with their airplane over an elementary school in Merion, Pennsylvania.

1994 – Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark found Netscape Communications Corporation under the name Mosaic Communications Corporation.

1996 – Comet Hyakutake is imaged by the USA Asteroid Orbiter Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous.

2010 – A magnitude 7.2 earthquake hits south of the Mexico-USA border in Baja California, killing 2 people and damaging buildings on both sides of the border.

Today, April 3

801 – During the early stages of the Reconquista of Spain, King Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, recaptures Barcelona from the Moors after a siege of several months.

1860 – The first successful Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, begins.

1865 – Union forces occupy Richmond, Virginia.

1882 – In St. Joseph Missouri, Robert Ford assassinates Jesse James.

1885 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for his engine design.

1888 – In the Whitechapel section of London, ‘Jack the Ripper’ commits the first of 11 unsolved murders of women.

1936 – In the New Jersey State Penitentiary at Trenton, Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed in the electric chair for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the baby son of pilot Charles Lindbergh.

1942 – Under the command of  Lt. General Masaharu Homma IJA,  Japanese forces begin a final assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.

1946 – Lt. General Masaharu Homma IJA, is executed by firing squad in the Philippines for war crimes committed by forces under his command during the Bataan Death March.

1948 – President Harry S. Truman signs the ‘Marshall Plan’ into law, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries in western Europe.

1973 – Martin Cooper of Motorola makes the first handheld mobile phone call to his competitor, Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.

1974 – The 1974 Tornado Super Outbreak occurs, the biggest tornado outbreak in recorded history for a 24 hour period until the 2011 Super Outbreak. The 148 tornadoes across the central and southeast U.S. kill 315 people, with nearly 5,500 more injured.

1980 – Congress restores a federal trust relationship with the Shvwits, Kanosh, Koosharem, and the Indian Peaks and Cedar City bands of the Paiute Indian Nation of Utah.

1981 – The  Osborne Computer Corporation, exhibits the first portable computer, the Osborne 1, at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.

1989 – In the case of Mississippi Choctaw Band v. Holyfield, the Supreme Court upholds the jurisdictional rights of tribal courts under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.

1996 – The “Unabomber”,  Theodore Kaczynski, is arrested at his remote  cabin in the wilderness near Lincoln, Montana.

2000 – In the case of United States v. Microsoft Corp, the Supreme Court rules that Microsoft violated U.S. antitrust law by keeping “an oppressive thumb” on its competitors.

2004 – Islamic moslem terrorists involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings are trapped by the police in their apartment in Leganés, south of Madrid and commit suicide by blowing themselves up.

2008 – Texas law enforcement cordons off the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saint’s  Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas and during a search take 533 women and children into state custody, finally releasing them under a writ of mandamus, on May 29th.

2009 – Jiverly Antares Wong, a former student, opens fire at the American Civic Association immigration center in Binghamton, New York, killing 13 people and wounding 4 before committing suicide.

2010 – Apple Inc. releases the first generation iPad tablet computer.

2016 – The Panama Papers, a leak of legal documents, reveals information on offshore banks, companies and shell corporations used by the wealthy and some public officials for, fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and evading international sanctions.

2018 – Nasim Najafi Aghdam opens fire at the YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California, wounding 3 people before committing suicide.

 

April 2

742 – Charlemagne is born, either in Herstal, in modern Belgium, or the nearby town of Aachen in modern Germany.

1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León sights land in what is now the state of Florida.

1792 – The Coinage Act is passed by Congress, establishing the United States Mint, the U.S. Dollar as the standard unit of money, pegging it to the value of the then current Spanish silver Peso – commonly called ‘Pieces of Eight’ from its value of 8 reales – and creating a decimal monetary system.

1865 – The defeat of Confederate forces at the 3rd Battle of Petersburg forces the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate government to abandon Richmond, Virginia.

1900 – Congress passes the Foraker Act, giving Puerto Rico limited self-rule.

1902 – The “Electric Theatre”, the first full time movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles.

1912 – The White Star Line Olympic class ocean liner RMS Titanic, begins sea trials.

1917 – President Wilson asks for a special joint session of Congress to  declare war on the German Empire.

1930 – After the death of Empress Zewditu, Ras Tafari Makonnen is proclaimed Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia.

1956 – As the World Turns and The Edge of Night premiere on CBS. The ‘soap operas’ become the first daytime dramas to debut in the 30 minute format.

1973 – Mead Data Central corporation launches the  computerized legal research service, LexisNexis.

1980 – President Carter signs the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act into law.

1982 – Argentinian forces mount an amphibious invasion on East Falkland Island at Port Stanley with most of the defending British Royal Marine and Navy forces eventually surrendering and evacuated by the end of the day.

1992 – In New York Federal Court, Mafia boss John Gotti is convicted of murder and racketeering and is later sentenced to life in prison.

2006 – Over 60 tornadoes break out across several central states,  Tennessee being the hardest hit with 29 people killed.

2012 – A former student opens fire with a handgun at the Korean Christian Oikos University in California, murdering 7 people and wounding 3 more before fleeing and later surrendering to police.

2014 – A soldier opens fire at several places on Fort Hood Texas, murdering 3 people and wounding 16 others before committing suicide.

2021 – A Capitol Police officer is killed and another injured when an American islamist terrorist rams his car into a barricade outside the U.S. Capitol building, then exits the vehicle and attempts to attack other officers with a knife before being shot down, later dying at a hospital

April 1

527 – Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne.

1789 – The first quorum of the U.S. House of Representatives’ 1st Congress meets at Federal Hall in New York City, electing Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first Speaker.

1833 – 56 delegates of Mexican Texas meet at the Convention of 1833 in San Felipe de Austin to draft a series of petitions to the government in Mexico City for redress of grievances and submitting a state constitution.

1865 – At the Battle of Five Forks, southwest of Petersburg Virginia, Union troops led by Philip Sheridan defeat Confederate troops led by George Pickett, cutting the Army of Northern Virginia’s last supply line.

1924 – Adolf Hitler is sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for his participation in the “Beer Hall Putsch” of November 1923 in Munich, but spends only 9 months behind bars at Landsberg prison.

1945 – The 10th United States Army, consisting of the U.S. Army’s 7th, 27th, 77th and 96th Infantry Divisions and the US Marine Corps’ 1st, 2nd, and 6th Marine Divisions, invade the Japanese island of Okinawa.
A few hours into the invasion, the cruiser USS Vincennes is attacked by Kamikaze aircraft, the Gunner’s Mates Guns aboard shooting down one that crashes less than 50 feet from the stern.

1946 – A 8.6 Mw  earthquake strikes the Aleutian Islands, injuring over 165 people, also causing a tsunami reaching the Hawaiian Islands resulting in 173 deaths, mostly in Hilo, Hawaii.

1960 – NASA’s TIROS-1  Television InfraRed Observation Satellite transmits the first television picture to Earth, of the Earth, from space.

1970 – President Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, revising the warning on cigarette packaging and banning cigarette advertisements on American radio and television.

1976 – Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found Apple Computer, Inc.

1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp is seen passing at perihelion, it’s closest approach to the Sun. No spacecraft is detected in its vicinity.

2001 – An EP-3E U. S. Navy surveillance aircraft collides with a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Shenyang J-8 fighter jet, with the resulting loss of the Chinese pilot. The Navy crew makes an emergency landing in Hainan, China where they are detained for 10 days.

2004 – Google launches its Email service Gmail.

2011 – After protests against the burning of a Quran turn violent, a mob attacks a United Nations compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of 13 people, including 8 foreign workers. None of the U.S. troops and their supporting civil service employees deployed there  come under threat of attack.

March 31

1146 – During a council convoked by French King Louis VII at Vézelay, France, the Benedictine monk Bernard of Clairvaux preaches a sermon urging a Second Crusade due to the fall of the crusader state of Edessa in southern Turkey, causing the entire assembly to take up the pilgrim cross.

1492 – Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.

1685 – Johann Sebastian Bach is born in Eisenach, Thuringia, Duchy of Saxe-Eisenach in modern Germany.

1774 – In response to the ‘Boston Tea Party’, the British parliament passes the Boston Port Act, the first of the Intolerable Acts closing down the port of Boston on June 1st.

1854 – Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened.

1899 – During  the Phillipine-American War, Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, is captured by American forces.

1906 – The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later the National Collegiate Athletic Association – NCAA) is established to set rules for college sports in the U.S.

1917 – By the terms of the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, The Virgin Islands are sold to the U.S. for $25 million in gold.

1918 – Daylight saving time goes into effect in the U.S. for the first time.

1930 – The Motion Picture Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film in the U.S.

1931 – A Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10 airliner crashes near Bazaar, Kansas, killing all 8 passengers and crew aboard, including University of Notre Dame head football coach, Knute Rockne.

1933 – The Civilian Conservation Corps, a voluntary public work relief program, is established with the mission of relieving rampant unemployment in the United States.

1951 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.

1959 – Fleeing Chinese communist persecution in Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.

1968 – During a televised speech on “Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam” President Lyndon B. Johnson concludes by announcing “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

1992 – BB-63, USS Missouri, the last active U.S. Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.

1995 – Singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez is murdered by her fan club’s president Yolanda Saldívar at a Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi, Texas

1998 – Netscape releases Mozilla source code under an open source license.

March 30

1822 – Congress creates the Florida Territory.

1842 – Ether is used as an general anesthetic in a surgical operation for the first time, by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Georgia.

1867 – Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million by Secretary of State William H. Seward.

1870 – Texas is readmitted to the United States Congress following Reconstruction.
The 15th amendment’s ratification to the Constitution is formally certified.

1900 – Archaeologists in Knossos, Crete, discover the first clay tablet with hieroglyphic writing in a script later called Linear B, the earliest form known of ancient Greek.

1959 – Due to the Tibetan Uprising against communist Chinese oppression;  Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, fearing arrest at the Chinese National People’s Congress, escapes Tibet and flees to India.

1961 – The international treaty to control illicit trade in drugs, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed in New York City.

1965 –  A car bomb driven by the Viet Cong explodes in front of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, killing 2 Americans, 1 Filipino U.S. civil servant, 19 Vietnamese and wounding 183 others.

1967 – Delta Air Lines Flight 9877, a Douglas DC-8 on a training flight, crashes at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, killing all 6 crew aboard and 13 more people on the ground.

1981 – President Ronald Reagan and 3 others are wounded by gunfire outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr.

2017 – SpaceX conducts the world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket the Falcon 9.

2021 – G. Gordon Liddy, chief operative in the Watergate scandal dies, age 90, at his daughter’s house in Fairfax County, Virginia due to complications of Parkinson’s disease.

March 29

845 – Paris is sacked by the Viking raiders of Ragnar Lodbrok

1430 – The Ottoman Empire under Murad II captures Thessalonica from the Republic of Venice.

1549 – The city of Salvador da Bahia, the first capital of Brazil, is founded.

1806 – Construction of the Great National Pike is authorized by Congress, better known as the Cumberland Road – today mostly U.S. Route 40, west of Baltimore – and the first U.S. Federal Highway.

1847 – During the Mexican–American War, U.S. forces led by General Winfield Scott take Veracruz after a 20 day siege.

1865 – Federal forces in Virginia under Major General Philip Sheridan move to flank Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee as the final Appomattox Campaign begins.

1867 – Queen Victoria gives Royal Assent to the British North America Act which establishes Canada on July 1.

1886 – John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in his backyard in Atlanta, Georgia

1911 –  After extensive competitive testing by the military, Colt Firearms’ entry of John M. Browning’s short recoil design pistol is formally adopted by the U.S. Army as the Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, Model of 1911.

1927 – Sir Henry Segrave , driving the Sunbeam Motor Car Company’s twin V-12 engine powered Mystery, breaks the land speed record, driving for the first time over 200 miles per hour on Daytona Beach, Florida.

1941 – The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, defining and regulating AM radio transmission, goes into effect at 03:00 Eastern Standard Time.

1951 – Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviets against the U.S.

1961 – The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential elections.

1971 –U.S Army Lt. William Calley is convicted of the premeditated murder of 22 South Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre, and sentenced to life in prison. With later appeals, sentence reductions and parole he ends up serving less than 3 1/2 years under house arrest.

1973 – As the communist government in Hanoi frees the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam, the last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam, with some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense civilian employees remaining behind in Saigon to aid the South Vietnam government.

1974 – The Terracotta Army guarding the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China is discovered in Shaanxi province, China.

1999 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark  for the first time, during the height of the ‘dot-com’ bubble.

2002 – In reaction to the Passover massacre 2 days prior, Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield against Palestinian moslem terrorists, its largest military operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Six Day War.

2004 – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia join NATO as full members.

2010 – Two moslem terrorist suicide bombers hit the Moscow Metro system at the peak of the morning rush hour, killing 40 people.

2017 – Prime Minister Theresa May invokes Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, formally beginning the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union commonly called the Brexit.

March 28

1566 – The foundation stone of Valletta, Malta’s capital city, is laid by Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly Knights Hospitaller, since 1798 known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

1776 – Exploring along the California coastline, Juan Bautista de Anza selects the sites for the Presidio of San Francisco and Mission San Francisco de Asis in present day San Francisco

1918 –  During World War I, General John J. Pershing cancels 42nd ‘Rainbow’ Division’s orders to travel to Rolampont for further training and diverts it to occupy the Baccarat sector of the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north eastern France, the first American division in the war to take over an entire sector on its own.

1920 – An outbreak of tornados beginning in the Midwest from just east of Springfield Missouri and spanning further from Illinois, Indiana and down to Georgia results in over 150 people killed and 1200 more injured.

1946 – During the early days of the Cold War, the U.S. Department of State releases the Acheson–Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power.

1978 –  In case of Stump v. Sparkman, the Supreme Court hands rules that the judge who made a controversial order of involuntary sterilization of a minor woman, requested by her mother, had personal immunity from a lawsuit.

1979 – Due to a coolant leak at the Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 nuclear reactor outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the reactor core overheats and partially melts down.

1990 – President George Bush posthumously awards Olympic champion runner, Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.

2003 – During the invasion of Iraq,  USAF Air National Guard A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft mistake a column of British tanks for a nearby formation of Iraqi tanks, and attacking the British tanks, kills 1 and wounds 5 soldiers.

 

March 27

1513 – Spanish Conquistador Juan Ponce de León reaches the northern end of the Bahamas on his first voyage to Florida.

1794 – The United States establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of 6 frigates.

1814 – During the War of 1812, U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the Red Sticks, a part of the Creek Indian tribe, at the Battle of Horseshow Bend of Tallapoosa River in central Alabama, effectively ending the Creek nation’s involvement in the War.

1836 – During the Texas Revolution, on the orders of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican army massacres 342 Texas prisoners of war at Goliad, Texas.

1866 – President Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866. His veto is overridden by Congress and the bill passes into law on April 9.

1886 – During surrender negotiations between Geronimo and U.S. Army General George Crook, photographer C. S. Fly takes several pictures of Geronimo and his band,  the only known photographs taken of American Indians while still at war with the United States.

1899 – Emilio Aguinaldo, age 30, the first and youngest President of the Philippines, leads Filipino forces for the only time during the Philippine–American War, being defeated at the Battle of Marilao River.

1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the U.S. is put in quarantine for the second time, and for the rest of her life.

1943 – U.S. Navy Task Group 16.6 intercepts, engages and forces a withdrawal of Japanese ships off the Soviet Komandorski Islands that were attempting to reinforce the occupying Japanese garrison at Kiska Island.

1964 – The most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history,  at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes Southcentral Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.

1975 – Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.

1976 – The first section of the Washington D.C. Metro rail system opens to the public.

1977 – On Tenerife,  in the Canary Islands, KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, both Boeing 747 airliners, collide on the airport’s main runway, killing all 248 passengers and crew aboard the KLM plane, and 335 of the 396 passengers and crew aboard the Pan Am plane. This is still the deadliest aviation accident in history.

1990 – The U.S. begins broadcasting anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba on TV Martí.

1999 – Over Kosovo, a USAF Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk, piloted by LTC. Darrell Zelko is shot down by the Yugoslav 3rd Brigade of the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade firing a S-125 Neva SAM-3, the first and only F-117 to be lost in combat.

2000 – A Phillips Petroleum plant explosion in Pasadena, Texas kills 1 person and injures 71 other people.

2002 – A Palestinian moslem terrorist suicide bomber kills 29 people at a Passover seder in Netanya, Israel.

2020 – The nation of North Macedonia becomes the 30th member of NATO.

March 26

1169 – Al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known in the west as ‘Saladin’, becomes the emir of Egypt.

1344 – The 21 month long siege of Algeciras during the Reconquista, by the Castilian forces of Alfonso XI, one of the first European military engagements where gunpowder is used, comes to a successful end.

1484 – William Caxton prints his translation of Aesop’s Fables.

1812 – A political cartoon in the Boston Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe an oddly shaped U.S. Congressional District that was signed into law by then governor, later vice-president, Elbridge Gerry; comparing it to the shape of a mythological salamander. The political tactic is used to form districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.

1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.

1945 – The Battle of Iwo Jima ends as the island is officially secured by American forces.

1954 – The ‘Romeo’ shot of Operation Castle, the first U.S. deployable thermonuclear weapon, the TX-17 bomb, is detonated at Bikini Atoll with an explosive power of 11 megatons of TNT, vastly more powerful than planned – 4 megatons – due to the same unforeseen reaction of components as the ‘Bravo’ detonation a few weeks earlier.

1975 – The international disarmament Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction comes into force.

1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C.

1982 –  The groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, D.C.

1997 – Deputies of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department discover the bodies of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate group who committed suicide,  in Rancho Santa Fe, California due to the passage of comet Hale-Bopp.

March 25

1306 – Robert the Bruce, one of the great grandsons of King David I, is crowned King of Scots at the Abbey at Scone, Scotland, the capitol at the time.

1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia.

1655 – Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.

1911 – A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers in New York City.

1917 – The Georgian Orthodox Church restores its autocephaly – basically being independent from a higher religious authority – that had been abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811.

1947 – An explosion at the No. 5 coal mine Centralia, Illinois kills 111 of the 142 miners working there.

1948 – The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.

1957 – The beginning of the European Union (EU) , the European Economic Community is established with West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg as the first members.

1965 – Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully complete their march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.

1979 – The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.

1996 – The European Union’s Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its byproducts as a result of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy commonly called ‘mad cow disease’.

2006 –  A gunman kills 6 people and wounds 2 more at a party in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, before committing suicide

March 24

1199 – King Richard I ‘The Lionheart’ of England is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting in France, leading to his death on April 6.

1603 – James VI of Scotland is proclaimed King James I of England and Ireland, upon the death of Elizabeth I. Less than a year later he commissions a new translation of the Old and New Testaments of the bible, the ‘King James Version‘.

1663 – The Province of Carolina consisting of all or parts of present day Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and the Bahamas. is granted by charter to eight Lords Proprietor.

1765 – Great Britain passes the Quartering Act, which requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops. And now you know the historical basis behind the 3rd amendment in the Bill of Rights.

1882 – While employed at the Imperial Department of Health in Berlin, Dr. Robert Koch announces the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for Tuberculosis.

1900 – Mayor of New York City Robert Anderson Van Wyck breaks ground for a new underground “Rapid Transit Railroad” that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.

1934 – Congress passes the Tydings–McDuffie Act, establishing the process for the Philippines to become a self governing commonwealth.

1944 – During World War 2, in an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 Allied prisoners of war begin breaking out of the German camp, Stalag Luft III.

1989 – In Prince William Sound, Alaska, the Exxon Valdez runs aground on Bligh Reef,  spilling over 240,000 barrels of crude oil.

1993 – While using the Schmidt telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California to make observations for celestial Near Earth Objects, Astronomers Carolyn and Eugene M. Shoemaker and David Levy discover Comet D/1993 F2, as per practice named Shoemaker–Levy 9.

1998 – Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, aged 11 and 13 respectively, fire upon teachers and students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, killing 5 and wounding 10 before being arrested as they attempted to flee the area. Because of their ages, the maximum sentence available in Arkansas, imprisonment until age 21, is imposed at trial.

March 23

1775 – During the Second Virginia Convention held at the St. John’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia, delegate Patrick Henry rises to speak on the question of the passage of a resolution, declaring the United Colonies to be independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain. He is quoted as ending with “Give me liberty, or give me death!”.

1806 – After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery begin their return journey.

1857 – Elisha Otis’ first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway New York City.

1868 – The University of California is founded in Oakland, California.

1913 – A tornado outbreak kills more than 240 people in the central United States, with flooding in the Ohio River watershed killing 650 more.

1919 – Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.

1933 – The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.

1965 – NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States’ first 2 man space flight with astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young aboard.

1983 – President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles, the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed the “Star Wars program”.

1989 – At Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment ‘caps off’ reception of its final shipment of soldiers, beginning Zero Week of Basic Combat Training cycle 2-89.

1994 – On final approach to landing at Pope Air Force Base on Fort Bragg North Carolina; an Air Force F-16 collides with a C-130 and then crashes into several more aircraft on the Green Ramp of the base, killing 23 soldiers and injuring 100 more.

2001 – The abandoned Russian Mir space station is purposefully deorbited, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

2019 – After four years of fighting. the US backed Syrian Democratic Forces declare military victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

 

March 22

1508 – Ferdinand II of Aragon commissions Amerigo Vespucci as chief navigator of the Spanish Empire.

1621 – The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony sign a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.

1622 – Algonquian Indians kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony’s population, during the Second Anglo-Powhatan War.

1630 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony outlaws the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables.

1638 – Anne Hutchinson is expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent at odds with the established Puritan clergy.

1713 – The Tuscarora War comes to an end with the fall of Fort Neoheroka, effectively opening up the interior of North Carolina to European colonization.

1765 – The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act that introduces a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies.

1794 – The Slave Trade Act of 1794 bans the export of slaves from the United States, and prohibits American citizens from outfitting a ship for the purpose of importing slaves

1871 – In North Carolina, William Woods Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.

1895 –  Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrate motion picture technology for the Société pour L’Encouragement à l’Industrie, in Paris.

1933 – Nazi Germany opens its first concentration camp, at Dachau, Germany, near Munich. Today, it is maintained as a museum and example of Nazi tyranny.

1960 – Working at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey, Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.

1972 – In the case of Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Supreme Court decides that unmarried persons have the right to possess contraceptives.

1978 – Karl Wallenda of The Flying Wallendas dies after falling off a tight-rope suspended between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

1988 – Congress votes to override President Reagan’s veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987.

1992 – USAir Flight 405, a Fokker- F28, crashes shortly after takeoff from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, killing 24 of the 69 passengers and crew aboard.

1993 – Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips to market.

1997 – Tara Lipinski, aged 14 years and 9 months, becomes the youngest women’s World Figure Skating Champion.

2004 – Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist terrorist group Hamas, 2 bodyguards, and 9 bystanders are killed in the Gaza Strip when hit by Israeli Air Force Hellfire missiles.

2006 – 3 Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) hostages are freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days of captivity and the murder of their colleague from the U.S., Tom Fox.

2019 – The Special Counsel investigation on the 2016 United States presidential election concludes when Robert Mueller submits his report to the United States Attorney General.

2021 – At a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, Syrian born, and naturalized citizen, Ahmad Al Aliwi Al-Issa kills 10 people and wounds another before being shot,  wounded and captured by  police. Found mentally incompetent, he has not stood trial to date and is being held at a state hospital in Pueblo.

March 21

630 – Emperor Heraclius of Byzantium returns the True Cross relic to Jerusalem from Constantinople.

1788 –  Le Grand incendie de La Nouvelle Orléans – The Great New Orleans Fire, destroys 856 of the 1,100 structures in the city (now the French Quarter) in less than 5 hours.

1871 – Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek across Africa to find the missionary and explorer, Dr. David Livingstone.

1925 – The Butler Act prohibits the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee.

1928 – As he held a commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve, Charles Lindbergh is awarded the Medal of Honor for the first solo trans-Atlantic flight the previous year.

1963 – Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in California closes.

1965 – NASA launches Ranger 9, the last unmanned lunar space probe.

1970 – The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco.

1980 – President Carter announces a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet–Afghan War.

1989 – Transbrasil Flight 801, a Boeing 707, crashes near São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport, killing the 3 crew aboard and 22 more people on the ground.

1999 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.

2006 – The social media site Twitter is founded.

March 20

1760 – The Great Boston Fire of 1760 destroys 349 buildings, as well as several ships in port, leaving over 1ooo people homeless. but with no reported deaths.

1815 – After escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule.

1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published.

1854 – The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.

1883 – The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property – still in force – is signed…….in Paris.

1915 – Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.

1922 – CV-1, the USS Langley is commissioned as the first U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.

1933 – As Chief of Police of Munich, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler orders the creation of Dachau concentration camp.

1952 – The US Senate ratifies the Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan.

1985 – Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135 mile long Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which commemorates the the 1925 diphtheria antitoxin serum dog sled run from Anchorage to Nome.

1995 – The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo carries out a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, killing 13 people and injuring over 6,200 more.

2003 – Under authority of The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, passed by Congress in October, U.S. and Allied ground forces invade Iraq, due to the reports of violations of the 1991 ceasefire agreement.

2015 – The Northern Hemisphere Vernal Equinox, a Solar Eclipse, and a Perigee Syzygy “Supermoon” all occur on the same day.

March 19

1831 – In the first documented bank heist in U.S. history, burglars steal $245,000 from the City Bank -now Citibank -on Wall Street.

1863 – The SS Georgiana, a iron hulled steamer, reputedly designed to be the “most powerful” cruiser in the Confederate fleet when finally armed, is destroyed in action by USS Wissahickon, off Charleston, South Carolina, while being delivered by its builder in Scotland.

1918 – Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time.

1920 – The Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles for the second time, the first time being on November 19, 1919.

1931 – Governor Fred B. Balzar signs into law a bill legalizing gambling in Nevada.

1943 – The day before his appearance to testify in front of a Grand Jury, Frank Nitti, the Chicago Outfit Boss after Al Capone’s imprisonment, instead commits suicide at the Chicago Central Railyard.

1958 – A fire at the Monarch Underwear Company building in Manhattan, causes the deaths of 24 workers.

1964 – In São Paulo, over 500,000 Brazilians attend the March of the Family with God for Liberty, in protest against the government of João Goulart and against communism.

1965 – The wreck of the SS Georgiana, valued at over $50,000,000  is discovered by teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence.

1979 – The House of Representatives begins broadcasting its day to day business via the cable television network C-SPAN.

1982 – Argentinian forces land on South Georgia Island, southwest of the Falkland Islands, precipitating war with the United Kingdom.

2008 – Gamma Ray Burst GRB 080319B,  detected by the Swift satellite, sets a new record for the farthest object visible to the naked eye, seen at magnitude 5.7 for over 30 seconds.

March 18

37 – The Roman Senate annuls the will of Emperor Tiberius and proclaims Gaius Caesar Germanicus, better known as Caligula, emperor.

1241 – After consolidating the invasion of the Kievan Russia to the east, the  Mongols of Genghis Khan under the command of Subutai Bahadur, invade Poland, overwhelm Polish armies in Kraków and plunder the city.

1644 – The Third Anglo-Powhatan War begins in the Colony of Virginia.

1766 – After only being in effect in the American colonies for a few months, due to great protests, -“No Taxation Without Representation” – the British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act. The protests by the colonists are generally considered to be the prelude of events that finally resulted in the Revolutionary War and American Independence.

1793 – The first modern republic in Germany, the Republic of Mainz, with its capitol at Mainz, directly across the Rhine river from Wiesbaden, is formed.

1845 – John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman dies in Fort Wayne, Indiana, age 70.

1865 – At Washington City, Georgia, the Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time and disbands.

1874 – King Kalākaua of Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trade rights.

1925 – During a massive tornado outbreak, the deadliest tornado in U.S history, called the Tri-State Tornado hits the states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people over its 219 mile long track.

1937 – A natural gas leak explodes at the New London School in New London, Texas, killing 300 people, mostly children.

1942 – Less than a month after signing executive order 9066, allowing the internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent, President Roosevelt signs executive order 9102 forming the War Relocation Authority to established the internment camps and take Japanese Americans into custody.

1959 – The Hawaii Admission Act is signed into law, with statehood for Hawaii coming into effect on August, 21.

1965 – Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2, becomes the first person to walk in space.

1968 – The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back U.S. currency.

1990 – In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $500 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

2014 – The parliaments of Russia and Crimea sign an accession treaty allowing Russia to annex the Ukrainian territory.

March 17

180 – Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius dies, age 58 at Vindobona, province of Pannonia Superior, modern day Vienna Austria.

1776 – During the Revolutionary War, the British Army evacuate Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.

1942 – The NAZI death camp near Belzec Poland opens for business. By the time camp is closed in mid 1943 an estimated 500,000 Jews are murdered there.

1945 – 10 days after being taken by troops of the U.S. 9th Armored Division, the Ludendorff Bridge crossing the Rhine river at Remagen, Germany, collapses, killing 28 U.S. Army engineers.

1958 – The U.S. launches Vanguard-1, the first solar powered satellite, which is also the first satellite to achieve a long term orbit, still in orbit to this day.

1960 – President Eisenhower signs a National Security Council directive for an anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

1966 – Off the coast of Palomares, Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds the missing  hydrogen bomb dropped by a B-52 bomber after its midair collision on January 17.

1968 – As a result of open air nerve gas testing at the Dugway Proving Ground in southwest Utah, over 6,000 sheep are killed in Skull Valley, Utah, around 27 miles east of the testing site.

1969 – Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.

1985 –  Richard Ramirez, aka the serial killer “Night Stalker”, commits the first 2 murders in his Los Angeles murder spree.

1988 – Colombian airlines Avianca Flight 410A, a Boeing 727, crashes into a mountainside shortly after takeoff from Camilo Daza International Airport in Cúcuta, killing all 143 passengers and crew aboard.

2000 – In Kanungu, Uganda, after the prophesied date of January 1 passes and second revised date of the Apocalypse arrives without it occurring as well, most of the leaders of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God kill themselves and over 500 members of the group by locking themselves in the church building and setting it afire.