Category: Today

March 16

1621 – Samoset, a Mohegan tribal Sagamore, makes the first visit to the settlers of Plymouth Colony, surprising them when he greets them using the English he had learned from fishermen that sailed along the coast.

1802 – The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.

1916 – U.S. General John J. Pershing commanding the 7th and 10th US Cavalry regiments, crosses the border into Mexico to command the campaign against Pancho Villa.

1926 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts.

1935 – Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.

1945 – On Iwo Jima, after 23 days of continuous combat, organized Japanese resistance ends, but small pockets of soldiers still fight on for a short time.

1962 – Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, a Lockheed Super Constellation, on a charter flight for the U.S. military to the Philippines, disappears in the western Pacific Ocean after a refueling stop on Guam, with all 107 passengers and crew aboard missing and presumed dead.

1966 – Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and David R. Scott, aboard Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first mission to dock with an Agena Target Vehicle, launch from Cape Kennedy, Florida.

1968 – At Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khê hamlets of Sơn Mỹ village in Quảng Ngãi Province, Republic of Vietnam, between 300 and 500 men, women, and children are killed by U.S. troops of the 23rd Infantry Division before being stopped by other U.S. troops.

1984 – William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Lebanon, is kidnapped by Hezbollah.

1985 – Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut.

1988 – U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States as part of the Iran–Contra affair.

1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment which was officially ratified in 1865.

2003 – Pro-Palestinian American activist Rachel Corrie is run over and killed by a bulldozer while trying stop the demolition of a house in Rafah, Gaza Strip, used as a tunnel entrance for terrorists to enter Israel.

2020 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 2,997.10, the single largest point drop in history and the second largest percentage drop ever at 12.93%, an even greater crash than Black Monday of 1929 following the U.S. Federal Reserve announcing that it will cut its target interest rate to 0–0.25%.

2021 – Robert Aaron Long shoots and kills 8 people and wounds another in attacks on 3 different spas in and around Atlanta, Georgia. At trial he pleads guilty and is sentenced to life without parole.

March 15

44 BC – Fearing his concentration of political power as permanent dictator and his personal popularity with the masses would result in him declaring himself King, Julius Caesar is assassinated by a group of Senators

1564 – Mughal Emperor Akbar abolishes the jizya tax on non moslem subjects in India.

1783 – At Newburgh, New York, George Washington publicly speaks to his officers to not support a purported conspiracy to stage a military takeover of the government, due to the army not being paid.

1916 – President Wilson sends 4,800 United States troops over the border into Mexico to pursue Pancho Villa, after his attack on Columbus, New Mexico.

1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first, and the last, President of the Soviet Union.

1991 – The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany comes into effect, restoring full sovereignty to the Federal Republic of Germany and beginning the process for the reunification with the German Democratic Republic

2019 – Brenton Harrison Tarrant murders 51 people and wounds 40 more in an attack at a moslem mosque and islamic center in Christchurch, New Zealand.

March 14

1794 – Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin.

1900 – The Gold Standard Act is signed into law by President McKinley, placing U.S. currency on the gold standard.

1903 – Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the first national wildlife refuge in the US, is established by President Theodore Roosevelt.

1942 – Anne Miller becomes the first American patient to be treated with  the antibiotic penicillin

1951 – During the Korean War, United Nations troops recapture Seoul from the Chinese and North Korean forces for the second time.

1961 – After a decompression accident requires decent to a lower altitude, increasing fuel consumption causing the plane to run out of fuel and forcing the crew to eject, ( all safely ) a USAF B-52 bomber, carrying nuclear weapons, crashes near near Yuba City, California.

1964 – Jack Ruby is convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assumed assassin of President John F. Kennedy.

1967 – The body of President Kennedy is moved to a permanent burial place at Arlington National Cemetery.

1995 – Norman Thagard becomes the first American astronaut to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle.

2019 – Cyclone Idai makes landfall near Beira, Mozambique, causing devastating floods that kill over 1000 people.

March 13

1639 – 3 years after it is founded at Cambridge Massachusetts, by the donation of half his estate and all his library, Harvard College is named after clergyman John Harvard.

1741 – As part of the “War of Jenkins’ Ear”, between Britain and Spain, British forces attempt and fail to capture the port of Cartagena in modern Columbia.

1781 – Astronomer William Herschel, using a homemade telescope in the backyard of his home in Bath, England, discovers Uranus.

1845 – Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto premieres in Leipzig

1862 – The Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves, prohibiting the military from returning escaped, or captured ‘contraband’ slaves, is passed by  Congress, effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

1930 – Astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh, using photographs taken by the 13 inch Lowell Astrograph telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, discovers Pluto.

1954 – The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ begins between French forces under Christian de Castries and Viet Minh forces under Võ Nguyên Giáp

1969 – The Apollo 9 mission ends when the command module Gumdrop returns the crew safely to Earth after they test the Lunar Module Spider in Earth orbit.

1979 – The New Jewel Movement, headed by Maurice Bishop, ousts the Prime Minister of the island of Grenada, Eric Gairy, in a coup d’état.

1996 – At Dunblane Primary School near Stirling, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton, using 4 handguns, kills 16 students, 1 teacher and wounds 15 others before killing himself.

2016 – Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al-Mourabitoun moslem terrorists attack a hotel in the Ivory Coast town of Grand-Bassam, killing 19 people and wounding 33 more before being killed themselves.
Kurdish Hawk terrorists detonate a VBIED on Atatürk Boulevard in Ankara, Turkey, killing 37 people and wounding 125 more.

2020 – In Louisville, Kentucky, Breonna Taylor is killed by return fire when police officers, with a ‘No Knock’ search warrant, forcibly enter her home and are fired on by her boyfriend who claims he believed they were burglars perpetrating a home invasion, since the officers never identified themselves

March 12

1912 – The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded in the United States.

1928 – In California, the St. Francis Dam, in the San Francisquito Canyon of the Sierra Pelona Mountains, fails. The resulting floods killing 431 people.

1930 – Ben Kingsley, err Mahatma Gandhi begins the Salt March, a 200-mile march to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt in India.

1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States, the first of his “fireside chats”

1947 – During the beginning of the Cold War, President Truman announces his Truman Doctrine to Congress that “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”

1989 – English computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee submits his proposal to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, for an information management system, which subsequently develops into the World Wide Web.

1993 – North Korea announces that it will withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refuses to allow inspectors access to its nuclear sites.

1999 – Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO.

2003 – The World Health Organization officially release a global warning of outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

2009 – Financier Bernard Madoff pleads guilty to one of the largest frauds in Wall Street’s history.

2011 – A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

2014 – A gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills 8 and injures 70 others.

2020 – The United States suspends travel from Europe due to the SARS‑CoV‑2/COVID-19 pandemic.

March 11

1861 – The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is adopted, taking effect on February 22, 1862.

1888 – The Great Blizzard of 1888 begins along the eastern seaboard of the United States, shutting down commerce and killing more than 400 people.

1927 – In New York City, Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens the Roxy Theatre.

1941 – President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies ‘on loan’.

1977 – The hostages held in Washington, D.C. by Hanafi Muslims are set free after ambassadors from three Islamic nations join negotiations.

1978 – 38 Israelis are killed and 71 wounded by 11 Fatah moslem terrorists – 9 of whom are later killed at a roadblock – when they hijack a bus traveling on the Israel Coastal Highway

1985 – Mikhail Gorbachev is elected to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, making him the USSR’s last head of state.

2004 – Bombs set by al-Qaeda moslem terrorists simultaneously explode on rush hour trains in Madrid, Spain, killing 191, and wounding 2000 people

2012 – U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, murders 16 and wounds 6 more Afghan civilians in the villages of Balandi and Alkozai of the Panjwayi District near Kandahar, Afghanistan. He is later sentenced to life in prison without parole.

2020 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares the COVID-19 virus epidemic a pandemic.

 

March 10

241 BC – The Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet around the Aegates Islands, off the western coast of the island of Sicily, bringing the First Punic War to an end.

1496 – On the island of Hispaniola, the city of Santo Domingo, the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas, is founded by Christopher Columbus before he departs for Spain, returning from his 2nd voyage of exploration

1535 – Tomás de Berlanga, the fourth Bishop of Panama, discovers the Galápagos Islands on a voyage to Peru.

1629 – Claiming he was entitled to do this under the Royal Prerogative, Charles I Stuart King of England dissolves Parliament, beginning the period known as the Personal Rule or as the Eleven Years’ Tyranny, the first step that led to the English Civil War, and the execution of the King under rule of Oliver Cromwell.

1831 – The French Foreign Legion is created by King Louis Philippe of France from the foreign regiments of the Kingdom.

1848 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Mexican–American War.

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful test of a telephone, speaking; “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” to his assistant Thomas Watson, in the next room

1891 – Almon Strowger patents the Strowger switch, the first telephone circuit switching device.

1922 – Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in India, tried for sedition, and sentenced to 6 years in prison, but serves only 2 years before being released.

1933 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake on the Newport–Inglewood Fault, offshore southern California, hits the Greater Los Angeles Area, leaving 120 people dead and millions of dollars in property damage.

1959 – Fearing an abduction attempt by China, thousands of Tibetans begin a revolt against Chinese intervention and surround the Dalai Lama’s palace in Lhasa to prevent his arrest.

1969 – In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr.

1970 – U.S. Army Captain Ernest Medina is charged by the U.S. military with committing war crimes at My Lai village in Vietnam.

1977 – Astronomers discover rings around Uranus.

2019 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 MAX, crashes near near the town of Bishoftu, Ethiopia, six minutes after takeoff, killing all 157 people aboard. This 2nd crash, determined to be due to a fault in the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, leads to all 737 MAX aircraft being grounded worldwide until the computer control system malfunctions are finally repaired and tests completed in December 2020

2020 – The World Health Organization officially announces the COVID-19 viral outbreak as a pandemic.

March 9

1500 – Following Vasco da Gama’s route around Africa, the fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for the Indies. Sailing farther west into the Atlantic Ocean than planned, the fleet makes landfall on what is now the country of Brazil on the South American continent and Cabral claims it for Portugal since the land lies within boundaries granted to the Portuguese Crown in the Treaty of Tordesillas

1776 – The Wealth of Nations by Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith is published.

1841 – In the case of United States v. The Amistad, the Supreme Court rules that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.

1842 – The first documented discovery of gold in California occurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush.

1847 – During the Mexican–American War, the first large scale amphibious assault in U.S. military history is launched to besiege the city of Veracruz.

1862 – During the war between the states, the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.

1916 – Pancho Villa leads 500 Mexican raiders in an attack on U.S. 13th Cavalry Regiment troop garrisoning the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, killing 40 people, including 15 U.S. civilians, before being driven back across the border after suffering 183 casualties with 7 captured.

1945 – During World War II, 334 B29 bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces carry out Operation Meetinghouse, the first full scale firebombing of Tokyo, destroying most of the capital and killing over 100,000 Japanese, the single deadliest bombing raid of any theater in the war.

1957 – A 8.6 magnitude earthquake hits the Aleutian Islands, causing over $5 million in damage from ground movement and tsunami, but with no deaths or reported injuries.

1959 – The Barbie doll debuts at the American International Toy Fair in New York.

1960 – Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner implants for the first time a vascular shunt he invented, into a patient, which allows the patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular basis.

1967 – Trans World Airlines Flight 553, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, enroute from Pittsburgh to Dayton, crashes in a field in Concord Township, Ohio following a mid air collision with a Beechcraft Baron, killing all 25 passengers and crew aboard the jet and the sole pilot of the Beechcraft.

1977 –  Armed Hanafi moslem terrorists seize 3 buildings in Washington, D.C., murdering 1 hostage and wounding 2 more, including a policeman who later dies, and holding 149 people hostage for 3 days until finally surrendering.

1997 –  Rap artist Christopher George Latore Wallace -The Notorious B.I.G. –  is murdered in Los Angeles after attending the Soul Train Music Awards.

2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes its final mission, STS-133, landing at Kennedy Space Center, having spent a cumulative total of nearly a full year in space

March 8

1010 – After 33 years, Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi completes the epic poem Shahnama.

1775 – An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes “African Slavery in America“, the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.

1782 – 96 Christian Lenape indians are massacred at the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhutten, Ohio by Pennsylvania militia, who had mistakenly identified them as another tribe who had carried out raids into Pennsylvania.

1817 – The New York Stock Exchange is founded.

1917 – The Senate votes to limit filibusters by adopting the parliamentary  cloture rule, where 60 votes can ‘limit debate’.

1936 – The Daytona Beach and Road Course holds its first oval stock car race.

1950 – The Volkswagen Type 2 “Bus” begins production.

1965 – The first U.S. combat troops, 3500 Marines of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, are deployed to Da Nang, Vietnam

1971 – In Madison Square Garden, Joe Frazier defeats Muhammad Ali in a 15 round match.

1979 – The Dutch conglomerate Koninklijke Philips N.V. demonstrates the CD  compact disc publicly for the first time.

1983 – While addressing a convention of The National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando Florida, President Ronald Reagan labels the Soviet Union an “evil empire”.

2004 – Under supervision of the U.S. led Coalition Provisional Authority, the Iraq Governing Council enacts a new constitution.

2014 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777-200ER, carrying 239 passengers and crew, disappears en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the fate of the flight still unknown to date.

March 7

1827 – During the Argentine-Brazilian War, Brazilian marines unsuccessfully attack the temporary naval base of Carmen de Patagones, held by militia of United Provinces of the Río de la Plata,  near modern day Buenos Ares, Argentina.

1850 – In the hope to prevent war between the states, Senator Daniel Webster gives his “Seventh of March” speech endorsing the Compromise of 1850, regulating the slave vs. free status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War under terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and setting the state of Texas’ western and northern borders.

1862 – Union and Confederate troops engage in battle at Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas.

1876 – After Elisha Gray drops his application, the U.S. patent office grants Alexander Graham Bell a patent for the telephone.

1936 – In violation of the Locarno Pact and the Treaty of Versailles, Germany reoccupies the Rhineland. France and Britain protest, but neither has the military forces to pursue the issue.

1945 – During World War II, American troops seize the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine river at Remagen, opening the way to the heartland of Germany’s and its industrial regions.

1986 – Divers from the USS Preserver locate the crew cabin of Shuttle Challenger on the Atlantic ocean floor.

1989 – Iran and the United Kingdom break diplomatic relations after a confrontation over Salman Rushdie and his novel, The Satanic Verses.

1993 – The tugboat Thomas Hebert sinks, or is dragged underwater off the coast of New Jersey with the loss of 5 of the 7 crew aboard.

March 6

12 BC – The Roman Emperor Augustus is named Pontifex Maximus – Greatest Priest – the chief high priest of the pagan College of Pontiffs in ancient Rome, adding that title to Emperor.

845 – The 42 Martyrs of Amorium, taken prisoner years earlier during the sack of that byzantine city, are killed after refusing to convert to Islam.

961 – The byzantine army under the command of Nikephoros Phokas conquers the moslem fortress Rabḍ al-Handaq at Heraklion, completing the retaking of the island of Crete.

1521 – During his circumnavigation, Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam.

1820 – The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe.

1836 – After a 13 day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops under Generalissimo Santa Anna, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and Colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo are killed and the fort captured.

1857 – In the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court rules 7–2 in that the Constitution does not confer citizenship on black people.

1899 – Bayer registers “Aspirin” as a trademark.

1933 – During the Great Depression, 2 days after his inauguration, President Roosevelt declares a “bank holiday”, closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions until Congress can pass a Emergency Banking Relief Act on March 9 that reopens banks on March 13.

1946 – Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.

1951 – The trial of Soviet spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

1953 – At the death of Joseph Stalin the previous day, Georgy Malenkov succeeds him as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1970 – Members of the terrorist Weather Underground succeed in detonating several bombs they were making at a safe house in Greenwich Village, killing 3 of them.

1975 – For the first time the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory.

2018 – Forbes financial service names Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person, for the first time, at $112 billion net worth.

 

March 5

1496 – King Henry VII of England issues letters patent to John Cabot and his sons, authorizing them to explore “part[s] of the world placed, which before this time were unknown to all Christians.” which lead to his voyages to North America.

1616 – Nicolaus Copernicus’ book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres – explaining his theory that the Sun is at the center of the universe, (a better, but still not perfect idea than that the Earth was at the center) is added to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum – Index of Forbidden Books – by the Roman Catholic Curia, 73 years after it was first published

1770 – 5 Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are killed by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the “Boston Massacre”.

1836 – Under American patent #138, Samuel Colt’s Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, is chartered by the New Jersey legislature.

1872 – George Westinghouse patents the air brake.

1936 – The prototype Supermarine Spitfire – K5054 – is flown for the first time.

1943 – The Gloster Meteor, Britain’s first combat jet aircraft is flown for the first time.

1946 – Winston Churchill coins the phrase “Iron Curtain” in his speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri.

1953 – Joseph Stalin, the longest serving leader of the Soviet Union, dies at his dacha in Moscow after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage four days earlier.

1970 – The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons goes into effect after ratification by 43 nations.

1974 – Occupied since October of the previous year during the Yom Kippur War,  Israeli forces withdraw from the west bank of the Suez Canal.

 

March 4

306 – Adrian of Nicomedia, a Herculian Guard of the Roman Emperor Galerius Maximian, is martyred soon after converting from paganism upon hearing the testimony of those he was torturing for their faith.

1493 – Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard Niña from his first voyage to the new world.

1519 – Conquistador Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization.

1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter.

1681 – William Penn is granted a Royal charter to colonize the area that will later become Pennsylvania.

1776 – During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston.

1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect.

1791 – Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state.

1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification

1797 – John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States of America, becoming the first President to begin his term of office on March 4.

1814 – During the War of 1812, American forces under Captain Andrew Holmes, engage and defeat British troops at the Battle of Longwoods between London, Ontario and present-day Wardsville, Ontario.

1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated.

1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the “Stars and Bars”) is adopted.

1865 – The third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted by the Confederate Congress.

1908 – The Lakeview School near Cleveland, Ohio, catches on fire, killing 172 students, 2 teachers and 1 fire fighter.

1913 – The United States Department of Labor is formed.

1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.

1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is sworn in as the 32nd President, and the last President to be inaugurated on March 4.

1933 – Frances Perkins becomes Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the Cabinet.

1957 – The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.

1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for HIV infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the U.S.

1998 – In the case of Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc, the Supreme Court rules that federal laws banning on the job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.

2002 – During Operation Anaconda, 7 U.S. Special Operations Forces soldiers are killed ande 20 wounded, while killing 200 Al Qaeda fighters during battle atop Takur Ghar mountain in Afghanistan, as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shah i Kot Valley.
Among many awards for valor, U.S. Navy Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Britt K. Slabinski and U.S. Air Force Combat Controller Technical Sergeant John A. Chapman eventually receive the Medal of Honor, Sergeant Chapman, posthumously.

 

March 3

1776 – The first amphibious landing of the United States Marine Corps begins the Battle of Nassau, Bahamas, during the Revolution.

1779 –A small contingent of Continental regulars supported by a larger force of North Carolina and Georgia patriot militia is routed by a slightly smaller force of British regulars and loyalist militia at the Battle of Brier Creek near Savannah, Georgia.

1791 – Congress passes the Internal Revenue Act  providing for taxes on distilled liquor and tobacco products inciting what would later be called the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

1820 – Having been sent the bill after passage in the House of Representatives over a year previous, the Senate passes the Missouri Compromise act

1845 – Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.

1849 – The Territory of Minnesota is created

1873 – Congress passes the Comstock Act, making it illegal to send any “obscene literature and articles of immoral use” through the mail.

1891 – The Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming is established as the first national forest in the US

1910 – John D. Rockefeller Jr. announces his retirement from managing his businesses so that he can devote all his time to philanthropy.

1924 – Kemal Atatürk completes his reform of Turkey into a secular state with the deposing of Caliph Abdülmecid II, ending the Ottoman Caliphate.

1931 – The United States adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.

1938 – The Dammam oil well No. 7 in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, makes the first oil strike in the country.

1969 – NASA launches Apollo 9 with astronauts, James A. McDivitt
David R. Scott and Russell L. Schweickart aboard, to test the lunar module in Earth orbit.

1972 – Mohawk Airlines Flight 405, a Fairchild-Hiller FH-227, crashes in a housing area in Albany, New York, killing 16 of the 48 passengers and crew aboard.

1991 – United Airlines Flight 585, a Boeing 737, crashes on its final approach to Colorado Springs killing all 25 passengers and crew aboard and injuring 1 person on the ground.

2005 – Steve Fossett, piloting the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, becomes the first person to fly an airplane non stop around the world solo without refueling.

Today, March 2

537 – The Ostrogoth army under King Vitiges begins the first siege of Rome.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s fleet lands at the Island of Mozambique, off north central Mozambique proper.

1776 – Patriot militia units arrest the Royal Governor of Georgia, James Wright, and attempt to prevent capture of supply ships in the ‘Battle of the Rice Boats’ up the Savannah river on the border between Georgia and South Carolina.
On the west side of British occupied Boston, at Lechmere’s Point and Cobble Hill, Continental troops under command of George Washington emplace cannon and begin shelling the city, using that as a diversion to begin construction of fortifications for more cannon on Dorchester Heights, during the nights of March 2 and 3.

1778 – Nathanael Greene is appointed Quartermaster General of the Continental Army under George Washington

1807 – Congress passes An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves…, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.

1836 – The Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico is adopted by the delegates in convention at Washington on the Brazos, Texas.

1867 – The U.S. Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act.

1877 – Just 2 days before the mandated date of inauguration, Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the 1876 presidential election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote.

1901 – Congress passes the Platt Amendment to the 1901 Army Appropriations Bill, limiting the autonomy of Cuba to conduct foreign affairs except under U.S. dominance, as a condition of the withdrawal of American troops from occupation since the end of the Spanish-American War.

1903 – In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.

1917 – President Wilson signs the Jones–Shafroth Act into law, granting U.S. citizenship to anyone born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899.

1919 – The Comintern – Communist International – meets in Moscow for the first time.

1949 – The U.S. Air Force having fitted the new aircraft for inflight refueling, Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first nonstop around the world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute, just short of 4 days of constant flight.

1965 – The US and Republic of Vietnam Air Force begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

1972 – Pioneer 10 is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.

1983 – Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets.

1991 – Having been fired upon by retreating units of the Iraqi Republican Guards, units of the U.S. 24th Infantry division engage and nearly wipe out the Iraqi force near the Rumaila oil fields, in the Euphrates Valley of southern Iraq.

1995 – Using the Collider Detector and DZero detector devices for experiments with the Tevatron Collider at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, researchers announce the detection of the t ‘top’ quark subatomic particle.

1998 – Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter’s moon Europa (Attempt No Landing There) has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.

2012 – A tornado outbreak occurs over a large section of the Southern United States and into the Ohio Valley region, resulting in 40 fatalities.

OOps

March 1

293 – Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appoint Constantius Chlorus (later Constantine the 1st) and Galerius as Caesars. This is considered the beginning of the Tetrarchy, known as the Quattuor Principes Mundi  -Four Rulers of the World.

1633 – Samuel de Champlain reclaims his role as commander of New France, which covered most of central and northeastern North America, on behalf of Cardinal Richelieu.

1692 – Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning the Salem witch trials.

1781 – The Articles of Confederation goes into effect forming the first national government of the United States.

1790 – The first United States census is authorized.

1805 – Justice Samuel Chase is acquitted at the end of his impeachment trial by the U.S. Senate.

1836 – A convention of delegates from 57 Texas communities convenes in Washington on the Brazos, Texas, to deliberate independence from Mexico.

1845 – President John Tyler signs a Joint Resolution of Congress authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas which occurred at the end of the year.

1867 – Nebraska is admitted as the 37th U.S. state.

1872 – President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law creating Yellowstone as the first ‘national park’.

1893 – Electrical engineer Nikola Tesla gives the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis.

1896 – Henri Becquerel discovers radioactive decay.

1910 – The deadliest avalanche in United States history buries a Great Northern Railway train in northeastern King County, Washington, killing 96 people.

1912 – U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry performs the first static line type parachute jump from an airplane. No information is known about whether he knew the difference between a PLF and a PFL.

1917 – The Zimmermann Telegram is reprinted in newspapers across the United States after the U.S. government releases its unencrypted text.

1932 – Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.,  the 20 month old son of aviators Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, is kidnapped from his home.

1947 – The International Monetary Fund begins financial operations.

1950 – German born, allied atomic bomb scientist, Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union for disclosing top secret atomic bomb data.

1954 – The U.S. Castle Bravo test detonates a thermonuclear hydrogen device on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. An unforeseen nuclear reaction of the components results in a 15 megaton blast, 2 1/2 times the expected power, the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the U.S.

1954 – Armed Puerto Rican nationalists attack the United States Capitol building, wounding five Representatives.

1956 – The International Air Transport Association finalizes a draft of the Radiotelephony spelling alphabet for the International Civil Aviation Organization. NATO military allies quickly adopt the new phonetic alphabet.

1961–  President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.

1966 – The Venera 3 Soviet space probe crashes on Venus becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet’s surface.

1974 – A Federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. indicts several former aides of President Nixon, known as the “Watergate Seven” for conspiring to hinder the Watergate burglary investigation. The grand jury also secretly names Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator.

1991 – A popular insurgency against Saddam Hussein begins in Iraq but lacking international support, ultimately fails a month later.

1992 – Bosnia and Herzegovina declares its independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

2002 – In the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains southeast of Zormat in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. forces begin an invasion –Operation Anaconda– to engage and destroy Taliban and Al Qaeda forces.

2003 – Management of the United States Customs Service and the United States Secret Service move to the United States Department of Homeland Security.

2005 – In the case of Roper v. Simmons, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the execution of juveniles found guilty of murder is unconstitutional.

2007 – Tornadoes break out across the southern United States, killing at least 20 people, including 8 at Enterprise Alabama High School.

 

February 28

1525 – Aztec king Cuauhtémoc is executed on the order of conquistador Hernán Cortés at Itzamkanac, in modern southern Mexico for allegedly conspiring to kill him and other Spaniards while on a journey to modern Honduras

1646 – In Lynn, Massachusetts, Roger Scott is tried, convicted and sentenced to be whipped for striking back at the Tithingman, who had hit him on the head with his staff for sleeping in church.

1794– The US Senate voids Pennsylvania’s election of Abraham Gallatin to the Senate due to him not having been a resident of the U.S. for the required length of time.

1827 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

1847 – The Battle of the Sacramento River during the Mexican–American War is a decisive victory for the United States leading to the capture of the city of Chihuahua.

1849 – Regular steamship service from the east to the west coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months and 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.

1878 – Congress overrides President Hayes veto of the Bland–Allison Act, which required the the U.S. Treasury to buy a certain amount of silver and put it into circulation as silver dollars, returning silver as legal tender money.

1893 – BB-1, the USS Indiana, the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time, is launched.

1925 – A 6.2 magnitude earthquake strikes northeastern North America near the Charlevoix-Kamouraska area along the Saint Lawrence River causing extensive damage in several villages along the river, but no reported deaths, or injuries.

1933 – The Reichstag Fire Decree is issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg, on the advice of Chancellor Adolf Hitler, a day after the Reichstag fire. It nullifies many of the key civil liberties of German citizens and is used by the Nazis government as the ‘legal’ basis for the imprisonment of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazism.

1935 – DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invents Nylon.

1953 – James Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25

1954 – The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.

1958 – A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunges down an embankment into the Levisa Fork river. The driver and 26 children die in the worst school bus accident in U.S. history.

1966 – A NASA T-38 Talon crashes into the McDonnell Aircraft factory while attempting to land at Lambert Field, St. Louis, killing astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett.

1972 – The United States and China sign the Shanghai Communiqué, a pledge to work towards the normalization of the two nations

1983 – The final episode of M*A*S*H airs, holding the record for the highest viewership of a season and series finale.

1991 – 1oo hours after beginning offensive ground operations against Iraq to liberate Kuwait, President Bush, following advice from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell to cease further incursion into Iraq, declares victory and an immediate cease fire, effectively ending the first Gulf War.

1993 – Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms stage a raid on the compound of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, an offshoot group of the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Church, in Waco, Texas, with a warrant to arrest the group’s leader David Koresh.
4 ATF agents and 6 Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51 day standoff.

1997 – After robbing the North Hollywood branch of the Bank of America, Larry Phillips and Emil Mătăsăreanu engage multiple officers of the Los Angeles Police Department in a running street gunfight, wounding 12 officers and 8 citizens, until Phillips is wounded and commits suicide and Mătăsăreanu is wounded and dies before emergency medical personnel arrive.

2001 – The 6.8 magnitude Nisqually earthquake, with the epicenter in the southern Puget Sound, causes over $1 Billion in damage in the Seattle metropolitan area, injures over 400 people and causes 1 person to suffer a fatal heart attack.

2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Roman Catholic Church, becoming the first to do so since Pope Gregory XII, in 1415.

February 27

272 – Flavius Valerius Constantinus – Roman Emperor Constantine the Great –  is born in Naissus, Dacia province, now the city of Niš, Serbia.

380 – Under the Edict of Thessalonica, Emperor Theodosius I and his co-emperors, sons Gratian and Valentinian II, declare their wish that all Roman citizens convert to Christianity as defined in the Nicene creed.

1776 – During the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge near Wilmington in North Carolina a battalion of the North Carolina Provincial Congress’ Militia breaks up a loyalist militia that the British governor had recruited to join British forces.

1782 – The House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.

1801 – Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely regarded as responsible for his election to the Presidency.

1902 – During the Second Boer War, Australian soldiers Harry “Breaker” Morant and Peter Handcock are executed in Pretoria after being convicted of war crimes.

1922 – In the case of Leser v. Garnett, the Supreme Court rules against a challenge to the constitutionality of the 19th amendment.

1933 – Germany’s parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire.

1939 –  In the case of NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp, the Supreme Court rules that the National Labor Relations Board has no authority to force an employer to rehire workers who engage in sit-down strikes.

1943 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.

1951 – The 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.

1973 – The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee in protest of the federal government.

1991 – After Saddam Hussein orders a full retreat, President Bush announces the liberation of Kuwait, however hostilities continue and retreating Iraqi forces are engaged and bombed so extensively by coalition air forces along Highway 80 from Kuwait City to Safwan Iraq, that it comes to be called the Highway of Death.

2004 – Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack.

2010 – An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale that strikes central parts of Chile, killing 500 people, and injuring many more, triggers a tsunami which strikes Hawaii

 

February 26

747 BC – According to Roman astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in his book the Almagest, the rule of King Nabonassar of Babylon begins at noon on this date and is used by historians for dating historic events.

1616 – Galileo Galilei is formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.

1815 – After being exiled there for a year, Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from the Mediterranean island of Elba aboard the brig Inconstant, to again seize control as the Emperor of France.

1869 – The 15th Amendment to the Constitution is sent to the states for ratification.

1907 – Congress raises their own salaries to $7,500 (about $213,000 in today’s dollars)

1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signs into law an act of Congress establishing the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

1929 – President Calvin Coolidge signs an executive order establishing the  Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

1933 – The groundbreaking ceremony for the Golden Gate Bridge is held at Crissy Field.

1935 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be reformed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

1966 – Nasa launches mission AS-201, an unmanned, block 1, Apollo Command and Service Module aboard the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket.

1971 – U.N. Secretary-General U Thant signs a United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.

1980 – As part of the Camp David Accords, Egypt and Israel establish full diplomatic relations.

1991  – Tasked with securing a vital crossroad in the Iraqi town of Al Busayyah, defended by an armored infantry Iraqi force of Battalion strength, the U.S. 2nd Iron Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, commanded by General Frederick M. Franks with the 4th Black Lions Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William C. Feyk,  guarding the flanks, engages and destroys over a dozen Iraqi armored and twice that number of tactical support vehicles, in less that 3 hours, without suffering any casualties

Near coordinate line 73 Easting in the Iraqi desert, squadrons of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Toujour Pret Regiment, find and engage elements of the Iraqi Republican Guards Tawakalna Division’s 18th Brigade and the 12th Armored Division’s 9th Armored Brigade, destroying 55 Iraqi tanks, 45 other armored vehicles with hundreds of Iraqi infantry killed in action and thousands taken prisoner.

1993 – In New York City, a truck bomb parked in the underground garage below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, fails to collapse the tower into the South Tower, but still kills 6 and injures over a 100o people. This failure and the subsequent increase in building access security cause Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda moslem terrorist group to devise the plot to later crash large commercial  aircraft into the towers.

2008 – The New York Philharmonic performs in Pyongyang, North Korea; the first event of its kind to take place in North Korea.

2012 – Trayvon Martin is shot to death in self defense by George Zimmerman while assaulting the Sanford, Florida neighborhood watch coordinator

February 25

1791 –  Congress charters the First Bank of the United States for a term of twenty years.

1799 – Congress passes the Federal Timber Purchasers Act, giving the government authority to purchase wood and land to provide resources for the navy.

1836 – Samuel Colt is granted a U.S. patent for his revolver firearm.

1837 – Thomas Davenport is granted a U.S. patent of his electric printing press.

1843 – Royal Navy Captain Lord George Paulet takes it on his own authority to occupy the Kingdom of Hawaii in the name of Great Britain.

1862 – Congress passes the Legal Tender Act, which President Lincoln signs into law the next day,  and forms the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to print newly issued U.S. paper currency, the United States Note, nicknamed the ‘Greenback’.

1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in Congress.

1901 – The US Steel Corporation is organized under the chairmanship of J. P. Morgan, Sr.

1932 – Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship when he is appointed a Brunswick state official by Dietrich Klagges, a fellow Nazi. As a result, Hitler is able to run for Reichspräsident in the 1932 election.

1933 – CV-4 USS Ranger, the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned by the US Navy, is launched from Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co, at Newport News, Virginia, sponsored by Mrs. Lou Henry Hoover, wife of the President.

1951 – The first Pan American Games are officially opened in Buenos Aires by Argentine President Juan Perón.

1982 – Those who shall remain nameless are eternally grateful that the final episode of The Lawrence Welk Show airs.

1991 – At a meeting in Budapest, the membership decides to disband the Warsaw Pact.
In Dhahran, Saudi Arabia an Iraqi SCUD missile hits a building used as barracks for U.S. forces, killing 27 servicemembers and wounding another 98.