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.