February 28
1986:
Olof Palme assassinated.
Olof Palme, the internationally prominent prime minister of Sweden (1969–76, 1982–86) whose strong pacifist beliefs included opposition to the Vietnam War, was assassinated this day in Stockholm in 1986.
1942:
During World War II, Japanese troops landed on the island of Java, which they occupied until 1945.
1922:
Egypt was declared an independent country.
1906:
American gangster Bugsy Siegel was born in Brooklyn, New York.
1901:
American chemist Linus Pauling, who received two Nobel Prizes, one for Chemistry in 1954 and another for Peace in 1962 (for efforts to control the spread of nuclear weaponry), was born.
1827:
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad became the first steam-operated railway in the United States to be chartered as a common carrier of freight and passengers.
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February 29
1992:
Voting begun on Bosnian independence.
Beginning this day in 1992, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina held a referendum on independence that won almost unanimous support, and on March 3 independence was proclaimed, prompting shelling by Serbian forces.
1920:
A new, democratic constitution was adopted by the National Assembly elected by Czech and Slovak leaders, furthering the consolidation of the two states into Czechoslovakia.
1904:
Jimmy Dorsey, whose orchestra was one of the most popular big bands of the swing era in the United States, was born.
1768:
The Confederation of Bar was organized to defend the privileges of the Roman Catholic Church and the independence of Poland against Russian encroachment.
1736:
Ann Lee (“Mother Ann”), the religious leader who brought the Shaker sect from England to the American colonies, was born in Manchester, England.
1704:
The town of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was razed in the bloodiest battle of Queen Anne's War.
March 1
1872:
Establishment of Yellowstone as world's first national park.
Yellowstone National Park, situated in the western United States and designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978, was established by the U.S. Congress as the country's—and the world's—first national park this day in 1872.
1961:
The Peace Corps was established by U.S. President John F. Kennedy by means of his Peace Corps Act.
1932:
The infant son of American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was abducted from his home, Bruno Hauptmann being later convicted of the baby's kidnapping and murder.
1919:
Protesters in Seoul, Korea, launched the March First Movement, a series of demonstrations for Korean national independence from Japan.
1896:
The Ethiopian army of Emperor Menilek II won a decisive victory against the Italian army at Adwa, Ethiopia.
1875:
Republicans in the U.S. Congress passed the last of the Force Acts, which protected the constitutional rights of blacks during Reconstruction.
March 2
1956:
Moroccan independence declared.
The North African country of Morocco, situated directly across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain, proclaimed independence from France this day in 1956, with the sultan Muhammad V forming its first government.
1962:
American basketball player Wilt Chamberlain scored a record 100 points in a National Basketball Association (NBA) game.
1930:
English novelist D.H. Lawrence died in Vence, France (his ashes were moved in 1935 to Taos, New Mexico, where he once had lived).
1917:
The Jones Act took effect, designating Puerto Rico as a territory of the United States, “organized but unincorporated,” and conferring U.S. citizenship collectively on Puerto Ricans.
1900:
Composer Kurt Weill, who created a revolutionary kind of opera of sharp social satire in collaboration with the writer Bertolt Brecht, was born in Germany.
1867:
Over U.S. President Andrew Johnson's veto, Radical Republicans in Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, forbidding the president to remove civil officers without senatorial consent.
1865:
Confederate forces under General Jubal A. Early suffered a decisive defeat that ended Southern resistance in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, during the American Civil War, and the Confederacy collapsed the following month.
1498:
Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama and his fleet reached the island of Mozambique on their first voyage to India.
March 3
2005:
Steve Fossett's circumnavigation of Earth.
On this day in 2005, American adventurer Steve Fossett became the first person to complete a solo nonstop circumnavigation of the globe without refueling when he landed in Kansas after more than 67 hours in flight.
1962:
American Jackie Joyner-Kersee, considered by many to be the greatest female athlete ever, was born.
1934:
American bank robber John Dillinger made a daring escape from prison at Crown Point, Indiana.
1931:
"The Star-Spangled Banner," written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, was officially adopted as the national anthem of the United States by act of Congress.
1923:
The first issue of the American weekly newsmagazine Time was published.
1918:
The second of two treaties of Brest-Litovsk concluded hostilities between the Central Powers and Soviet Russia during World War I.
1861:
The Russian emperor Alexander II issued the Emancipation Manifesto, freeing the serfs from slavery.
1820:
Henry Clay helped win passage of the Missouri Compromise, which divided the United States over the issue of slavery for years afterward.
1671:
The Paris Opéra first opened, with a performance of Pomone by composer Robert Cambert.
March 4
1933:
Inauguration of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
On this day in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd U.S. president, and later he led the country out of the Depression and to victory in World War II.
1837:
Chicago was incorporated as a city, with a population of about 4,200.
1804:
Irish convicts rose up in the Castle Hill Rising, Australia's first rebellion.
1789:
The U.S. Constitution went into effect as the governing law of the United States, the date having been established by Congress.
1681:
William Penn secured from King Charles II of England the colonial province of Pennsylvania in North America, hoping to provide a refuge in the New World for Quakers and other persecuted people and to build an ideal Christian commonwealth.
1678:
Italian composer and violinist Antonio Vivaldi, who left a decisive mark on the form of the concerto and the style of late Baroque instrumental music, was born.
1461:
King Henry VI of England was deposed by Yorkists and replaced by Edward IV.
March 5
1770:
Boston Massacre.
Harassed by a mob, British troops on this day in 1770 opened fire, killing Crispus Attucks and four others in the Boston Massacre, an event that galvanized anti-British feelings in the lead-up to the American Revolution.
1979:
The U.S. space probe Voyager 1 flew by Io, the innermost of Jupiter's satellites, and observed nine active volcanoes on its surface.
1953:
Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin died in Moscow and was succeeded by Georgy Malenkov.
1946:
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill popularized the term “Iron Curtain”—describing the separation between Soviet and Western nations—in a speech at Fulton, Missouri.
1887:
Brazilian musician and Latin American composer Heitor Villa-Lobos was born in Rio de Janeiro.
1871:
Polish German activist Rosa Luxemburg, who played a key role in the founding of the Polish Social Democratic Party and the Spartacus League, was born in Zamość.
1798:
Napoleon invaded Switzerland and occupied Bern, ending the ancient ruling system of that country, the Confederation of the Thirteen Cantons.
March 6
1924:
King Tut's tomb opened.
On this day in 1924, the Egyptian government opened the mummy case of King Tutankhamen, ruler of Egypt in the 14th century BC, whose burial chamber had been discovered in 1922 by renowned British archaeologist Howard Carter.
1957:
Ghana became an independent nation, led by Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah.
1928: Latin American author Gabriel García Márquez was born in Aracataca, Colombia.
1857:
U.S. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney announced the Dred Scott decision, making slavery legal in all U.S. territories.
1853:
Giuseppe Verdi's opera La traviata premiered at La Fenice opera house in Venice.
1836:
The Alamo in Texas fell to Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna after a 13-day siege.
1619:
French satirist and dramatist Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac was born in Paris.
March 7
1965:
Attack on civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama.
On this day in 1965, state troopers used nightsticks and tear gas to attack American civil rights activists as they crossed a bridge in Selma, Alabama, during their march to the state capitol in Montgomery.
1987:
American boxer Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight to acquire the World Boxing Association (WBA) championship belt when he defeated James Smith in 12 rounds.
1876:
Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the telephone.
1875:
Composer Maurice Ravel was born in Ciboure, France.
1850:
U.S. Senator Daniel Webster spoke out in favour of the Compromise of 1850 (enacted in September), a series of moderate measures that addressed the question of slavery in U.S. territories.
1792:
English astronomer Sir John Herschel, a successor to his father, Sir William Herschel, in the field of stellar and nebular observation and discovery, was born.
1644:
Massachusetts established the first bicameral legislature in North America.
161:
Marcus Aurelius became emperor of Rome.
March 8
1702:
British throne ascended by Anne.
On this day in 1702, Anne became the last Stuart monarch of Great Britain, having earlier acquiesced to the Act of Settlement of 1701, which designated as her successors the Hanoverian descendants of King James I.
1971:
American boxer Joe Frazier retained his world heavyweight championship by winning a 15-round decision over former champion Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1942:
Japanese troops captured Rangoon, Burma (Yang鬾, Myanmar) during World War II.
1917:
The U.S. Senate voted to limit filibusters by adopting the rule of cloture.
1917:
Rioting in St. Petersburg marked the beginning of the February Revolution and the first stage of the Russian Revolution.
1857:
Hundreds of women workers in New York City's garment and textile factories staged a strike against low wages, long working hours, and inhumane work conditions.
March 9
1831:
Creation of French Foreign Legion.
The Foreign Legion, whose unofficial motto is “Legio patria nostra” (“The legion is our fatherland”), was founded this day in 1831 by King Louis-Philippe as an aid in controlling French colonial possessions in Africa.
1975:
Belgian novelist and poet Marie Gevers, who wrote works that evoked Kempenland, a rural area in which she spent most of her life, died.
1945:
The U.S. Army Air Forces bombed Tokyo with napalm, causing fires that destroyed a quarter of the city and killed some 80,000 civilians.
1943:
American chess master Bobby Fischer was born in Chicago.
1930:
American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Ornette Coleman was born in Fort Worth, Texas.
1916:
Pancho Villa's men killed more than a dozen in a raid on Columbus, New Mexico.
1862:
The Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, a duel between ironclads during the American Civil War, marked the beginning of a new era of naval warfare.
1454:
Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence.
432:
The Parthenon was consecrated in Athens.
March 10
1933:
Opening of the Nazis' first concentration camp.
On this day in 1933, soon after Adolf Hitler became chancellor, the first concentration camp in Germany opened at Dachau, where at least 32,000 people would die from disease, malnutrition, physical oppression, and execution.
1913:
In Toledo, Ohio, William Knox became the first bowler to make a perfect score of 300 in an American Bowling Congress tournament.
1903:
American jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, Iowa.
1876:
Alexander Graham Bell's “liquid” transmitter design permitted the first transmission of speech by Bell to his assistant, Thomas Watson.
1864:
The Red River Campaign began in the American Civil War.
1793:
In Paris, on the proposal of Georges Danton, the National Convention decreed the establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal.
March 11
2004:
Terrorist bombings in Madrid.
On this day in 2004, Madrid suffered a series of terrorist attacks when 10 bombs, detonated by Islamist militants, exploded on four trains at three different rail stations, killing 191 people and injuring some 1,800 others.
1985:
Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded Konstantin Chernenko as leader of the Soviet Union.
1959:
Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun became the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway.
1942:
During World War II, Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific Theatre came under the command of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur following his tour on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.
1941:
The U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act.
1930:
William Howard Taft was the first U.S. president to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
1926:
African American civil rights leader Ralph David Abernathy was born in Linden, Alabama.
1544:
Torquato Tasso, the greatest Italian poet of the late Renaissance, was born in Sorrento, Kingdom of Naples.
March 12
1947:
Truman Doctrine pronounced.
On this day in 1947, U.S. President Harry S. Truman articulated what became known as the Truman Doctrine when he asked Congress to appropriate aid for Greece and Turkey, both of which were facing communist threats.
2003:
The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a worldwide health alert, one of the first in a decade, regarding an illness it later called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that struck hundreds of people in China, and Vietnam.
1999:
Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic became members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) shortly before the group's 50th anniversary.
1948:
American singer, songwriter, and guitarist James Taylor was born.
1940:
Finland agreed to Soviet peace terms, including the cession of western Karelia and the construction of a Soviet naval base on the Hanko Peninsula, to end the Russo-Finnish War.
1849:
The Sikh army surrendered to the British at the end of the Second Sikh War, conceding to the annexation of the Punjab in northwestern India.
1831:
American manufacturer Clement Studebaker, founder of the Studebaker automobile company, was born in Pinetown, Pennsylvania.
1804:
Samuel Chase became the first (and, so far, only) U.S. Supreme Court justice to be impeached.
March 13
1781:
The planet Uranus discovered.
English astronomer William Herschel observed this day in 1781 the seventh planet from the Sun, Uranus—first described by him as “a curious either nebulous star or perhaps a comet” and named for the father of the god Saturn.
1986:
Soviet cosmonauts Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyev were sent aloft aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to rendezvous with the space station Mir and become its first occupants.
1938:
The Anschluss, political union between Austria and Germany, was announced.
1884:
Al-Mahdī began the Siege of Khartoum, capital of the Sudan, which was defended by an Egyptian garrison under the British general Charles George (“Chinese”) Gordon.
1881:
Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in St. Petersburg.
March 14
2004:
Reelection of Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin, the intelligence officer and politician who became president of Russia in 1999 upon the resignation of Boris Yeltsin, was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term as president this day in 2004.
1969:
The Beatles' Yellow Submarine became the rock band's 14th gold album.
1964:
In the first courtroom verdict to be televised in the United States, Jack Ruby was found guilty of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
1951:
United Nations forces recaptured Seoul during the Korean War.
1883:
Historian and revolutionary Karl Marx died in London.
1864:
Celebrated American railroad engineer Casey Jones was born in southeastern Missouri.
1826:
The first Pan-American conference convened in Panama with representatives from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Central America in attendance.
1794:
American inventor Eli Whitney received a patent for the cotton gin.
1681:
German composer Georg Philipp Telemann was born in Magdeburg, Brandenburg.
March 15
44 :
Julius Caesar assassinated on the Ides of March.
In 44 BC Roman dictator Julius Caesar was launching a series of political and social reforms when he was assassinated this day, the Ides of March, by a group of nobles, among whom were Cassius and Brutus.
2003:
Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang Zemin as the president of China.
1917:
During the first phase of the Russian Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, thus ending the rule of the Romanov dynasty.
1875:
Pope Pius IX appointed John McCloskey the first American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
1781:
American revolutionaries won a strategic victory over the British at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina.
1614:
Franciscus Sylvius, whose studies helped shift medical emphasis from mystical speculation to a rational application of the laws of physics, was born in Hanau, Germany.
March 16
1968:
My Lai Massacre.
On this day in 1968, during the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers dispatched on a search-and-destroy mission killed as many as 500 unarmed villagers in the hamlet of My Lai, considered a stronghold of the Viet Cong.
1945:
U.S. Marines captured the Japanese island of Iwo Jima during World War II.
1926:
American inventor Robert H. Goddard launched the first successful liquid-propellant rocket.
1921:
The Treaty of Moscow established friendly relations between the nationalist government of Turkey and the Soviet Union.
1850:
American author Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was published.
1802:
The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York—one of the oldest service academies in the world—was originally founded as a training centre for the U.S. Corps of Engineers.
1521:
Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, sailing under the Spanish flag on his circumnavigation of the globe, reached the Philippines, securing the first alliance in the Pacific Islands for Spain.
March 17
1992:
Vote to end apartheid.
On this day in 1992, nearly 69 percent of white South African voters backed F.W. de Klerk's reforms—which included the repeal of racially discriminatory laws—and effectively endorsed the dismantling of apartheid.
Today:
St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, died this day in 461, according to legend, and now his feast day is celebrated widely in Ireland and the United States.
1938: Poland issued an ultimatum to Lithuania in an attempt to settle the territorial dispute over the city of Vilnius.
1917:
Nat King Cole, an American musician who first came to prominence as a jazz pianist but who reached enormous popularity with his warm, relaxed, somewhat breathy-voiced ballad singing, was born.
1905:
Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, married her distant cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt, later U.S. president.
1861:
In Turin, Italy, after more than 10 years of revolution led by such figures as Giuseppe Garibaldi, a parliament assembled and officially proclaimed the unified Kingdom of Italy.
1776:
British General William Howe evacuated Boston after a successful siege by American revolutionaries led by General George Washington.
March 18
1974:
Seven member countries of OPEC lifted a five-month oil embargo against the United States.
1965:
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksey Arkhipovich Leonov became the first man to walk in space after passing through an air lock on the spacecraft Voskhod 2.
1964:
Speed skater Bonnie Blair, one of the most successful American women athletes in Olympic competition, was born in Cornwall, New York.
1906:
The first monoplane, constructed by the Romanian inventor Trajan Vuia, made a flight of 12 metres (40 feet).
1902:
Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso, one of the first musicians to document his voice on the gramophone, made his first phonograph recording.
1871:
The Commune of Paris, an insurrection of Parisians against the French government, began, lasting until May 28.
1869:
Neville Chamberlain, who was British prime minister from May 28, 1937, to May 10, 1940, and whose name is identified with the policy of appeasement toward Adolf Hitler's Germany, was born.
1766:
The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act of 1765 after violent protests from American colonists.
March 19
1982:
Conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom.
On this day in 1982, Argentine forces mobilized after a dispute between Argentine workers and British scientists on British-controlled South Georgia island, leading to Argentina's invasion of the Falklands two weeks later.
2003:
U.S. President George W. Bush ordered air strikes against Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, thus launching the Second Persian Gulf War to oust Iraqi dictator Ṣaddām Ḥussein.
1996:
One of the worst fires in the history of the Philippines swept through a Manila discotheque, killing 159 of the 400 people in the nightclub, which was intended to hold no more than 35.
1920:
Józef Piłsudski was named marshal of Poland.
1918:
The U.S. Congress approved daylight saving time, a system for uniformly advancing clocks so as to extend daylight hours during conventional waking time (but its unpopularity forced its repeal in 1919).
1860:
William Jennings Bryan, a Democratic and Populist leader and a magnetic orator who ran unsuccessfully three times for the U.S. presidency (1896, 1900, 1908), was born.
1560:
In the Conspiracy of Amboise, French Huguenot aristocrats failed to overthrow the Roman Catholic house of Guise.
1452:
Frederick III became the last Holy Roman emperor to be crowned by a pope, Nicholas V.