March 20
1995:
AUM subway attack.
Top leaders of AUM Shinrikyo (Japanese: “AUM Supreme Truth”), a Japanese Buddhist sect founded in 1987 by Asahara Shoko, released nerve gas into a Tokyo subway this day in 1995, killing 12 people and injuring thousands.
2004:
The U.S. Army announced that charges were being brought against six American soldiers in connection with the reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war being held in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during the Iraq War.
1987:
AZT (azidothymidine) became the first drug to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of AIDS.
1854:
A meeting of Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats, and Free-Soilers in Ripon, Wisconsin, proposed the formation of what became the Republican Party in the United States.
1852:
American author Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in book form.
1828:
Playwright Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien, Norway.
1815:
The Hundred Days—during which Napoleon, having ended his exile by escaping the island of Elba, would try to recapture his empire in France—began with Napoleon's arrival in Paris.
1770:
German lyric poet Friedrich H鰈derlin was born in Lauffen am Neckar, Württemberg.
43:
Roman poet Ovid was born in what is now Sulmona, Italy.
March 21
1963:
Closing of Alcatraz prison.
The U.S. federal prison on San Francisco Bay's Alcatraz Island, which had held some of the most dangerous civilian prisoners—including Al Capone and Robert Stroud, the “Birdman of Alcatraz”—was closed this day in 1963.
1965:
American civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr., began a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
1960:
About 70 black African demonstrators were killed by police during a protest in Sharpeville, Gauteng province, against South Africa's pass laws.
1918:
The Second Battle of the Somme began during World War I.
1806:
Mexican national hero Benito Juárez was born in San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca.
1768:
French mathematician Joseph Fourier was born in Auxerre.
1556:
Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, was burned at the stake for violating heresy laws revised under the Roman Catholic queen Mary I, known as Bloody Mary.
March 22
1622:
Murder at Jamestown.
Opechancanough, brother of Chief Powhatan and his successor as the leader of the Powhatan Indian empire, led an attack on the Jamestown Colony this day in 1622, killing at least 347 colonists and initiating the Powhatan War.
1945:
The Arab League, a regional organization of Arab states in the Middle East, was organized in Cairo by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan (now Jordan), Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
1934:
The Augusta National Golf Club hosted the first Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.
1894:
The Montreal Amateur Athletic Association won ice hockey's first Stanley Cup.
1832:
German author and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe died in Weimar, Saxe-Weimar.
1820:
U.S. Navy Commissioner Stephen Decatur was killed in a duel.
1765:
The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, inflaming relations with the American colonies.
1599:
Anthony Van Dyck, after Peter Paul Rubens the most prominent Flemish painter of the 17th century, was born in Antwerp.
March 23
1806:
Lewis and Clark's return trip begun.
Having completed the first U.S. overland expedition to the Pacific coast, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark this day in 1806 began their return to St. Louis, Missouri, where their journey had begun in May 1804.
2001:
Although designed for only 5 years of service, the Soviet/Russian space station Mir ended 15 years in orbit when it reentered Earth's atmosphere, falling into the South Pacific Ocean.
1983:
In a nationwide television address, U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars, a proposed strategic defensive system against potential nuclear attacks.
1976:
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights entered into force, incorporating almost all the international human rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.
1933:
The German Reichstag, dominated by the Nazi Party and German National People's Party, voted to pass the Enabling Act, thereby assuring Nazi primacy, in a process that began with the Reichstag fire about a month prior.
1849:
At the Battle of Novara, during the first Italian War of Independence, outnumbered Austrian troops under Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky destroyed the poorly trained Italian troops of Charles Albert, king of Sardinia-Piedmont.
1775:
Patrick Henry, a major figure of the American Revolution, delivered the well-known speech featuring the phrase “give me liberty or give me death” at the second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church, Richmond.
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March 24
1989:
Exxon Valdez Alaskan oil spill.
On this day in 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground, spilling some 11 million gallons (41 million litres) of oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska and creating the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
2002:
Film stars Denzel Washington and Halle Berry became the second and third African Americans to win Academy Awards for performances in leading roles.
1945:
With the debut of the Billboard magazine pop album chart, American pianist and singer Nat King Cole's King Cole Trio became the first record album to appear at No. 1.
1905:
Pioneering French science-fiction author Jules Verne died in Amiens, France.
1882:
Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had isolated and grown the tubercle bacillus, which he believed to be the cause of all forms of tuberculosis.
March 25
1306:
Robert the Bruce crowned king of Scotland.
Robert the Bruce, crowned Scottish king at Scone this day in 1306, freed Scotland from English rule, winning the decisive Battle of Bannockburn (1314) and confirming Scottish independence in the Treaty of Northampton (1328).
1975:
King Fayṣal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by his nephew.
1957:
The Treaties of Rome were signed, establishing the European Community and the European Atomic Energy Community.
1918:
French composer Claude Debussy died in Paris.
1911:
A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City killed 146 people, prompting the creation of health and safety legislation.
1881:
Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was born in Nagyszentmiklós.
1807:
The British Parliament abolished the slave trade in the British West Indies.
1305:
The Arena Chapel, containing frescoes by Giotto, was consecrated in Padua, Italy.
March 26
1979:
Signing of Israel-Egypt peace treaty.
The historic peace accord between Israel and Egypt, agreed to by Menachem Begin and Anwar el-Sādāt and negotiated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter at Camp David, Maryland, in September 1978, was signed this day in 1979.
1992:
Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison following a rape conviction in Indianapolis, Indiana.
1971:
Members of the Awami League set up a government-in-exile in Calcutta (Kolkata) and declared Bangladesh an independent state.
1930:
Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice, was born in El Paso, Texas.
1927:
The Mille Miglia, the famed automobile race across Italy, was inaugurated.
1885: The first clash of the Riel Rebellion in Canada took place in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan.
1827:
Ludwig van Beethoven died of cirrhosis of the liver in Vienna.
March 27
47 :
Cleopatra reinstated as queen of Egypt.
The legendary Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator, aided by her Roman lover Julius Caesar, was reinstated as coruler of Egypt (with her brother Ptolemy XIV) this day in 47 BC following a civil war with her brother Ptolemy XIII.
1998:
The drug Viagra from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in treating erectile dysfunction.
1977: Two airplanes, a Pan Am 747 and a KLM 747, collided on a runway in the Canary Islands, killing 582.
1958:
Nikita Khrushchev replaced Nikolay Bulganin as premier of the Soviet Union.
1886:
German American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whose rectilinear forms crafted in elegant simplicity epitomized the International style of architecture, was born.
1814:
At the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (Tohopeka, Alabama) in the Creek War, Andrew Jackson and his 3,000 troops defeated the Creek Indians, slaughtering more than 800 warriors and imprisoning 500 women and children.
1625:
Upon the death of James I, Charles I ascended the throne of Great Britain and Ireland.
1351:
As part of the struggle between Charles of Blois (supported by the king of France) and John of Montfort (backed by the king of England) over succession to the duchy of Brittany, their knights waged the Battle of the Thirty near Plo雛mel.
March 28
1930:
Constantinople renamed Istanbul.
Built as Byzantium about 657 BC, then renamed Constantinople in the 4th century AD after Constantine the Great made the city his capital, the Turkish city of Istanbul officially received its present name on this day in 1930.
1979:
At 4:00 AM an automatic valve mistakenly closed at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, culminating in radioactive leakage.
1969:
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, died in Washington, D.C.
1939:
Francisco Franco, leader of the Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War, captured the capital city of Madrid en route to his overthrow of the democratic Spanish republic.
1920:
American motion-picture actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were wed.
1890:
American bandleader Paul Whiteman, called the “King of Jazz” for popularizing a musical style that helped to introduce jazz to mainstream audiences during the 1920s and '30s, was born.
March 29
1867:
Dominion of Canada created.
On this day in 1867, with the British North America Act, the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada were united as the Dominion of Canada, and the province of Canada was separated into Quebec and Ontario.
1973:
American troops evacuated Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) as the United States ended its involvement in the Vietnam War.
1951:
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death for turning over U.S. military secrets to the Soviet Union.
1943:
British Conservative politician John Major, who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997, was born.
1917:
Man o' War, perhaps the most famous American Thoroughbred in 20th-century horse racing, was foaled.
1807:
German astronomer Wilhelm Olbers discovered the minor planet Vesta, the brightest asteroid in the sky.
1790:
John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States (1841–45), was born.
1461:
Edward IV defeated Henry VI for the throne of England in the bloodiest battle of the York-Lancaster conflict known as the Wars of the Roses.
March 30
1981:
Failed assassination attempt against U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
In Washington, D.C., on this day in 1981, barely two months after his inauguration as the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously wounded by would-be assassin John W. Hinckley, Jr.
2003:
A law banning cigarette smoking in all places of employment, including restaurants and bars, went into effect in New York City.
2002:
Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who was queen consort of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1936–52), died in her sleep at Windsor Castle at age 101.
1914:
American blues vocalist and harmonica virtuoso Sonny Boy Williamson was born in Jackson, Tennessee.
1912:
The Treaty of Fès established the French protectorate in Morocco.
1867:
William H. Seward, secretary of state under U.S. President Andrew Johnson, signed the Alaska Purchase, a treaty ceding Russian North America to the United States for a price—$7.2 million—that amounted to about two cents per acre.
1856:
The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Crimean War.
1840:
The English dandy Beau Brummell died, destitute and mad, in Caen, France.
1282:
The people of Palermo massacred 2,000 French residents in the Sicilian Vespers, a revolt against the Angevin king Charles I.
March 31
1889:
Eiffel Tower opened to public.
The 984-foot (300-metre) Eiffel Tower, a wrought iron technological masterpiece created by Gustave Eiffel to commemorate the French Revolution, was opened to the public at the Centennial Exposition in Paris this day in 1889.
1980:
American track-and-field legend Jesse Owens died in Phoenix, Arizona.
1918:
Clocks in the United States were set one hour ahead as daylight saving time went into operation for the first time.
1870:
Thomas Peterson-Mundy of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, became the first African American to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1854:
U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry signed the Treaty of Kanagawa in Japan, ending that country's period of seclusion.
1732:
Composer Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria.
1521:
The first Roman Catholic mass in the Philippines was celebrated on the island of Limasawa.
April 1
1999:
Creation of Nunavut.
Created this day in 1999 by carving a vast region from Canada's Northwest Territories, the Canadian territory of Nunavut stretches across much of the Canadian Arctic and encompasses the traditional lands of the Inuit.
Today:
April Fools' Day, celebrated today with joking relationships and practical jokes, may have grown out of the medieval Feast of Fools, which was held on January 1.
2001:
The midair collision of a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet that was tailing it over the South China Sea resulted in the death of the Chinese pilot and the landing of the damaged American plane on Hainan Island, where its crew was detained for 11 days.
1984:
American entertainer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father in Los Angeles.
1954:
The United States Air Force Academy was created by an act of Congress and was later built in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
1945:
U.S. troops landed on the Japanese island of Okinawa during World War II.
1918:
The United Kingdom's Royal Air Force was formed.
1917:
American composer and pianist Scott Joplin died in a mental institution in New York City.
1578:
English physician William Harvey, who discovered the true nature of the circulation of the blood, was born in Folkestone, Kent.
April 2
2005:
Death of Pope John Paul II.
The bishop of Rome and the head of the Roman Catholic Church from 1978, Pope John Paul II, who was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first from a Slavic country, died in Vatican City this day in 2005.
1982:
Argentine troops seized the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), precipitating the Falkland Islands War with Britain.
1917:
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany.
1914:
British actor Sir Alec Guinness was born.
1865:
In the face of advancing Union forces, Confederate troops evacuated Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.
1681:
King Charles II of England officially proclaimed the charter he had granted in March to William Penn for the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania in North America.
1513:
Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, in search of the mythical Fountain of Youth in the Americas, landed on the coast of Florida near the present-day city of St. Augustine.
April 3
1948:
Implementation of the Marshall Plan.
On this day in 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed into law George C. Marshall's post-World War II plan to revive the economies of western and southern European countries so as to foster democracy in the region.
1996:
Federal agents in Montana apprehended Theodore J. Kaczynski, an American terrorist known as the “Unabomber,” who had killed 3 persons and injured more than 20 with explosives sent through the U.S. postal system.
1946:
The Japanese army general Homma Masaharu was executed for forcing the Bataan Death March.
1930:
Helmut Kohl, who served as chancellor of West Germany (1982–90) and of reunified Germany (1990–98), was born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Ger.
1924:
American stage and motion-picture actor Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska.
1924:
American singer and actress Doris Day was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
1879:
Sofia, liberated from the Ottoman Empire by Russian troops, was named the capital of Bulgaria.
1860:
The Pony Express mail delivery system, which used continuous horse-and-rider relays along a 1,800-mile (2,900-km) route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, was launched in the United States.
April 4
1968:
Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated.
On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., a leader of the American civil rights movement who was in Memphis, Tennessee, to support a strike by the city's sanitation workers, was assassinated by James Earl Ray.
2000:
The government of South Korea ordered some 85 percent of the country's livestock markets closed in an attempt to end an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that had struck Asian livestock.
1959:
In West Africa the Mali Federation, a short-lived union between the autonomous territories of the Sudanese Republic and Senegal, led by Léopold Senghor, came into being.
1949:
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed, the founding member nations of this military alliance being Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
1915:
Muddy Waters, an American blues guitarist and singer who played a major role in creating the modern rhythm-and-blues style, was born.
1862:
In the American Civil War, Union forces under George B. McClellan began the unsuccessful Peninsular Campaign to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
1850:
With a population totaling about 1,600, Los Angeles was incorporated as an American city.
1785:
Bettina von Arnim, one of the outstanding women writers in modern German literature, was born in Frankfurt am Main.
April 5
1818:
Battle of Maipú.
Chile's independence movement, led by José de San Martín and Bernardo O'Higgins, won a decisive victory over Spain in the Battle of Maipú, which left 2,000 Spaniards and 1,000 Chilean patriots dead on this day in 1818.
2000:
Mori Yoshiro of the Liberal-Democratic Party became prime minister of Japan, replacing Obuchi Keizo, who had suffered a stroke earlier in the month and subsequently died.
1994:
American grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, leader of the band Nirvana, committed suicide.
1984:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar surpassed Wilt Chamberlain as the all-time leading scorer in the National Basketball Association.
1856:
American educator and reformer Booker T. Washington was born in Virginia.
1621:
The Mayflower departed for England after having deposited 102 Pilgrims at what became the American colony of Plymouth (Massachusetts).
1614:
Powhatan Indian Pocahontas married Virginia planter and colonial official John Rolfe.
1588:
English philosopher and political theorist Thomas Hobbes, best known for his publications on individual security and the social contract, was born.
April 6
1896:
Olympics revived.
Pierre, baron de Coubertin, a founder of the International Olympic Committee and its president from 1896 to 1925, realized his goal of reviving the Olympics when the first modern Games opened in Athens this day in 1896.
1909:
American explorer Robert Edwin Peary led the first expedition to the North Pole.
1868:
The Japanese emperor Meiji issued the Charter Oath, which served to modernize the country during the Meiji Restoration.
1862:
Union troops clashed with Confederates in southwestern Tennessee at the Battle of Shiloh, the second great engagement of the American Civil War.
1830:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formed by American prophet Joseph Smith at Fayette, New York.
1348:
The woman said to be Laura, the beloved muse of the Italian poet Petrarch, died.
1199:
Mortally wounded in battle, Richard I (the Lion-Heart) died at Ch鈒us in the duchy of Aquitaine.
April 7
1963:
Jack Nicklaus's first Masters victory.
American professional golfer Jack Nicklaus, a dominating figure in world golf from the 1960s to the '80s and the winner of 73 PGA tour events in his career, won the Masters Tournament at age 23 on this day in 1963.
2001:
NASA launched the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which reached Mars in October and transmitted photos and other data back to scientists on Earth.
1994:
Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a moderate Hutu, was assassinated by Hutu soldiers—a day after the deaths of Juvénal Habyarimana, president of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of Burundi—as Rwanda entered a period of anarchy and mass killings.
1947:
American industrialist Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Michigan.
1939:
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made Albania a protectorate of his country, installing Italy's Victor Emmanuel III as king, while Albanian King Zog I went into exile.
1927:
The first public demonstration of a one-way videophone occurred between Herbert Hoover, then U.S. secretary of commerce, in Washington, D.C., and officials of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) in New York City.
1922:
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall secretly leased federal oil reserves to the Mammoth Oil Company in return for cash gifts in the Teapot Dome Scandal.
1915:
Billie Holiday, one of the greatest American jazz singers from the 1930s to the '50s, was born.
1449:
Felix V, the last antipope, abdicated.
April 8
Today:
Celebration of the Buddha's birth.
On this day practitioners of the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism, especially those in Japan, celebrate the birth of the Buddha, who lived in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE and founded Buddhism.
2003:
It was reported that springtails (Collembola), long thought to be among the oldest ancestors of insects, did not evolve as insects but rather evolved from a separate group that was formed even before crustaceans and insects diverged.
1974:
American baseball player Hank Aaron hit his 715th career home run—breaking Babe Ruth's record, which had stood since 1935—and in 1976 completed his career with 755 home runs.
1973:
Pablo Picasso, perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, died in Mougins, France.
1950:
Jawaharlal Nehru of India concluded the Delhi Pact with Liaqat Ali Khan of Pakistan, providing for the safe passage of refugees displaced after the two countries severed relations in December 1949.
1912:
Sonja Henie, a Norwegian American figure skater who won the world amateur championship for women in 10 consecutive years (1927–36) and three gold medals in the Winter Olympic Games (1928, 1932, and 1936), was born.
1859:
German philosopher Edmund Husserl, founder of phenomenology, was born.
1838:
The Great Western, the earliest regular transatlantic steamer, embarked on its maiden voyage from Bristol, England, to New York City.