Topic: Today in World History

[speedy]

March 5


March 5

1624         Class-based legislation is passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper class from punishment by whipping.

1766         Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.

1793         Austrian troops crush the French and recapture Liege.

1821         James Monroe becomes the first president to be inaugurated on March 5, only because the 4th was a Sunday.

1905         Russians begin to retreat from Mukden in Manchuria, China.

1912         The Italians become the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.

1918         The Soviets move the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.

1928         Hitler's National Socialists win the majority vote in Bavaria.

1933         Newly inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt halts the trading of gold and declares a bank holiday.

1933         Hitler and Nationalist allies win the Reichstag majority. It will be the last free election in Germany until after World War II.

1943         In desperation due to war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military service in the German army.

1946         In Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill tells a crowd that "an iron curtain has descended on the Continent [of Europe]."

1956         The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the ban on segregation in public schools in Brown vs. Board of Education.

1969         Gustav Heinemann is elected West German President.

1976         Britain gives up on the Ulster talks and decides to retain rule in Northern Ireland indefinitely.

1984         The U.S. Supreme Court rules that cities have the right to display the Nativity scene as part of their Christmas display.

[ancients]

A very good thread to start - it will last for ever.

[speedy]

March 6

1521         Ferdinand Magellan discovers Guam.

1820         The Missouri Compromise is enacted by Congress and signed by President James Monroe, providing for the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibits slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase territory.

1836         After fighting for 13 days, the Alamo falls.

1853         Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata premieres in Venice.

1857         The Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision holds that blacks cannot be citizens.

1860         While campaigning for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln makes a speech defending the right to strike.

1862         The USS Monitor left New York with a crew of 63, seven officers and 56 seamen.

1884         Over 100 suffragists, led by Susan B. Anthony, present President Chester A. Arthur with a demand that he voice support for female suffrage.

1888         Louisa May Alcott dies just hours after the burial of her father.

1899         Aspirin is patented following Felix Hoffman's discoveries about the properties of acetylsalicylic acid.

1901         A would-be assassin tries to kill Wilhelm II of Germany in Bremen.

1914         German Prince Wilhelm de Wied is crowned as King of Albania.

1916         The Allies recapture Fort Douamont in France during the Battle of Verdun.
1928         A Communist attack on Beijing results in 3,000 dead and 50,000 fleeing to Swatow.

1939         In Spain, Jose Miaja takes over Madrid government after a military coup and vows to seek "peace with honor."

1943         British RAF fliers bomb Essen and the Krupp arms works in the Ruhr, Germany.

1945         Cologne, Germany, falls to General Courtney Hodges' First Army.

1947         Winston Churchill opposes the withdrawal of troops from India.

1948         During talks in Berlin, the Western powers agree to internationalize the Ruhr region.

1953         Upon Josef Stalin's death, Georgi Malenkov is named Soviet premier.

1960         The Swiss grant women the right to vote in municipal elections.

1965         The United States announces that it will send 3,500 troops to Vietnam.

1967         President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his plan to establish a draft lottery.

1973         President Richard Nixon imposes price controls on oil and gas.

1975         Iran and Iraq announce that they have settled the border dispute.

1980         Islamic militants in Tehran say that they will turn over the American hostages to the Revolutionary Council.

1981         President Reagan announces plans to cut 37,000 federal jobs.

1987         The British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in the Channel off the coast of Belgium. At least 26 are dead.

[ancients]

Today in History: March 7

[speedy]

March 7

322 BC         The Greek philosopher Aristotle dies.

161         On the death of Antoninus at Lorium, Marcus Aurelius becomes emperor.

1774         The British close the port of Boston to all commerce.

1799         In Palestine, Napoleon captures Jaffa and his men massacre more than 2,000 Albanian prisoners.

1809         Aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard — the first person to make the an aerial voyage in the New World — died on March 7, 1809, at the age of 56.

1838         Soprano Jenny Lind ("the Swedish Nightingale") makes her debut in Weber's opera Der Freischultz.

1847         U.S. General Winfield Scott occupies Vera Cruz, Mexico.

1849         The Austrian Reichstag is dissolved.

1862         Confederate forces surprise the Union army at the Battle of Pea Ridge, in Arkansas, but the Union is victorious.

1876         Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone.

1904         The Japanese bomb the Russian town of Vladivostok.

1906         Finland becomes the third country to give women the right to vote, decreeing universal suffrage for all citizens over 24, however, barring those persons who are supported by the state.

1912         French aviator, Heri Seimet flies non-stop from London to Paris in three hours.

1918         Finland signs an alliance treaty with Germany.

1925         The Soviet Red Army occupies Outer Mongolia.

1927         A Texas law that bans Negroes from voting is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

1933         The board game Monopoly is invented.

1933         The film King Kong premieres in New York City.

1935         Malcolm Campbell sets an auto speed record of 276.8 mph in Florida.

1936         Hitler sends German troops into the Rhineland, violating the Locarno Pact.

1942         Japanese troops land on New Guinea.

1951         U.N. forces in Korea under General Matthew Ridgeway launch Operation Ripper, an offensive to straighten out the U.N. front lines against the Chinese.

1968         The Battle of Saigon, begun on the day of the Tet Offensive, ends.

1971         A thousand U.S. planes bomb Cambodia and Laos.

1979         Voyager 1 reaches Jupiter.

[speedy]

      March 15     


44 B.C.

On the “Ides of March,” Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the senate house by a group of conspirators led by Cimber, Casca, Cassius, and Marcus Junius Brutus.
1493

Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first visit to the Western Hemisphere.
1820

Maine became the 23rd state.
1917

Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, is forced to abdicate his throne (March 2, old style calendar).
1937

The first hospital blood bank in the United States was established, in Chicago, at Cook County Hospital.
1965


President Lyndon Johnson asked Congress for legislation guaranteeing every American the right to vote.
2003

Hu Jintao was chosen to replace Jiang Zemin as the president of China.
2004

Scientists reported the discovery of Sedna, the most distant object in the solar system.

[mz gulagg]

speedy,interesting stuff. It says in 1907 Finland let everybody vote, EXCEPT THOSE LIVING OFF THE STATE. In 1965,LBJ asks that ALL Americans get to vote. Wonder which one was right?

[speedy]

 

[ancients]

speedy,interesting stuff. It says in 1907 Finland let everybody vote, EXCEPT THOSE LIVING OFF THE STATE. In 1965,LBJ asks that ALL Americans get to vote. Wonder which one was right?

Ben Franklin said (paraphrased) - This will work until people realize they can vote for money.

[ancients]

On March 17, 1942, Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia to become supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific theater during World War II.

from - the New York Times

[speedy]

March 17

1766         Britain repeals the Stamp Act.

1776         British forces evacuate from Boston to Nova Scotia.

1799         Napoleon Bonaparte and his army reach Mediterranean seaport of St. Jean d'Acra, only to find British warships ready to break his siege of the town.

1868         The first postage stamp canceling machine patent is issued.

1884         John Joseph Montgomery makes the first glider flight in Otay, Calif.

1886         Twenty African Americans are killed in the Carrollton Massacre in Mississippi.

1891         The British steamer Utopia sinks off the coast of Gibraltar.

1905         Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, marries Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York.

1910         The Camp Fire Girls are founded in Lake Sebago, Maine.

1914         Russia increases the number of active duty military from 460,000 to 1,700,000.

1924         Four Douglas army aircraft leave Los Angeles for an around the world flight.

1930         Mob boss Al Capone is released from jail.

1942         The Nazis begin deporting Jews to the Belsen camp.

1944         The U.S. Eighth Air Force bombs Vienna.

1959         The Dalai Lama flees Tibet and goes to India.

1961         The United States increases military aid and technicians to Laos.

1962         The Soviet Union asks the United States to pull out of South Vietnam.

1966         A U.S. submarine locates a missing H-bomb in the Mediterranean.

1970         The Army charges 14 officers with suppression of facts in the My Lai massacre case.

1972         Nixon asks Congress to halt busing in order to achieve desegregation.

1973         Twenty are killed in Cambodia when a bomb goes off that was meant for the Cambodian President Lon Nol.

1973         First POWs are released from the "Hanoi Hilton" in Hanoi, North Vietnam.

1985         President Ronald Reagan agrees to a joint study with Canada on acid rain.

1992         White South Africans approve constitutional reforms giving legal equality to blacks.

Born on March 17
c.389         St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

1828         Patrick R. Cleburne, Confederate general.

1832         Daniel Conway Moncure, U.S. clergyman, author, abolitionist

1846         Kate Greenway, painter and illustrator (Mother Goose).

1902         Bobby Jones, American golfer.

1919         Nat "King" Cole, American jazz pianist and singer.

[ancients]

Good post Speedy

[speedy]

March 18

37         The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius' will and proclaims Caligula emperor.

1692         William Penn is deprived of his governing powers.

1863         Confederate women riot in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in the South.

1865         The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.

1874         Hawaii signs a treaty giving exclusive trading rights with the islands to the United States.

1881         Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opens in Madison Square Gardens.

1911         Theodore Roosevelt opens the Roosevelt Dam in Phoenix, Ariz., the largest dam in the United States to date.

1913         Greek King George I is killed by an assassin. Constantine I is to succeed.

1916         On the Eastern Front, the Russians counter the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake Naroch. The Russians lose 100,000 men and the Germans lose 20,000.

1917         The Germans sink the U.S. ships, City of Memphis, Vigilante and the Illinois, without any type of warning.

1922         Mahatma Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience in India.

1939         Georgia finally ratifies the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government. Connecticut and Massachusetts, the only other states to hold out, also ratify the Bill of Rights in this year.

1942         The third military draft begins in the United States.

1943         Adolf Hitler calls off the offensive in the Caucasus.

1943         American forces take Gafsa in Tunisia.

1944         The Russians reach the Rumanian border.

1950         Nationalist troops land on the mainland of China and capture Communist-held Sungmen.

1953         The Braves baseball team announces that they are moving from Boston to Milwaukee.

1965         Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first man to spacewalk when he exits his Voskhod 2 space capsule while in orbit around the Earth.

1969         President Richard M. Nixon authorizes Operation Menue, the'secret' bombing of Cambodia.

1970         The U.S. Postal Service is paralyzed by the first postal strike.

1971         U.S. helicopters airlift 1,000 South Vietnamese soldiers out of Laos.

1975         South Vietnam abandons most of the Central Highlands to North Vietnamese forces.

1981         The United States discloses biological weapons tests in Texas in 1966.

1986         Buckingham Palace announces the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson.


Born on March 18
1782         John C. Calhoun, U.S. statesman.

1837         Stephen Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States (1885-1889 and 1893-1897), the only U.S. president elected for two nonconsecutive terms.

1842         Stephane Mallarme, French symbolist poet.

1858         Rudolf Diesel, German engineer who designed the compression-ignition engine.

1869         Neville Chamberlin, British Prime Minister (1937-40).

1893         Wilfred Owen, World War I poet.

1932         John Updike, American poet and novelist.

1936         Frederik W. deKlerk, President of the Republic of South Africa.

[speedy]

March 19

1687         The French explorer La Salle is murdered in by his own men while searching for the mouth of the Mississippi, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

1702         On the death of William III of Orange, Anne Stuart, sister of Mary, succeeds to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1822         Boston is incorporated as a city.

1879         Jim Currie opens fire on the actors Maurice Barrymore and Ben Porter near Marshall, Texas. His shots wound Barrymore and kill Porter.

1903         The U.S. Senate ratifies the Cuban treaty, gaining naval bases in Guantanamo and Bahia Honda.

1916         The First Aero Squadron takes off from Columbus, NM to join Gen. John J. Pershing and his Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa in Mexico.

1917         The Adamson Act, eight hour day for railroad workers, is ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

1918         Congress authorizes Daylight Savings Time.

1920         The U.S. Senate rejects the Versailles Treaty for the second time.

1924         U.S. troops are rushed to Tegucigalpa as rebel forces take the Honduran capital.

1931         The state of Nevada legalizes gambling.

1935         The British fire on 20,000 Muslims in India, killing 23.

1936         The Soviet Union signs a pact of assistance with Mongolia against Japan.

1944         The German 352nd Infantry Division deploys along the coast of France.

1945         Adolf Hitler orders a scorched-earth policy for his retreating German armies in the west and east.

1947         Chiang Kai-Shek's government forces take control of Yenan, the former headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party.

1949         The Soviet People's Council signs the constitution of the German Democratic Republic, and declares that the North Atlantic Treaty is merely a war weapon.

1963         In Costa Rica, President John F. Kennedy and six Latin American presidents pledge to fight Communism.

1977         Congo President Marien Ngouabi is killed by a suicide commando.

1981         One technician is killed and two others are injured during a routine test on space shuttle Columbia.


Born on March 19

1589         William Bradford, governor of Plymouth colony for 30 years.

1721         Tobias George Smollett, satirical author and physician (Roderick Random, Humphrey Clinker).

1813         David Livingston, explorer found by Arthur Stanley in Africa.

1821         Sir Richard Burton, English explorer.

1848         Wyatt Earp, U.S. marshal.

1849         Alfred von Tirpitz, Prussian admiral who commanded the German fleet in early World War I.

1860         William Jennings Bryan, orator, statesman, known as "The Great Communicator."

1889         Sarah Gertrude Millina, South African writer (The Dark River, God's Stepchildren).

1891         Earl Warren, governor of California, later 14th Supreme Court Chief Justice.

1904         John J. Sirica, U.S. Federal Judge who ruled on Watergate issues.

1906         Adolf Eichman, Nazi Gestapo officer.

1912         Adolf Galland, German Luftwaffe pilot.

1925         Brent Scrowcroft, Lt. Gen. (USAF), National Security Advisor to President George H.W. Bush.

1933         Phillip Roth, American novelist and short-story writer (Portnoy's Complaint).

[speedy]

March 21

630         Heraclius restores the True Cross, which he has recaptured from the Persians.

1556         Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake at Oxford after retracting the last of seven recantations that same day.

1617         Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) dies of either small pox or pneumonia while in England with her husband, John Rolfe.

1788         Almost the entire city of New Orleans, Louisiana, is destroyed by fire.

1806         Lewis and Clark begin their trip home after an 8,000 mile trek of the Mississippi basin and the Pacific Coast.

1865         The Battle of Bentonville, N.C. ends, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop Union General William Sherman.

1851         Emperor Tu Duc orders that Christian priests are to put to death.

1858         British forces in India lift the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.

1906         Ohio passes a law that prohibits hazing by fraternities.

1908         Frenchman Henri Farman carries a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.

1910         The U.S. Senate grants ex-President Teddy Roosevelt an annual pension of $10,000.

1918         The Germans launch the 'Michael' offensive, better remembered as the First Battle of the Somme.

1928         President Calvin Coolidge gives the Congressional Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh for his first trans-Atlantic flight.

1939         Singer Kate Smith records "God Bless America" for Victor Records.

1941         The last Italian post in East Libya, North Africa, falls to the British.

1951         Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall reports that the U.S. military has doubled to 2.9 million since the start of the Korean War.

1963         Alcatraz Island, the federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, California, closes.

1965         The United States launches Ranger 9, last in a series of unmanned lunar explorations.

1971         Two U.S. platoons in Vietnam refuse their orders to advance.


1975         As North Vietnamese forces advance, Hue and other northern towns in South Vietnam are evacuated.

1980         President Jimmy Carter announces to the U.S. Olympic Team that they will not participate in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

1984         A Soviet submarine crashes into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.

Born on March 21
1685         Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer.

1806         Benito Juarez, President of Mexico.

1869         Albert Kahn, architect who originated modern factory design.

1869         Florenz Ziegfeld, producer, creator of Ziegfeld Follies.

1885         Raoul Lufbery, French-born American fighter pilot of World War I.