This Day in History

March 6th

12 BC – The Roman Emperor Augustus is named Pontifex Maximus, incorporating the position into that of the emperor.

632 – The Farewell Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada') of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

845 – Execution of the 42 Martyrs of Amorium at Samarra.

961 – Byzantine conquest of Chandax by Nikephoros Phokas, end of the Emirate of Crete.

1204 – The Siege of Château Gaillard ends in a French victory over King John of England, who loses control of Normandy to King Philip II Augustus.

1323 – Treaty of Paris of 1323 is signed.

1454 – Thirteen Years' War: Delegates of the Prussian Confederation pledge allegiance to King Casimir IV of Poland who agrees to commit his forces in aiding the Confederation's struggle for independence from the Teutonic Knights.

1521 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam.

1665 – The first joint Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, publishes the first issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the world's longest-running scientific journal.

1788 – The First Fleet arrives at Norfolk Island in order to found a convict settlement.

1820 – The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, brings Maine into the Union as a free state, and makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free.

1834 – York, Upper Canada, is incorporated as Toronto.

1836 – Texas Revolution: Battle of the Alamo – After a thirteen-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and colonel Jim Bowie, defending the Alamo are killed and the fort is captured.

1857 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case.

1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.

1882 – The Serbian kingdom is re-founded.

1899 – Bayer registers "Aspirin" as a trademark.

1902 – Real Madrid C.F. is founded.

1912 – Italo-Turkish War: Italian forces become the first to use airships in war, as two dirigibles drop bombs on Turkish troops encamped at Janzur, from an altitude of 6,000 feet.

1921 – Portuguese Communist Party is founded as the Portuguese Section of the Communist International.

1930 – International Unemployment Day demonstrations globally initiated by the Comintern.

1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions.

1943 – Norman Rockwell published Freedom from Want in The Saturday Evening Post with a matching essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series.

1945 – World War II: Cologne is captured by American troops.

1945 – World War II: Operation Spring Awakening, the last major German offensive of the war, begins.

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 – Cold War: The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins.

1953 – Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1957 – Ghana becomes the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British.

1964 – Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali.

1964 – Constantine II becomes King of Greece.

1965 – Premier Tom Playford of South Australia loses power after 27 years in office.

1967 – Cold War: Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States.

1968 – Three rebels are executed by Rhodesia, the first executions since UDI, prompting international condemnation.

1970 – An explosion at the Weather Underground safe house in Greenwich Village kills three.

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.

1975 – Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute.

1983 – The first United States Football League games are played.

1984 – In the United Kingdom, a walkout at Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow signals the start of a strike that lasted almost a year and involved the majority [but never all] of the country's miners.

1987 – The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds, killing 193.

1988 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers are shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in Operation Flavius.

1992 – The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers.

2003 – Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashes at the Aguenar – Hadj Bey Akhamok Airport in Tamanrasset, Algeria, killing 102 out of the 103 people on board.

2008 – A suicide bomber kills 68 people (including first responders) in Baghdad on the same day that a gunman kills eight students in Jerusalem.

March 8th

1010 – Ferdowsi completes his epic poem Shahnameh.

1126 – Following the death of his mother Urraca, Alfonso VII is proclaimed king of Castile and León.

1262 – Battle of Hausbergen between bourgeois militias and the army of the bishop of Strasbourg.

1576 – Spanish explorer Diego García de Palacio first sights the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Copán.

1618 – Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.

1655 – John Casor becomes the first legally-recognized slave in England's North American colonies where a crime was not committed.

1658 – Treaty of Roskilde: After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars (1655–1661), Frederick III, the King of Denmark–Norway is forced to give up nearly half his territory to Sweden to save the rest.

1702 – Queen Anne, the younger sister of Mary II, becomes Queen regnant of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

1722 – The Safavid Empire of Iran is defeated by an army from Afghanistan at the Battle of Gulnabad, pushing Iran into anarchy.

1736 – Nader Shah, founder of the Afsharid dynasty, is crowned Shah of Iran.

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.

1777 – Regiments from Ansbach and Bayreuth, sent to support Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, mutiny in the town of Ochsenfurt.

1782 – Gnadenhutten massacre: Ninety-six Native Americans in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, who had converted to Christianity, are killed by Pennsylvania militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indian tribes.

1801 – War of the Second Coalition: At the Battle of Abukir, a British force under Sir Ralph Abercromby lands in Egypt with the aim of ending the French campaign in Egypt and Syria.

1817 – The New York Stock Exchange is founded.

1844 – King Oscar I ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.

1862 – American Civil War: The Naval Battle of Hampton Roads begins.

1868 – Sakai incident: Japanese samurai kill 11 French sailors in the port of Sakai, Osaka.

1910 – French aviator Raymonde de Laroche becomes the first woman to receive a pilot's license.

1914 – First flights (for the Royal Thai Air Force) at Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok.

1916 – World War I: A British force unsuccessfully attempts to relieve the siege of Kut (present-day Iraq) in the Battle of Dujaila.

1917 – International Women's Day protests in St. Petersburg mark the beginning of the February Revolution (February 23rd in the Julian calendar).

1917 – The United States Senate votes to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule.

1920 – The Arab Kingdom of Syria, the first modern Arab state to come into existence, is established.

1921 – Spanish Prime Minister Eduardo Dato Iradier is assassinated while exiting the parliament building in Madrid.

1924 – A mine disaster kills 172 coal miners near Castle Gate, Utah.

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

1937 – Spanish Civil War: The Battle of Guadalajara begins.

1942 – World War II: Imperial Japanese Army forces gave ultimatum to Dutch East Indies Governor General Jonkheer Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer and KNIL Commander in Chief Lieutenant General Hein Ter Poorten, to unconditionally surrender.

1942 – World War II: Imperial Japanese Army forces captured Rangoon, Burma from British.

1947 – Thirteen thousand troops of the Republic of China Army arrive in Taiwan after the February 28 Incident and launch crackdowns which kill thousands of people, including many elites. This turns into a major root of the Taiwan independence movement.

1949 – President of France Vincent Auriol and ex-emperor of Annam Bảo Đại sign the Élysée Accords, giving Vietnam greater independence from France and creating the State of Vietnam to oppose Viet Minh-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

1957 – Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal after the Suez Crisis.

1957 – The 1957 Georgia Memorial to Congress, which petitions the U.S. Congress to declare the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution null and void, is adopted by the U.S. state of Georgia.

1963 – The Ba'ath Party comes to power in Syria in a coup d'état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers calling themselves the National Council of the Revolutionary Command.

1965 – Thirty-five hundred United States Marines are the first American land combat forces committed during the Vietnam War.

1966 – Nelson's Pillar in Dublin, Ireland, destroyed by a bomb.

1971 – The Fight of the Century between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali commences. Frazier wins in 15 rounds via unanimous decision.

1974 – Charles de Gaulle Airport opens in Paris, France.

1979 – Philips demonstrates the compact disc publicly for the first time.

1983 – Cold War: While addressing a convention of Evangelicals, U.S. President Ronald Reagan labels the Soviet Union an "evil empire".

1985 – A supposed failed assassination attempt on Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah in Beirut, Lebanon kills at least 45 and injures 175 others.

2004 – A new constitution is signed by Iraq's Governing Council.

2014 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying a total of 239 people, disappears en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

2017 – The Azure Window, a natural arch on the Maltese island of Gozo, collapsed in stormy weather.

March 10th

241 BC – First Punic War: Battle of the Aegates: The Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet bringing the First Punic War to an end.

298 – Roman Emperor Maximian concludes his campaign in North Africa against the Berbers, and makes a triumphal entry into Carthage.

947 – The Later Han is founded by Liu Zhiyuan. He declares himself emperor and establishes the capital in Bian, present-day Kaifeng.

1607 – Susenyos I defeats the combined armies of Yaqob and Abuna Petros II at the Battle of Gol in Gojjam, making him Emperor of Ethiopia.

1629 – Charles I of England dissolves Parliament, beginning the eleven-year period known as the Personal Rule.

1735 – An agreement between Nader Shah and Russia is signed near Ganja, Azerbaijan and Russian troops are withdrawn from Baku.

1762 – French Huguenot Jean Calas, who had been wrongly convicted of killing his son, dies after being tortured by authorities; the event inspired Voltaire to begin a campaign for religious tolerance and legal reform.

1804 – Louisiana Purchase: In St. Louis, Missouri, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.

1814 – Emperor Napoleon I is defeated at the Battle of Laon in France.

1816 – Crossing of the Andes: A group of royalist scouts are captured during the Action of Juncalito.

1830 – The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army is created.

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

1861 – El Hadj Umar Tall seizes the city of Ségou, destroying the Bamana Empire of Mali.

1865 – Amy Spain, American slave, is executed for stealing from her owner; believed to have been the last legal execution of a female slave in America

1873 – The first Azerbaijani play "The Adventures of the Vizier of the Khan of Lenkaran" prepared by Akhundov was performed by Hassan-bey Zardabi and dramatist and Najaf-bey Vezirov.

1876 – The first successful test of a telephone is made by Alexander Graham Bell.

1891 – Almon Strowger, an undertaker in Topeka, Kansas, patents the Strowger switch, a device which led to the automation of telephone circuit switching.

1906 – The Courrières mine disaster, Europe's worst ever, kills 1099 miners in northern France.

1909 – By signing the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909, Thailand relinquishes its sovereignty over the Malay states of Kedah, Kelantan, Perlis and Terengganu, which become British protectorates.

1915 – World War I: The Battle of Neuve Chapelle begins. This is the first large-scale operation by the British Army in the war.

1916 – The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence between Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and the British official Henry McMahon concerning the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire ends.

1917 – Some provinces and cities in the Philippines are incorporated due to the ratification of Act No. 2711 or the Administrative Code of the Philippines.

1922 – Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in India, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years in prison, only to be released after nearly two years for an appendicitis operation.

1933 – The 6.4 Mw  Long Beach earthquake affects the Greater Los Angeles Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), leaving 115–120 people dead, and causing an estimated $40 million in damage.

1944 – Greek Civil War: The Political Committee of National Liberation is established in Greece by the National Liberation Front.

1945 – World War II: The U.S. Army Air Force firebombs Tokyo, and the resulting conflagration kills more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians.

1949 – Mildred Gillars ("Axis Sally") is convicted of treason.

1952 – Fulgencio Batista leads a successful coup in Cuba and appoints himself as the "provisional president".

1959 – Tibetan uprising: Fearing an abduction attempt by China, thousands of Tibetans surround the Dalai Lama's palace to prevent his removal.

1966 – Military Prime Minister of South Vietnam Nguyễn Cao Kỳ sacked rival General Nguyễn Chánh Thi, precipitating large-scale civil and military dissension in parts of the nation.

1968 – Vietnam War: Battle of Lima Site 85, concluding the 11th with largest single ground combat loss of United States Air Force members (12) during that war.

1969 – In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr. He later unsuccessfully attempts to recant.

1970 – Vietnam War: Captain Ernest Medina is charged by the U.S. military with My Lai war crimes.

1975 – Vietnam War: Ho Chi Minh Campaign: North Vietnamese troops attack Ban Mê Thuột in the South on their way to capturing Saigon in the final push for victory over South Vietnam.

1977 – Astronomers discover the rings of Uranus.

1990 – In Haiti, Prosper Avril is ousted 18 months after seizing power in a coup.

2000 – The Nasdaq Composite stock market index peaks at 5132.52, signaling the beginning of the end of the dot-com boom.

2006 – The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrives at Mars.

2017 – The impeachment of President Park Geun-hye of South Korea in response to a major political scandal is unanimously upheld by the country's Constitutional Court, ending her presidency.

march 12th

538 – Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of the victorious Byzantine general, Belisarius.

1550 – Several hundred Spanish and indigenous troops under the command of Pedro de Valdivia defeat an army of 60,000 Mapuche at the Battle of Penco during the Arauco War in present-day Chile.

1622 – Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Society of Jesus, are canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.

1689 – The Williamite War in Ireland begins.

1811 – Peninsular War: A day after a successful rearguard action, French Marshal Michel Ney once again successfully delayed the pursuing Anglo-Portuguese force at the Battle of Redinha.

1864 – American Civil War: The Red River Campaign begins as a US Navy fleet of 13 Ironclads and 7 Gunboats and other support ships enter the Red River.

1881 – Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain.

1885 – Tonkin Campaign: France captures the citadel of Bắc Ninh.

1894 – Coca-Cola is bottled and sold for the first time in Vicksburg, Mississippi, by local soda fountain operator Joseph A. Biedenharn.

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

1913 – Canberra Day: The future capital of Australia is officially named Canberra. (Melbourne remains temporary capital until 1927 while the new capital is still under construction.)

1918 – Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after Saint Petersburg held this status for 215 years.

1920 – The Kapp Putsch begins when the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt is ordered to march on Berlin.

1921 – İstiklâl Marşı is adopted in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

1922 – Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan form the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.

1928 – In California, the St. Francis Dam fails; the resulting floods kill 431 people.

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

1933 – Great Depression: Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This is also the first of his "fireside chats".

1934 – Konstantin Päts and General Johan Laidoner stage a coup in Estonia, and ban all political parties.

1938 – Anschluss: German troops occupy and absorb Austria.

1940 – Winter War: Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty with the Soviet Union, ceding almost all of Finnish Karelia. Finnish troops and the remaining population are immediately evacuated.

1942 – World War II: Pacific War: The Battle of Java ends with an ABDACOM surrender to the Japanese Empire in Bandung, West Java, Dutch East Indies.

1943 – Italian occupation of Greece: The Italian occupying forces abandon the town of Karditsa to the partisans. On the same day, an Italian motorized column razes the village of Tsaritsani, burning 360 of its 600 houses and shooting 40 civilians.

1947 – Cold War: The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.

1950 – The Llandow air disaster occurs near Sigingstone, Wales, in which 80 people die when their aircraft crashed, making it the world's deadliest air disaster at the time.

1961 – First winter ascent of the North Face of the Eiger.

1967 – Suharto takes power from Sukarno when the MPRS inaugurate him as Acting President of Indonesia.

1968 – Mauritius achieves independence from the United Kingdom.

1971 – The March 12 Memorandum is sent to the Suleyman Demirel government of Turkey and the government resigns.

1992 – Mauritius becomes a republic while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

1993 – Several bombs explode in Mumbai, India, killing about 300 and injuring hundreds more.

1993 – North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea says that it plans to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refuses to allow inspectors access to its nuclear sites.

1994 – The Church of England ordains its first female priests.

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

2003 – Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade.

2003 – WHO officially release global warning on pandemic SARS disease.

2004 – The President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, is impeached by its National Assembly: The first such impeachment in the nation's history.

2009 – Financier Bernard Madoff pleads guilty in New York to scamming $18 billion, the largest in Wall Street's history.

2011 – A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan's earthquake.

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

March 14th

44 BC – Casca and Cassius decide, on the night before the Assassination of Julius Caesar, that Mark Antony should live.

313 – Emperor Jin Huaidi is executed by Liu Cong, ruler of the Xiongnu state (Han Zhao).

1381 – Chioggia concludes an alliance with Zadar and Trogir against Venice, which becomes changed in 1412 in Šibenik.

1489 – The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice.

1590 – Battle of Ivry: Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots defeat the forces of the Catholic League under Charles, Duke of Mayenne during the French Wars of Religion.

1647 – Thirty Years' War: Bavaria, Cologne, France and Sweden sign the Truce of Ulm.

1663 – Otto von Guericke completes his book on Vacuum.

1757 – Admiral Sir John Byng is executed by firing squad aboard HMS Monarch for breach of the Articles of War.

1780 – American Revolutionary War: Spanish forces capture Fort Charlotte in Mobile, Alabama, the last British frontier post capable of threatening New Orleans in Spanish Louisiana.

1782 – Battle of Wuchale: Emperor Tekle Giyorgis I pacifies a group of Oromo near Wuchale.

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

1885 – The Mikado, a light opera by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, receives its first public performance in London.

1900 – The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing United States currency on the gold standard.

1903 – The Hay–Herrán Treaty, granting the United States the right to build the Panama Canal, is ratified by the United States Senate. The Senate of Colombia would later reject the treaty.

1903 – Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge is established by US President Theodore Roosevelt.

1910 – Lakeview Gusher, the largest U.S. oil well gusher near Bakersfield, California, vents to atmosphere.

1926 – El Virilla train accident, Costa Rica: A train falls off a bridge over the Río Virilla between Heredia and Tibás. Two hundred forty-eight are killed and 93 wounded.

1931 – Alam Ara, India's first talking film, is released.

1936 – The first all-sound film version of Show Boat opens at Radio City Music Hall.

1939 – Slovakia declares independence under German pressure.

1942 – Orvan Hess and John Bumstead became the first in the United States successfully to treat a patient, Anne Miller, using penicillin.

1943 – World War II: The Kraków Ghetto is "liquidated".

1945 – World War II: The R.A.F.'s first operational use of the Grand Slam bomb, Bielefeld, Germany.

1951 – Korean War: For the second time, United Nations troops recapture Seoul.

1961 – USAF Broken Arrow nuclear weapon mishap in B-52 crash near Yuba City, Ca.

1964 – A jury in Dallas finds Jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assumed assassin of John F. Kennedy.

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

1978 – The Israel Defense Forces invade and occupies southern Lebanon in Operation Litani.

1979 – In China, a Hawker Siddeley Trident crashes into a factory near Beijing, killing 44 and injuring at least 200.

1980 – In Poland, LOT Flight 7 crashes during final approach near Warsaw, killing 87 people, including a 14-man American boxing team.

1982 – The South African government bombs the headquarters of the African National Congress in London.

1988 – Johnson South Reef Skirmish: Chinese forces defeat Vietnamese forces in Johnson South Reef, disputed Spratly Islands.

1994 – Timeline of Linux development: Linux kernel version 1.0.0 is released.

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

2006 – Members of the Chadian military fail in an attempted coup d'état.

2007 – The Left Front government of West Bengal sends at least 3,000 police to Nandigram in an attempt to break Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee resistance there; the resulting clash leaves 14 dead.

2008 – A series of riots, protests, and demonstrations erupt in Lhasa and elsewhere in Tibet.

March 16th

934 – Meng Zhixiang declares himself emperor and establishes Later Shu as a new state independent of Later Tang.

1190 – Massacre of Jews at Clifford's Tower, York.

1244 – Over 200 Cathars who refuse to recant are burned to death after the Fall of Montségur.

1322 – The Battle of Boroughbridge takes place in the Despenser Wars.

1521 – Ferdinand Magellan reaches the island of Homonhon in the Philippines.

1621 – Samoset, a Mohegan, visited the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset."

1660 – The Long Parliament of England is dissolved so as to prepare for the new Convention Parliament.

1689 – The 23rd Regiment of Foot, or Royal Welch Fusiliers, is founded.

1782 – American Revolutionary War: Spanish troops capture the British-held island of Roatán.

1782 – Anglo-Spanish War (1779): Action of 16 March 1782.

1792 – King Gustav III of Sweden is shot; he dies on March 29.

1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: An Austrian column is defeated by the French in the Battle of Valvasone.

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

1812 – The Siege of Badajoz begins: British and Portuguese forces besiege and defeat the French garrison during the Peninsular War.

1815 – Prince Willem proclaims himself King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first constitutional monarch in the Netherlands.

1818 – In the Second Battle of Cancha Rayada, Spanish forces defeated Chileans under José de San Martín.

1864 – American Civil War: During the Red River Campaign, Union troops reach Alexandria, Louisiana.

1865 – American Civil War: The Battle of Averasborough began as Confederate forces suffer irreplaceable casualties in the final months of the war.

1870 – The first version of the overture fantasy Romeo and Juliet by Tchaikovsky receives its première performance.

1872 – The Wanderers F.C. won the first FA Cup, the oldest football competition in the world, beating Royal Engineers A.F.C. 1–0 at The Oval in Kennington, London.

1894 – Jules Massenet's opera Thaïs is first performed.

1898 – In Melbourne the representatives of five colonies adopted a constitution, which would become the basis of the Commonwealth of Australia.

1900 – Sir Arthur Evans purchased the land around the ruins of Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete.

1916 – The 7th and 10th US cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the US–Mexico border to join the hunt for Pancho Villa.

1917 – World War I: A German auxiliary cruiser is sunk in the Action of 16 March 1917.

1918 – Finnish Civil War: Battle of Länkipohja is infamous for its bloody aftermath as the Whites executed 70–100 capitulated Reds.

1924 – In accordance with the Treaty of Rome, Fiume becomes annexed as part of Italy.

1925 – An earthquake occurs in Yunnan, China.

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

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

1936 – Warmer-than-normal temperatures rapidly melt snow and ice on the upper Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, leading to a major flood in Pittsburgh.

1939 – From Prague Castle, Hitler proclaims Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.

1940 – First person killed (James Isbister) in a German bombing raid on the UK in World War II during a raid on Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.

1945 – World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ended, but small pockets of Japanese resistance persisted.

1945 – Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers, resulting in around 5,000 deaths.

1958 – The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.

1962 – A Flying Tiger Line Super Constellation disappears in the western Pacific Ocean, with all 107 aboard missing and presumed dead.

1966 – Launch of Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first space docking with an Agena Target Vehicle.

1968 – Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre occurs; between 347 and 500 Vietnamese villagers (men, women, and children) are killed by American troops.

1968 – General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.

1969 – A Viasa McDonnell Douglas DC-9 crashes in Maracaibo, Venezuela, killing 155.

1976 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigns, citing personal reasons.

1977 – Assassination of Kamal Jumblatt, the main leader of the anti-government forces in the Lebanese Civil War.

1978 – Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped. (He is later murdered by his captors.)

1978 – Supertanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two after running aground on the Portsall Rocks, three miles off the coast of Brittany, resulting in the largest oil spill in history at that time.

1979 – Sino-Vietnamese War: The People's Liberation Army crosses the border back into China, ends the war.

1983 – Demolition of the Ismaning radio transmitter, the last wooden radio tower in Germany.

1984 – William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists. (He later dies in captivity.)

1985 – Associated Press newsman Terry Anderson is taken hostage in Beirut. He is released on December 4, 1991.

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

1988 – Halabja chemical attack: The Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraq is attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents on the orders of Saddam Hussein, killing 5000 people and injuring about 10000 people.

1988 – The Troubles: Ulster loyalist militant Michael Stone attacks a Provisional IRA funeral in Belfast with pistols and grenades. A PIRA volunteer and two civilians are killed, and more than 60 others are wounded.

1989 – In Egypt, a 4400-year-old mummy is found near the Pyramid of Cheops.

1991 – The airplane carrying eight members of Reba McEntire's touring band crashed on the side of Otay Mountain.

1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.

2001 – A series of bomb blasts that took place in the city of Shijiazhuang, China killed 108 people and injured 38 others, was the biggest mass murder in China in decades.

2003 – American activist Rachel Corrie is killed in Rafah trying to obstruct the demolition of a home by being run over by a bulldozer.

2005 – Israel officially hands over Jericho to Palestinian control.

2014 – Crimea votes in a controversial referendum to secede from Ukraine to join Russia.

2016 – A bomb detonates in a bus carrying government employees in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 15 and injuring at least 54.

2016 – Two suicide bombers detonate their explosives at a mosque during morning prayer on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing 22 and injuring 18.

March 18th

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

633 – Ridda wars: The Arabian Peninsula is united under the central authority of Caliph Abu Bakr.

1068 – An earthquake in the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula, leaves up to 20,000 dead.

1229 – Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, declares himself King of Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade.

1241 – First Mongol invasion of Poland: Mongols overwhelm Polish armies in Kraków in the Battle of Chmielnik and plunder the city.

1314 – Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.

1438 – Albert II of Habsburg becomes Holy Roman Emperor.

1608 – Susenyos is formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia.

1644 – The Third Anglo-Powhatan War begins in the Colony of Virginia.

1741 – New York governor George Clarke's complex at Fort George is burned in an arson attack, starting the New York Conspiracy of 1741.

1766 – American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act.

1793 – The first modern republic in Germany, the Republic of Mainz, is declared by Andreas Joseph Hofmann.

1793 – Flanders Campaign of the French Revolution, Battle of Neerwinden.

1834 – Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.

1848 – March Revolution: In Berlin there is a struggle between citizens and military, costing about 300 lives.

1850 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.

1865 – American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time.

1871 – Declaration of the Paris Commune; President of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, orders the evacuation of Paris.

1874 – Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trade rights.

1892 – Former Governor General Lord Stanley pledges to donate a silver challenge cup, later named after him, as an award for the best hockey team in Canada the Stanley Cup.

1902 – Macario Sakay issues Presidential Order No. 1 of his Tagalog Republic.

1913 – King George I of Greece is assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki.

1915 – World War I: During the Battle of Gallipoli, three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles.

1921 – The second Peace of Riga is signed between Poland and the Soviet Union.

1922 – In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience, of which he serves only two.

1925 – The Tri-State Tornado hits the Midwestern states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, killing 695 people.

1937 – The New London School explosion in New London, Texas, kills 300 people, mostly children.

1937 – Spanish Civil War: Spanish Republican forces defeat the Italians at the Battle of Guadalajara.

1938 – Mexico creates Pemex by expropriating all foreign-owned oil reserves and facilities.

1940 – World War II: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.

1942 – The War Relocation Authority is established in the United States to take Japanese Americans into custody.

1944 – The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy kills 26 people and causes thousands to flee their homes.

1948 – Soviet consultants leave Yugoslavia in the first sign of the Tito–Stalin Split.

1953 – An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing 265 people.

1959 – The Hawaii Admission Act is signed into law.

1962 – The Évian Accords end the Algerian War of Independence, which had begun in 1954.

1965 – Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.

1967 – The supertanker Torrey Canyon runs aground off the Cornish coast.

1968 – Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.

1969 – The United States begins secretly bombing the Sihanouk Trail in Cambodia, used by communist forces to infiltrate South Vietnam.

1970 – Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.

1971 – Peru: a landslide crashes into Yanawayin Lake, killing 200 people at the mining camp of Chungar.

1980 – A Vostok-2M rocket at Plesetsk Cosmodrome Site 43 explodes during a fueling operation, killing 48 people.

1990 – Germans in the German Democratic Republic vote in the first democratic elections in the former communist dictatorship.

1990 – In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $500 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

1994 – Bosnia's Bosniaks and Croats sign the Washington Agreement, ending war between the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and establishing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

1996 – A nightclub fire in Quezon City, Philippines kills 162 people.

1997 – The tail of a Russian Antonov An-24 charter plane breaks off while en route to Turkey causing the plane to crash and killing all 50 people on board.

2014 – The parliaments of Russia and Crimea sign an accession treaty.

2015 – The Bardo National Museum in Tunisia is attacked by gunmen. 23 people, almost all tourists, are killed, and at least 50 other people are wounded.