This Day in History

February 22nd

705 – Empress Wu Zetian abdicates the throne, restoring the Tang dynasty.

1316 – Battle of Picotin between Ferdinand of Majorca and the forces of Matilda of Hainaut.

1371 – Robert II becomes King of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty.

1495 – King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the city's throne.

1632 – Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published.

1651 – St. Peter's Flood: A storm surge floods the Frisian coast, drowning 15,000 people.

1744 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Battle of Toulon causes several Royal Navy captains to be court-martialed, and the Articles of War to be amended.

1797 – The last Invasion of Britain begins near Fishguard, Wales.

1819 – By the Adams–Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.

1821 – Greek War of Independence: Alexander Ypsilantis crosses the Prut river at Sculeni into the Danubian Principalities.

1847 – Mexican–American War: The Battle of Buena Vista: Five thousand American troops defeat 15,000 Mexicans troops.

1848 – The French Revolution of 1848, which would lead to the establishment of the French Second Republic, begins.


1853 – Washington University in St. Louis is founded as Eliot Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

1855 – The Pennsylvania State University is founded in State College, Pennsylvania (as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania).

1856 – The United States Republican Party opens its first national convention in Pittsburgh.

1862 – Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.

1872 – The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.

1878 – In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of five-and-dime Woolworth stores.

1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.

1899 – Filipino forces led by General Antonio Luna launch counterattacks for the first time against the American forces during the Philippine–American War. The Filipinos fail to regain Manila from the Americans.

1904 – The United Kingdom sells a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina; the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908.

1907 – Robert Baden-Powell made the first scouting camp in Brownsea, England.

1909 – The sixteen battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by USS Connecticut, return to the United States after a voyage around the world.

1915 – World War I: The Imperial German Navy institutes unrestricted submarine warfare.

1921 – After Russian forces under Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg drive the Chinese out, the Bogd Khan is reinstalled as the emperor of Mongolia.

1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President to deliver a radio address from the White House.

1942 – World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable.

1943 – World War II: Members of the White Rose resistance, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Nazi Germany.

1944 – World War II: American aircraft mistakenly bomb the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.

1944 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army recaptures Krivoi Rog.

1946 – The "Long Telegram", proposing how the United States should deal with the Soviet Union, arrives from the US embassy in Moscow.

1957 – Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam survives a communist shooting assassination attempt in Buôn Ma Thuột.

1958 – Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic.

1959 – Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.

1972 – The Official Irish Republican Army detonates a car bomb at Aldershot barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen others.

1973 – Cold War: Following President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.

1974 – The Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit begins in Lahore, Pakistan. Thirty-seven countries attend and twenty-two heads of state and government participate. It also recognizes Bangladesh.

1974 – Samuel Byck attempts to hijack an aircraft at Baltimore/Washington International Airport with the intention of crashing it into the White House to assassinate Richard Nixon, but is killed by police.

1980 – Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3.

1983 – The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

1986 – Start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.

1994 – Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.

1995 – The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified.

1997 – In Roslin, Midlothian, British scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly has been successfully cloned.

2002 – Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush.

2005 – The 6.4 Mw  Zarand earthquake shakes the Kerman Province of Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), leaving 612 people dead and 1,411 injured.

2006 – At least six men stage Britain's biggest robbery, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or €78 million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

2011 – New Zealand's second deadliest earthquake strikes Christchurch, killing 185 people.

2011 – Bahraini uprising: Tens of thousands of people march in protest against the deaths of seven victims killed by police and army forces during previous protests.

2012 – A train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 51 people and injures 700 others.

2014 – President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine is impeached by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by a vote of 328–0, fulfilling a major goal of the Euromaidan rebellion.

2015 – A ferry carrying 100 passengers capsizes in the Padma River, killing 70 people.

2018 – A man throws a grenade at the U.S embassy in Podgorica, Montenegro. He dies at the scene from a second explosion, with no one else hurt.

February 24th

484 – King Huneric removes the Christian bishops from their offices and banished some to Corsica. A few are martyred, including former proconsul Victorian along with Frumentius and other merchants. They are killed at Hadrumetum after refusing to become Arians.

1303 – Battle of Roslin, of the First War of Scottish Independence.

1386 – King Charles III of Naples and Hungary is assassinated at Buda.

1525 – A Spanish-Austrian army defeats a French army at the Battle of Pavia.

1538 – Treaty of Nagyvárad between Ferdinand I and John Zápolya.

1582 – With the papal bull Inter gravissimas, Pope Gregory XIII announces the Gregorian calendar.

1607 – L'Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, one of the first works recognized as an opera, receives its première performance.

1711 – The London première of Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage.

1739 – Battle of Karnal: The army of Iranian ruler Nader Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah.

1803 – In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the principle of judicial review.

1809 – London's Drury Lane Theatre burns to the ground, leaving owner Richard Brinsley Sheridan destitute.

1821 – Final stage of the Mexican War of Independence from Spain with Plan of Iguala.

1822 – The first Swaminarayan temple in the world, Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Ahmedabad, is inaugurated.

1826 – The signing of the Treaty of Yandabo marks the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War.

1831 – The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act, is proclaimed. The Choctaws in Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West.
1848 – King Louis-Philippe of France abdicates the throne.

1854 – A Penny Red with perforations was the first perforated postage stamp to be officially issued for distribution.

1863 – Arizona is organized as a United States territory.

1868 – Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. He is later acquitted in the Senate.

1875 – The SS Gothenburg hits the Great Barrier Reef and sinks off the Australian east coast, killing approximately 100, including a number of high-profile civil servants and dignitaries.

1881 – China and Russia sign the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty.

1895 – Revolution breaks out in Baire, a town near Santiago de Cuba, beginning the Cuban War of Independence, that ends with the Spanish–American War in 1898.

1916 – The Governor-General of Korea establishes a clinic called Jahyewon in Sorokdo to segregate Hansen's disease patients.

1917 – World War I: The U.S. ambassador Walter Hines Page to the United Kingdom is given the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States.

1918 – Estonian Declaration of Independence.

1920 – The Nazi Party is founded.

1920 – Nancy Astor became the first woman to speak in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom following her election as a Member of Parliament (MP) three months earlier.

1942 – The Battle of Los Angeles: A false alarm led to an anti-aircraft barrage that lasted into the early hours of February 25.

1942 – An order-in-council passed under the Defence of Canada Regulations of the War Measures Act gives the Canadian federal government the power to intern all "persons of Japanese racial origin".

1944 – Merrill's Marauders: The Marauders begin their 1,000-mile journey through Japanese occupied Burma.

1945 – Egyptian Premier Ahmad Mahir Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree.

1946 – Colonel Juan Perón, founder of the political movement that became known as Peronism, is elected to his first term as President of Argentina.

1949 – The Armistice Agreements are signed, to formally end the hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

1968 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnam recaptures Hué.

1971 – The All India Forward Bloc holds an emergency central committee meeting after its chairman, Hemantha Kumar Bose, is killed three days earlier. P.K. Mookiah Thevar is appointed as the new chairman.

1976 – The current constitution of Cuba is formally proclaimed.

1980 – The United States Olympic hockey team completes its Miracle on Ice by defeating Finland 4–2 to win the gold medal.

1981 – The 6.7 Ms Gulf of Corinth earthquake affected Central Greece with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). Twenty-two people were killed, 400 were injured, and damage totaled $812 million.

1983 – A special commission of the United States Congress condemns the Japanese American internment during World War II.

1984 – Tyrone Mitchell perpetrates the 49th Street Elementary School shooting in Los Angeles, killing two children and injuring 12 more.

1989 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa and offers a USD $3 million bounty for the death of Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

1989 – United Airlines Flight 811, bound for New Zealand from Honolulu, rips open during flight, blowing nine passengers out of the business-class section.

1991 – Gulf War: Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus beginning the ground phase of the war.

1996 – Two civilian airplanes operated by the Miami-based group Brothers to the Rescue are shot down in international waters by the Cuban Air Force.

2004 – The 6.3 Mw Al Hoceima earthquake strikes northern Morocco with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). At least 628 people are killed, 926 are injured, and up to 15,000 are displaced.

2006 – Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declares Proclamation 1017 placing the country in a state of emergency in attempt to subdue a possible military coup.

2007 – Japan launches its fourth spy satellite, stepping up its ability to monitor potential threats such as North Korea.

2008 – Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba and the Council of Ministers after 32 years. He remains as head of the Communist Party for another three years.

2015 – A Metrolink train derails in Oxnard, California following a collision with a truck, leaving more than 30 injured.

2016 – Tara Air Flight 193, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft, crashed, with 23 fatalities, in Solighopte, Myagdi District, Dhaulagiri Zone, while en route from Pokhara Airport to Jomsom Airport.

February 26th

747 BC – Epoch (origin) of Ptolemy's Nabonassar Era.

364 – Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman emperor.

1233 – Mongol–Jin War: The Mongols capture Kaifeng, the capital of the Jin dynasty, after besieging it for months.

1266 – Battle of Benevento: An army led by Charles, Count of Anjou, defeats a combined German and Sicilian force led by Manfred, King of Sicily. Manfred is killed in the battle and Pope Clement IV invests Charles as king of Sicily and Naples.

1606 – The Janszoon voyage of 1605–06 becomes the first European expedition to sight Australia, although it is mistaken as a part of New Guinea.

1616 – Galileo Galilei is formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.

1794 – The first Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen burns down.

1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from Elba.

1876 – Japan and Korea sign a treaty granting Japanese citizens extraterritoriality rights, opening three ports to Japanese trade, and ending Korea's status as a tributary state of Qing dynasty China.

1909 – Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process, is first shown to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London.

1914 – HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signs an act of Congress establishing the Grand Canyon National Park.

1929 – President Calvin Coolidge signs an executive order establishing the 96,000 acre Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

1935 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be re-formed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

1935 – Robert Watson-Watt carries out a demonstration near Daventry which leads directly to the development of radar in the United Kingdom.

1936 – In the February 26 Incident, young Japanese military officers attempt to stage a coup against the government.

1952 – Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada.

1960 – A New York-bound Alitalia airliner crashes into a cemetery in Shannon, Ireland, shortly after takeoff, killing 34 of the 52 persons on board.

1966 – Apollo program: Launch of AS-201, the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket

1971 – U.N. Secretary-General U Thant signs United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.

1979 – The Superliner railcar enters revenue service with Amtrak.

1980 – Egypt and Israel establish full diplomatic relations.

1987 – Iran–Contra affair: The Tower Commission rebukes President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff.

1992 – Nagorno-Karabakh War: Khojaly Massacre: Armenian armed forces open fire on Azeri civilians at a military post outside the town of Khojaly leaving hundreds dead.

1993 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing six and injuring over a thousand.

1995 – The UK's oldest investment banking institute, Barings Bank, collapses after a rogue securities broker Nick Leeson loses $1.4 billion by speculating on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange using futures contracts.

1996 – Keddies, the Southend-on-Sea department store closes it doors after 104 years of trading.

2008 – The New York Philharmonic performs in Pyongyang, North Korea; this is the first event of its kind to take place in North Korea.

2012 – Trayvon Martin was shot and killed at the age of 17 in Sanford, Florida.

2012 – A train derails in Burlington, Ontario, Canada killing at least three people and injuring 45.

2013 – A hot air balloon crashes near Luxor, Egypt, killing 19 people.

February 28th

202 BC – Liu Bang is enthroned as the Emperor of China, beginning four centuries of rule by the Han dynasty.

628 – Khosrow II is executed by Mihr Hormozd under the orders of Kavadh II.

870 – The Fourth Council of Constantinople closes.

1246 – The siege of Jaén ends in the context of the Spanish Reconquista resulting in the Castilian takeover of the city from the Taifa of Jaen.

1525 – Aztec king Cuauhtémoc is executed on the order of conquistador Hernán Cortés.

1638 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh.

1700 – Today is followed by March 1 in Sweden, thus creating the Swedish calendar.

1710 – Battle of Helsingborg: 14,000 Danish invaders under Jørgen Rantzau are decisively defeated by an equally sized Swedish force under Magnus Stenbock. This is the last time Swedish and Danish troops meet on Swedish soil.

1728 – Peshwa Bajirao I of the Maratha Empire defeats Asaf Jah I in the Battle of Palkhed.

1784 – John Wesley charters the Methodist Church.

1827 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

1838 – Robert Nelson, leader of the Patriotes, proclaims the independence of Lower Canada (today Quebec).

1844 – A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing six people, including two United States Cabinet members.

1847 – The Battle of the Sacramento River during the Mexican–American War is a decisive victory for the United States leading to the capture of Chihuahua.

1849 – Regular steamship service from the east to the west coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, four months 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.

1867 – Seventy years of Holy See–United States relations are ended by a Congressional ban on federal funding of diplomatic envoys to the Vatican and are not restored until January 10, 1984.

1870 – The Bulgarian Exarchate is established by decree of Sultan Abdülaziz of the Ottoman Empire.

1874 – One of the longest cases ever heard in an English court ends when the defendant is convicted of perjury for attempting to assume the identity of the heir to the Tichborne baronetcy.

1893 – The USS Indiana, the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time, is launched.

1897 – Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch of Madagascar, is deposed by a French military force.

1900 – The Second Boer War: The 118-day "Siege of Ladysmith" is lifted.

1904 – S.L. Benfica is founded in Portugal.

1922 – The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over Egypt through a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

1925 – The Charlevoix-Kamouraska earthquake strikes northeastern North America.

1933 – Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag Fire Decree is passed in Germany a day after the Reichstag fire.

1935 – DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invents nylon.

1939 – The erroneous word "dord" is discovered in the Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prompting an investigation.

1940 – Basketball is televised for the first time (Fordham University vs. the University of Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden).

1942 – The heavy cruiser USS Houston is sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed, along with HMAS Perth which lost 375 men.

1947 – February 28 Incident: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of an estimated 30,000 civilians.

1948 – Christiansborg Cross-Roads shooting in the Gold Coast, when a British police officer opens fire on a march of ex-servicemen, killing three of them and sparking major riots and looting in Accra.

1953 – James Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April's Nature (pub. April 2).

1954 – The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.

1958 – A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunges down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork river. The driver and 26 children die in what remains one of the worst school bus accidents in U.S. history.

1959 – Discoverer 1, an American spy satellite that is the first object intended to achieve a polar orbit, is launched but fails to achieve orbit.

1972 – China–United States relations: The United States and China sign the Shanghai Communiqué.

1975 – In London, an underground train fails to stop at Moorgate terminus station and crashes into the end of the tunnel, killing 43 people.

1980 – Andalusia approves its statute of autonomy through a referendum.

1983 – The final episode of M*A*S*H airs, with almost 106 million viewers. It still holds the record for the highest viewership of a season finale.

1985 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

1986 – Olof Palme, 26th Prime Minister of Sweden, is assassinated in Stockholm.

1991 – The first Gulf War ends.

1993 – The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group's leader David Koresh. Four ATF agents and six Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

1995 – Former Australian Liberal party leader John Hewson resigns from the Australian parliament almost two years after losing the Australian federal election, 1993.

1997 – An earthquake in northern Iran is responsible for about 3,000 deaths.

1997 – GRB 970228, a highly luminous flash of gamma rays, strikes the Earth for 80 seconds, providing early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way.

1998 – First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.

1998 – Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.

2002 – During the religious violence in Gujarat, the 97 people killed in the Naroda Patiya massacre and 69 in Gulbarg Society massacre.

2004 – Over one million Taiwanese participate in the 228 Hand-in-Hand rally form a 500-kilometre (310 mi) long human chain to commemorate the February 28 Incident in 1947.

2005 – A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq kills 127.

2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church, becoming the first pope to do so since Pope Gregory XII, in 1415.

march 1st

509 BC – Publius Valerius Publicola celebrates the first triumph of the Roman Republic after his victory over the deposed king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus at the Battle of Silva Arsia.

86 BC – Lucius Cornelius Sulla, at the head of a Roman Republic army, enters Athens, removing the tyrant Aristion who was supported by troops of Mithridates VI of Pontus ending the Siege of Athens and Piraeus.

293 – Emperor Diocletian and Maximian appoint Constantius Chlorus and Galerius as Caesars. This is considered the beginning of the Tetrarchy, known as the Quattuor Principes Mundi ("Four Rulers of the World").

317 – Crispus and Constantine II, sons of Roman Emperor Constantine I, and Licinius Iunior, son of Emperor Licinius, are made Caesares.

350 – Vetranio is asked by Constantina, sister of Constantius II, to proclaim himself Caesar.

834 – Emperor Louis the Pious is restored as sole ruler of the Frankish Empire. After his re-accession to the throne, his eldest son Lothair I flees to Burgundy.

1457 – The Unitas Fratrum is established in the village of Kunvald, on the Bohemian-Moravian borderland. It is to date the second oldest Protestant denomination.

1476 – Forces of the Catholic Monarchs engage the combined Portuguese-Castilian armies of Afonso V and Prince John at the Battle of Toro.

1562 – Sixty-three Huguenots are massacred in Wassy, France, marking the start of the French Wars of Religion.

1565 – The city of Rio de Janeiro is founded.

1628 – Writs issued in February by Charles I of England mandate that every county in England (not just seaport towns) pay ship tax by this date.

1633 – Samuel de Champlain reclaims his role as commander of New France on behalf of Cardinal Richelieu.

1642 – Georgeana, Massachusetts (now known as York, Maine), becomes the first incorporated city in the United States.

1692 – Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning what would become known as the Salem witch trials.

1700 – Sweden introduces its own Swedish calendar, in an attempt to gradually merge into the Gregorian calendar, reverts to the Julian calendar on this date in 1712, and introduces the Gregorian calendar on this date in 1753.

1713 – The siege and destruction of Fort Neoheroka begins during the Tuscarora War in North Carolina, effectively opening up the colony's interior to European colonization.

1781 – The Continental Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation.

1790 – The first United States census is authorized.

1793 – French Revolutionary War: Battle of Aldenhoven during the Flanders Campaign.

1796 – The Dutch East India Company is nationalized by the Batavian Republic.

1805 – Justice Samuel Chase is acquitted at the end of his impeachment trial by the U.S. Senate.

1811 – Leaders of the Mamluk dynasty are killed by Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali.

1815 – Napoleon returns to France from his banishment on Elba.

1815 – Georgetown University's congressional charter is signed into law by President James Madison.

1836 – A convention of delegates from 57 Texas communities convenes in Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas, to deliberate independence from Mexico.

1845 – United States President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.

1852 – Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, is appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

1854 – German psychologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappears; two years later his remains are found in a canal near Charlottenburg.

1867 – Nebraska becomes the 37th U.S. state; Lancaster, Nebraska is renamed Lincoln and becomes the state capital.

1868 – The Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity is founded at the University of Virginia.

1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev finishes his design of the first periodic table and sends it for publishing.

1870 – Marshal F. S. López dies during the Battle of Cerro Corá thus marking the end of the Paraguayan War.

1872 – Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park.

1873 – E. Remington and Sons in Ilion, New York begins production of the first practical typewriter.

1881 – The first Minnesota State Capitol burns down due to a fire.

1886 – The Anglo-Chinese School, Singapore is founded by Bishop William Oldham.

1893 – Electrical engineer Nikola Tesla gives the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis, Missouri.

1896 – Battle of Adwa: An Ethiopian army defeats an outnumbered Italian force, ending the First Italo-Ethiopian War.

1896 – Henri Becquerel discovers radioactive decay.

1901 – The Australian Army is formed.

1910 – The worst avalanche in United States history buries a Great Northern Railway train in northeastern King County, Washington, killing 96 people.

1914 – The Republic of China joins the Universal Postal Union.

1917 – The Zimmermann Telegram is reprinted in newspapers across the United States after the U.S. government releases its unencrypted text.

1919 – March 1st Movement begins in Korea under Japanese rule.

1921 – The Australian cricket team captained by Warwick Armstrong becomes the first team to complete a whitewash of The Ashes, something that would not be repeated for 86 years.

1932 – Charles Lindbergh's son is reportedly kidnapped.

1936 – The Hoover Dam is completed.

1939 – An Imperial Japanese Army ammunition dump explodes at Hirakata, Osaka, Japan, killing 94.

1941 – World War II: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, allying itself with the Axis powers.

1942 – World War II: Japanese forces land on Java, the main island of the Dutch East Indies, at Merak and Banten Bay (Banten), Eretan Wetan (Indramayu) and Kragan (Rembang).

1946 – The Bank of England is nationalised.

1947 – The International Monetary Fund begins financial operations.

1949 – Indonesian Army recaptures and occupies for six hours its capital city Yogyakarta from the Dutch.

1950 – Cold War: Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union by disclosing top secret atomic bomb data.

1953 – Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses; he dies four days later.

1954 – Nuclear weapons testing: The Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, is detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States.

1954 – Armed Puerto Rican nationalists attack the United States Capitol building, injuring five Representatives.

1956 – The International Air Transport Association finalizes a draft of the Radiotelephony spelling alphabet for the International Civil Aviation Organization.

1956 – Formation of the East German Nationale Volksarmee.

1958 – Samuel Alphonsus Stritch is appointed Pro-Prefect of the Propagation of Faith and thus becomes the first U.S. member of the Roman Curia.

1961 – United States President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.

1961 – Uganda becomes self-governing and holds its first elections.

1964 – Villarrica Volcano begins a strombolian eruption causing lahars that destroy half of the town of Coñaripe.

1966 – Venera 3 Soviet space probe crashes on Venus becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.

1966 – The Ba'ath Party takes power in Syria.

1971 – President of Pakistan Yahya Khan indefinitely postpones the pending national assembly session, precipitating massive civil disobedience in East Pakistan.

1972 – The Thai province of Yasothon is created after being split off from the Ubon Ratchathani Province.

1973 – Black September storms the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, resulting in the assassination of three Western hostages.

1974 – Watergate scandal: Seven are indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.

1981 – Provisional Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands begins his hunger strike in HM Prison Maze.

1983 – First collection of twelve Swatch models was introduced in Zürich, Switzerland.

1990 – Steve Jackson Games is raided by the United States Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

1991 – Uprisings against Saddam Hussein begin in Iraq, leading to the death of more than 25,000 people mostly civilian.

1992 – Bosnia and Herzegovina declares its independence from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

1998 – Titanic became the first film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.

2002 – U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins in eastern Afghanistan.

2002 – The Envisat environmental satellite successfully reaches an orbit 800 kilometers (500 mi) above the Earth on its 11th launch, carrying the heaviest payload to date at 8500 kilograms (8.5 tons).

2003 – Management of the United States Customs Service and the United States Secret Service move to the United States Department of Homeland Security.

2003 – The International Criminal Court holds its inaugural session in The Hague.

2005 – In Roper v. Simmons, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the execution of juveniles found guilty of murder is unconstitutional.

2006 – English-language Wikipedia reaches its one millionth article, Jordanhill railway station.

2007 – Tornadoes break out across the southern United States, killing at least 20 people, including eight at Enterprise High School.

2008 – The Armenian police clash with peaceful opposition rally protesting against allegedly fraudulent presidential elections, as a result ten people are killed.

2014 – At least 29 people are killed and 130 injured in a mass stabbing at Kunming Railway Station in China.

March 3rd

473 – Gundobad (nephew of Ricimer) nominates Glycerius as emperor of the Western Roman Empire.

724 – Empress Genshō abdicates the throne in favor of her nephew Shōmu who becomes emperor of Japan.

1284 – The Statute of Rhuddlan incorporates the Principality of Wales into England.

1575 – Indian Mughal Emperor Akbar defeats Bengali army at the Battle of Tukaroi.

1585 – The Olympic Theatre, designed by Andrea Palladio, is inaugurated in Vicenza.

1776 – American Revolutionary War: The first amphibious landing of the United States Marine Corps begins the Battle of Nassau.

1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Continental Army is routed at the Battle of Brier Creek near Savannah, Georgia.

1799 – The Russo-Ottoman siege of Corfu ends with the surrender of the French garrison.

1820 – The U.S. Congress passes the Missouri Compromise.

1845 – Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.

1849 – The Territory of Minnesota was created.

1857 – Second Opium War: France and the United Kingdom declare war on China.

1859 – The two-day Great Slave Auction, the largest such auction in United States history, concludes.

1861 – Alexander II of Russia signs the Emancipation Manifesto, freeing serfs.

1865 – Opening of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the founding member of the HSBC Group.

1873 – Censorship in the United States: The U.S. Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.

1875 – Georges Bizet's opera Carmen receives its première at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.

1875 – The first ever organized indoor game of ice hockey is played in Montreal, Quebec, Canada as recorded in the Montreal Gazette.

1878 – The Russo-Turkish War ends with Bulgaria regaining its independence from the Ottoman Empire according to the Treaty of San Stefano; a few months afterwards the Congress of Berlin stripped its status to a vassal principality of the Ottoman Empire.

1885 – The American Telephone & Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York.

1891 – Shoshone National Forest is established as the first national forest in the US and world.

1904 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a sound recording of a political document, using Thomas Edison's phonograph cylinder.

1910 – Rockefeller Foundation: John D. Rockefeller Jr. announces his retirement from managing his businesses so that he can devote all his time to philanthropy.

1913 – Thousands of women march in a suffrage parade in Washington, D.C.

1918 – Russia signs the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, agreeing to withdraw from World War I, and conceding German control of the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine. It also conceded Turkish control of Ardahan, Kars and Batumi.

1923 – TIME magazine is published for the first time.

1924 – The 407-year-old Islamic caliphate is abolished, when Caliph Abdülmecid II of the Ottoman Caliphate is deposed. The last remnant of the old regime gives way to the reformed Turkey of Kemal Atatürk.

1924 – The Free State of Fiume is annexed by the Kingdom of Italy.

1931 – The United States adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.

1938 – Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.

1939 – In Bombay, Mohandas Gandhi begins a hunger strike in protest at the autocratic rule in British India.

1940 – Five people are killed in an arson attack on the offices of the communist newspaper Flamman in Luleå, Sweden.

1942 – World War II: Ten Japanese warplanes raid Broome, Western Australia, killing more than 100 people.

1943 – World War II: In London, 173 people are killed in a crush while trying to enter an air-raid shelter at Bethnal Green tube station.

1944 – The Order of Nakhimov and Order of Ushakov are instituted in USSR as the highest naval awards.

1945 – World War II: American and Filipino troops recapture Manila.

1945 – World War II: The RAF accidentally bombs the Bezuidenhout area of The Hague, Netherlands, killing 511 people.

1951 – Jackie Brenston, with Ike Turner and his band, records "Rocket 88", often cited as "the first rock and roll record", at Sam Phillips's recording studios in Memphis, Tennessee.

1953 – A De Havilland Comet (Canadian Pacific Air Lines) crashes in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 11.

1958 – Nuri al-Said becomes Prime Minister of Iraq for the eighth time.

1969 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 9 to test the lunar module.

1972 – Mohawk Airlines Flight 405 crashes as a result of a control malfunction and insufficient training in emergency procedures.

1974 – Turkish Airlines Flight 981 crashes at Ermenonville near Paris, France killing all 346 aboard.

1980 – The USS Nautilus is decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register.

1985 – Arthur Scargill declares that the National Union of Mineworkers' national executive voted to end the longest-running industrial dispute in Great Britain without any peace deal over pit closures.

1985 – A magnitude 8.3 earthquake strikes the Valparaíso Region of Chile, killing 177 and leaving nearly a million people homeless.

1986 – The Australia Act 1986 commences, causing Australia to become fully independent from the United Kingdom.

1991 – An amateur video captures the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.

2005 – James Roszko murders four Royal Canadian Mounted Police constables during a drug bust at his property in Rochfort Bridge, Alberta, then commits suicide. This is the deadliest peace-time incident for the RCMP since 1885 and the North-West Rebellion.

2005 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly an airplane non-stop around the world solo without refueling.

2005 – Margaret Wilson is elected as Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, beginning a period lasting until August 23, 2006 where all the highest political offices (including Elizabeth II as Head of State), were occupied by women, making New Zealand the first country for this to occur.

2013 – A bomb blast in Karachi, Pakistan, kills at least 45 people and injured 180 others in a predominately Shia Muslim area.

2017 – Nintendo releases the hybrid Nintendo Switch video game console worldwide to critical acclaim, later becoming the fastest selling console in the United States.