On March 3rd...

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Hina Matsuri (Japan)

1284 The Statute of Rhuddlan incorporated the Principality of Wales into England.

1431 Bishop Gabriele Condulmer was elected Pope Eugene IV.

1455 King João II of Portugal was born.

1703 Scientist Robert Hooke died.

1791 The U.S. Mint was established by Congress.

1794 Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

1801 David Emanuel became the first Jewish Governor in the United States, of Georgia.

1803 The first impeachment trial of a U.S. Federal Judge, John Pickering, began.

1812 The United States passed its first foreign aid bill, to help Venezuela earthquake vicitims.

1813 The Office of Surgeon General of the U.S. Army was created.

1815 The United States declared war on Algiers for taking prisoners and demanding tribute.

1817 Mississippi Territory was divided into Alabama Territory and Mississippi.

1820 The Missouri Compromise was passed.

1821 Thomas Jennings became the first black to be awarded a U. S. patent, for a dry-cleaning process called dry-scouring.

1831 Inventor and businessman George Pullman was born.

1837 The number of U.S. Supreme Court justices was increased from 7 to 9.
1837 The U.S. Congress recognized the Republic of Texas.

1839 Jamsetji Nasarwanji Tata, Indian industrialist and philanthropist, was born.

1842 The first U.S. child labor law regulating working hours was passed by Massachusetts.

1845 Florida was admitted as the 27th state.
1845 The U.S. Congress successfully overrode a presidential veto for the first time.

1847 The U.S. Post Office Department was authorized to issue postage stamps.
1847 Inventor Alexander Graham Bell was born.

1849 The Department of the Interior was created by act of Congress (as the Home Department).
1849 The Territory of Minnesota was organized.

1855 The U.S. Congress approved $30,000 to test camels for military use.
1855 The U.S. Congress authorized registered mail.

1862 Union forces under General John Pope laid siege to New Madrid, Missouri.
1862 Henry Kinney, early Texas pioneer and entrepreneur, died.

1863 The U.S. Congress authorized a regular Army Signal Corps for the duration of the Civil War.
1863 The first U.S. wartime military conscription bill was enacted.
1863 Idaho Territory was created.

1865 The U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established by President Abraham Lincoln to help destitute free blacks.

1871 The U.S. Congress changed the status of Indian tribes from independent to dependent.
1871 The U.S. Congress established the Civil Service System.

1873 The U.S. Congress enacted the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.

1875 The first recorded hockey game was played in Montreal, Canada.

1878 Bulgaria was lberated from Turkey.

1879 Belva Ann Lockwood became the first woman to be admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

1882 The New York Steam Corporation began distributing steam to Manhattan buildings.
1882 Con man Charles Ponzi was born.

1883 The U.S. Congress authorized steel ships for the Navy.

1885 American Telephone & Telegraph was incorporated.
1885 The U.S. Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act, making Indians wards of the federal government.
1885 California became the first state to establish a permanent forest commission.

1887 The American Protective Association was formed in Clinton, Iowa.
1887 Anne Sullivan began teaching Helen Keller.

1891 The U.S. Courts of Appeal was created.
1891 The U. S. Congress created the Office of Superintendent of Immigration within the Treasury Department.

1901 The National Bureau of Standards was created within the U.S. Department of Commerce.

1903 North Carolina became the first state to require registration of nurses.

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

1905 Tsar Nicholas II of Russia agreed to summon a "consultative assembly."
1905 The U.S. Forest Service was formed.

1909 The Ottawa Senators defeated the Montreal Wanderers to win the Stanley Cup.

1911 Actress Jean Harlow was born.

1915 The U.S. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was created.

1918 Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

1920 Actor James Doohan was born.

1923 The first issue of Time magazine was published.

1926 The International Greyhound Racing Association formed in Miami, Florida.

1930 Ion Iliescu, two-time President of Romania, was born.

1931 The Star-Spangled Banner was officially designated the national anthem of the United States.
1931 Cab Calloway recorded "Minnie the Moocher," which subsequently became the first jazz record to record a million sales.

1934 John Dillinger escaped from the Lake County, Illinois, Jail.

1939 Mohandas Gandhi began a fast to protest against autocratic rule in India.

1943 Australian and American air forces devastated a Japanese navy convoy in the Bismarck Sea.

1952 Puerto Rico approved its first self-written constitution.

1959 Abba Eban resigned, effective in July, as Israeli Ambassador to the United States and permanent representative to the United Nations.
1959 A passenger truck transporting liquor crashed and burned on the Pan American Highway 150 miles northwest of Mexico City, Mexico, killing 28 persons.
1959 Ten children were drowned and another 40 were injured when a school bus slid into a roadside pond near Tifton, Georgia.
1959 The San Francisco Giants renamed their stadium Candlestick Park.
1959 Comedian Lou Costello died.

1962 Over 1,000 people demonstrated in New York City's Times Square against Pressident John F. Kennedy's decision to resume atmospheric testing of nuclear bombs.
1962 A gasoline tanker truck exploded after colliding with a car near Latakia, Syria, killing 31 bystanders and injuring 39.
1932 The British Antarctic Territory was formed.
1962 Track and field star Jackie Joyner-Kersee was born.
1962 Football player Herschel Walker was born.

1966 A tornado killed 57 persons in Jackson, Mississippi.
1966 The rock group Buffalo Springfield was formed.
1966 Actor William Frawley died.

1968 The Greek, Portuguese, and Spanish embassies in The Hague, Netherlands, were bombed.

1974 Turkish Airlines Flight 981 crashed into the Ermenonville Forest outside Paris, France, killing all 346 persons aboard.

1975 The first People's Choice Awards were presented.

1977 The Libyan Socialist Arabs People's Republic was formed.

1980 The USS Nautilus, first nuclear powered ship in the world, was decommissioned.

1985 Willie Shoemaker became the first jockey to surpass $100 million in winnings.

1987 Entertainer Danny Kaye died.

1991 An amateur video caught police officers in Los Angeles, California, beating motorist Rodney King.
1991 Latvia and Estonia voted to become independent of the U. S. S. R.
1991 A United Airlines 737 crashed near Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing 25 persons.
1991 Dance school founder Arthur Murray died.

1992 A gas explosion in a coal mine at Zonguldak, Turkey, killed 263 persons.
1992 The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established.

1993 Albert Sabin, developer of the oral polio vaccine, died.

1997 The scientific mission of Pioneer 10 came to an end.
1997 The tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere, Sky Tower, opened in Auckland, New Zealand.

1998 Fred Friendly, pioneer in radio and television news programming, died.

2002 Citizens of Switzerland narrowly voed in favor of their country becoming a member of the United Nations.

2005 James Roszko murdered four Royal Canadian Mounted Police constables during a drug bust in Rochfort Bridge, Alberta, then committed suicide.
2005 Steve Fossett became the first person to flay an airplane around the world without any stops and without refueling.

2012 Two trains collided in Szczekociny, Poland, killing 16 persons and injuring 50.

2013 A bomb blast killed 45 persons in Karachi, Pakistan.

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This page was last updated on June 24, 2018.