On March 19th...

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1227 Count Ugolino of Segna was elected Pope Gregory IX.

1452 Frederick III of Hapsburg was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Nicholas V.

1571 Spanish troops occupied Manila, Philippines.

1628 Massachusetts Colony was founded.

1629 Tsar Alexis of Russia was born.

1687 René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explorer of the Mississippi River, was murdered by his own men.

1702 Anne Stuart, daughter of James II, became Queen of England.

1721 Pope Clement XI died.

1748 The English Naturalization Act was passed, granting Jews the right to emmigrate to America.

1808 King Charles IV of Spain abdicated.

1813 Missionary-explorer David Livingstone was born.

1821 Explorer Richard Burton was born.

1822 Boston, Massachusetts, was incorporated as a city.

1831 The first bank robbery in the United States was committed -- the City Bank of New York was robbed of $245,000.

1848 "Wild West" figure Wyatt Earp was born.

1860 American politician William Jennings Bryan was born.

1864 American artist Charles M. Russell was born.

1865 Confederate troops were routed at the Battle of Bentonville (North Carolina)

1866 The immigrant ship Monarch of the Seas sank off Lierpool, England, killing 738 persons..

1872 Ballet producer Sergei Diaghilev was born.

1883 Jan Matzeliger invented a machine to manufacture entire shoes.
1883 U .S. General Joseph Stilwell was born.

1895 The Los Angeles (California) Railway was established to provide streetcar service.

1900 Physicist Frédéric Joliot was born.

1904 Jurist John Sirica was born.

1906 Nazi Gestapo official Adolf Eichmann was born.

1911 The first International Women's Day was celebrated.

1914 The Toronto Blueshirts defeated the Victoria Capitals for the Stanley Cup.

1916Author Irving Wallace was born.

1917 The U. S. Supreme Court upheld the Adamson Act, establishing an 8-hour workday for railroad employees.

1918 The U. S. Congress authorized timezones and approved daylight saving time.

1920 The U. S. Congress voted against the Treaty of Versailles for the second time.

1928 "Amos and Andy" debuted on NBC Blue Network.
1928 Actor Patrick McGoohan was born.

1930 Arthur Balfour, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, died.

1931 Nevada legalized gambling.

1932 The Sydney (Australia) Harbour Bridge was opened.

1936 Actress Ursula Andress was born.

1937 Astronomer Fritz Zwicky published his research on stellar explosions in which he coined the term "supernova."

1942 U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all men between 45 and 64 to register for non-military duty.
1942 The Thoroughbred Racing Association of the United States was formed in Chicago, Illinois.

1944 Lynda Byrd Johnson, daughter of U. S. President Lyndon Johnson, was born.
1944 Said Musa, Prime Minister of Belize, was born.
1944 Sirhan Sirhan, assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, was born.

1945 Adolf Hitler issued the Nero Decree -- ordering the complete destruction of all German facilities.

1946 French Guyana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Reunion became overseas departments of France.

1947 Actress Glenn Close was born.

1949 The first museum devoted exclusively to atomic energy was established in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

1950 Author Edgar Rice Burroughs died.

1952 Film producer Harvey Weinstein was born.

1953 Guitarist Ricky Wilson was born.

1954 The first rocket sled on rails was tested at Alamagordo, New Mexico.

1955 San Francisco defeated La Salle 77-63 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.
1955 Actor Bruce Willis was born.

1960 Ohio State defeated California 75-55 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

1965 Gas explosions and fire in a lignite mine near Amasya, Turkey, killed 68 men.
1965 The first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether.

1966 Texas Western defeated Kentucky 7265 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

1967 Hungary held its first multi-candidate elections for the National Assembly since 1947.

1968 Students seized the Howard University administration building.

1969 British paratroopers seized control of Anguilla.

1972 India and Bangladesh signed a friendship treaty.

1975 Pennsylvania became the first state to allow girls to compete with boys in high school sports.

1979 C-SPAN began televising sessions of the U.S. House of Representatives.

1982 Argentinian forces landed on South Georgia Island in the Falkland Islands.
1982 Guitarist Randy Rhoads died.

1987 Jim Bakker resigned as head of the PTL Club.

1991 The Sacramento Kings set an NBA record of 29 consecutive road losses.

1992 Britains's Prince Andrew and Sarah, Duchess of York, publicly announced their separation.

1994 The world's largest omelete, using 160,000 eggs and covering 1,383 square feet, was made in Yokohama, Japan.

1995 A poison gas attack in the Tokyo, Japan, subway killed 5 persons.

2003 A U. S. and British-led coalition invaded Iraq.

2004 Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was shot.
2004 A head-on truck and bus collision in Äänekoski, Finland, killed 24 persons and injured 13.

2005 Automobile designer John DeLorean died.

2008 Author Arthur C. Clarke died.

2013 A bush crash in Maharashtra, India, killed 27 persons and injured 14.
2013 Mudslides killed 16 persons in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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This page was last updated on June 03, 2018.