On March 25th...

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Feast of the Annunciation
Independence Day (Greece)

1199 King Richard the Lionhearted of England was wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting in France.

1306 Robert the Bruce was crowned Robert I, King of Scots.

1479 Tsar Vasily III of Russia was born.

1634 Lord Baltimore's colonists landed in what is now Maryland.

1655 Christiaan Huygens discovered Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

1669 Mount Etna erupted, destroying Nicolosi, Sicily, and killing 20,000 people.

1807 The British Parliament abolished the slave trade throughout the British Empire..
1807 The first fare-paying passenger railway service in the world was established on the Oystermouth Railway in Swansea, Wales.

1818 Henry Lee, American Revolutionary War general, died.

1821 Greece gained indepedence from the Ottoman Empire.

1851 California's Yosemite Valley was discovered.

1857 Edouard-Leon Scott patented the phonautograph, predecessor of the phonograph.

1863 The first U. S. Army Medal of Honor was awarded.

1865 The SS General Lyon caught fire and sank at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, killing about 400 people.

1867 Sculptor Gutzon Borglum was born.
1867 Conductor Arturo Toscanini was born.

1881 Composer Béla Bartók was born.

1894 Coxey's Army of the unemployed set out from Massillon, Ohio, for Washington, D.C.

1895 Italian troops invaded Abyssinia.

1900 The U. S. Socialist Party was formed in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1901 A Rock Island train derailed near Marshalltown, Iowa, killing 55 persons.

1902 Irving W. Colburn patented the sheet glass drawing machine.

1903 Racing Club de Avellaneda was founded in Argentina.

1908 Clube Atletico Mineiro was founded in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

1911 The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, New York, caught fire; 145 of the 153 employees (all girls) were killed.
1911 Jack Ruby, killer of the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy, was born.

1918 The Belarusian People's Republic was established.
1918 Sports journalist Howard Cosell was born.
1918 Composer Claude Debussy died.

1921 French actress Simone Signoret was born.

1924 The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Calgary Tigers for the Stanley Cup.

1932 Film critic Gene Shalit was born.

1934 Horton Smith won the first Masters Golf Tournament.
1934 Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms magazine, was born.

1938 Singer Hoyt Axton was born.

1942 Singer Aretha Franklin was born.

1943 Actor Paul Michael Glaser was born.

1947 An explosion inside a coal mine near Centralia, Illinois, killed 111 men.
1947 Holy Cross College defeated the University of Oklahoma 58-47 to win NCAA Basketball Championship.
1947 Singer Elton John was born.

1954 RCA introduced the first color television set (with a 12½" screen and a retail price of $1,000).

1957 Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands signed treaties establishing the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community.

1958 Sugar Ray Robinson reclaimed his world middleweight boxing title for an unprecedented fifth time.

1961 A Brazilian C-47 crashed in Natal, Brazil, killing 23 persons.
1961 The University of Cincinnati defeated Ohio State 70-65 to win the NCAA Basketball Championship.

1962 About 50 French civilians were killed by the French Army as they demonstrated in Algiers, Algeria.
1962 Balloonist Auguste Piccard died.

1963 Davey Moore died of injuries suffered when he lost his world featherweight boxing title to Sugar Ramos.

1965 Actress Sarah Jessica Parker was born.

1966 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled "poll taxes" unconstitutional.
1966 Musician Jeff Healey was born.

1967 UCLA defeated Dayton 79-64 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

1969 Two passenger trains collided head-on at La Louvière, Belgium, killing 20 persons.
1969 Muhammad Ayub Khan resigned as President of Pakistan.

1972 UCLA defeated Florida 87-76 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

1975 King Faisal of Saudi Arabia died.

1978 A Burmese airliner bound for Mandalay exploded shortly after taking off from Rangoon, Burma, killing all 48 persons aboard.

1982 Wayne Gretzky became the first player in the NHL to score 200 points in one season.
1982 Auto racer Danica Patrick was born.

1984 Ahmed Sékou Touré, the first President of Guinea, died.

1986 Kurt Browning became the first ice skater to land a quadruple jump in competition.

1990 Fire in an illegal social club in New York City, New York, killed 87 persons.

1992 Actress Nancy Walker died.

2006 Country singer Buck Owens died.

2009 Singer Dan Seals died.

2016 A suicie attack during a football match in Iskandariya, Iraq, killed at least 32 people.

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This page was last updated on March 25, 2018.