- 1425 BC Thutmose III, Pharaoh of Egypt, dies (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty).
- 537 Goths lay siege to Rome
843 Icon veneration is officially reinstated at Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople
- 928 Trpimir II succeeds to the Croatian throne.
- 1387 The Battle of Castagnaro begins.
- 1502 Founder of the Safavid dynasty, Ismail I, is crowned Shah of Persia (rules till 1524)
- 1567 Geuzen army leaves Walcheren to return to Oosterweel
- 1597 Albert VII Archduke of Austria occupies Amiens, France
- 1649 The Frondeurs (French rebels) and the French government sign the Peace of Rueil.
- 1665 NY approves new code guaranteeing Protestants religious rights
- 1669 Mt Etna in Sicily erupts in its largest recorded eruption, killing 15,000
- 1702 First English daily newspaper "Daily Courant" is published
Last Royal Veto
1708 Queen Anne withholds Royal Assent from the Scottish Militia Bill, the last time a British monarch vetoes legislation
- 1744 English auction house Sotheby's holds its first ever auction (of books) in London
- 1779 US Army Corps of Engineers established (1st time)
- 1791 Samuel Mulliken is the first to obtain more than one US patent
- 1795 Battle at Kurdla India: Mahratten beat Mogols
- 1812 Citizenship granted to Prussian Jews
- 1823 1st normal school in US opens, Concord Academy, Concord, Vermont
- 1824 US War Department creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs
- 1835 HMS Beagle anchors off Valparaiso, Chile
1845 The Flagstaff War: In New Zealand, Chiefs Hone Heke and Kawiti lead 700 Māoris to chop down the British flagpole and drive settlers out of the British colonial settlement of Kororareka because of breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
- 1848 Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin become the first Prime Ministers of the Province of Canada to be democratically elected under a system of responsible government
- 1850 Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania opens, 2nd female medical school in the US
- 1861 Confederate convention in Montgomery adopts constitution (US Civil War)
Evacuation of Winchester
1862 Confederate Army General Stonewall Jackson begins evacuation of Winchester, Virginia
- 1864 Dale Dike on Humber River crumbles killing at least 240, in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
- 1864 The Great Sheffield Flood: the largest man-made disaster ever to befall England kills over 250 people in Sheffield
Sherman Occupies Fayetteville
1865 General William T. Sherman's Union forces occupies Fayetteville, North Carolina
- 1867 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Don Carlos" premieres in Paris
- 1869 The West first learns of the Giant Panda via French missionary Armand David who receives a skin from a hunter
- 1872 Construction of the Seven Sisters Colliery, South Wales, begins; located on one of the richest coal sources in Britain
- 1872 The Meiji Japanese government officially annexes the Ryukyu Kingdom into what would become the Okinawa prefecture
- 1882 Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association organized in Princeton, New Jersey
Nansen's Artic Voyage
1882 Norwegian scientist and explorer Fridtjof Nansen sets out on his first expedition on a sea voyage to study Arctic zoology
- 1888 Great blizzard of '88 strikes northeastern USA
- 1892 1st public basketball game (Springfield, Massachusetts)
Gardel Arrives in Argentina
1893 Future Tango icon Carlos Gardel and his mother, Berthe Gardès emigrate to Buenos Aires, Argentina
- 1895 Boston opens its "palace for the people" Boston Public Library’s McKim Building in Copley Square designed by Charles Follen McKim - the first major Beaux Arts building in the US [1]
- 1895 Spanish cruiser Reina Regente sinks in Straits of Gibraltar, over 400 die
- 1897 A meteorite enters the earth's atmosphere and explodes over New Martinsville, West Virginia. The debris causes damage but no human injuries are reported.
British Reject Boer Peace Terms
1900 British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury rejects peace overtures from the Boer leader Paul Kruger (on 5 March) as demanding too-favourable terms
- 1901 Cincinnati Enquirer reports Baltimore manager John McGraw signed Cherokee Indian Tokohoma, who is really black second baseman Charlie Grant
- 1904 Stanley Cup: Ottawa Silver Sevens beat Brandon Wheat City, 2-0 at the Aberdeen Pavilion, Ottawa for a 2 game sweep and back-to-back titles
- 1905 Stanley Cup, Dey's Arena, Ottawa, ON: Ottawa Senators beat Rat Portage Thisles, 5-4 for 2-1 challenge series victory
- 1912 First Stanley Cup challenge game to be played in three 20-minute periods (formerly 30-minute halves), Quebec beats Moncton, 9-3 on way to series sweep
The Dead
1914 Rupert Brooke's poems "The Dead" and "The Soldier" are published in The Times Literary Supplement
- 1915 The British declare a blockade of all German ports
- 1917 1st NHL championship game: Toronto Arenas defeat Montreal Canadiens 7-3 in the first of a two-game set (second game is on March 13)
- 1917 British forces occupy Baghdad, the capital of Mesopotamia, after Turkish forces evacuated
- 1918 Conservationists John Merriam, Madison Grant, and Henry Fairfield Osborn found "Save the Redwoods League" - a non-profit forest conservation land trust in San Francisco, California founded
- 1919 General strike in Germany crushed
- 1920 Syria proclaims Emir Feisal king after the country has fought off French domination
- 1922 Western Hockey Championship: Vancouver Millionaires (PCHA) sweep Regina Capitals, in 2 games
- 1924 3rd term of Belgium Theunis government begins
- 1924 Eden Phillpotts' "Farmer's Wife" premieres in London
- 1926 Eamon da Valera ends leadership of Sinn Féin
- 1927 1st armored commercial car hold-up in US (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
- 1927 1st boxing Golden Gloves tournament
Roxy Theater Opens
1927 Samuel Rothafel opens the 5,920 seat Roxy Theater in New York City, with silent film "The Love of Sunya" starring Gloria Swanson; largest movie theatre at the time of construction
Appointment of Interest
1930 Hans Luther is appointed as president of the Reichsbank.
- 1930 William Taft, American 27th President & Chief Justice buried in Arlington Cemetery
- 1931 Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR, abbreviated as GTO, is introduced in the Soviet Union
- 1935 Bank of Canada first opens on Wellington Street, Ottawa
- 1938 Artur Seyss-Inquart replaces Kurt von Schuschnigg as Chancellor of Austria; German troops also entered the country
Lend-Lease Bill
1941 FDR signs Lend-Lease Bill, allowing US to provide material support to Great Britain's war effort in return for future use of land for US military bases in England
- 1942 1st deportation train leaves Paris for Auschwitz Concentration Camp
- 1942 Japanese troops land on North Sumatra
- 1943 Nazi Militia forms in Netherlands
- 1944 Dutch resistance fighter Joop Westerweel arrested
- 1945 1,000 allied bombers harass Essen, 4,662 ton bombs
- 1945 Flemish nazi collaborator Maria Huygens sentenced to death
- 1948 Jewish Agency of Jerusalem bombed
- 1948 WBAL TV channel 11 in Baltimore, MD (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1953 1st woman army doctor commissioned (FM Adams)
- 1957 Charles Van Doren finally loses on the US TV game show "Twenty-One" after winning $129,000, later revealed to be fixed
- 1958 American B-47 accidentally drops nuclear bomb 15,000 ft on a family home in Mars Bluff, South Carolina; creates crater 75 ft across, bomb without its nuclear capsule
- 1958 Starting this season, AL batters are required to wear batting helmets
- 1960 Pioneer 5 launched into solar orbit between Earth & Venus
- 1961 Then NHL record 40 penalties, Black Hawks & Maple Leafs (20 each)
- 1963 Somalia drops diplomatic relations with Great Britain
Event of Interest
1963 US Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara orders the adoption by the US military of the M16 assault rifle, originally designed as the AR-15 by Eugene Stoner
Film & TV History
1964 Gene Roddenberry brings together a 16-page pitch for the original Star Trek series
Event of Interest
1965 Indonesia President Sukarno signs the 'Supersemar' order, giving army commander Lt. Gen. Suharto authority to do whatever he "deemed necessary" to restore order
- 1966 A fire at two ski resorts in Numata, Japan kills 31 people.
- 1968 Anti-Zionist Clandestine Radio Voice of El Assifa starts transmitting
Music History
1968 Episode of "The Monkees" TV show features musician Frank Zappa posing as Mike Nesmith and vice versa, debating qualities of each other's music
(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay
1968 Otis Redding is the first person in the US to posthumously receive gold record for his single "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay"
1970 12th Grammy Awards: Aquarius; Crosby Stills & Nash; Peggy Lee win
- 1970 Iraqi Ba'th Party recognizes Kurd nation
Music History
1971 Jim Morrison leaves for Paris to re-orient himself emotionally and creatively, and to avoid the jail sentence given to him in Miami, Florida. He never returns to the US.
- 1972 OPEC threatens "appropriate sanctions" against companies that "fail to comply with ... any action taken by a Member Country in accordance with [OPEC] decisions."
- 1974 Mount Etna in Sicily erupted
- 1974 Rhino Records store in Claremont, California offers customers 5 cents to take home "Partridge Family" actor Danny Bonaduce's debut solo album
- 1975 Rightist military coup in Portugal under General António de Spínola fails
- 1975 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1977 Hanafi Muslims hold 130 hostages in Washington, D.C.
- 1978 Terrorists attack mail truck at Tel Aviv, 45 killed
- 1978 USF-led Bill Cartwright scores 23 points as the Dons oust NC
- 1979 Randy Hold receives 67 min in penalties in a 60 min NHL hockey game
- 1981 Johnny Mize and Rube Foster are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame
- 1982 Detroit Pistons play the Chicago Bulls, with final score of Detroit 152 to Chicago 144 and Detroit having 20 blocked shots
- 1982 Failed military coup under Rambocus and Hawker in Suriname
- 1982 Harrison Williams (Sen-D-NJ) resigns rather than face expulsion
- 1982 US boycotts Libyan crude oil
- 1983 Ice Pairs Championship at Helsinki won by Valova & Vasiliev (Soviet Union)
- 1986 1 million days since the foundation of Rome on April 21, 753 BC
- 1986 Japanese probe Sakigake flies by Halley's Comet at 6.8 million km
Sports History
1986 New York Islanders Mike Bossy, 1st NHLer to score 50 goals in 9 straight seasons
- 1986 NFL adopts instant replay rule
- 1988 British pound note ceases to be legal tender, replaced by one-pound coin
- 1988 Utrecht conservatory destroyed by fire
- 1990 Lithuania declares its Independence from the Soviet Union
- 1991 John Smith, US amateur wrestler, wins James E Sullivan Award
- 1994 Eduardo Frei succeeds Patricio Aylwin as President of Chile
- 1995 -36.8°F (-38.2°C) in Chosedachar, Komi-district, on 67°N
- 1995 President Nazarbajev disbands Kazakhstan parliament
Event of Interest
1995 Sinn Féin party leader Gerry Adams arrives in the US
- 1995 Yolanda Chen hop-skip-jumps world indoor record 15.03m
- 1996 John Winston Howard becomes the 25th Prime Minister of Australia. His term in office is the second longest in Australian history, ending December 3, 2007.
- 1996 Mark Waugh scores 110 v NZ for his third century of the World Cup
- 1996 The EU Database Directive is passed
- 1997 San Francisco Giant J T Snow suffers a fractured eye socket when hit by a pitch
- 1999 Infosys becomes the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
- 2003 Nicholas Winton (93), former British stockbroker who helped 669 young Jews flee Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Nazi invasion in 1939, receives knighthood from Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace
- 2003 The International Criminal Court holds its inaugural session in The Hague.
- 2004 Terrorists explode simultaneous bombs on Madrid's rail network ripping through a commuter train and rocking three stations, killing 190
- 2005 Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, co-founder of the Cali Cartel, is extradited to the United States
Music History
2008 Plácido Domingo named "The King of Singers" in BBC Music Magazine, based on voting by 16 renowned opera critics for the April 2008 issue
- 2009 Winnenden school shooting - 17 people are killed at a school in Germany.
- 2011 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes 130 km (80 miles) east of Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami that kills thousands and causes the second worst nuclear accident in history at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
- 2012 US soldier kills 16 civilians in Afghanistan
- 2013 European Union bans the sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals
- 2013 Falkland Islands’ sovereignty referendum: 99.8% choose to remain an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom
Laureus Awards
2013 Laureus World Sports Awards, Municipal Theater, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Sportsman: Usain Bolt; Sportswoman: Missy Franklin; Team: FC Bayern Munich
- 2013 North Korea cuts the phone line with South Korea, breaching the 1953 armistice
- 2014 Refugees from Syria pour into the Kingdom of Jordan
- 2017 At least 65 killed in landslide at rubbish dump near Addis Ababa, Ethopia
Event of Interest
2018 China's National People's Congress approves removal of term limits for a leader, allowing Xi Jinping to be president for life
- 2018 Greek football Super League suspended after PAOK Salonika's president Ivan Savvidis invades pitch with a gun after goal disallowed
Election of Interest
2019 Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (82) changes his mind saying he will not seek a fifth term and postpones elections after mass protests
Event of Interest
2019 Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, refutes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement “Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and only it.”
- 2020 11-year bull market ends as the Dow Jones Industrial Average falls more than 20%, becoming a bear market
COVID-19 Pandemic
2020 COVID-19 declared a pandemic by the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, after 121,564 cases worldwide and 4,373 deaths
Film & TV History
2020 Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is sentenced to 23 years in prison for a criminal sex act and rape in New York
- 2020 NBA suspends 2019-20 season until further notice after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tests positive for COVID-19
- 2020 Smallest dinosaur ever discovered - skull preserved in piece of amber smaller than a fingertip from a mine in Myanmar, reported in "Nature"
Event of Interest
2021 British Prince William says the royal family is “very much not a racist family” in first public comments since interview by his brother Harry and wife Meghan
- 2021 Digital art work "Everydays: The First 5,000 Days" a digital college by Beeple, with a non-fungible token, sells for record $69.3 million in online auction by Christie's [1]
7220
2022 American rapper Lil Durk releases his 7th studio album "7220", debuts at #1 on the US Billboard 200 chart
- 2023 China's government appoints Li Qiang, a close ally of President Xi Jinping, as the country's new Premier [1]
Kate Edits Photo
2024 Catherine, Princess of Wales, apologizes for "confusion" caused by releasing an edited family photo after news agencies issue a "kill" notice over digital manipulation [1]
- 2024 Fertilizer spill in Red Oak, Iowa, kills an estimated 789,000 fish along a 60-mile stretch of river after valve was left open at NEW Cooperative [1]
- 2024 Romanian police detain Andrew Tate and his brother following the prosecutor of the Bucharest Court of Appeal's order for a one-day detention
- 2025 132-year old shipwreck rediscovered in Lake Superior of steel streamer "The Great Western" which sank in 1892 with the loss of 27 lives [1]
- 2025 Astronomers announce the discovery of 128 new moons orbiting the planet Saturn, bring the planet's total to 274 moons [1]
Duterte Arrested
2025 Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte is arrested in Manila after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity over his "war on drugs" [1]
- 2025 NASA's space telescope, the Spherex observatory, is launched by SpaceX from California to study how galaxies are formed by observing their cosmic glow [1]
- 2025 Pakistani Jaffa Express train hijacked by the Balochistan Liberation Army travelling from Quetta to Peshawar - results in a 30-hour siege and the deaths of over 50 people [1]
- 2025 World Air Quality Report identifies Byrnihat, India, as the world's most polluted city, with Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and India the most polluted countries [1]
