- 538 Witiges, King of the Ostrogoths, ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of the victorious Byzantine general Belisarius
- 636 Chintila becomes the Visigothic king of Hispania upon the death of King Sisenand
- 1054 Pope Leo IX escapes captivity and returns to Rome
- 1088 Odo of Lagery is elected as Pope Urban II, succeeding Victor III
- 1144 Gherardo Caccianemici is elected Pope Lucius II, succeeding Celestine II
- 1350 Orvieto city in Italy announces it will behead and burn Jewish-Christian couples
- 1365 University of Vienna is founded
Gutenberg's Bible
1455 First record of Johannes Gutenberg's Bible, a letter dated this day by Enea Silvio Piccolomini refers to the Bible printed a year earlier
- 1496 Jews are expelled from Syria
- 1510 Governor Afonso d'Albuquerque establishes the first overseas Portuguese mint, to issue gold coins in the Indian trading city of Goa [1]
- 1572 Poet Luís Vaz de Camões publishes the epic poem "Os Lusíadas" in Portugal
- 1594 A 'Company of Far Lands' established by Dutch merchants in Amsterdam to send ships to the East Indies, beginning of the Dutch East Indies Company [1]
- 1597 England sends troops to Amiens
- 1612 Bermuda officially becomes part of the English Colony of Virginia
- 1619 Dutch settlement on Java changes name to Batavia
- 1622 Ignatius of Loyola declared a saint
- 1664 1st naturalization act in American colonies
- 1664 New Jersey becomes an English colony
James II Lands in Ireland
1689 Former English King James II lands in Ireland
Galileo Body Moved
1737 Galileo's body moved to Church of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy
- 1755 1st steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine
- 1773 Jeanne Baptiste Pointe de Sable found settlement now known as Chicago
- 1790 French Revolution: The National Assembly issues a decree allowing for the sale of church land by French municipalities
- 1794 Theatre Royal in London's Dury Lane opens after being rebuilt
- 1799 Austria declares war on France
- 1832 Romantic ballet "La Sylphide" by Filippo Taglioni premieres at the Opéra de Paris
Southey Patronizes Brontë
1837 British poet laureate Robert Southey writes in reply to 20 year-old Charlotte Brontë "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be." [1]
- 1848 2nd Republic established in France
- 1849 1st gold seekers arrive in Nicaragua en route to California
- 1850 1st US $20 gold piece issued
- 1857 Desjardins Canal Train Disaster: Canadian Great Western passenger train crashes through rotting timber bridge over Desjardins Canal, near Hamilton, Ontario, killing 59 people [1]
- 1867 Last French troops leave Mexico
- 1868 Great Britain annexes Basutoland in Africa (later renamed the Kingdom of Lesotho)
- 1868 Henry O'Farrell attempts to assassinate Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in Sydney, Australia, Duke is shot but survives
- 1868 US Congress abolishes manufacturer's tax
- 1877 Great Britain annexes Walvis Bay at Cape colony, Southern Africa.
- 1881 Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's first Black international football player and captain
- 1884 Mississippi establishes 1st US state college for women
- 1888 2nd day of the Great blizzard of '88 in north east US (400 die)
- 1889 Battle at Metema (Gallabad): Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV, defeated
- 1889 Start of South Africa's 1st Test, v England, Port Elizabeth
Clara Schumann's Last Concert
1891 Clara Schumann plays Johannes Brahms's "Variations on a Theme by Haydn" for two pianos, with James Kwast in her last public concert (Frankfurt, Germany)
1894 Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time in a candy store in Vicksburg, Mississippi
- 1894 Pittsburgh issues free season tickets for ladies on Tuesday & Friday
- 1896 1st movie in Netherlands (Kalverstr 220)
- 1900 President Steyn of Orange Free state flees from Bloemfontein
- 1901 Ground is broken for Boston's 1st AL ballpark (Huntington Ave Grounds)
- 1903 New York Highlanders (Yankees) baseball franchise is approved as a member of the American League
- 1904 1st main line electric train in UK (Liverpool to Southport)
Event of Interest
1905 The continuing strikes and disorders that unsettle Italy force out Premier Giovanni Giolitti, though he will return in March, 1906
- 1906 Heavy storm ravages Dutch west coast
- 1908 Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Wanderers beat Winnipeg Maple Leafs, 9-3 for 2-0 sweep of challenge series
- 1908 The Pan-Macedonian group is formed in Athens to support the Greek Struggle for Macedonia
- 1909 Alarmed over increasing German naval strength, Parliament passes a new naval appropriations bill
- 1910 Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Wanderers beat Berlin Dutchmen (ON), 7-3
- 1912 Establishment of the first football club in Bulgaria - Botev Plovdiv
Helen Hayes Theater
1912 Helen Hayes Theater (Little Theatre) opens at 240W 44th St, NYC
- 1913 Foundation stone of the Australian capital in Canberra laid
- 1916 French airship mistakenly attacks and sinks British submarine D3 with loss of all hands
Sinking of the Algonquin
1917 A German submarine sinks an unarmed US merchant ship, the 'Algonquin' on the same day that US President Woodrow Wilson gives executive order to arm US merchant ships
- 1917 In the wake of the February Revolution, Communist Party members Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Matvei Muranov arrive in Petrograd (St Petersburg) and seize control of the Pravda newspaper
- 1917 [OS Feb 27] Russian Duma sets up the Provisional Committee; Soviets form Executive Committee
Moscow Soviet Capital
1918 Fearing foreign invasion, Vladimir Lenin shifts revolutionary Russia's capital from Petrograd (St. Petersburg) to Moscow
- 1919 Austrian National Meeting affirms Anschluss (incorporate into Germany)
British Refuse Geneva Agreement
1925 British government of Stanley Baldwin refuses to ratify Geneva agreement
- 1926 Denmark begins unilateral disarmament
- 1926 Pope Pius XI names J E van Roey archbishop of Malines Belgium
- 1928 In California, the St. Francis Dam fails, killing over 600 people
1930 Mahatma Gandhi begins his famous 200-mile (320 km) protest march against the widely hated British salt tax
- 1930 Stanislawa Walasiewicz [Stella Walsh] sets world record for the 220-yard dash (0:26.1)
FDR's 1st Fireside Chat
1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt conducts his first "fireside chat" as US President via radio, speaking directly to 60 million listening Americans, eight days after his inauguration
- 1934 Acting President Constantine Päts commits coup in Tallinn, Estonia
- 1935 Britain establishes 30 MPH speed limit for towns & villages
- 1938 Nazi Germany invades Austria (Anschluss)
Pius XII Crowned
1939 Pope Pius XII crowned 260th Supreme Pontiff in a ceremony at the Vatican
- 1940 Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty in Moscow, surrendering to Russia and ceding 11% of their pre-WWII territory, ending the "Winter War"
- 1941 German occupiers confiscate AVRO studios in Netherlands
- 1942 WWII: British troops vacate the Andaman Islands in Gulf of Bengal
- 1943 Soviet troops liberate Wjasma
- 1945 30 Amsterdammers executed by nazi occupiers
- 1945 Italy's Communist Party (CPI) calls for armed uprising in Italy
- 1945 NY is 1st to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment
- 1945 USSR returns Transylvania to Romania
- 1947 Belgian government of Huysmans resigns
The Truman Doctrine
1947 US President Harry Truman introduces the Truman Doctrine to fight communism
- 1948 -5°F lowest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland, Ohio in month of March (record tied in 1984)
- 1950 Belgium votes (58%) for return of King Leopold III
- 1950 Pope Pius XII encyclical "On combating atheistic propaganda"
- 1951 Baseball Commish Happy Chandler loses fight (9-7) to stay in office
- 1951 Comic strip "Dennis the Menace" first appears in the British comic magazine "The Beano"
- 1951 Communist troops driven out of Seoul
Moses und Aaron
1954 1st performance of Arnold Schoenberg's opera "Moses und Aaron", in a concert setting in Hamburg, Germany
- 1956 Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 500 for 1st time (500.24)
- 1957 German DR accepts 22 Russian divisions
The Cat in the Hat
1957 Random House and Houghton-Mifflin co-publish "The Cat in the Hat" by Dr. Seuss
- 1958 British Empire Day is renamed "Commonwealth Day"
- 1959 Dutch Liberal Party wins 2nd parliamentary elections
- 1959 US House joins Senate approving Hawaii statehood
- 1962 Dutch Premier De Quay announces secret talks with Indonesia
Music History
1963 the Beatles perform as a trio, at Granada Cinema, in Bedford, England, as John Lennon is ill with a cold
- 1964 S. N. Behrman's play "But for Whom Charlie" premieres in NYC
- 1964 Union leader Jimmy Hoffa sentenced to 8 years
- 1964 WKAB TV channel 32 in Montgomery, AL (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1965 "Wooly Bully" single released by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs
NHL Record
1966 Chicago Black Hawks Bobby Hull's 51st goal of season, sets record
- 1966 Love's 1st album released "Love"
- 1966 Pioneer Plaza dedicated
- 1966 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1967 Austria's Reinhold Bachler ski jumps 505 feet
- 1968 Indian Ocean island nation Mauritius gains independence from Britain (National Day)
- 1968 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1969 11th Grammy Awards: "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" by Glen Campbell wins best record
Music History
1969 120 cannabis joints found at George Harrison and Patti Harrison's home in Esher, England
- 1970 US lowers voting age from 21 to 18
Election of Interest
1971 Hafez al-Assad consolidates power in Syria by installing himself as President
- 1971 The Allman Brothers Band record their live album "Live at Fillmore East" on this date and the following day
- 1971 Thousands of Belfast shipyard workers march demanding the introduction of Internment for members of the Irish Republican Army
- 1971 Turkish Government of Demirel forced to resign by Army
- 1973 Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In last airs on NBC-TV
- 1974 Ted Bundy victim Donna Manson disappears from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington (body never found)
- 1975 Vietcong conquer Ban me Thuot, South Vietnam
- 1976 South African troops leave Angola
Event of Interest
1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat pledges to regain Arab territory from Israel
World Record
1978 American speed skater Eric Heiden sets world record in 1000m (1:14.99)
Glass Houses
1980 Columbia Records releases "Glass Houses," singer-songwriter Billy Joel's seventh studio album, featuring his first No. 1 single, "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me"
- 1980 NY Islanders 3rd scoreless tie, vs Pittsburgh Penguin
- 1981 Soyuz T-4 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 6 space station
- 1981 Walter R T Witschey installs world's largest sundial in Richmond, Virginia
- 1982 PLO chief Yassar Arafat appears on "Nightline"
- 1983 Don Ritchie runs world record 50 mile (4:51:49)
- 1984 British National Union of Mine Workers headed by Arthur Scargill supports regional strikes, calls for national action; strikes fail to achieve goals
- 1986 Susan Butcher wins 1,158 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
- 1987 Ice Pairs World Championship at Cincinnati won by Ekaterina Gordeeva & Sergei Grinkov (USSR)
- 1987 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk (Soviet Union)
- 1989 2 cyanide-contaminated Chilean grapes found (Philadelphia)
Event of Interest
1989 Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee submits his first proposal for an "information management system" to his boss at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) who finds it “vague, but exciting”
- 1989 Madagascar AREMA party wins parliamentary election
- 1990 LA Raiders announce their return to Oakland
- 1991 OPEC announces oil production cut to 22.3 Mbbl/d (3,550,000 m3/d)
- 1992 Mauritius becomes a republic while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations
- 1993 317 killed by bomb attacks in Bombay
- 1993 Cleveland radio station WMMS-FM/101.7 is bought by Disney
- 1993 Entertainment Tonight hosts its 3,000th show
- 1993 French General Philippe Morillon declares Srebrenica is under the protection of the United Nations [1]
- 1993 Inkhata leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi begins 2½ week speech to the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly [1]
- 1994 The Church of England ordains its first 32 female priests at the Bristol Cathedral in Bristol, England [1]
- 1995 Congress party loses India national election
- 1995 Ice Dance Championship at Birmingham UK won by Gritshuk & Platov (RUS)
- 1995 Ice Pairs Championship at Birmingham won by Radka Kovarikova & Rene Novotny
- 1995 Letitia Vriesde runs South American indoor record 800m (2:00.35)
- 1995 World Ladies' Figure Skating Champ in Birmingham won by Chen Lu (China)
Event of Interest
1995 World Men's Figure Skating Champions in Birmingham won by Elvis Stojko of Canada
- 1998 "The Sound of Music" opens at Martin Beck Theater NYC
- 1999 Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO
Ice Age
2002 Animated film "Ice Age" directed by Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, with voices by Denis Leary and John Leguizamo premieres
- 2002 US crime series "The Shield", created by Shawn Ryan and starring Michael Chiklis, premieres on FX
- 2003 Elizabeth Smart found after having been missing for 9 months.
- 2003 Prime Minister of Serbia Zoran Đinđić is assassinated in Belgrade
- 2004 Music work "I La Galigo" by Richard Wilson debuts in Singapore, based on Bugis creation myth from South Sulawesi (world's most voluminous literary work)
- 2004 Roh Moo-hyun, President of South Korea, is impeached by its national assembly for the first time in the nation's history.
- 2005 Tung Chee Hwa, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong, steps down from his post after his resignation is approved by the Chinese central government.
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
2007 22nd Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five; R.E.M.; The Ronettes; Patti Smith; and Van Halen
- 2008 Streaming service Hulu launches for public access in the United States
- 2011 A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan's earthquake.
- 2012 100 people are killed in ethnic clashes and cattle raids in South Sudan
- 2012 45 people, including children, are massacred by the Syrian Army in Homs
- 2012 China records its highest trade deficit in over a decade
- 2013 "The Flick", a play by Annie Baker opens off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in New York (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2014) [1]
- 2013 JOGMEC becomes the first to successfully extract methane hydrate from seabed deposits
- 2013 The 2013 Papal conclave begins with no new Pope elected on the first day
- 2014 8 people are killed, 70 injured, & 2 buildings are leveled by a gas explosion in East Harlem, New York
- 2017 Irene Sankoff and David Hein's musical drama "Come From Away" opens at Schoenfeld Theatre, NYC
Skripal Poisonings
2018 British Prime Minister Theresa May says Russia was "highly likely" to have poisoned a Russian spy and his daughter on March 4 with nerve agent
- 2018 Civilian death toll in Eastern Ghouta passes 1,000 in three weeks as Syrian government forces capture the town of Mesraba
- 2018 Plane crash of Bangladeshi carrier at Kathmandu airport kills at least 49 after plane approaches runway from wrong end
- 2018 Research shows Chinese cites have decreased pollution by 32 percent on average in just four years
- 2018 Tens of thousands of farmers from Indian state Maharashtra end protests over loan waivers, prices and land rights after promises from state officials and walking 167km to Mumbai
College Admission Scandal
2019 Dozens charged in US college admission scandal by US federal prosecutors, including actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman
- 2019 K-pop and Big Bang singer Seungri is arrested for procuring prostitutes, retires to fight the charges in South Korea
- 2019 More than 3,000 ISIS fighters have surrendered amid battle for last ISIS stronghold in Baghouz, Syria, according to Syrian Democratic Forces officials
- 2019 Theresa May's British government suffers a second defeat on a Brexit deal with the EU, 391 votes to 242
- 2020 NHL pauses the 2019-20 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic
2020 UK PM Boris Johnson says the UK is facing the “worst public health crisis for a generation”, that up to 10,000 people may already be infected with COVID-19
2020 US President Trump bans travel with 26 European countries, though not the UK, due to COVID-19 (UK and Ireland added a day later)
2021 Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi imposes new COVID restrictions warning of a new wave as cases again exceed 25,000 a day
- 2021 Researchers say world has likely reached 'peak twin' with more twin births than ever before - 1.6 million twins born per year (1 in 42) [1]
- 2022 Saudi Arabia executes 81 convicted criminals, the country's largest known mass execution in modern times [1]
2023 95th Academy Awards: "Everything Everywhere All at Once" best film, best director Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Michelle Yeoh first Asian woman to win best actress, Brendan Fraser best actor [1]
- 2023 Cyclone Freddy makes landfall for a second time in central Mozambique, Madagascar and Malawi, killing about 200 people and setting records as the longest-lasting cyclone in the southern hemisphere (formed Feb 6) [1]
Rally Against Judicial Reform
2023 Half a million Israeli's protest plans by Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the country’s judicial system for tenth week in a row [1]
- 2023 Oil company Saudi Aramco posts earnings of $161 billion for 2022 - highest-ever recorded annual profit by a publicly listed company [1]
- 2024 A Romanian court rules that Andrew Tate and his brother can be extradited to the UK only after the Romanian trial for human trafficking
