Image: RCA. King Kong Poster, Breve Storia Del Cinema. Daily News Headline, CC. Creation of Adam, Wiki Media. Tsar Nicholas ll, Martine de Lajudie. Mayhem In LA, UCLA CC. Justin Bieber, iloveJB23. Ghana Flag, Global Panorama. Julius Caesar, Wiki Commons.

Each day, somewhere in the world, history is being made. Incidents happen, inventions are created and there are occasions in time which make their mark on the story of life.

March is a month of cold rain, hints of sun and slowly opening flowers. In the book of history, March has also been the month of sensational crimes, major events in civil rights, 2 missed chances to kill Adolf Hitler and the month when Michelangelo was born. On the last day in 1889, France witnessed the opening of the greatest creation in engineering and tourism.

March 1
1932: In a crime which shocked the country, the baby of American flying hero Charles Lindbergh and his wife is kidnapped from their home in New Jersey. The ransom note reads, “Dear Sir! Have 50000$ redy 25000$ in 20$ bills 15000 in 10$ bills and 10000 in 5$ bills…We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the Police. The child is in gut care.” 32 days later, the small boy’s body is found in a wooded area just miles from their home.
1941: The first FM radio station begins broadcasting from Nashville, Tennessee. Radio W47NV.
1961: U.S. President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps. Their mission: sending young Americans to assist developing countries in health care, education and human needs.
1974: 7 members of the Nixon White House, including White House Counsel John Ehrlichman, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman and Attorney General John Mitchell are charged with conspiracy in the Watergate scandal.
1994: Canadian singer and pop star Justin Bieber is born at St Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario. To date, he has sold over 150 million records. In 2016, he became the first artist to have over 10 billion online views.

2005: After leading a double life for years, Dennis Rader, The BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) murderer is charged by police in Wichita, Kansas.

March 2

1917: Tsar Nicholas ll abdicates as Emperor of all the Russias. Later, him, his wife, 4 daughters and son are executed by the Bolsheviks.

1933: King Kong the Movie, starring Faye Wray as the heroine, opens for its world premiere at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

1969: Following 12 years of development, the French/English supersonic aeroplane named Concorde flys for the first time.

March 3

1913: One day before the swearing in of new president Woodrow Wilson, 5000 women join together for a suffragette march in Washington, D.C. So many of the women are attacked and spit on by onlookers that Secretary of War Henry Stimson orders soldiers from Fort Myers in to restore order.

1923: The first issue of Time Magazine is published and appears on newsstands.

1991: Rodney King is pulled over following a high-speed chase in LA and beaten by 4 police officers. The event is recorded and broadcast on national TV. One year later, the officers are acquitted which leads to riots in Los Angeles and nationwide. The damage from the rioting is estimated at one billion dollars.

* Birthday: Inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell is born in Edinburgh, Scotland. The original name for the device was the vibrating membrane.1847.

March 4 

1918: U.S. Army Private Albert Gitchell is recorded as the first American with the Spanish Flu at Fort Riley, Kansas. The disease infects 500 million people worldwide. Eventually 100 million will die.

1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only 3 term president in U.S. history, is sworn in as the 32nd president of the United States.

March 5

1946: Eight months after losing the July 5, 1945 elections in the UK, ex Prime Minister Winston Churchill gives a speech in Fulton, Missouri, where he uses the term “iron curtain” for the first time – to describe the East/West divide in Europe.

1966: On an around-the-world tour, BOAC Flight 911 crashes near Mount Fuji, Japan, killing 113 passengers and 11 crew members.

1995: Yahoo! is launched on the internet. Opening price per share is $13 USD.

2004: U.S. celebrity and television host Martha Stewart is convicted on one felony count of obstructing justice in an insider trading/fraud case. Stewart serves 5 months of her sentence at a minimum-security prison in West Virginia.

March 6

1475: Painter, sculptor, architect, poet and Renaissance genius Michelangelo is born in Caprese, Italy.

1836: Mexican General Santa Anna and his troops capture Fort Alamo in Texas.

1899: A new drug called Asprin is registered at the patent office in Berlin, Germany.

1957: Ghana gains independence from Britain. New leader Kwame Nkrumah names himself president-for-life of the republic.

March 7

1876. Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for his brand new invention called the telephone. He is 29 years old.

1965: In the first of 3 marches, black rights activists are clubbed by State Troopers in Alabama.

March 8

1917: On a bright and sunny spring day, the Russian Revolution begins. The revolution ends 6 years later in 1923. Estimates of the number killed range from 9 million – 30 million.

1969: The Pontiac Motor Company presents the Firebird Trans Am for the first time.

1983: IBM introduces the personal computer. The cost for each unit is $4995 USD.

2021: Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declares March 11th as a day of national COVID-19 remembrance.

March 9

1934: The first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, is born in Gzhatsk, Russia.

1959: A new doll for children named Barbie is presented at the New York Toy Fair. 1 billion* Barbie dolls have been sold since then.(*estimated)

1965: 3 years before he is killed, preacher and black civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King leads marchers on a protest walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. That night, a white mob murders fellow marcher and activist James Reeb.

2004: Virginia sniper John Allen Muhammad is sentenced to death after being convicted of a crime spree that killed 10 people. Following his sentencing, he is executed by lethal injection in 2009 at the Greensville Correctional Centre, Virginia.

March 10

1862: The U.S. Mint issues the first $5, $10 and $20 dollar bills to the public.

1959: The Dalai Lama is forced to flee into exile from Tibet after Chinese troops crush a revolt. He is given political asylum in India.

1964: The first Ford Mustang rolls off the assembly line in Dearborn, Michigan.

March 11

1684: The survivors of a British ship wreck in the Caribbean formally colonize the island of Bermuda. The island was first discovered by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermudez in 1505. On March 10, 1973, the Governor Of Bermuda, Richard Sharples, is assassinated by gunmen from a militant Bermuda black power group.

1977: Movie director Roman Polanski is charged by Los Angeles County prosecutors of rape, sodomy, child molestation and proffering drugs to a minor. He evades arrest and flees to France.

March 12

1930: Indian lawyer and peace activist Mahatma Gandhi and his followers begin a march against the British Government’s tax on salt.

1938: Nazi troops push aside the gates at the border and invade Austria. The propaganda ministry calls it an “anschluss.” The word means “connection.”

1994: 32 women are ordained as priests in the UK by the Church of England. As a protest, 700 clergymen and thousands of the church’s members leave to join the Roman Catholic Church.

March 13

1943: German Army officers fail to kill Adolf Hitler in a plot when a bomb timed to go off on his plane does not explode.

1983: Microsoft goes public on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

March 14

1879: Theoretical Physicist Albert Einstein is born in Ulm, Germany.

2010: Officially recognized as the day when Mexican drug cartels step up the fight for cocaine and territory. 1998 UN Publication on numbers in the illegal drug trade:* Heroin: $100 Billion. Cocaine: $130 Billion. Marijuana: $75 Billion. Chemical drugs: $60 Billion.(*Source: Worldometers)

March 15

44 BC: Fourty four years before the birth of Christ, military commander and Roman Emperor Julius Caesar is stabbed to death in a room of the Senate chamber in Rome.

1938: The German government issues an order making it illegal for Jews to vote.

1964: Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor and Welsh actor Richard Burton marry for the first time.

1998: The movie Titanic passes Stars Wars to become the highest grossing film of all time in North America.

March 16

1968: Senator from New York, Robert Kennedy announces his bid to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

1998: Mass trials begin in Rwanda for the killing and murder of hundreds of thousands of Hutu and Tutsi men, women and children. 800,000+ people are killed in the “cleansing,”almost 20% of the country’s population.

March 17

1931: Gambling becomes legal in the U.S. state of Nevada.

1949: At the International Automobile Show in Geneva, Switzerland, the first Porsche is presented. – (Porsche 356)

1969: Teacher and politician Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel. She had already been the Minister of Labour as well as the Foreign Minister.

1988: Apple Computers sues Microsoft for copyright infringement.

**St Patrick is known as the foremost patron saint of Ireland. Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17th as a cultural and religious occasion.

March 18

2005: Following a judge’s order, doctors in Florida remove the feeding tubes which are keeping Terri Schiavo alive. She dies 13 days later. It is the end of a right-to-die case that started in 1998 and lasted for 7 years.

March 19

1932: The bridge over Sydney Harbour in Australia opens for the first time.

2003: Operation “Iraqi Freedom” begins in Iraq with missile and bomb strikes. The goal is to remove president Saddam Hussein from power. His 24 year rule ends 21 days days later. In December, he is captured by U.S. troops while hiding in a hole just outside his home village of Tikrit.

2008: Fidel Castro quietly steps down as leader of Cuba.

March 20

1995: 12 people are killed and 500 are injured after a nerve gas (Sarin) attack on a Tokyo subway line during rush hour. Japanese police arrest members of a religious cult who are suspected in the act.

March 21

1918: The Spring Offensive begins with a 5 hour artillery barrage by the German Army in the last year of World War 1. The offensive ends after the Germans gain 35 miles. The number of Allied and Imperial troops killed or wounded is 863,347.* (*Source: Wiki)

1943: Another attempt to kill Adolf Hitler fails when the fuse on a bomb placed inside a General’s coat pocket does not light. If successful, the general planned to die as part of the murder-suicide.

1960: South African police kill 69 people and injure 180 others after shooting into a crowd of 7000 protesters in Sharpeville, Transvaal Province. In their honour, the day is now observed as a national public holiday in celebration of human rights.

1981: Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall marries Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, UK.

2006: Jack Dorsey CEO of Twitter sends the first tweet.

March 22

1963: The first album from the Beatles (Please, Please Me) is released in the UK on EMI Parlophone Records. There are 14 songs. None of them are longer than 3 minutes. In 2012, the album is voted one of the top 500 albums of all time.

1972: The Equal Rights Amendment is passed by the US Senate. The ERA prohibits gender discrimination and promises equal rights for women under the law. 20 years later, the bill fails to be ratified by 3 states.

March 23 

1919: Il Partito Nazionale Fascista, otherwise known as the Fascist Party, is founded by Benito Mussolini.

1956: The Islamic State of Pakistan becomes an independent republic.

2010: The U.S. House of Congress passes the healthcare reform bill popularly known as Obamacare.

March 24

1874: Magician and escape artist (Harry) Houdini is born in Budapest, Hungary. He is now buried in Queens, New York.

1934: The Philippine Islands are granted independence by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1978: 8 days after running aground on the coast off Brittany in France, the oil tanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two and spills 1,604,500 barrels of light crude oil into the sea over the next 5 days. At the time, it is the largest oil spill in history.

1989: At 12:04 am, on a journey from Alaska to California, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs into a reef off Prince William Sound and spills 11 million gallons of crude oil into the Alaska sound. It becomes the largest oil spill in US history (*now 2nd) affecting 1,300 miles of coastline which is the natural habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals and sea birds.

March 25

1807: The British parliament abolishes the slave trade.

1911: 123 seamstresses are killed in a garment factory fire in New York as the top two floors of the building they are in is swept by flames. 50 of the women die by jumping from the windows.

March 26

1964: The Broadway musical Funny Girl starring Barbra Streisand opens at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York.

1979: Middle East geopolitics take a step forward when Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt sign the Camp David Accord which ends 30 years of war between the two countries. This treaty of “recognition” and “peace” is aided by U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

1997: San Diego police find 39 bodies in a suburb of Rancho Santa Fe, California. The bodies belong to members of the Heavens Gate cult. It is the result of a group suicide pact.

2000: Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia.

March 27

1909: Fingerprints are used in a murder case for the first time.

1998: The drug Viagra is approved by the FDA. (Sildenafil Citrate comes in a blue pill and is prescribed to treat erectile dysfunction. ED)

March 28

1930: The ancient city of Constantinople rebrands and names itself Istanbul.

March 29

1943: Due to low supplies during World War 2, rationing of cooking oil, meat, cheese and butter begins in the United States.

1971: Singer-songwriter Charles Manson and 3 members of his Manson Family are sentenced to death for a series of gruesome Los Angeles area murders in July and August of 1969.

1989: PIXAR wins the Academy Award for the animated short movie Tin Toy, a story about a boy named Tinny.

March 30

1853: Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh is born in Groot Zundert, Holland. In his lifetime, he creates over 800 oil paintings and 700 sketches/drawings. He was only able to sell one… for 400 francs. In 1990, his painting Portrait of Dr. Gachet sells at auction for $82.5 million dollars USD. ($169,380,396 million USD today)

1867: The United States buys Alaska from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million dollars, equal to $127,256,108 million USD today.

1981: U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest in Washington, D.C. He survived the incident after a .22 bullet was surgically removed from his left lung.

March 31
1889: Built by engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel tower in Paris opens to the public. 300 artists and writers sign a petition against it. Their claim was it would be “useless and monstrous,” as well as being a “hateful column of bolted sheet metal”.

Copyright (C) 2021. RaphaelClarence/La Source Online. All Rights Reserved.

Sources: Almanac. History.com. Computer History.org. History Date and Time. The People History.com. Wikipedia. This Day In Tech.

Photo Credits: Russian Revolution Poster, Benjamin. Mahatma Gandhi, Raffi Asdourian. Barbie Image, Lara Goncalves. Ford Mustang, 48 Product Jr. Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, Lily Laurent. Albert Einstein, Carnagenyc. Dr. Martin Luther King, Tammy Anthony Baker. Rwandan Refugees, British Red Cross. Fidel Castro, Antonio Marin-Segovia. The Beatles, Bradley Loos. Saint Patrick, Thad Zajdowicz. Prince Charles, Lady Diana Spencer, Joe Haupt. World War 1 Soldiers, Cassawary Colorizations. Exxon Valdez, Mr Cooljg. Viagra Pill, Tim Reckman. Charles Manson, Mitch Hell. Beinito Mussolini, Cass Anaya. Slaves Illustration, Giampiero Ridella. Vincent Van Gogh, Marc Carpentier. Philippines Poster, Alan. Eiffel Tower Blue, Vincent Garcia. Gustave Eiffel, Wikimedia Commons. Eiffel Tower Yellow, Kirk K.