Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2019 day arrangement | ||||||
March 1: Purim (Judaism, 2018); Independence Day in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992); Rio Carnival begins in Brazil (2019); National Pig Day in the United States; Saint David's Day in Wales; Yap Day in Yap
- 1476 – War of the Castilian Succession: Although the Battle of Toro was militarily inconclusive, it assured Ferdinand and Isabella the throne of Castile, forming the basis for modern Spain.
- 1872 – Yellowstone National Park (bison pictured), the first national park in the world, was established with the majority of it in the U.S. state of Wyoming.
- 1921 – The Australian cricket team led by Warwick Armstrong became the first team to complete a whitewash in the Ashes, something that would not be repeated for 86 years.
- 2014 – A group of knife-wielding men and women attacked passengers at Kunming railway station in Kunming, China, leaving 31 victims and 4 perpetrators dead with more than 140 others injured.
Vladislaus II of Hungary (b. 1456) · Francesco Redi (d. 1697) · Nick Griffin (b. 1959)
March 2: The Nineteen-Day Fast begins (Bahá'í Faith, 2018); Shushan Purim in Jerusalem and Susa (Judaism, 2018)
- 1444 – The League of Lezhë, an alliance of the regional chieftains, was established in Venetian Albania with Skanderbeg as its commander.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Patriot militia from Georgia and South Carolina attempted to resist the British action to seize and remove supply ships anchored at Savannah, Georgia.
- 1943 – World War II: Australian and American air forces attacked and destroyed a large convoy of the Japanese Navy in the Bismarck Sea north of Papua New Guinea.
- 1978 – Aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 28, Czechoslovak military pilot Vladimír Remek (pictured) became the first person from outside the Soviet Union or the United States to go into space.
Charles I, Count of Flanders (d. 1127) · Bedřich Smetana (b. 1824) · Gisela Januszewska (d. 1943)
March 3: Hinamatsuri in Japan
- 1284 – The Statute of Rhuddlan incorporated the Principality of Wales into England.
- 1875 – French composer Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (poster pictured), based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.
- 1924 – The Free State of Fiume, a short-lived independent free state located in the modern city of Rijeka, Croatia, was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy.
- 1943 – Second World War: During a German aerial attack on London, 173 people were killed in a stampede while trying to enter Bethnal Green tube station, which was being used as an air-raid shelter.
- 1991 – Motorist Rodney King was beaten by Los Angeles policemen, causing public outrage that increased tensions between the African American community and the police department over the issues of police brutality and social inequalities in the area.
Antony Bek (d. 1311) · Maurice Garin (b. 1871) · Johanna Wokalek (b. 1975)
March 4: Shrove Monday (Western Christianity, 2019)
- 306 – Roman Herculian guard Adrian of Nicomedia, who had converted to Christianity after being impressed with the faith of Christians that he had been torturing, was martyred.
- 1804 – Irish convicts who were involved at the Battle of Vinegar Hill during the 1798 Irish Rebellion began an uprising against British colonial authorities in New South Wales, Australia.
- 1918 – The first known case of the so-called Spanish flu was first observed at Fort Riley, Kansas.
- 1933 – All three presidents of the Austrian National Council resigned, and Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss (pictured) later used that pretext to create an authoritarian government.
- 2012 – A series of blasts occurred at an arms dump in Brazzaville, Congo, killing at least 250 people, injuring 2,300 others, and leaving more than 13,800 people homeless.
Hindal Mirza (b. 1519) · Mariano Moreno (d. 1811) · Harold Barrowclough (d. 1972)
March 5: Shrove Tuesday (Western Christianity, 2019); Learn From Lei Feng Day in China
- 363 – Roman emperor Julian and his army set out from Antioch to attack the Sassanian Empire.
- 1824 – The First Anglo-Burmese War, the longest and most expensive war in British Indian history, began.
- 1943 – The Gloster Meteor, the first operational jet fighter for the Allied Powers, made its maiden flight.
- 1963 – Country music stars Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Hawkshaw Hawkins were killed when their Piper PA-24 Comanche crashed shortly after takeoff in Camden, Tennessee, U.S.
- 1981 – The ZX81 (pictured), a pioneering British home computer, was launched by Sinclair Research and went on to sell over 1.5 million units around the world.
Gerardus Mercator (b. 1512) · Marietta Piccolomini (b. 1834) · Lena Baker (d. 1945)
March 6: Ash Wednesday (Western Christianity, 2019); Independence Day in Ghana (1957)
- 961 – With the completion of the Siege of Chandax, the Muslim Emirate of Crete was conquered by the Byzantine Empire.
- 1836 – Texas Revolution: Mexican forces captured the Alamo (pictured) in San Antonio from the Texians after a 13-day siege.
- 1953 – Upon the death of Joseph Stalin, Georgy Malenkov became Premier of the Soviet Union.
- 1964 – In a radio broadcast, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad announced that American boxer Cassius Clay would change his name to Muhammad Ali.
- 1988 – In Operation Flavius, the Special Air Service killed three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers conspiring to bomb a parade of British military bands in Gibraltar.
William Claflin (b. 1818) · Camilla Collett (d. 1895) · Sheila Varian (d. 2016)
- 321 – Emperor Constantine I decreed that Sunday, the day honoring the sun god Sol Invictus (disc pictured), would be the Roman day of rest.
- 1277 – Étienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris, promulgated a condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological propositions that were being discussed at the University of Paris.
- 1850 – In support of the Compromise of 1850, United States Senator Daniel Webster gave his "Seventh of March" speech, which was so unpopular among his constituency he was forced to resign.
- 1900 – The German ocean liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse became the first ship to send a wireless telegraph message to an onshore receiver.
- 1968 – Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam began Operation Truong Cong Dinh to sweep the area surrounding the Mekong Delta town of Mỹ Tho to root out Viet Cong forces in the area.
Ludwig Mond (b. 1839) · Boris Kustodiev (b. 1878) · E. Pauline Johnson (d. 1913)
March 8: International Women's Day
- 1618 – German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler discovered the third law of planetary motion.
- 1658 – After a devastating defeat in the Second Northern War, King Frederick III of Denmark–Norway was forced to give up nearly half his Danish territory to Sweden to save the rest.
- 1910 – French aviator Raymonde de Laroche (pictured) became the first woman to receive a pilot's licence.
- 1924 – Three violent explosions at a coal mine near Castle Gate, Utah, U.S., killed all 171 miners working there.
- 1978 – BBC Radio 4 began transmitting Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a science fiction radio series that was later adapted into novels, a television series, and other media formats.
Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge (d. 1819) · Gladys Bustamante (b. 1912) · Juvénal Habyarimana (b. 1937)
March 9: Birth of Fatimah al-Zahra/Mother's Day in Iran (2018)
- 1009 – The first known record of the name of Lithuania appeared in an entry in the annals of the Quedlinburg Abbey in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
- 1842 – Francisco Lopez woke from a nap under a tree (pictured) at Rancho San Francisco and made the first documented discovery of gold in California.
- 1910 – A seventeen-month-long strike action, which at its peak involved 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers across 65 mines, began in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
- 1925 – The Royal Air Force began a bombardment and strafing campaign against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan.
- 1956 – In Tbilisi, Georgia, Soviet military troops suppressed mass demonstrations against Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy.
Friederike Caroline Neuber (b. 1697) · Anna Laetitia Barbauld (d. 1825) · Jane Joseph (d. 1929)
- 1916 – The last in a series of letters was written wherein Britain would support Arab independence from the Ottoman Empire in return for launching a revolt.
- 1952 – Facing likely electoral defeat, former Cuban President Fulgencio Batista staged a coup d'état to resume control.
- 1968 – Vietnam War/Laotian Civil War: North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces overwhelmed the American, Laotian, Thai, and Hmong defenders of Lima Site 85.
- 2000 – The Nasdaq Composite stock market index peaked at 5048.62, the high point of the dot-com boom.
- 2008 – The New York Times revealed that Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer (pictured) had used a prostitution service.
Amy Spain (d. 1865) · Marie-Eugénie de Jésus (d. 1898) · Emily Osment (b. 1992)
March 11: Mothering Sunday (Western Christianity, 2018)
- 222 – Disgusted with Roman emperor Elagabalus's disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos, the Praetorian Guard assassinated him and his mother and threw their mutilated bodies in the Tiber.
- 1843 – During a period of activity known as the Great Eruption, Eta Carinae briefly became the second brightest star in the night sky.
- 1966 – Indonesian President Sukarno (pictured) signed the Presidential Order Supersemar, giving General of the Army Suharto the authority to restore order during the recent mass killings.
- 1978 – After hijacking a bus north of Tel Aviv, members of Palestine Liberation Organization faction Fatah engaged in a shootout with the Israel Police, resulting in the deaths of 38 civilians and most of the perpetrators.
- 1993 – Janet Reno was confirmed by the Senate as the first female United States Attorney General.
Stanisław Koniecpolski (d. 1646) · Jane Meade Welch (b. 1854) · Ralph Abernathy (b. 1926)
March 12: National Heroes and Benefactors Day in Belize (2018); Commonwealth Day in the Commonwealth of Nations (2018)
- 1622 – Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Jesuits, were canonized by Pope Gregory XV.
- 1881 – Andrew Watson made his debut with the Scotland national football team and became the world's first black international footballer.
- 1933 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (pictured) broadcast the first of his "fireside chats" to address the nation directly.
- 1952 – British diplomat Hastings Ismay was appointed as the first Secretary General of NATO.
- 1971 – The Turkish Armed Forces executed a "coup by memorandum", forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel.
Tirso de Molina (d. 1648) · William Henry Perkin (b. 1838) · Lise Tréhot (d. 1922)
- 1781 – Astronomer and composer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus (pictured) while in the garden of his house in Bath, Somerset, thinking it was a comet.
- 1845 – German composer Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, one of the most popular violin concertos of all time, received its world première in Leipzig.
- 1920 – The Kapp Putsch briefly ousted the Weimar Republic government from Berlin.
- 1964 – Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York City, prompting research into the bystander effect due to the false story that neighbors witnessed the killing and did nothing to help her.
- 1988 – The Seikan Tunnel, the longest and deepest tunnel in the world at the time, opened between the cities of Hakodate and Aomori, Japan.
Daniel Lambert (b. 1770) · Benjamin Harrison (d. 1901) · Helen Renton (b. 1931)
March 14: New Year's Day (Sikhism); White Day in East Asia; Pi Day
- 1489 – Queen of Cyprus Catherine Cornaro (pictured) was forced to abdicate and sell the administration of the island to the Republic of Venice.
- 1885 – The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan's most frequently performed Savoy opera, debuted at the Savoy Theatre in London.
- 1910 – Oil prospectors in Kern County, California, drilled into a pressurized oil deposit, resulting in the largest accidental oil spill in history.
- 1978 – Israeli–Lebanese conflict: The Israel Defense Forces began Operation Litani, invading and occupying southern Lebanon, and pushing PLO troops north up to the Litani River.
- 1988 – China defeated Vietnam in a naval battle as the former attempted to establish oceanographic observation posts on the Spratly Islands.
George Wade (d. 1748) · Lucy Hobbs Taylor (b. 1833) · Diane Arbus (b. 1923)
- 44 BC – Dictator Julius Caesar of the Roman Republic was stabbed to death (pictured) by Marcus Junius Brutus and several other Roman senators.
- 1875 – Archbishop of New York John McCloskey was named the first cardinal in the United States.
- 1917 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was forced to abdicate in the February Revolution, ending three centuries of Romanov rule.
- 1943 – World War II: German forces recaptured Kharkov after four days of house-to-house fighting against Soviet troops, ending the month-long Third Battle of Kharkov.
- 1990 – Iraqi authorities hanged freelance Iranian reporter Farzad Bazoft for spying for Israel.
Archibald Menzies (b. 1754) · Matthew Charlton (b. 1866) · Paul Pogba (b. 1993)
- 1621 – Samoset, a member of the Abenaki tribe, strolled into Plymouth Colony and greeted the Pilgrims in English (pictured).
- 1689 – The Royal Welch Fusiliers, one of the oldest line infantry regiments of the British Army, was founded.
- 1918 – Finnish Civil War: The Whites were victorious in the Battle of Länkipohja, after which they executed at least 70 Reds.
- 1988 – Using pistols and grenades, loyalist Michael Stone attacked the funeral of three Provisional IRA members who had been killed in Gibraltar ten days earlier, killing three attendees and injuring at least sixty others.
- 2014 – Annexation of Crimea: The Autonomous Republic of Crimea held a controversial referendum where voters overwhelmingly chose to join Russia as a federal subject.
Caroline Herschel (b. 1750) · Iso Rae (d. 1940) · Mary Meader (d. 2008)
- 1452 – Reconquista: The combined forces of Castile and Murcia defeated the Emirate of Granada at the Battle of Los Alporchones around the city of Lorca.
- 1891 – The transatlantic steamship Utopia accidentally collided with the battleship HMS Anson in the Bay of Gibraltar, sinking in less than twenty minutes and killing 562 (wreckage pictured).
- 1955 – Ice hockey fans in Montreal rioted to protest the suspension of Montreal Canadiens star Maurice Richard for hitting an official.
- 1968 – Six thousand sheep were killed on ranches near Dugway Proving Ground in Utah as a result of the U.S. Army spraying a nerve agent.
- 2000 – Over 700 followers of the Ugandan sect Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God died in a mass murder committed by its leaders.
Emily Sartain (b. 1841) · Margaret Bondfield (b. 1873) · Shu Xiuwen (d. 1969)
- 1241 – First Mongol invasion of Poland: Mongols overwhelmed the Polish armies of Sandomierz and Kraków provinces in the Battle of Chmielnik and plundered the abandoned city of Kraków.
- 1834 – The Tolpuddle Martyrs were sentenced to transportation to Australia for swearing an illegal oath to join their friendly society in Dorset, England.
- 1921 – The Polish–Soviet War, which determined the borders between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia, formally concluded with the signing of the Peace of Riga.
- 1938 – Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas created Pemex, the national petroleum company, by expropriating all foreign-owned oil reserves and facilities.
- 1990 – Thieves stole 13 works of art valued at $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (pictured) in Boston, the largest-value theft of private property in history.
Matthew III Csák (d. 1321) · Edgar Cayce (b. 1877) · Vanessa Williams (b. 1963)
March 19: Cheti Chand in various parts of India (2018)
- 1279 – Emperor Bing, the last emperor of the Song dynasty, died during the Battle of Yamen, bringing the dynasty to an end after three centuries.
- 1865 – American Civil War: The last battle of the Carolinas Campaign, the Battle of Bentonville, began, which contributed to the ultimate Union victory in the war.
- 1911 – Socialist German politician Clara Zetkin established the first International Women's Day.
- 1987 – American televangelist Jim Bakker resigned as the head of The PTL Club in the midst of a sex scandal.
- 2008 – The gamma-ray burst GRB 080319B (artist's impression pictured), the farthest object that could be seen by the naked eye, was observed.
Jan Zamoyski (b. 1542) · Senda Berenson Abbott (b. 1868) · Lise Østergaard (d. 1996)
March 20: March equinox (16:15 UTC, 2018); Fast of Esther (Judaism, 2019); Independence Day in Tunisia (1956)
- 235 – Maximinus Thrax succeeded to the throne of the Roman Empire, a so-called barracks emperor who gained power by virtue of his command of the army.
- 1852 – Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (pictured) was first published, profoundly affecting attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the United States.
- 1922 – The United States Navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier, USS Langley.
- 1987 – The antiretroviral drug zidovudine (AZT) became the first antiviral drug approved for use against HIV and AIDS.
- 1993 – The Troubles: The second of two bomb attacks by the Provisional IRA in Warrington, England, killed two children.
Adrienne Lecouvreur (d. 1730) · Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck (b. 1870) · Willie Brown (b. 1934)
- 1556 – Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, one of the founders of Anglicanism, was burnt at the stake in Oxford, England, for heresy.
- 1918 – First World War: The German Army opened the Spring Offensive with Operation Michael, attempting to break through the Allied lines and to seize ports on the English Channel.
- 1952 – The first major rock and roll concert, the Moondog Coronation Ball, was held at the Cleveland Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
- 1968 – War of Attrition: The Israel Defense Forces clashed with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Jordanian Armed Forces during the Battle of Karameh (aftermath pictured).
- 2006 – A man using a hammer smashed the statue of Phra Phrom in the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand, and was subsequently beaten to death by bystanders.
Absalon (d. 1201) · Alice Henry (b. 1857) · Emily Infeld (b. 1990)
- 238 – Because of his father's advanced age, Gordian II was proclaimed joint Roman emperor with Gordian I.
- 1765 – The Parliament of Great Britain passed the Stamp Act, requiring that many printed materials in the Thirteen Colonies in British America carry a tax stamp.
- 1943 – World War II: Almost the entire population of the village of Khatyn in Belarus was massacred by Nazi forces, with participation from their Ukrainian and Belarusian collaborators.
- 1995 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov (pictured) of the Soyuz programme returned from the Mir space station after 437 days in space, setting a record for the longest spaceflight.
- 2004 – Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian imam who was a founder and the spiritual leader of Hamas, was killed by a missile from an Israeli helicopter gunship as he left early morning prayers.
Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh (b. 1615) · Ahmed Cevdet Pasha (b. 1822) · James Black (d. 2010)
- 1848 – Scottish settlers on the John Wickliffe, captained by William Cargill, arrived at what is now Port Chalmers in the Otago Region of New Zealand.
- 1888 – Led by William McGregor, ten football clubs met in London for the purpose of founding the Football League, the oldest league competition in world football.
- 1908 – American diplomat Durham Stevens, an employee of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was assassinated in San Francisco by two Korean American immigrants unhappy with his recent support of the increasing Japanese presence in Korea.
- 1968 – The My Lai Massacre in South Vietnam.
- 1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into a hillside in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia, after the pilot's 16-year-old son, while seated at the controls, had unknowingly disabled the autopilot, killing all 75 people on board.
- 2001 – The Russian Federal Space Agency deorbited the 15-year-old space station Mir (pictured), causing it to reenter the Earth's atmosphere and break up over the Pacific Ocean.
Pierre-Simon Laplace (b. 1749) · Said Nursî (d. 1960) · Kangana Ranaut (b. 1986)
March 24: World Tuberculosis Day
- 1603 – King James VI of Scotland (pictured) acceded to the thrones of England and Ireland, becoming James I of England and unifying the crowns of the kingdoms for the first time.
- 1860 – Rōnin samurai of the Mito Domain assassinated Japanese Chief Minister Ii Naosuke, upset with his role in the opening of Japan to foreign powers.
- 1921 – The 1921 Women's Olympiad, the first international women's sports event, opened at the International Sporting Club of Monaco in Monte Carlo.
- 1934 – The Tydings–McDuffie Act came into effect, which provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence from the United States after a period of ten years.
- 2008 – The Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party, led by Jigme Thinley, won 45 out of 47 seats in the National Assembly of Bhutan in the country's first-ever general election.
Wulfred (d. 832) · Fanny Crosby (b. 1820) · Maria Radner (d. 2015)
March 25: Rama Navami (Hinduism, 2018); Bengali Genocide Remembrance Day
- 1410 – The Yongle Emperor launched the first of his military campaigns against the Mongols, resulting in the fall of the Mongol khan Bunyashiri.
- 1807 – The Slave Trade Act became law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
- 1917 – Following the overthrow of the Russian tsar Nicholas II, Georgia's bishops unilaterally restored the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
- 1948 – Meteorologists at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, United States, issued the world's first tornado forecast after noticing conditions similar to another tornado that had struck five days earlier.
- 1975 – King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (pictured) was shot and killed by his nephew Faisal bin Musaid.
Sophie Blanchard (b. 1778) · Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas (d. 1927) · Melita Norwood (b. 1912)
March 26: Independence Day in Bangladesh (1971)
- 590 – Byzantine emperor Maurice proclaimed his son Theodosius as his co-emperor.
- 1351 – War of the Breton Succession: Thirty knights each from France and England fought to determine who would rule the Duchy of Brittany, which later was celebrated as a noble display of the ideals of chivalry.
- 1885 – Feeling that Canada had failed to address the protection of their rights, the Métis people, led by Louis Riel, began the North-West Rebellion.
- 1953 – Jonas Salk announced the successful test of his polio vaccine on a small group of adults and children (vaccination pictured).
- 1971 – East Pakistan declared its independence from Pakistan to become Bangladesh, starting the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Conrad Gessner (b. 1516) · James Hutton (d. 1797) · Eazy-E (d. 1995)
- 1850 – San Diego, the first European settlement in what is now California, was incorporated as a city.
- 1899 – Philippine–American War: For the only time during the course of the war, Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo personally led troops against the U.S. in the Battle of Marilao River.
- 1941 – Encouraged by the British Special Operations Executive, a group of pro-Western Serb-nationalist Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers planned and conducted a coup d'état after Yugoslavia joined the Axis powers.
- 1958 – First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev also took over the role of Premier.
- 1998 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug sildenafil (chemical structure pictured), better known by the trade name Viagra, for use as a treatment for erectile dysfunction, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
Rosa Campbell Praed (b. 1851) · Kick Kelly (d. 1926) · Mariah Carey (b. 1969 or 1970)
March 28: Serfs Emancipation Day in Tibet
- 193 – Praetorian Guards assassinated Roman emperor Pertinax and sold the Imperial office in an auction to Didius Julianus.
- 1814 – War of 1812: Off the coast of Valparaíso, Chile, two Royal Navy ships easily captured two American ones.
- 1933 – After an on-board fire that may have been the first incident of airliner sabotage, the Imperial Airways biplane City of Liverpool broke apart in mid-air, killing fifteen people.
- 1942 – Second World War: In occupied France, British naval forces disabled the port of Saint-Nazaire (HMS Campbeltown pictured).
- 2003 – Invasion of Iraq: In a friendly fire incident, two members of the United States Air Force attacked the United Kingdom's Blues and Royals regiment, killing one soldier and injuring five.
Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova (b. 1743) · Terence MacSwiney (b. 1879) · Sybil Irving (d. 1973)
March 29: Boganda Day in the Central African Republic; Martyrs' Day in Madagascar (1947)
- 1430 – Ottoman–Venetian Wars: After an eight-year siege, the Ottoman Empire captured the city of Thessalonica from the Republic of Venice.
- 1800 – William Matthews was ordained as the first British America-born Catholic priest.
- 1871 – The Royal Albert Hall in Albertopolis, London, was officially opened by Queen Victoria.
- 1974 – A group of farmers in Shaanxi province, China, discovered a vast collection of terracotta statues (pictured) depicting the armies of the first Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang.
- 2010 – Islamist Chechen separatists set off two bombs on the Moscow Metro, killing 40 and injuring 102 others.
John Tyler (b. 1790) · Charles-Valentin Alkan (d. 1888) · Helene Deutsch (d. 1982)
March 30: Land Day (Palestinians)
- 1822 – The United States merged East Florida and West Florida to create the Florida Territory.
- 1918 – Fighting began during the March Days revolt in Baku, Azerbaijan, resulting in over 14,000 deaths.
- 1950 – Usmar Ismail (pictured) began filming Darah dan Doa, formally recognised as the first Indonesian film.
- 1972 – Vietnam War: North Vietnamese forces began the Easter Offensive in an attempt to gain as much territory and destroy as many units of the South Vietnamese Army as possible.
- 2009 – Twelve gunmen attacked the Manawan Police Academy in Lahore, Pakistan, and held it for several hours before security forces could retake it.
Anna Sewell (b. 1820) · Stefan Banach (b. 1892) · Philip Showalter Hench (d. 1965)
March 31: First day of Passover (Judaism, 2018); Cesar Chavez Day in various U.S. states
- 1822 – Greek War of Independence: Ottoman troops began the massacre of over 20,000 Greeks on the island of Chios.
- 1899 – Philippine–American War: Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, was captured by American forces.
- 1910 – Six English towns amalgamated to form a single county borough called Stoke-on-Trent, the first union of its type.
- 1964 – Brazilian Armed Forces led an overthrow of Brazilian President João Goulart (pictured) and established a military government that lasted for 21 years.
- 1995 – American singer-songwriter, Selena, known as "The Queen of Tejano music", was murdered in Corpus Christi, Texas, by the president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldívar.
Guru Angad (b. 1504) · Franz Abt (d. 1885) · J. P. Morgan (d. 1913)
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive – All
January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December
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