1945 – The battle of Iwo Jima ended. The island was finally declared secured on March 26, 1945. It had been one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-iwo-jima
127 AD – Greek astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy begins his observations of the heavens
1026 – Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II Holy Roman Emperor, founder of the Salian dynasty
1147 – Jewish community in Cologne fasts to commemorate anti-Jewish violence
1484 – William Caxton prints his English translation of Aesop’s Fables
1663 – The Quebec Seminary established by François de Montmorency-Laval, First Bishop of New France. North America’s first institution of higher learning.
1780 – The British Gazette and Sunday Monitor was published for the first time. It was the first Sunday newspaper in Britain.
1790 – US Congress passes Naturalization Act, requires 2-year residency
1793 – The Holy Roman Emperor formally declared war on France.
1799 – Napoleon captured Jaffa Palestine.
1804 – The U.S. Congress ordered the removal of Indians east of the Mississippi to Louisiana.
1804 – The Louisiana Purchase was divided into the District of Louisiana and the Territory of Orleans.
1832 – Famed western artist George Catlin begins his voyage up the Missouri River aboard the American Fur Company steamship Yellowstone.
1854 – Charles III, duke of Parma, was attacked by an assassin. He died the next day.
1859 – 1st supposed sighting of Vulcan, a planet thought to orbit inside Mercury; it doesn’t exist
1863 – Voters in West Virginia approve gradual emancipation of slaves
1898 – In South Africa, the world’s first game reserve, the Sabi Game reserve, was designated.
1909 – In support of Mohammed Ali Shah’s coup d’etat against the constitutional government in Persia, a Russian military force invades northern Persia to relieve the siege of Tabriz
1910 – The U.S. Congress passed an amendment to the 1907 Immigration Act that barred criminals, paupers, anarchists and carriers of disease from settling in the U.S.
1917 – At the start of the battle of Gaza, the British cavalry withdrew when 17,000 Turks blocked their advance.
1937 – Spinach growers in Crystal City, TX, erected a statue of Popeye.
1938 – Herman Goering warned all Jews to leave Austria.
1942 – Explosion of 20 tons of gelignite in a stone quarry at Easton, Pennsylvania, kills 21
1942 – The Germans began sending Jews to Auschwitz in Poland.
1945 – The battle of Iwo Jima ended. The island was finally declared secured on March 26, 1945. It had been one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-iwo-jima
1945 – In the Aleutians, the battle of Komandorski began when the Japanese attempted to reinforce a garrison at Kiska and were intercepted by a U.S. naval force.
1950 – Senator Joe McCarthy names Owen Lattimore, an ex-State Department adviser, as a Soviet spy.
1951 – The U.S. Air Force flag was approved. The flag included the coat of arms, 13 white stars and the Air Force seal on a blue background.
1953 – Dr. Jonas Salk announced a new vaccine that would prevent poliomyelitis.
1953 – Eisenhower offers increased aid to the French fighting in Indochina.
1958 – The U.S. Army launched America’s third successful satellite, Explorer III.
1960 – Iraq executes 30 after attack on Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim
1962 – The U.S. Supreme Court supported the 1-man-1-vote apportionment of seats in the State Legislature.
1966 – Large-scale anti-Vietnam War protests take place in the United States, including in New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago
1969 – Writer John Kennedy Toole commits suicide at the age of 32. His mother helps get his first and only novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, published. It goes on to win the 1981 Pulitzer Prize.
1971 – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared East Pakistan to be the independent republic of Bangladesh.
1973 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat took over the premiership and said “the stage of total confrontation (with Israel) has become inevitable.”
1973 – TV soap opera “The Young & the Restless” premieres on CBS
1975 – The Biological Weapons Convention comes into effect, The treaty bans the development, production and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons. It has now been ratified by most countries worldwide.
1979 – The Camp David treaty was signed by Israel and Egypt that ended the 31-year state of war between the countries.
1979 – OPEC makes full 14.5% oil price increase for 1979 effective on April 1
1982 – Ground breaking ceremonies were held in Washington, DC, for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
1989 – The first free elections took place in the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin was elected.
1991 – The presidents of Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Uruguay signed an agreement that established the Southern Cone Common Market, a free-trade zone, by January 1, 1995.
1995 – The Schengen Agreement enters into force, Within the Schengen Area, which encompasses most of Europe, regular border checks have been abolished.
1996 – The International Monetary Fund approved a $10.2 billion loan for Russia to help the country transform its economy.
1997 – The 39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members are found in a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, CA. The group had committed suicide thinking that they would be picked up by a spaceship following behind the comet Hale-Bopp.
1998 – Unisys Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. pay a $3.15 million fine for selling spare parts at inflated prices to the U.S. federal government.
1999 – The macro virus “Melissa” was reported for the first.
1999 – In Michigan, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder for giving a terminally ill man a lethal injection and putting it all on videotape on September 17, 1998 for “60 Minutes.”
2000 – The Seattle Kingdome was imploded to make room for a new football arena.
2000 – In Russia, acting President Vladimir Putin was elected president outright. He won a sufficient number of votes to avoid a runoff election.
2001 – Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister opens an oil pipeline from the giant Tengiz Field to the Russian port of Novorossiysk on Monday, giving the Central Asian producer its first direct link to international markets
2005 – The Taiwanese government calls on 1 million Taiwanese to demonstrate in Taipei, in opposition to the Anti-Secession Law of the People’s Republic of China. Around 200,000 to 300,000 attend the walk.
2015 – Richard III of England (1452-1485) is reburied at Leicester Cathedral in England, after being discovered under a carpark in Leicester in 2012
2017 – Anti-corruption protests in Russia result in hundreds arrested including opposition leader Alexei Navalny
2018 – Porn star Stormy Daniels claims she had an affair with Donald Trump in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes and was later threatened to keep quiet
2018 – U.S, European Union and Ukraine expel more than 100 Russian diplomats in response to Russian use of nerve gas in UK
2019 – Maker of Oxyconti, Purdue Pharma agrees to pay Oklahoma $270 million settlement ahead of trial accusing the company of fueling the opioid epidemic
2019 – State of emergency declared in Rockland County, New York, due to measles epidemic with unvaccinated children banned from public spaces for 30 days after 153 cases
2020 – Record number of Americans file for unemployment – 3.3 million according to US Department of Labor
2020 – US charges Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and other officials with “narco-terrorism”, by flooding the US with drugs
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
