TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MARCH 19
1279 A Mongolian victory at the naval Battle of Yamen ends the Song Dynasty in China
1644 200 members of Peking imperial family and court commit suicide in loyalty to the Emperor
1687 The French explorer La Salle is murdered by his own men while searching for the mouth of the Mississippi, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
1748 The English Naturalization Act passed granting Jews right to colonize in the U.S.
1831 The first bank robbery in America was reported. The City Bank of New York City lost $245,000 in the robbery.
1879 Jim Currie opens fire on the actors Maurice Barrymore and Ben Porter near Marshall, Texas. His shots wound Barrymore and kill Porter.
1903 The U.S. Senate ratifies the Cuban treaty, gaining naval bases in Guantanamo and Bahia Honda.
1908 The state of Maryland barred Christian Scientists from practicing without medical diplomas.
1915 Pluto was photographed for the first time. However, it was not known at the time.
1916 The First Aero Squadron takes off from Columbus, NM to join Gen. John J. Pershing and his Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa in Mexico.
1917 The Adamson Act, eight hour day for railroad workers, is ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
1918 Congress authorizes Daylight Savings Time.
1920 The U.S. Senate rejects the Versailles Treaty for the second time.
1931 The state of Nevada legalizes gambling.
1935 The British fire on 20,000 Muslims in India, killing 23.
1945 Adolf Hitler orders a scorched-earth policy for his retreating German armies in the west and east.
1965 Indonesia nationalized all foreign oil companies.
1968 Students at Howard University students seized an administration building.
1979 The U.S. House of Representatives began broadcasting its daily business on TV.
1981 One technician is killed and two others are injured during a routine test on space shuttle Columbia.
1987 Televangelist Jim Bakker resigned as chairman of his PTL ministry organization and hands over control to Jerry Falwell. The PTL ministry had average viewers numbering over twelve million, amid the scandal involving a former church secretary, Jessica Hahn who was paid $279,000 from PTL funds to keep secret her allegation that he had raped her
1998 The World Health Organization warned of tuberculosis epidemic that could kill 70 million people in next two decades.
1999 53 people were killed and dozens were injured when a bomb exploded in a market place in southern Russia.
2000 Vector Data Systems conducted a simulation of the 1993 Branch Davidian siege in Waco, TX. The simulation showed that the government had not fired first.
2001 California officials declared a power alert and ordered the first of two days of rolling blackouts.
2002 Operation Anaconda, the largest U.S.-led ground offensive since the Gulf War, ended in eastern Afghanistan. During the operation, which began on March 2, it was reported that at least 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters were killed. Eleven allied troops were killed during the same operation.
2003 President George W. Bush addresses the nation via live television and announces that Operation Iraqi Freedom has begun to rid Iraq of tyrannical dictator Saddam Hussein and eliminate Iraq’s ability to develop weapons of mass destruction.
2008 The Cuban leader Fidel Castro has stepped down, forty-nine years after taking power in an armed revolution
2009 The U.S. has deported a former S.S. man to Austria. It says that Josias Kumpf was involved in the killing of some eight thousand Jews, that were shot in a single day and buried in pits. Kumpf, 83, left Austria in 1956, settled in Wisconsin and became a U.S. citizen in 1964.
2011 Planes from France, the United Kingdom, and the United States opened fire on Libyan forces after the United Nations authorizes a no-fly zone over Libya.
2012 A gunman killed four people after attacking a Jewish school in the southern city of Toulouse in France.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
