TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MARCH 20
1345 Saturn, Jupiter and Mars-conjunction: thought “cause of plague epidemic”
1413 Henry IV of England is succeed by his son Henry V.
1602 The Dutch East India Company was established. During its 196-year history, it became one of the world’s most powerful companies.
1739 Iranian ruler Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne
1774 The British parliament passes first of the Intolerable Acts: the Boston Port Act, which closed Boston harbor until colonists would pay for damages following the Boston Tea Party
1792 In Paris, the Legislative Assembly approves the use of the guillotine.
1800 Alessandro Volta reports his discovery of the electric battery in a letter to Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of London
1841 Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, considered the first detective story, is published.
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published.
1900 US Secretary of State John Hay announces that all nations to whom he sent notes calling for an ‘open door’ policy in China have essentially accepted his stand
1918 The Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union ask for American aid to rebuild their army.
1922 The US Postmaster General ( Hubert Work ) ordered all homes to get mailboxes or relinquish delivery of mail.
1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson orders 4,000 troops to protect the Selma-Montgomery civil rights marchers.
1982 U.S. scientists return from Antarctica with the first land mammal fossils found there.
1987 The United State approves AZT, a drug that is proven to slow the progress of AIDS.
1993 Two terrorist bombs are exploded close to the heart of Warrington Golden Square shopping mall.
1995 Two members of the Japanese cult Aum Sinrikyo released poisonous gas in a Tokyo subway stop during rush hour, killing 12 people and sending over 5,000 to the hospital for treatment.
2001 Petrobras 36 Oil Platform, the world’s largest oil rig, sinks with 400,000 US gallons of fuel and crude oil aboard, after suffering three explosions on March 15
2002 Arthur Andersen pled innocent to charges that it had shredded documents and deleted computer files related to the energy company Enron.
2016 Barack Obama becomes the first US President to visit Cuba since 1928, arriving for a 3 day tour
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
