TODAY HISTORY LESSON: MARCH 5
363 Roman Emperor Julian moves from Antioch with an army of 90,000 to attack the Sassanid Empire, in a campaign that brings about his own death
1496 English King Henry VII grants John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) a commission to explore for new lands
1558 Smoking tobacco introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes
1616 Nicolaus Copernicus’ revolutionary book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is banned by the Catholic Church. In the book, Copernicus claimed that the Earth revolves around the sun. The Church maintained Ptolemy’s geocentric system. The book is considered a milestone in the history of astronomy.
1623 The first alcohol temperance law in the colonies was enacted in Virginia.
1624 Class-based legislation is passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper class from punishment by whipping.
1770 Boston Massacre (Incident on King Street): British soldiers kill 5 men in a crowd throwing snowballs, stones and sticks at them. African American Crispus Attucks 1st to die; later held up as early black martyr. Massacre galvanizes anti-British feelings.
1842 A Mexican force of over 500 men under Rafael Vasquez invaded Texas for the first time since the revolution. They briefly occupied San Antonio, but soon headed back to the Rio Grande.
1872 The air brake is patented. George Westinghouse is credited with the design of the railway braking system that uses compressed air.
1912 The Italians become the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.
1918 The Soviets move the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.
1923 Montana & Nevada become 1st states to enact old age pension laws
1933 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a four-day bank holiday in order to stop large amounts of money from being withdrawn from banks.
1933 Hitler and Nationalist allies win the Reichstag majority. It will be the last free election in Germany until after World War II.
1934 In Amarillo, TX, the first Mother’s-In-Law Day was celebrated.
1943 In desperation due to war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military service in the German army.
1946 In Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill tells a crowd that “an iron curtain has descended on the Continent [of Europe].”
1956 The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the ban on segregation in public schools in Brown vs. Board of Education.
1960 Alberto Korda takes his famous picture of revolutionary Che Guevara
1970 The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty enters into force. Nuclear powers China, Russia, U.S., U.K., and France initiated the treaty in 1968. It has since been ratified by 190 nations around the world.
1976 Britain gives up on the Ulster talks and decides to retain rule in Northern Ireland indefinitely.
1977 U.S. President Jimmy Carter appeared on CBS News with Walter Cronkite for the first “Dial-a-President” radio talk show.
1981 The home computer ZX81 is launched. The British ZX81 was one of the world’s first home computer and was sold over 1.5 million times.
1984 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that cities have the right to display the Nativity scene as part of their Christmas display.
1992 Ethic committee votes to reveal congressmen who bounced checks
1997 North and South Korean representatives met for the first time in 25 years for peace talks.
1998 It was announced that Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins would lead crew of Columbia on a mission to launch a large X-ray telescope. She was the first woman to command a space shuttle mission.
2004 Martha Stewart is convicted of the felony of obstructing justice and lying about why she’d unloaded her Imclone Systems Inc. stock just before the price plummeted.
2007 U.S. and North Korea have started talks aimed at normalizing diplomatic ties. This was arranged as part of an agreement in which Pyongyang has pledged to scrap its nuclear arms programs for aid.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
