TODAY HISTORY LESSON: MARCH 14
1489 Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, sold her kingdom to Venice. She was the last of the Lusignan dynasty.
1590 Battle of Ivry: French King Henry IV beats Catholic League during French Wars of Religion
1629 A Royal charter is granted to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1644 England grants patent for Providence Plantations (now Rhode Island)
1743 The first town meeting was held in Boston, Massachusetts, at Faneuil Hall.
1757 British Admiral John Byng is executed by a firing squad on board HMS Monarch for neglect of duty.
1794 Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin machine revolutionizing the cotton industry in the southern US states
1812 Congress authorizes war bonds to finance War of 1812
1900 United States currency goes on the gold standard.
1901 Utah Governor Heber M. Wells vetoed a bill that would have relaxed restrictions on polygamy.
1903 The U.S. Senate ratified the Hay-Herran Treaty that guaranteed the U.S. the right to build a canal at Panama. The Columbian Senate rejected the treaty. A deal was signed on November 6, 1903 with the newly independent Panama.
1910 The Lakeview Gusher causes the largest accidental oil spill in history. The spill lasted 18 months and 9 million barrels of crude oil were released.
1912 An anarchist named Antonio Dalba unsuccessfully attempts to kill Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III in Rome.
1923 President Warren G Harding became 1st President filing income tax report and pay taxes
1936 Adolf Hitler tells a crowd of 300,000 that Germany’s only judge is God and itself.
1943 World War II: Kraków Ghetto is “liquidated”
1947 The United States signs a 99-year lease on naval bases in the Philippines.
1950 The FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list made its debut.
1960 The leaders of Germany and Israel confer for the first time. 15 years after the end of World War II, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion met at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.
1964 A Dallas jury finds Jack Ruby guilty of the murder of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
1968 CBS TV suspends Radio Free Europe free advertising because RFE doesn’t make it clear it is sponsored by the CIA
1978 An Israeli force of 22,000 invades south Lebanon, hitting the PLO bases.
1979 The Census Bureau reported that 95% of all Americans were married or would get married.
1979 At least 200 people are killed when a plane crashes into a factory in China. According to some sources, the plane had previously been stolen by the pilot who was not qualified to fly it.
1983 OPEC cut oil prices for 1st time in 23 years
1989 Imported assault guns were banned in the U.S. under President George H.W. Bush.
1991 The “Birmingham Six,” imprisoned for 16 years for their alleged part in an IRA pub bombing, are set free after a court agrees that the police fabricated evidence.
1996 U.S. President Bill Clinton committed $100 million for an anti-terrorism pact with Israel to track down and root out Islamic militants.
1997 68 year old Gordie Howe signs AHL contract with Syracuse Crunch
1997 President Clinton trips & tears up his knee requiring surgery
2002 A Scottish appeals court upheld the conviction of a Libyan intelligence agent for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. A five-judge court ruled unanimously that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was guilty of bringing down the plane over Lockerbie, Scotland.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
