1892 – Lord Stanley of Preston pledges to donate a challenge cup for the best ice hockey team in Canada. Today, the Stanley Cup is the world’s most prestigious ice hockey trophy.
0037 – The Roman Senate annuls Tiberius’ will and proclaims Caligula emperor.
0978 – 978 Edward the Martyr, the teenage King of England, is murdered, possibly arranged by his stepmother Queen Ælfthryth, by Corfe Castle
1190 – Crusaders killed 57 Jews in Bury St. Edmonds England.
1229 – Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II crowns himself King of Jerusalem
1314 – Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake by King Philip IV of France
1325 – According to legend, Tenochtitlan is founded on this date on an island in what was then Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico
1532 – The English parliament banned payments by English church to Rome.
1541 – Hernando de Soto observed the first recorded flood of the Mississippi River.
1673 – Lord Berkley sold his half of New Jersey to the Quakers.
1692 – William Penn was deprived of his governing powers.
1766 – Britain repeals the Stamp Act, which had caused outrage in colonial America and helped lead to the American Revolution
1813 – David Melville patented the gas streetlight.
1818 – The U.S. Congress approved the first pensions for government service.
1834 – The first railroad tunnel in the U.S. was completed. The work was in Pennsylvania.
1850 – Henry Wells & William Fargo founded American Express.
1863 – Confederate women riot in Salisbury, N.C. to protest the lack of flour and salt in the South.
1865 – The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourned for the last time.
1874 – Hawaii signed a treaty giving exclusive trading rights with the islands to the U.S.
1881 – Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth opened in Madison Square Gardens.
1892 – Lord Stanley of Preston pledges to donate a challenge cup for the best ice hockey team in Canada. Today, the Stanley Cup is the world’s most prestigious ice hockey trophy.
1899 – Phoebe, a moon of the planet Saturn, was discovered.
1902 – In Turkey, the Sultan granted a German syndicate the first concession to access Baghdad by rail.
1903 – Following through on its attacks on Roman Catholic institutions, the French Government dissolves the Catholic religious orders
1909 – Einar Dessau of Denmark used a short wave transmitter to become the first person to broadcast as a “ham” operator.
1911 – Theodore Roosevelt opened the Roosevelt Dam in Arizona. It was the largest dam in the U.S. at the time.
1911 – North Dakota enacted a hail insurance law.
1913 – Greek King George I was killed by an assassin. Constantine I succeeded him.
1916 – Russia countered the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake Naroch. The Russians lost 100,000 men and the Germans lost 20,000.
1917 – The Germans sank the U.S. ships, City of Memphis, Vigilante and the Illinois, without any warning.
1921 – Poland was enlarged with the second Peace of Riga.
1922 – Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience in India. He served only 2 years of the sentence.
1937 – More than 400 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, TX.
1938 – Mexico took control of all foreign-owned oil properties on its soil.
1939 – Georgia finally ratifies the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government. Connecticut and Massachusetts, the only other states to hold out, also ratify the Bill of Rights in this year.
1940 – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini held a meeting at the Brenner Pass. The Italian dictator agreed to join in Germany’s war against France and Britain during the meeting.
1942 – The third military draft began in the U.S. because of World War II.
1945 – 1,250 U.S. bombers attacked Berlin.
1949 – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was ratified.
1952 – In Philadelphia, PA, the first plastic lenses were fitted for a cataract patient.
1954 – RKO Pictures was sold for $23,489,478. It became the first motion picture studio to be owned by an individual. The person was Howard Hughes.
1959 – U.S. President Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill.
1962 – The Évian Accords are signed, ending the Algerian War, Algeria gained its independence from France as a consequence.
1963 – The U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Miranda decision concerning legal council for defendants.
1965 – Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first man to spacewalk when he left the Voskhod II space capsule while in orbit around the Earth. He was outside the spacecraft for about 20 minutes.
1966 – Scott Paper began selling paper dresses for $1.
1968 – The U.S. Congress repealed the requirement for a gold reserve.
1969 – U.S. President Nixon authorizes Operation Menue. It was the ‘secret’ bombing of Cambodia.
1970 – The U.S. Postal Service experienced the first postal strike.
1971 – A 100 feet (30 meter) high wave destroys a Peruvian mining camp and kills hundreds of people, The tsunami was caused by a massive rock avalanche that crashed into Lake Yanahuani from a height of 1300 feet (400 meters).
1971 – U.S. helicopters airlifted 1,000 South Vietnamese soldiers out of Laos.
1974 – Most of the Arab oil-producing nations ended their five-month embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
1975 – The Kurds ended their fight against Iraq.
1977 – Vietnam turned over an MIA to a U.S. delegation.
1981 – The U.S. disclosed that there were biological weapons tested in Texas in 1966.
1986 – The U.S. Treasury Department announced that a clear, polyester thread was to be woven into bills in an effort to thwart counterfeiters.
1990 – The first free elections took place in East Germany.
1990 – The 32-day lockout of baseball players ended.
1992 – Leona Hemsly was sentenced to 4 years in prison for tax evasion.
1992 – White South Africans voted for constitutional reforms that would give legal equality to blacks.
1996 – A nightclub fire in Quezon City, Philippines kills 162.
2003 – FBI agents raid the corporate headquarters of HealthSouth Corporation in Birmingham, Alabama on suspicion of massive corporate fraud led by the company’s top executives.
2003 – China’s new president, Hu Jintao, announced that his country must deepen reforms and raise living standards of workers and farmers.
2005 – Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube is removed at the request of her husband https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/31/national/schiavo-dies-nearly-two-weeks-after-removal-of-feeding-tube.html
2013 – 98 people are killed and 248 are injured across Iraq from a series of bombings and shootings
2014 – US closes the Syrian embassy in Washington & expels all Syrian diplomats
2018 – African American Stephon Clark shot 20 times by police in his Grandmother’s backyard in Sacramento, California during vandalism investigation
2018 – Serial bomber suspected after fourth bomb goes off in Austin, Texas, injuring two, total bombing death toll, 2 dead, 5 injured
2020 – US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agree to close the US-Canada border, the world’s longest, to non-essential travel to curb COVID-19
2021 – US House Judiciary Committee hearing begins on rise of violence and discrimination against Asian-Americans with report saying 3,800 hate incidents recorded over 12 months
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
