TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MARCH 20
1345 Saturn/Jupiter/Mars-conjunction; thought “cause of plague epidemic”
1525 Paris’ parliament begins pursuit of Protestants
1616 Walter Raleigh released from Tower of London to seek gold in Guyana
1739 In India, Nadir Shah of Persia occupies Delhi and takes possession of the Peacock throne.
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
1816 US Supreme Court affirms its right to review state court decisions
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.
1952 US Senate’s final ratification of peace treaty restoring sovereignty to Japan
1953 Senator Edwin C Johnson offers a bill to give clubs the sole right to ban radio-TV broadcasts of major league games in their own territory
1956 Tunisia gains independence from France
1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson orders 4,000 troops to protect the Selma-Montgomery civil rights marchers.
1969 US President Nixon proclaims he will end Vietnam war in 1970
1982 U.S. scientists return from Antarctica with the first land mammal fossils found there.
1984 Senate rejects amendment to permit spoken prayer in public schools
1987 The United State approves AZT, a drug that is proven to slow the progress of AIDS.
1991 Supreme Court rules unanimously employers can’t exclude women from jobs where exposure to toxic chemicals could potentially damage fetus
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.
2003 Ground troops entered Iraq and a second round of air strikes against Baghdad was launched.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
