TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MARCH 24
1603 Scottish King James VI son of Mary Queen of Scots, becomes King James I of England in succession to Elizabeth I, thus joining the English and Scottish crowns
1629 In Virginia, the first game law was passed in the American colonies.
1663 Charles II of England awards land known as Carolina in North America to eight members of the nobility who assisted in his restoration.
1664 In London, Roger Williams is granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island.
1720 The banking houses of Paris close in the wake of financial crisis
1765 Britain passes the Quartering Act, requiring the colonies to house 10,000 British troops in public and private buildings.
1832 Mormon Joseph Smith was beaten, tarred and feathered in Ohio.
1882 German scientist Robert Koch discovers and describes the tubercle bacillus which causes tuberculosis ( Mycobacterium tuberculosis)
1944 The Gestapo rounds up innocent Italians in Rome and shoots them to death in reprisal for a bomb attack that killed 33 German policemen.
1947 Congress proposes limiting the United States presidency to two terms.
1958 Elvis Presley joins the army (serial number 53310761)
1960 A U.S. appeals court ruled that the novel “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” was not obscene and could be sent through the mail.
1966 Selective Service announces college deferments based on performance
1972 Great Britain imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland.
1981 “Nightline with Ted Koppel” premieres on ABC
1988 Former national security aides Oliver L. North and John M. Poindexter and businessmen Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim pled innocent to Iran-Contra charges.
1989 In one of worst oil spills in recent history, the tanker, Exxon Valdez, ran aground and released 240,000 barrels of oil into Prince William Sound.
1995 The U.S. House of Representatives passed a welfare reform package that made the most changes in social programs since the New Deal.
1998 In Jonesboro, AR, two young boys open fire at students from woods near a school. Four students and a teacher were killed and 10 others were injured. The two boys were 11 and 13 years old cousins.
2004 The notorious Bird family’s more than half-century stronghold on the nation of Antigua and Barbuda came to an end when Baldwin Spencer won the post of prime minister in the general election.
2016 Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić found guilty of genocide during 1995 Srebrenica massacre, sentenced to 40 years
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
