March 02
1793: Sam Houston born.
1836: Texas Independence is declared at Washington-on-the-Brazos.
1917: Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship.
1926: Murray Rothbard born.
1929: Tom Wolfe born.
March 03
1879: Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood became the first woman to be admitted to practice before the US Supreme Court.
1931: The Star Spangled Banner became the US national anthem.
March 04
1789: First meeting of Congress held in New York City. Members adjourned for lack of a quorum. It's been down hill since.
1801: Thomas Jefferson inaugurated.
1861: Abraham Lincoln inaugurated.
1933: In his inaugural address, President Franklin Roosevelt declared, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
March 05
1770: The Boston Massacre takes place.
1933: Nazi party wins a majority of seats in parlimentary elections in Germany.
1946: Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, while speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo, spoke of an "Iron Curtain" from the Baltic to the Adriatic.
1953: Josef Stalin died at 73, after 29 years of bloody power.
1970: The first nuclear non-proliferation treaty went into effect after 43 nations ratified it.
1995: Famous libertarian, Roger MacBride, dies at age 65.
March 06
1857: The US Supreme Court, to its everlasting shame, ruled in the Dred Scott case, that a slave could not sue for his freedom in a federal court.
1885: Ring Lardner born.
1926: Alan Greenspan born.
1981: Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as anchorman of the CBS Evening News.
1982: Ayn Rand died.
March 07
1946: The Foundation for Economic Education was founded.
1975: The US Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 Senators to limit debate in most cases instead of the previously required two-thirds.
March 08
1841: Oliver Wendell Holmes born in Boston, Mass.
1894: New York state enacted the first dog-licensing law in the United States.
1917: The US Senate voted to limit the filibuster by adopting the cloture rule.
March 09
1776: Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith first published.
1864: US Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of Union forces.
1916: Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico, killing over a dozen people.
1933: FDR called Congress into "Special Sesion" and it began its hundred days of enacting the New Deal.
1954: CBS newsman Edward R Murrow came down on Wisconsin Senator Joseph R McCarthy's anti-communist campaign on Murrow's show, See It Now.
March 10
March 11
1936: Antonin Scalia born.
1941: President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease bill.
1942: General Douglas MacArthur, forced to retreat off Corregidor in the Phillipines for Australia, vowed, "I shall return." He did.
March 12
1959: Congress approved statehood for Hawaii.
March 13
1781: The planet Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel.
1852: "Uncle Sam" made his first appearance in a cartoon in the Lantern.
1868: The impeachment trial of President Andrew Jackson began in the US Senate.
1884: Standard time was adopted throughout the US.
1906: Susan B Anthony died in Rochester, New York.
1925: A Tennessee law went into effect prohibiting the teaching of evolution.
1988: One of the greatest legal speakers ever, Irving Younger, died.
1933: Banks in the US began to reopen after the bank "holiday" declared by FDR.
March 14
1743: The first recorded town meeting in America was held in Boston.
1883: Karl Marx died in London, England.
1900: The US goes on the gold standard.
1964: A Dallas jury found Jack Ruby "guilty" of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald.
March 15
Beware the Ides of March.
44 BC: Roman Emporer Julius Casear assassinated by Brutus and Cassius.
1767: The seventh president, Andrew Jackson, was born in Waxhaw, South Carolina.
1820: Maine became the twenty-third state.
1913: President Wilson held the first open presidential press conference.
1919: The American Legion was founded in Paris.
March 16
1751: James Madison, the fourth president of the US, born in Port Conway, Virginia.
1802: Congress authorized the establishment of the US Military Academy at West Point.
1827: The first newspaper edited by and for Blacks, Freedom's Journal, was published in New York.
1836: The Republic of Texas approved its constitution.
1935: Adolf Hitler voids the Treaty of Versailles.
1964: President Johnson announces his "War on Poverty."
1968: My Lai Massacre.
March 17
1970: The United States cast its first veto in the United Nations Security Council (killing a resolution condemning Britain for failure to use force to overthrow the all-white government of Rhodesia).
March 18
1766: Britain repealed the Stamp Act.
1837: Grover Cleveland, the twenty-second and the twenty-fourth President of the United Sates, was born.
1909: Einar Dessau of Denmark used a shortwave transmitter in what is considered the first "ham" radio broadcast. He talked to someone only six miles away.
1922: Gandhi sentenced to six year imprisonment in India for civil disobedience.
1938: Mexico seized control of foreign owned oil properties in Mexico.
1959: President Eisenhower signed the bill making Hawaii the 50th state.
1974: Most of the Arab oil-producing nations ended their oil embargo with the United States.
March 19
1918: Congress approved daylight savings time.
1931: Nevada legalized gambling.
March 20
1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin first published.
March 21
March 22
1765: Britain enacted the Stamp Act to raise money from American colonies. After a tremendous outpouring of protest from America, the Act was repealed the following year.
1794: Congress prohibited American ships from supplying slaves to other countries.
1882: Congress outlawed polygamy.
1933: During the prohibition era, President Roosevelt signed a law to allow consumption of wine and beer containing up to 3.2% alcohol.
March 23
1775: Patrick Henry, in a speech to the Virginia Convention, exclaimed, "Give me liberty or give me death."
1806: Lewis and Clark began their journey back east from the Pacific coast.
1900: Erich Fromm born.
1919: Benito Mussolini began his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.
1942: The United States, to its everlasting shame, began imprisoning American citizens of Japanese descent in "detention centers."
1983: President Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (popularly known as "Star Wars").
1992: Friedrich von Hayek died at age 92 in Freiburg, Germany. He won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974.
March 24
1644: Charter granted to Roger Williams for colony of Rhode Island.
1765: Britain enacts the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing for British soldiers.
March 25
1913: The Palace Theatre, the home of vaudeville, opens in New York City.
March 26
1930: Sandra Day O'Connor born.
1982: Groundbreaking ceremonies take place in Washington, DC, for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
March 27
1794: President Washington and Congress authorized creation of the US Navy.
March 28
1969: Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president, dies at 78 years old.
1979: The cooling system at Three Mile Island nuclear reactor malfuntions.
March 29
1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage charges. They are executed in June, 1953.
1971: Army Lt. William L. Calley convicted of murdering at least 22 Vietnamese civilians at the My Lai massacre. He spends three years under house arrest.
1973: The last US troops leave South Vietnam.
March 30
1867: US Secretary of State William H. Seward reaches an agreement with Russians to purchase the territory of Alaska for 7.2 million dollars.
1870: Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, preventing the abridgment of the right to vote on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude declared to be in effect.
1872: Florida becomes a US Territory.
1945: Soviet Union invades Austria.
1981: President Reagan, Press Secretary James S. Brady and two law enforcement officers are shot by John W. Hinckley, Jr., in Washington, D.C.
March 31
1932: Ford Motor Company unveils its V-8 engine.
1933: Congress authorizes the Civilian Conservation Corps.
1968: LBJ announces he will not run for another term.
Last revised January 25, 2003
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