1757 – Prince Mas Saïd of Mataram surrenders to Mangkubumi in Java
1775 – Transylvania Land Company, headed by Richard Henderson, buys most of Kentucky through treaty signed with Cherokee chiefs at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River (later declared illegal)
1845 – Bristol man Henry Jones patents self-raising flour
1870 – Mass legislature authorizes incorporation of Wellesley Female Seminary
1953 – WWLP TV channel 22 in Springfield, MA (NBC) begins broadcasting
1982 – 4 Dutch TV crew members shot dead in El Salvador
1988 – Then highest scoring NCAA basketball game to date; Loyola-Marymont 119, Wyoming 115
1988 – Iran says Iraq uses poison gas
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 16th March 2026
1731 – Treaty of Vienna signed by Prince Eugene of Savoy, Count Sinzendorf and Count Gundacker, Thomas Stahremberg and the British envoy to Vienna, Sir Thomas Robinson.
1941 – National Gallery of Art opens in Washington, D.C.
1946 – Bobby Clark’s stage farce “The Would-Be Gentleman”, adapted from Moliére’s “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme”, closes at the Booth Theater, NYC. after 77 performances
1966 – Gemini 8 launched with Neil Armstrong and David R. Scott aboard, conducts the 1st docking of two spacecraft in orbit, flight aborted after critical system failure with the crew returned safely to Earth
1975 – Gene Curty, Nitra Scharfman and Chuck Strand’s musical rock opera “The Lieutenant” closes at the Lyceum Theater, NYC, after 9 performances
1988 – US sends 3,000 soldiers to Nicaragua’s neighbor Honduras
2020 – Global infections and deaths from COVID-19 overtake those in China for the 1st time, 86,000 vs 80,860 infections, 3,241 vs 3,208 deaths according to John Hopkins Uni
2022 – US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for the first time since 2018 by a quarter of a point to help ease rising price inflation
Historical Events for 15th March 2026
1672 – King Charles II of England enacts the Declaration of Indulgence in an unsuccessful attempt to extend religious liberty to Protestant nonconformists and Roman Catholics in his realms
1964 – USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
1981 – Suriname failed coup under sgt-mjr Wilfred Hawker
1985 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1997 – France beats Scotland, 47-20 at Parc des Princes, Paris to claim an 11th outright Five Nations Rugby Championship and 5th Triple Crown; fly-half Christophe Lamaison lands 6 penalties and 3 conversions
2013 – Li Keqiang assumes office as the 7th Premier of the People’s Republic of China
2017 – French fashion house Givenchy appoints it first female designer, Englishwoman Clare Waight Keller
2024 – Former US VP Mike Pence says “he cannot in good conscience” endorse Donald Trump for President in an interview on Fox News
Historical Events for 14th March 2026
1644 – England grants a patent to Providence Plantations for what is now Rhode Island
1845 – -5.3°F (-20.7°C) in Groningen, Netherlands
1903 – W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory’s play “Hour-glass” premieres in Dublin
1912 – King Vittorio Emanuel III of Italy injured in an assassination attempt
1990 – Mikhail Gorbachev becomes president of the Soviet Congress
1993 – Ricky Ponting hits twin tons for Tasmania aged 18 years 84 days
1993 – 14th Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament: Seton Hall beats Syracuse, 103-70
2016 – NASA releases data showing February 2016 warmest month ever recorded globally – 1.35C above the long-term average
Historical Events for 13th March 2026
1901 – Amidst increasing anti-gambling sentiment, wagering on horse racing is banned in San Francisco, CA; Ingleside Race Track closes March 15
1922 – NHL Championship: Ottawa Senators outscore Toronto St Pats, 5 to 4, in 2 games
1961 – Elizabeth Gurley Finn (70) becomes President of US Communist Party
1973 – “Irene” opens at Minskoff Theater NYC for 605 performances
1979 – NHL New York Islanders Mike Bossy’s 5th career hat trick
1982 – Ice Pairs Championship at Copenhagen won by Baess and Thierbach (GDR)
1985 – Funeral services held for Konstantin Chernenko in Moscow
2019 – British MPs vote to reject a no-deal Brexit, defeating Theresa May’s government 321 votes to 278
Historical Events for 12th March 2026
1755 – 1st steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine
1910 – Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Wanderers beat Berlin Dutchmen (ON), 7-3
1912 – Helen Hayes Theater (Little Theatre) opens at 240W 44th St, NYC
1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt conducts his first “fireside chat” as US President via radio, speaking directly to 60 million listening Americans, eight days after his inauguration
1958 – 3rd Eurovision Song Contest: Andre Claveau for France wins singing “Dors, mon amour” in Hilversum
1977 – Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet bans the Christian-Democratic Party
1985 – Larry Bird scores Boston Celtic record 60 points
2006 – 47th SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament: Florida beats South Carolina, 49-47
Historical Events for 11th March 2026
1779 – US Army Corps of Engineers established (1st time)
1862 – Confederate Army General Stonewall Jackson begins evacuation of Winchester, Virginia
1919 – General strike in Germany crushed
1991 – 17th People’s Choice Awards: Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts win (Motion Picture star) and Bill Cosby and Kirstie Alley win (TV)
2000 – 21st Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament: St. John’s beats Connecticut, 80-70
2001 – 48th ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament: #3 Duke beats #6 North Carolina, 79-53
2011 – 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes 130 km (80 miles) east of Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami that kills thousands and causes the second worst nuclear accident in history at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
2013 – Falkland Islands’ sovereignty referendum: 99.8% choose to remain an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom
Historical Events for 10th March 2026
1900 – Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Shamrocks outclass Halifax Crescents, 11-0 to sweep challenge series, 2-0
1925 – Cyprus becomes a British crown colony
1927 – Albania mobilizes due to threats from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
1928 – Christine Collins’ son, Walter Collins, disappears in Los Angeles
1931 – Oswald Mosley leaves British Labour party and founds the “New Party”
1956 – General strike in Cyprus protesting exile of Archbishop Makarios
1981 – “Bette Davis Eyes” single released by Kim Carnes (Billboard Song of the Year 1981)
1990 – Prosper Avril resigns as President of Haiti
Historical Events for 9th March 2026
1842 – Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Nabucco” premieres in Milan
1849 – Carl Nikolais opera “Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor” premieres
1918 – Russian Bolshevik Party is renamed the All-Russian Communist Party
1954 – WMUR TV channel 9 in Manchester, NH (ABC) begins broadcasting
1962 – US advisors in South-Vietnam join the fight
1984 – Tim Witherspoon beats Greg Page in 12 for heavyweight boxing title
2011 – Bonham’s Auctions in New York City conducts sale of Eric Clapton and friends’ guitars and amplifiers to benefit Crossroads Centre at Antigua, a drug and alcohol residential rehabilitation facility he co-founded in 1997, raising over $1.75M
2021 – Brazil records its highest daily COVID-19 death toll to date of 1,972 deaths with 168,370 deaths overall
Historical Events for 8th March 2026
1711 – Antoin de Guiscard, a French and English spy, fails in an attempt to murder English Chancellor of the Exchequer Robert Harley; Harley survives stabbing, and Guiscard dies later from injuries sustained in the fracas
1722 – Afghan monarch Mir Mahmud occupies Persia
1924 – Coal mine explosion kills 171 at Castle Gate, Utah
1967 – New Orleans Saints begin selling season tickets (20,000 sold 1st day)
1973 – Paul and Linda McCartney are fined £100 for growing cannabis
1979 – China withdraws invasion troops from Vietnam
1981 – “Shakespeare’s Cabaret”, Lance Mulcahy’s settings of words of William Shakespeare, closes at the Bijou Theater, NYC, after 54 performances
2021 – US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says COVID-9 pandemic has had an “extremely unfair” effect on income and economic opportunities for women