1857 – Desjardins Canal Train Disaster: Canadian Great Western passenger train crashes through rotting timber bridge over Desjardins Canal, near Hamilton, Ontario, killing 59 people
1939 – Pope Pius XII crowned 260th Supreme Pontiff in a ceremony at the Vatican
1940 – Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty in Moscow, surrendering to Russia and ceding 11% of their pre-WWII territory, ending the “Winter War”
1954 – 1st performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s opera “Moses und Aaron”, in a concert setting in Hamburg, Germany
1989 – 10th Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament: Georgetown beats Syracuse, 88-79
1995 – Letitia Vriesde runs South American indoor record 800m (2:00.35)
2005 – 26th Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament: Syracuse beats West Virginia, 68-59
2006 – 47th SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament: Florida beats South Carolina, 49-47
2013 – The 2013 Papal conclave begins with no new Pope elected on the first day
2018 – British Prime Minister Theresa May says Russia was “highly likely” to have poisoned a Russian spy and his daughter on March 4 with nerve agent
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 11th March 2024
1502 – Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty, crowned Shah of Persia (rules till 1524)
1829 – Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St Matthew Passion” is revived by Felix Mendelssohn, aged 20, conducting in Berlin, Germany
1848 – Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin become the first Prime Ministers of the Province of Canada to be democratically elected under a system of responsible government
1924 – NHL Championship: Montreal Canadiens sweeps Ottawa Senators in 2 games
1978 – USF-led Bill Cartwright scores 23 points as the Dons oust NC
1982 – Harrison Williams (Sen-D-NJ) resigns rather than face expulsion
1996 – Mark Waugh scores 110 v NZ for his third century of the World Cup
2004 – Terrorists explode simultaneous bombs on Madrid’s rail network ripping through a commuter train and rocking three stations, killing 190
2007 – 48th SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament: Florida beats Arkansas, 77-56
2017 – At least 65 killed in landslide at rubbish dump near Addis Ababa, Ethopia
Historical Events for 10th March 2024
1535 – Spanish Bishop of Panama Tomés de Berlanga discovers the uninhabited Galapagos Islands after his ship drifts off course
1831 – The French Foreign Legion is established by King Louis-Philippe to support his war in Algeria
1906 – 1st performance of Maurice Ravel’s “Sonatine” by pianist Paule de Lestang, in Lyon, France
1920 – NHL’s Quebec Bulldog Joe Malone scores 6 goals vs Ottawa Senators
1937 – Benny Goodman unofficially crowned the “King of Swing” at New York City’s Paramount Theater as his band plays before exuberant sell-out crowd filled with teenagers; unable to attend nightclub performances, kids dance in the aisles
1966 – 5 time American Horse of the Year, Kelso, retires from racing
1972 – General Lon Nol becomes President and Prince Sirik Matak premier of Cambodia
1977 – CBS’ premiere of “A Circle of Children”, starring Jane Alexander and based on the life and book about this by Mary Mac Cracken
1978 – “The Incredible Hulk”, starring Bill Bixby as David Banner, premieres on CBS
2002 – 49th ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament: #3 Duke beats NC State, 91-61
Historical Events for 9th March 2024
1745 – Bells for 1st American carillon shipped from England to Boston
1804 – Georges Cadoudal, Breton royalist who plotted to overthrow Napoleon in the Pichegru Conspiracy, arrested
1822 – Charles Graham of NY granted first US patent for artificial teeth
1858 – Albert Potts of Philadelphia patents the street mailbox
1922 – KJR-AM in Seattle Washington begins radio transmissions
1961 – The Supremes release singles “I Want a Guy” and “Never Again”
1978 – Ladies Figure Skating Champions in Ottawa won by Anett Pötzsch (East Germany)
1983 – Zimbabwe opposition leader Joshua Nkomo flees to Botswana
1991 – Joe Dumaars (Detroit) begins NBA free throw streak of 62 games
1994 – IRA launch 1st of 3 mortar attacks on London’s Heathrow Airport
Historical Events for 8th March 2024
1862 – Confederate ironclad “Merrimack” launched
1913 – MLB Federal League organizes with 6 teams, including the Chicago Whales, who built and played at Weeghman Park (now Wrigley Field); League folded after 3 seasons
1916 – US invades Cuba for 3rd time, this to end corrupt Menocal regime
1939 – Lenore Coffee and William Joyce Cowan’s “Family Portrait” premieres
1944 – US resumes bombing Berlin
1966 – An IRA bomb destroys Nelson’s Column in Dublin
1966 – Lee Adams and Charles Strouse’s musical adaptation of Clifford Odet’s “Golden Boy”, starring Sammy Davis Jr. closes at Majestic Theater, NYC, after 569 performances
1966 – Baseball player, manager and coach Casey Stengel elected to Baseball Hall of Fame in a surprise ceremony
1971 – Milwaukee Bucks win their 20th straight NBA game (team record)
2016 – Turner Classic Movies show several of Claire Trevor’s films to honor the 106th anniversary of her birth
Historical Events for 7th March 2024
1922 – US Ladies’ Figure Skating championship won by Theresa Weld Blanchard
1940 – Peter Saur, fighting as Ray Steele, beats Bronko Nagurski in St Louis, to become National Wrestling Association Heavyweight Champion
1942 – 1st cadets graduated from flying school at Tuskegee, Alabama
1950 – Ladies’ Figure Skating Championship in London won by Alena Vrzanova CZE
1953 – South African cricket opening batsman Jackie McGlew scores an unbeaten 255 in 1st Test win against New Zealand in Wellington
1970 – WXOW TV channel 19 in La Crosse, WI (ABC) begins broadcasting
1975 – RCA releases “Young Americans”, David Bowie’s 9th studio album, recorded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New York City; featuring appearances by John Lennon on two tracks, it peaks in the U.S. charts at No. 9, and No. 2 in the U.K.
1994 – Charles Taylor resigns as President of Liberia
1996 – 1st surface photos of Pluto (photographed by Hubble Space Telescope)
2019 – Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolves opposition party Thai Raksa Chart, after it nominated the King’s sister as candidate for Prime Minister
Historical Events for 6th March 2024
1853 – Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “La Traviata” premieres at Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Italy
1855 – Gustave Flaubert writes goodbye to the poet Louise Colet
1906 – Heavy storm bursts dike, flooding Vlissingen, Netherlands
1909 – Dutch film distributor Jean Desmet opens his first permanent cinema, the Cinema Parisien in Rotterdam
1921 – Police in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, issue an edict requiring Women to wear skirts at least 4 inches below the knee
1923 – MLB St. Louis Cardinals announce their players will wear numbers on their uniforms
1962 – US promise Thailand assistance against communist aggression
1965 – The Temptations’ single “My Girl” reaches #1 on the Billboard Pop Chart; written and produced by the Miracles members Smokey Robinson and Ronald White
1982 – Susan Birmingham makes then world’s loudest recorded human shout (120 dB)
2018 – British health officials tells the country it’s time “to get on a diet” and urging manufacturers to reduce calories in foods
Historical Events for 5th March 2024
1179 – 3rd Lateran Council (11th ecumenical council) opens in Rome
1713 – Handel’s “Jubilate” first performance in a public rehearsal at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London
1821 – Monroe is 1st US President inaugurated on March 5th, because 4th was Sunday
1864 – 1st track meet between Oxford and Cambridge
1897 – American Negro Academy forms
1924 – Frank Carauna, becomes 1st to bowl 2 successive perfect 300 games
1954 – “Girl in Pink Tights” opens at Mark Hellinger NYC for 115 performances
1960 – The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis originates when Alister Hardy publicly announces his idea that ape-human divergence may have been due to a coastal phase.
1981 – Ice Pairs Champ at Hartford won by Irina Vorobieva and I Lisovski (URS)
2012 – Tropical Storm Irina kills 65 in Madagascar
Historical Events for 4th March 2024
1793 – Washington’s 2nd inauguration as US President, shortest speech (133 words)
1881 – California becomes 1st state to pass plant quarantine legislation
1894 – Great fire in Shanghai; over 1,000 buildings destroyed
1901 – Term of George H. White, last of post-Reconstruction US congressmen, ends
1910 – Avalanche at Bear Creek in Rogers Pass, British Columbia, kills 58 railway line workers – Canada’s worst avalanche disaster
1925 – US President Coolidge’s inauguration broadcast live on 21 radio stations
1931 – West Indies beat Australia for the 1st time, by 30 runs at SCG
1933 – Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss dissolves Austrian parliament
1947 – WWJ (now WDIV) TV channel 4 in Detroit, MI (NBC) begins broadcasting
1995 – Michael Johnson runs world record 400m indoor (44.63 sec)
Historical Events for 3rd March 2024
1845 – Florida becomes 27th state of the Union
1893 – US Congress authorizes 1st federal road agency, in Department of Agriculture
1931 – “The Star-Spangled Banner” officially becomes US national anthem by congressional resolution; lyrics by Francis Scott Key in 1814, set to John Stafford Smith’s 18th century tune “The Anacreontic Song”
1943 – Bethnal Green Tube disaster: 173 die in a stampede sheltering in an air raid, UK’s greatest loss of civilian life in WWII (details censored till January 20 1945)
1943 – Battle of the Bismarck Sea: Australian and American air forces devastate Japanese navy convoy
1950 – National-American Football League reverts to calling itself the NFL after 3 months
1959 – British government arrests Hastings Banda of Nyasaland, ends emergency crisis
1978 – 1st day of Test cricket for Desmond Haynes (WI v Australia)
1980 – Pierre Trudeau sworn in, for the second time, as the 17th Prime Minister of Canada
2004 – Belgian brewer Interbrew and Brazilian rival AmBev agreed to merge in a $11.2 billion deal forming InBev, the world’s largest brewer