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This Day In History

March 3 -

1845 - Florida becomes the 27th U.S. state

1863 - President Abraham Lincoln signs the Conscription Act compelling U.S. citizens to report for duty in the Civil War or pay $300.

1931 - President Herbert Hoover signs a bill that makes Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner," the national anthem

1999 - Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky appears on national television to explain her affair with President Bill Clinton
 
March 3, 1918

In the city of Brest-Litovsk, located in modern day Belarus near the Polish border, Russia signs a treaty with the Central Powers ending its participation in World War I.
 
March 4, 1966

In England, no one took much notice of the John Lennon quotation that later set off a media frenzy in America. Chalk it up to a fundamental difference in religious outlook between Britain and America, or to a fundamental difference in sense of humor. Whatever the reason, it was only after the American press got hold of his words some five months later that the John Lennon comment that first appeared in the London Evening Standard on March 4, 1966, erupted into the “Bigger than Jesus” scandal that brought a semi-official end to the giddy phenomenon known as Beatlemania.
 
March 4 -

1793 - George Washington is inaugurated as President for the second time.

1801 - Thomas Jefferson becomes the first President to be inaugurated in Washington, DC

1931 - Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated to his first term as president.

1944 - Berlin is bombed by the American forces for the first time.
 
March 5 -

1918 - The Soviets move the capital of Russia from Petrograd (today's Leningrad) to Moscow.

1928 - Hitler's National Socialists win the majority vote in Bavaria.

1943 - In desperation due to war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military service in the German army.

1946 - At Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill tells a crowd that "an iron curtain has descended on the Continent [of Europe]."
 
March 5, 1815

Franz Anton Mesmer, a German physician who pioneered the medical field of hypnotic therapy, dies in obscurity in Meersburg, Swabia (now Germany). Despite the eccentricities of his techniques, Mesmer is seen as a major innovator of hypnotic therapy and also one of the first Western physicians to safely treat psychosomatic illness and nervous disorders.

Note: Mesmerize comes from his name.
 
March 6 -

1820 - The Missouri Compromise is enacted by Congress and signed by President James Monroe, providing for the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibits slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase territory.

1836 - After 13 days of fighting, the Alamo falls (see March 2).

1945 - Cologne, Germany, falls to General Courtney Hodges' First Army.

1965 - The United States announces that it will send 3,500 troops to Vietnam.
 
March 6, 1475

Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greatest of the Italian Renaissance artists, is born in the small village of Caprese.
 
March 6, 1992

The famed Michaelangelo virus was designed to infect computers world-wide on this day, and ever March 6 thereafter. It was rumoured to wipe out user's access to data stored on a hard disk, although the data itself was still there.

The virus was called Michaelangelo because the date of its infection coincided with the Italian artist's birthday. But a more likely scenario is that its designer chose this date because it was 3/6, a reference to six-six-six, the sign of the AntiChrist.

Infected users were suggested to reset the clock on their computer on March 5, setting it 2 days ahead to March 7, thereby skipping the 6th.

By 1997, there were no reports of any actual damage that could be traced to this virus, and the scare was over.
 
March 7 -

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone.

1933 - The board game Monopoly is invented.

1951 - U.N. forces in Korea under General Matthew Ridgeway launch Operation Ripper, an offensive to straighten out the U.N. front lines against the Chinese.
 
March 7, 1950

Just one week after British physicist Klaus Fuchs was sentenced to 14 years in prison for his role in passing information on the atomic bomb to the Russians, the Soviet Union issues a terse statement denying any knowledge of Fuchs or his activities. Despite the Russian disclaimer, Fuchs’ arrest and conviction led to the uncovering of a network of individuals in the United States and Great Britain who had allegedly engaged in spying activities for the Soviet Union during World War II.
 
March 8, 2014

Exactly one year ago today, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-370 disappeared.

An multi-national search effort scoured the Inidan Ocean using ships, planes, satellites, and the most advanced under-water vehicles available. Thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars were spent looking for this plane, but not a single trace has been found.

The search is still going on, even though the media stopped covering it many months ago.
 
March 8, 1917

In Russia, the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia’s use of the Julian calendar) begins when riots and strikes over the scarcity of food erupt in Petrograd. One week later, centuries of czarist rule in Russia ended with the abdication of Nicholas II, and Russia took a dramatic step closer toward communist revolution.
 
March 9 -

1796 - Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais in Paris, France.

1820 - Congress passes the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion.

1839 - The French Academy of Science announces the Daguerreotype photo process.

1862 - The first and last battle between the ironclads U.S.S. Monitor and C.S.S. Virginia ends in a draw.

1959 - The Barbie doll is unveiled at a toy fair in New York City.

1964 - The first Ford Mustang rolls off the Ford assembly line.
 
March 9, 1916

In the early morning, several hundred Mexican guerrillas under the command of Francisco “Pancho” Villa cross the U.S.-Mexican border and attack the small border town of Columbus, New Mexico. Seventeen Americans were killed in the raid, and the center of town was burned. It was unclear whether Villa personally participated in the attack, but President Woodrow Wilson ordered the U.S. Army into Mexico to capture the rebel leader dead or alive.
 
March 10, 1959

On this day, Tibetans band together in revolt, surrounding the summer palace of the Dalai Lama in defiance of Chinese occupation forces. China’s stranglehold on Tibet and its brutal suppression of separatist activity has continued in the decades following the unsuccessful uprising. Tens of thousands of Tibetans followed their leader to India, where the Dalai Lama has long maintained a government-in-exile in the foothills of the Himalayas.
 
March 10 -

515 [SIZE=-1]BC - [/SIZE]The building of the great Jewish temple in Jerusalem is completed.
49 [SIZE=-1]BC - [/SIZE]Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon and invades Italy.
1776 - "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine is published.
1876 - Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call to Thomas Watson saying "Watson, come here. I need you."
1893 - New Mexico State University cancels its first graduation ceremony, because the only graduate was robbed and killed the night before.
1945 - American B-29 bombers attack Tokyo, killing 100,000.
1947 - The Big Four meet in Moscow to discuss the future of Germany.
1953 - North Korean gunners at Wonsan fire on the USS Missouri, the ship responds by firing 998 rounds at the enemy position.
1971 - The Senate approves a Constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 18.
1980 - Iran's leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, lends his support to the militants holding the American hostages in Tehran.
 
March 11 -

537 - The Goths lay siege to Rome

1811 - Ned Ludd leads a group of workers in a wild protest against mechanization ( this is where the term Luddite for an anti-technology person comes from)

1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorizes the Lend-Lease Act which authorizes the act of giving war supplies to the Allies
 
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