Portal:United States/Anniversaries/March
United States March anniversaries
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These are the selected anniversaries for March that appear on the United States portal.
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- See also
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March 1
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/March/March 1
- 1781 – The Continental Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation.
- 1790 – The first United States census is authorized.
- 1803 – Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state.
- 1845 – President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.
- 1867 – Nebraska becomes the 37th U.S. state; Lancaster, Nebraska is renamed Lincoln and becomes the state capital.
- 1872 – Yellowstone National Park (pictured) is established as the world's first national park.
- 1961 – President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
Edit March 1 anniversaries • March 1 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 2
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- 1861 – Nevada Territory and Dakota Territory are organized as political divisions of the United States.
- 1901 – Congress passes the Platt Amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.
- 1917 – The enactment of the Jones–Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
- 1949 – The first automatic street light was installed in New Milford, Conn.
- 1953 – The Academy Awards are first broadcast on television by NBC.
- 1962 – In Hershey, Pennsylvania, Wilt Chamberlain (pictured) of the Philadelphia Warriors scores 100 points against the New York Knicks, breaking several National Basketball Association records.
Edit March 2 anniversaries • March 2 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 3
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- 1817 – The Alabama Territory is created by splitting the Mississippi Territory.
- 1820 – The U.S. Congress passes the Missouri Compromise.
- 1845 – Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.
- 1849 – Minnesota Territory organizes as a political division of the United States.
- 1863 – Idaho Territory organizes as a political division of the United States.
- 1877 – Rutherford B. Hayes (pictured) is privately inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States (his public inauguration coming on March 5).
Edit March 3 anniversaries • March 3 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 4
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- 1681 – Charles II of England grants a land charter to William Penn (pictured) for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.
- 1778 – The Continental Congress voted to ratify both the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance with France. The two treaties were the first entered into by the United States government.
- 1789 – In New York City, the first U.S. Congress meets and declares the new Constitution of the United States is in effect.
- 1791 – Vermont is admitted as the 14th U.S. state.
- 1863 – Territory of Idaho established.
- 1925 – Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to have his inauguration broadcast on radio.
Edit March 4 anniversaries • March 4 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 5
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- 1766 – Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.
- 1770 – Boston Massacre: Five Americans, including a black slave named Crispus Attucks, and a boy are killed by British troops in an event that would help start the American Revolutionary War five years later.
- 1861 – The "Stars and Bars" (pictured) is adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.
- 1868 – A court of impeachment is organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson.
- 1933 – As part of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all United States banks and freezing all financial transactions.
- 1998 – NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water to support a human colony.
Edit March 5 anniversaries • March 5 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 6
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- 1820 – The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, but makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free.
- 1836 – After a 13-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texas volunteers defending the Alamo are defeated and the fort taken, concluding the Battle of the Alamo.
- 1948 – USS Newport News, the first air-conditioned naval ship, is launched from Newport News, Virginia.
- 1951 – The trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (pictured) on the charge of conspiracy to commit espionage begins. Both were executed on June 19, 1953 after bring found guilty of attempting to pass American nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.
- 1981 – After 19 years presenting the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite signs off for the last time.
Edit March 6 anniversaries • March 6 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 7
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- 1848 – The Great Māhele (land division) is signed in Hawaii.
- 1850 – United States Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech in which he endorses the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.
- 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell (pictured) is granted a patent for an invention he calls the telephone (patent # 174,465).
- 1965 – In Selma, Alabama, state troopers and local law enforcement forcefully break up a group of 600 civil rights marchers. The event was televised and was dubbed Bloody Sunday.
- 1994 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
- 2006 – Apple Inc. is granted the patent to the iPod.
Edit March 7 anniversaries • March 7 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 8
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- 1765 – The British House of Lords passes the Stamp Act to tax the American colonies.
- 1817 – The New York Stock Exchange is founded.
- 1884 – Susan B. Anthony (pictured) addresses the U.S. House Judiciary Committee arguing for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote. Anthony's argument came 16 years after legislators had first introduced a federal women's suffrage amendment.
- 1936 – The first stock car race is held in Daytona Beach, Florida.
- 1965 – 3,500 United States Marines arrive in South Vietnam, becoming the first American combat troops in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
- 1999 – The Supreme Court of the United States upholds the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh for the Oklahoma City bombing.
Edit March 8 anniversaries • March 8 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 9
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- 1841 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in United States v. The Amistad that a group of Africans who seized control of the slave-trading ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.
- 1862 – In the American Civil War, the first battle between two ironclad warships, a five-hour battle near Hampton Roads, Virginia between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, results in a draw.
- 1932 – The first Ford Flathead engine leaves the assembly line at Ford Motor Company.
- 1933 – Congress begins enacting New Deal legislation after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act in an effort to halt the Great Depression.
- 1959 – The Barbie doll (pictured) debuts.
- 2007 – The US Justice Department releases an internal audit that finds that the FBI illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about American citizens.
Edit March 9 anniversaries • March 9 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 10
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- 1804 – In St. Louis, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of Louisiana Territory from France to the United States, as part of a deal known as the Louisiana Purchase.
- 1848 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Mexican–American War.
- 1880 – Members of the London-based Salvation Army charitable organization land in the United States and begin operations.
- 1945 – The Army Air Force firebombs Tokyo, resulting in a conflagration that kills more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians.
- 2000 – The NASDAQ stock market index peaks at 5132.52, signaling the beginning of the end of the dot-com boom.
- 2006 – Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (pictured) arrives at Mars.
Edit March 10 anniversaries • March 10 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 11
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- 1779 – Army Corps of Engineers is authorized by Congress.
- 1824 – The United States War Department creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
- 1861 – The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is adopted.
- 1959 – The original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun opens at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City.
- 1977 – More than 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims are set free after ambassadors from three Islamic nations join negotiations.
- 1993 – Janet Reno (pictured) is confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn-in the next day, becoming the first female Attorney General of the United States.
Edit March 11 anniversaries • March 11 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 12
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- 1664 – New Jersey becomes a colony of Britain.
- 1894 – Coca-Cola (pictured) is sold in bottles for the first time.
- 1912 – The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded.
- 1928 – In California, the St. Francis Dam fails, killing 400 people.
- 1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This would bring about a tradition of televised "Fireside Chats" delivered by President Roosevelt during the Great Depression era.
- 1947 – The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.
Edit March 12 anniversaries • March 12 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 13
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- 1639 – Harvard College, originally named "New College", is renamed in honor deceased clergyman John Harvard, who left for the institution his entire library and a sum of money equal to half of his estate."
- 1862 – The federal government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves to their masters, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.
- 1969 – Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module (pictured).
- 1986 – Microsoft offers stock to the public for the first time.
- 1991 – The United States Justice Department announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
Edit March 13 anniversaries • March 13 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 14
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- 1794 – Eli Whitney (pictured) is granted a patent for the cotton gin.
- 1900 – The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing United States currency on the gold standard.
- 1903 – The Hay–Herrán Treaty, granting the United States the right to build the Panama Canal, is ratified by the United States Senate. The Colombian Senate would later reject the treaty.
- 1942 – John Bumstead and Orvan Hess became the first in the world to successfully treat a patient, Anne Miller, using penicillin.
- 1964 – A jury in Dallas, Texas finds Jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy.
- 1995 – Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American astronaut to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle.
Edit March 14 anniversaries • March 14 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 15
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- 1767 – Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States, is born
- 1776 – South Carolina became the first American colony to declare its independence from Great Britain and set up its own government.
- 1820 – Maine becomes the 23rd U.S. state.
- 1916 – President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.-Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa.
- 1919 – The American Legion forms in Paris.
- 1989 – The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (seal pictured) is established.
Edit March 15 anniversaries • March 15 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 16
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- 1802 – The United States Military Academy West Point is established.
- 1945 – The Battle of Iwo Jima, one of the biggest confrontations between American and Japanese forces fighting in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, officially ends. Small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.
- 1958 – Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird (pictured), averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.
- 1968 – In the My Lai massacre, between 350 and 500 Vietnamese villagers are killed by American troops in one of the worst atrocities of the Vietnam War.
- 1984 – William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists and later dies in captivity.
- 1988 – Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States as part of the Iran–Contra affair.
Edit March 16 anniversaries • March 16 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 17
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Today is Saint Patrick's Day, a public holiday in Ireland that is widely celebrated in the United States, especially so in Boston and the New England area. It is also Evacuation Day in Suffolk County, Massachusetts.
- 1910 – Luther Gulick and his wife Charlotte found Camp Fire Girls (now Camp Fire USA) (formally announced in 1912).
- 1941 – In Washington, DC, the National Gallery of Art (logo pictured) is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- 1950 – University of California, Berkeley researchers announce the creation of element 98, which they name "Californium".
- 1960 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Edit March 17 anniversaries • March 17 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 18
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- 1837 – Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, is born.
- 1850 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells & William Fargo.
- 1865 – The Congress of the Confederate States of America, government of the South during the American Civil War, adjourns for the last time.
- 1959 – American President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law allowing for Hawaiian statehood, which would become official on August 21.
- 1968 – The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency, ending the practice of the Gold standard.
- 1990 – In the largest art theft in US history, 12 paintings, collectively worth around $300 million, are stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (pictured) in Boston, Massachusetts.
Edit March 18 anniversaries • March 18 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 19
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- 1918 – Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time.
- 1920 – The Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles, one of the treaties ending World War I, for the second time.
- 1931 – Gambling is legalized in Nevada.
- 1941 – The 99th Pursuit Squadron, one of several units associated with the Tuskegee Airmen (pictured), is activated. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first all-black units of the Army Air Corp, and became one of the most successful and awarded units of World War II.
- 1979 – The United States House of Representatives begins broadcasting its day-to-day business via the cable television network C-SPAN.
- 1987 – Televangelist Jim Bakker resigns as head of the PTL Club due to a brewing sex scandal; he hands over control to Jerry Falwell.
Edit March 19 anniversaries • March 19 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 20
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- 1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin is published.
- 1899 – At Sing Sing prison, Martha M. Place is sentenced to become the first woman executed in an electric chair.
- 1914 – In New Haven, Connecticut, the first international figure skating championship takes place.
- 1922 – The USS Langley is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.
- 1928 – Fred Rogers, host of the long running children's television show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, is born.
- 1923 – The Arts Club of Chicago, an early proponent of modern art in the United States, hosts the opening of Pablo Picasso's first United States showing, entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso.
- 1942 – In Terowie, South Australia, General Douglas MacArthur makes his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he says "I came out of Bataan and I shall return".
Edit March 20 anniversaries • March 20 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 21
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- 1859 – The Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the first such society in the United States, isincorporated.
- 1952 – Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.
- 1963 – Alcatraz (pictured), a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.
- 1965 – Martin Luther King Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
- 1970 – The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto.
- 1980 – President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
Edit March 21 anniversaries • March 21 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 22
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- 1621 – The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony sign a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.
- 1622 – Algonquian Indians kill 347 settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony's population, in the Jamestown massacre.
- 1765 – The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act that introduces a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies.
- 1871 – In North Carolina, William Woods Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.
- 1933 – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs into law a bill legalizing the sale of beer and wine.
- 1941 – Washington State's Grand Coulee Dam (pictured) begins to generate electricity.
- 1960 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.
Edit March 22 anniversaries • March 22 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 23
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- 1775 – Patrick Henry (pictured) delivers the famous line "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" in a speech at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia.
- 1806 – After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" begin their arduous journey home.
- 1857 – The first elevator with a fail-safe for a failure of the main cord, designed by Elisha Otis, is installed at 488 Broadway in New York City.
- 1903 – The Wright Brothers apply for a patent on their invention of one of the first successful airplanes.
- 1965 – Gemini 3, the NASA's first two-man space flight, is launched. It is crewed by Gus Grissom and John W. Young.
- 1983 – President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles, the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Edit March 23 anniversaries • March 23 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 24
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- 1765 – During the American Revolutionary War the Kingdom of Great Britain passes the Quartering Act, which required residents of the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops.
- 1832 – In Hiram, Ohio a group of men beat, tar and feather Mormon leader Joseph Smith (pictured).
- 1900 – New York City Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck breaks ground for a new underground "Rapid Transit Railroad" that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.
- 1934 – U.S. Congress passes the Tydings–McDuffie Act allowing the Philippines to become a self-governing commonwealth.
- 1965 – NASA spacecraft Ranger 9, equipped to convert its signals into a form suitable for showing on domestic television sets, brings images of the Moon into ordinary homes before crash-landing.
- 1989 – In Alaska's Prince William Sound the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (42,000 m³) of petroleum after running aground. Known as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, it remains one of the worst environmental disasters in American history.
Edit March 24 anniversaries • March 24 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 25
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- 1634 – The first settlers arrive in Maryland.
- 1894 – Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C..
- 1955 – United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" as obscene.
- 1965 – Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.
- 1979 – The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia (pictured), is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
- 1996 – An 81-day-long standoff between the anti-government group Montana Freemen and law enforcement near Jordan, Montana, begins.
Edit March 25 anniversaries • March 25 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 26
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- 1945 – US forces declare Iwo Jima, one of the most harshly contested battlegrounds of the Pacific Theatre of World War II, as "secure."
- 1953 – Jonas Salk (pictured) announces his polio vaccine.
- 1967 – Ten thousand people gather in New York City for the Central Park be-in.
- 1979 – Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin, and Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C.
- 1982 – A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, D.C.
- 1999 – A jury in Michigan finds physician and assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.
Edit March 26 anniversaries • March 26 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 27
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- 1794 – The government of the United States establishes a permanent United States Navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
- 1814 – In central Alabama, United States forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
- 1886 – Famous Apache warrior, Geronimo (pictured), surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.
- 1964 – The Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2, strikes South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
- 1998 – The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
Edit March 27 anniversaries • March 27 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 28
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- 1834 – The United States Senate censures President Andrew Jackson for his actions in defunding the Second Bank of the United States.
- 1862 – In New Mexico, Union forces succeed in stopping the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory in the Battle of Glorieta Pass. The battle began on March 26.
- 1946 – The United States State Department releases the Acheson–Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power.
- 1979 – In Pennsylvania, a pump in the reactor cooling system of a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island accident (pictured) fails, resulting in the evaporation of some contaminated water causing a nuclear meltdown.
- 1990 – President George H. W. Bush posthumously awards track and field athlete Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.
Edit March 28 anniversaries • March 28 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 29
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- 1799 – New York passes a law aimed at gradually abolishing slavery in the state.
- 1806 – Construction authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, the first United States federal highway.
- 1886 – Dr. John Pemberton (pictured) brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta.
- 1961 – The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote in presidential elections.
- 1971 – A Los Angeles jury recommends the death penalty for cult leader Charles Manson and three female followers.
- 1973 – The last United States soldiers leave South Vietnam, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Edit March 29 anniversaries • March 29 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
March 30
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- 1822 – The Florida Territory is formed under the control of the United States after the East Florida territory and part of the West Florida territory were ceded to the U.S. by the Kingdom of Spain as part of the Adams–Onís Treaty.
- 1842 – Anesthesia is used for the first time in an operation by Dr. Crawford Long.
- 1858 – Hymen Lipman patents a pencil with an attached eraser.
- 1867 – Alaska is purchased for $7.2 million, about 2 cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward (pictured). The news media of the day call the transaction Seward's Folly.
- 1870 – Texas is readmitted to the Union following Reconstruction.
- 1981 – President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr..
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March 31
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- 1774 – In a response to the Boston Tea Party, the parliament of Britain passes the Boston Port Act, which orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts to be closed.
- 1906 – The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later National Collegiate Athletic Association) is established to set rules for amateur sports in the United States.
- 1930 – The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in motion pictures for the next thirty eight years.
- 1933 – The Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal public work relief program, is established to help relieve rampant unemployment.
- 1992 – USS Missouri (BB-63) (pictured), the last active Battleship in the United States Navy, is decommissioned at Long Beach, California.
- 1998 – Netscape releases the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement; the project is given the code name Mozilla and would eventually be spun off into the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.
Edit March 31 anniversaries • March 31 anniversaries on English Wikipedia