On March 11th...

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1502 Ismail I was crowned Shah of Persia.

1513 Giovanni de Medici was elected Pope Leo X.

1514 Architect and engineer Donato Bramante died.

1544 Italian poet Torquato Tasso was born.

1665 New York approved a law guaranteeing Protestants religious rights.

1669 Italy's Mount Etna erupted, killing about 15,000 people.

1702 The first issue of the first English daily newspaper, Daily Courant, was published.

1744 Sotheby's held its first auction, of books.

1779 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was established.

1819 Edwin Drake, driller of the first commercially successful oil well in the world, was born.

1820 Fur trader and explorer Sir Alexander Mackenzie died.

1823 Concord Academy, the first normal school in the U.S. opened, in Concord, Vermont.

1824 The U. S. War Department created the Burea of Indian Affairs.

1850 The Female Medical College was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1857 Irish revolutionary Thomas James Clarke was born.

1861 The Confederate States of America adopted a permanent constitution.

1864 More than 250 people were killed when a dam burst near Sheffield, England.

1874 Charles Sumner, U.S. Senator, died.

1882 The Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association was organized in Princeton, New Jersey.

1892 The first public basketball game was played at Springfield, Massachusetts.

1895 The Spanish cruiser Reina Regente sank in the Straits of Gibraltar, killing over 400 people.

1897 A meteorite exploded over New Martinsville, West Virginia.

1898 Union Army General William S. Rosecrans died.

1899 King Frederick IX of Denmark was born.

1903 Band leader Lawrence Welk was born.

1916 James Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of Great Britain, was born.

1917 The Toronto Arenas beat the Montreal Canadiens 7-3 in the first ever NHL Championship game.

1918 Moscow became the capital of revolutionary Russia.
1918 The Save the Redwoods League was founded.

1920 Emir Feisal was proclaimed King of Syria.

1924 The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Ottawa Senators for the NHL Championship.

1926 Civil rights activist Ralph David Abernathy was born.

1927 Samuel Roxy Rothafel opened the Roxy Theater in New York City, New York.

1931 Businessman Rupert Murdoch was born.

1934 Television newscaster Sam Donaldson was born.

1935 Hermann Goering officially created the German Air Force, aka the Luftwaffe.

1936 U. S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was born.

1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend Lease Act, allowing the U. S. to provide military aid to European allies.

1950 Singer Bobby McFerrin was born.

1952 Author Douglas Adams was born.

1955 Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin, died.
1955 Businessman Oscar Mayer died.

1957 Richard E. Byrd, Antarctic and Arctic explorer, aviator, and navigator, died.

1958 A U.S. Air Force B-47 accidentally dropped an atomic bomb on Florence, South Carolina.
1958 Charles Van Doren finally lost on the TV game show "21."

1970 Author Erle Stanley Gardner died.

1971 Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of television, died.

1975 A military coup in Portugal led by General António de Spínola failed.

1978 A terrorist attack on a mail truck killed 45 persons in Tel Aviv, Israel.

1982 Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty in Washington, D. C.
1982 Harrison Williams resigned as U. S. Senator for New Jersey.

1986 The National Football League adopted the instant replay rule.

1997 Former Beatles member Paul McCartney was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
1997 The ashes of "Star Trek" creater Gene Roddenberry were launched into space.

2004 Terrorist bombs on Madrid, Spain's, rail network ripped through a commuter train, damaged three stations, and killed 190 persons.

2009 A school shooting in Winnenden, Germany*, left 17 persons dead.

2010 Football player Merlin Olsen died.

2011 Japan was hit by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake, the most powerful in that nation's recorded history.

2013 The Falkland Islands voted to remain an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom.

2016 Musician Keith Emerson died.

2017 A landslide at a rubbish dump near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killed at least 65 people.

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This page was last updated on March 10, 2018.