Today in History

A March 21, 1925 photo of an overturned house that was carried more than 50 feet from its foundation by a tornado at Griffin, Indiana. (AP photo)
March 18

1925: Deadliest U.S. tornado strikes Midwest states

1937: Hundreds killed in Texas school gas explosion
1965: Cosmonaut takes first-ever spacewalk
1990: $500M art heist at Boston’s Gardner Museum
South African President F.W. de Klerk poses outside his office in Cape Town, South Africa March 18, 1992, while displaying a copy of a local newspaper with banner headlines declaring a "Yes" result in a referendum vote to end apartheid and share power with the black majority for the first time. (AP Photo, File)
March 17

1992: White South Africans vote to end apartheid

1762: First St. Patrick’s Day parade in NYC
1969: Golda Meir takes power in Israel
2023: ICC issues arrest warrant for Putin
In this Wednesday, March 14, 2018, photo, footprints of villagers and U.S soldiers' combat boots are reconstructed in My Lai memorial site in Son My, Vietnam. On March 16, 1968, U.S soldiers of Charlie Company, sent on what they were told was a mission to confront a crack outfit of their Vietcong enemies, met no resistance, but over the course of three to four hours killed 504 unarmed civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly, in My Lai and a neighboring community. (AP Photo/Hau Dinh)
March 16

1968: My Lai massacre in Vietnam

1802: Jefferson signs measure establishing West Point
1985: Terry Anderson kidnapped in Beirut
2020: Stocks plunge amid COVID fears
This is an undated sketch of Julius Caesar, Roman general and statesman. (AP Photo)
March 15

44 B.C.: Julius Caesar assassinated on ‘ides of March’

1965: LBJ’s ‘We Shall Overcome’ speech
2018: Miami pedestrian bridge collapse
2019: Gunman attacks New Zealand mosques
Professor Albert Einstein portrait circa 1930. (AP Photo)
March 14

1879: Albert Einstein is born

1794: Eli Whitney patents cotton gin
1964: Jack Ruby sentenced for Oswald killing
1973: John McCain released from POW captivity
Pope Francis on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, March 13, 2013. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who chose the name of Francis, is the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
March 13

2013: Francis becomes first non-European pope in over 1,250 years

1781: William Herschel discovers Uranus
2020: Trump declares COVID national emergency
2020: Breonna Taylor killed
Mahatma Gandhi gives the last instructions on the beach near Dandi, India, as he and his supporters get ready to demonstrate at the Salt Satyagraha (Salt March) in which he and demonstrators marched 241 miles to the sea to make their own salt, April 6, 1930. Britain responded by arresting over 60,000 people. (AP Photo/Deutscher Photo Dienst/W. Bossard)
March 12

1930: Gandhi begins ‘Salt March’

1928: St. Francis Dam fails in Southern California
1933: FDR delivers first ‘fireside chat’
2009: Bernard Madoff pleads guilty
Houses swallowed by tsunami waves burn in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture (state) after Japan was struck by a strong earthquake off its northeastern coast Friday, March 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)
March 11

2011: Massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan kill nearly 20,000

1918: First U.S. cases of Spanish flu epidemic
1941: FDR signs Lend-Lease Act
2004: Madrid commuter train bombings
In this March 17, 1959 file photo, thousands of Tibetan women silently surround the Potala Palace, the main residence of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader, to protest against Chinese rule and repression in Lhasa, Tibet. Hours later fighting broke out and the Dalai Lama was forced to flee to safety in India. (AP Photo)
March 10

1959: Tibetan uprising

1864: Lincoln gives Grant command of U.S. Armies
1876: First words conveyed by telephone
1969: James Earl Ray pleads guilty to MLK killing
FILE - Notorious B.I.G accepts rap artist and rap single of the year during the Billboard Music Awards, Dec. 6, 1995, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
March 09

1945: ‘Operation Meetinghouse’ firebombing devastates Tokyo

1841: U.S. Supreme Court issues Amistad ruling
1959: Barbie doll debuts
1997: The Notorious B.I.G. killed in drive-by shooting
FILE - Joe Frazier hits Muhammad Ali with a left during the 15th round of their heavyweight title fight at New York's Madison Square Garden, in this March 8, 1971, file photo. (AP Photo/File)
March 08

1965: First U.S. combat troops arrive in Vietnam

1971: Frazier defeats Ali in ‘Fight of the Century’
1983: Reagan calls Soviet Union ‘evil empire’
2014: Malaysian Airlines jet disappears
FILE - Tear gas fills the air as state troopers, ordered by Alabama Gov. George Wallace, break up a march at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., March 7, 1965, on what became known as Bloody Sunday. (AP Photo, File)
March 07

1965: ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Selma for civil rights movement

1876: Bell receives telephone patent
2010: Bigelow makes Oscar history
2024: Verdict in ‘Rust’ film set death
Shown is a copy of a photograph taken in the 1800s of slave Dred Scott that was found in the historic courthouse located in Thebes, Ill. Scott, the slave whose legal fight for freedom became a landmark U.S. court ruling, is said to have done time in the dungeons below the old courthouse. (AP Photo/The Southeast Missourian)
March 06

1857: Supreme Court issues Dred Scott decision

1820: Monroe signs Missouri Compromise
1836: Mexican forces take the Alamo
1869: Mendeleev introduces periodic table
In this March 3, 2020, file photo, a gravestone marks the burial place at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston of those killed in the March 5, 1770, shooting by British soldiers known as the Boston Massacre. Crispus Attucks, a black man, was the first of those killed in the attack that helped touch off the American Revolution. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
March 05

1770: The Boston Massacre

1946: Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech
1953: Stalin dies at 74
1963: Patsy Cline killed in plane crash
A scene in front of the Capitol during Lincoln's second inauguration, 1865, just six weeks before his assassination. (AP Photo)
March 04

1865: Abraham Lincoln’s final inauguration

1789: U.S. Constitution goes into effect
1933: FDR inaugurated for first time
1966: John Lennon: “We’re more popular than Jesus now”
In this May 1, 1992 file photo, Rodney King makes a statement at a Los Angeles news conference, where he asked for an end to violence. When violent protests over the death of George Floyd reached Los Angeles, people of color expressed heartbreak but not necessarily surprise. They had seen it nearly 30 years ago when riots rocked the city after four white police officers were acquitted of charges in the beating of black driver King. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
March 03

1991: Rodney King beaten by Los Angeles police

1931: National anthem becomes official
1945: Allied troops secure Manila
1969: Apollo 9 lifts off
In this March 2, 1962 file photo, Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors holds a sign reading "100" in the dressing room in Hershey, Pa., after he scored 100 points, as the Warriors defeated the New York Knickerbockers 169-147. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis)
March 02

1962: Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game

1861: Texas joins Confederacy
1877: Tilden loses electoral vote to Hayes
1955: Claudette Colvin arrested
First members of the Peace Corps Volunteers to leave for overseas duty wave from the ramp of their plane at National Airport, MATS Terminal, Washington, D.C., Aug. 29, 1961. They will travel to Ghana, Africa, for teaching assignments. (AP Photo)
March 01

1961: Peace Corps established

1872: Yellowstone becomes first national park
1932: Lindbergh baby kidnapped
1974: Watergate figures indicted
Hattie McDaniel, left, was given the Motion Picture Academy award for the best performance of an actress in a supporting role in 1939 for her work as "Mammy" in the film version of "Gone With the Wind" on Feb. 29, 1940 in Los Angeles, Calif. The presentation of the award was given by actress Fay Bainter, right. (AP Photo)

Hattie McDaniel becomes first Black actor to win an Oscar

On February 29, 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award when she took best supporting actress for “Gone With the Wind,” which won eight Oscars overall including best picture.

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Federal Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agents approach the front door of the Branch Davidian Compound near Waco Texas Feb. 28, 1993 in an attempt to serve a search warrant. Four agents and six Davidians were killed in the shootout. (Photo by Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune Herald) (Waco Tribune Herald, Rod Aydelotte via AP)
February 28

1993: Waco Siege begins

1844: Explosion aboard USS Princeton
1953: DNA breakthrough announced
2013: Benedict XVI resigns papacy
The tribunes of Berlin's Reichstag, the German parliament, lie in ruins Feb. 28, 1933, one day after a fire destroyed the building. Germany's rising Nazi party seized on the Reichstag fire as a reason to suspend civil rights and shut down opposition press and political parties. (AP Photo)
February 27

1933: German Reichstag fire

1951: 22nd Amendment ratified
1973: American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee
1991: Operation Desert Storm ends
Manhattan's West Street is jammed with police and emergency service vehicles in the aftermath of yesterday's explosion that rocked New York's World Trade Center's twin towers and the Vista Hotel, foreground right, Feb. 27, 1993, causing evacuation of the financial center. Officials all but confirmed that a bomb caused the huge blast that left at least five people dead and injured hundreds. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)
February 26

1993: World Trade Center bombing

1815: Napoleon escapes from Elba exile
1919: Grand Canyon becomes national park
2012: Trayvon Martin killed
Cassius Clay's handlers hold him back as he reacts after he is announced the new heavyweight champion of the world on a seventh round technical knockout against Sonny Liston at Convention Hall in Miami Beach, Fla., on Feb. 25, 1964. (AP Photo)
February 25

1964: Muhammad Ali wins heavyweight title

1870: First African American member of Congress sworn in
1913: 16th Amendment takes effect
1986: Marcos flees, Aquino assumes presidency in Philippines
This 1865-1880 photo made available by the Library of Congress shows a damaged glass negative of President Andrew Johnson. (Brady-Handy photograph collection/Library of Congress via AP)
February 24

1868: President Andrew Johnson impeached by House

1803: Supreme Court issues Marbury v. Madison decision
1991: U.S. begins ground operations in Gulf War
2022: Russia begins full-scale invasion of Ukraine
U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, raise the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on Feb. 23, 1945. Strategically located only 660 miles from Tokyo, the Pacific island became the site of one of the bloodiest, most famous battles of World War II against Japan. (AP Photo/Joe Rosenthal)
February 23

1945: Marines raise flag on Iwo Jima

1836: Siege of the Alamo begins
1980: Heiden wins record fifth gold at Lake Placid
2020: Ahmaud Arbery fatally shot
In this Feb. 22, 1980 file photo, the U.S. hockey team pounces on goalie Jim Craig after a 4-3 victory against the Soviets in the 1980 Olympics, as a flag waves from the partisan Lake Placid, N.Y. crowd. (AP Photo)
February 22

1980: US hockey team beats USSR in ‘Miracle on Ice’

1732: George Washington born in Virginia Colony
1959: First Daytona 500 race
1997: “Dolly” announced to the world
Malcolm X addresses reporters at the Hotel Park-Sheraton in New York City on March 12, 1964. (AP Photo, File)
February 21

1965: Malcolm X shot and killed at age 39

1885: Washington Monument dedicated
1916: Battle of Verdun begins
1972: Nixon arrives in China
In this Feb. 20, 1962, file photo, astronaut John Glenn sits next to the Friendship 7 space capsule atop an Atlas rocket at Cape Canaveral, Fla., during preparations for his flight which made him the first American to orbit the Earth. (AP Photo)
February 20

1962: John Glenn becomes first American to orbit the Earth

1939: Pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden
1998: Tara Lipinski wins gold at Nagano
2003: Fire at Great White concert kills 100
An American soldier guards a Japanese internment camp at Manzanar, Calif., May 23, 1943. (AP Photo)
February 19

1942: FDR signs order authorizing Japanese-American internment

1847: First rescuers reach stranded Donner Party
1945: Marines land at Iwo Jima
2008: Castro resigns Cuban presidency
Dale Earnhardt celebrates in victory lane after winning the International Race of Champions in 1995 in Daytona Beach, Fla. Earnhardt, one of the greatest stars in auto racing history, died Sunday Feb. 18, 2001 from injuries in a last-lap crash at the Daytona 500. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
February 18

2001: Dale Earnhardt Sr. dies in Daytona crash

1930: Pluto discovered
1983: Wah Mee Massacre in Seattle
2021: Perseverance lands on Mars
This is an undated photo of a 1800 portrait of Thomas Jefferson by artist Rembrandt Peale. (AP Photo)
February 17

1801: House elects Thomas Jefferson president over Aaron Burr

1863: Red Cross formed in Geneva
1864: USS Housatonic sunk during Civil War
1992: Jeffrey Dahmer sentenced

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