537 – Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoth army under king Vitiges begins the siege of the capital. Belisarius conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate; he and a detachment of his bucellarii are almost cut off.
986 – Louis V becomes King of the Franks.
1444 – Skanderbeg organizes a group of Albanian nobles to form the League of Lezhë.
1458 – George of Poděbrady is chosen as the king of Bohemia.
1476 – Burgundian Wars: The Old Swiss Confederacy hands Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, a major defeat in the Battle of Grandson in Canton of Neuchâtel.
1484 – The College of Arms is formally incorporated by Royal Charter signed by King Richard III of England.
1498 – Vasco da Gama's fleet visits the Island of Mozambique.
1561 – Mendoza, Argentina, is founded by Spanish conquistador Pedro del Castillo.
1657 – Great Fire of Meireki: A fire in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, caused more than 100,000 deaths; it lasted three days
1717 – The Loves of Mars and Venus is the first ballet performed in England.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: Patriot militia units arrest the Royal Governor of GeorgiaJames Wright and attempt to prevent capture of supply ships in the Battle of the Rice Boats.
1791 – Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris.
1797 – The Bank of Englandissues the first one-pound and two-poundbanknotes.
1807 – The U.S. Congress passes the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.
1808 – The inaugural meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is held in Edinburgh.
1811 – Argentine War of Independence: A royalist fleet defeats a small flotilla of revolutionary ships in the Battle of San Nicolás on the River Plate.
1815 – Signing of the Kandyan Convention treaty by British invaders and the leaders of the Kingdom of Kandy.
1825 – Roberto Cofresí, one of the last successful Caribbean pirates, is defeated in combat and captured by authorities.
1836 – Texas Revolution: The Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico is adopted.
1855 – Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.
1859 – The two-day Great Slave Auction, the largest such auction in United States history, begins.
1865 – East Cape War: The Völkner Incident in New Zealand.
1867 – The U.S. Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act.
1877 – Just two days before inauguration, the U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the 1876 U.S. presidential election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote.
1882 – Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor.
1896 – The Battle of Adwa: The Italian Army defeated by the Ethiopian Army in Adwa, Tigray, Ethiopia.
1901 – United States Steel Corporation is founded as a result of a merger between Carnegie Steel Company and Federal Steel Company which became the first corporation in the world with a market capital over $1 billion.
1901 – The U.S. Congress passes the Platt Amendment limiting the autonomy of Cuba, as a condition of the withdrawal of American troops.
1903 – In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.
1917 – The enactment of the Jones–Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
1919 – The first Communist International meets in Moscow.
1933 – The film King Kong opens at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
1937 – The Steel Workers Organizing Committee signs a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel, leading to unionization of the United States steel industry.
1939 – Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope and takes the name Pius XII.
1941 – World War II: First German military units enter Bulgaria after it joins the Axis Pact.
1943 – World War II: Allied aircraft defeat a Japanese attempt to ship troops to New Guinea.
1946 – Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.
1949 – Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 SuperfortressLucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
1955 – Norodom Sihanouk, king of Cambodia, abdicates the throne in favor of his father, Norodom Suramarit.
1961 – John F. Kennedy announces the creation of the Peace Corps in a nationally televised broadcast.
1962 – In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win seizes power in a coup d'état.
1965 – The US and Republic of Vietnam Air Force begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
1968 – Baggeridge Colliery closes marking the end of over 300 years of coal mining in the Black Country.[1]
1969 – In Toulouse, France, the first test flight of the Anglo-French Concorde is conducted.
1970 – Rhodesia declares itself a republic, breaking its last links with the British crown.
1972 – The Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.
1977 – Libya becomes the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya as the General People's Congress adopted the "Declaration on the Establishment of the Authority of the People".
1978 – CzechVladimír Remek becomes the first non-Russian or non-American to go into space, when he is launched aboard Soyuz 28.
1983 – Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.
1989 – Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.
1990 – Nelson Mandela is elected deputy President of the African National Congress.
1991 – Battle at Rumaila oil field brings an end to the 1991 Gulf War.
1995 – Researchers at Fermilab announce the discovery of the top quark.
1995 – Yahoo! is incorporated.
1998 – Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
2002 – U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins, (ending on March 19 after killing 500 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, with 11 Western troop fatalities).
2004 – War in Iraq: Al-Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
2012 – A tornado outbreak occurred over a large section of the Southern United States and into the Ohio Valley region, resulting in 40 tornado-related fatalities.
2017 – The elements Moscovium, Tennessine, and Oganesson were officially added to the periodic table at a conference in Moscow, Russia.
Births[]
480 – Benedict of Nursia, Italian Christian saint (d. 543 or 547)
1316 – Robert II of Scotland (d. 1390)
1409 – Jean II, Duke of Alençon (d. 1476)
1432 – Countess Palatine Margaret of Mosbach, countess consort of Hanau (d. 1457)
1453 – Johannes Engel, German doctor, astronomer and astrologer (d. 1512)
1459 – Pope Adrian VI (d. 1523)
1481 – Franz von Sickingen, German knight (d. 1523)
1545 – Thomas Bodley, English diplomat and scholar, founded the Bodleian Library (d. 1613)
1577 – George Sandys, English traveller, colonist and poet (d. 1644)
1628 – Cornelis Speelman, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1684)
1651 – Carlo Gimach, Maltese architect, engineer and poet (d. 1730)
1705 – William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, Scottish lawyer, judge, and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (d. 1793)
1740 – Nicholas Pocock, English naval painter (d.1821)
1760 – Camille Desmoulins, French journalist and politician (d. 1794)
1769 – DeWitt Clinton, American lawyer and politician, 6th Governor of New York (d. 1828)
1770 – Louis-Gabriel Suchet, French general (d. 1826)
1779 – Joel Roberts Poinsett, American physician and politician, 15th United States Secretary of War (d. 1851)
1793 – Sam Houston, American soldier and politician, 1st President of the Republic of Texas (d. 1863)
1800 – Yevgeny Baratynsky, Russian-Italian poet and philosopher (d. 1844)
1810 – Pope Leo XIII (d. 1903)
1816 – Alexander Bullock, American lawyer and politician, 26th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1882)
1817 – János Arany, Hungarian journalist and poet (d. 1882)
1820 – Multatuli, Dutch writer (d. 1887)
1824 – Bedřich Smetana, Czech pianist and composer (d. 1884)
1829 – Carl Schurz, German-American general, lawyer, and politician, 13th United States Secretary of the Interior (d. 1906)
1836 – Henry Billings Brown, American lawyer and judge (d. 1913)
1842 – Carl Jacobsen, Danish brewer, art collector, and philanthropist (d. 1914)
1846 – Marie Roze, French soprano (d. 1926)
1849 – Robert Means Thompson, American commander, lawyer, and businessman (d. 1930)
1859 – Sholem Aleichem, Ukrainian-American author and playwright (d. 1916)
1860 – Susanna M. Salter, American activist and politician (d. 1961)
1862 – John Jay Chapman, American lawyer, author, and poet (d. 1933)