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Events
Pre-1600
• AD 51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head
of the youth).
• 306 – Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia.
• 581 – Yang Jian declares himself Emperor Wen of Sui, ending the Northern Zhou and
beginning the Sui dynasty.[1]
• 852 – Croatian Knez Trpimir I issues a statute, a document with the first known written
mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources.
• 938 – Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, Prince of the
Czechs.
• 1152 – Frederick I Barbarossa is elected King of Germany.
• 1238 – The Battle of the Sit River begins two centuries of Mongol horde domination of
Russia.
• 1351 – Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam.
 • 1386 – Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) is crowned King of Poland.
• 1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House
of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV.
• 1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship
Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.
• 1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth.

1601–1900
• 1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter.[2]
• 1665 – English King Charles II declares war on the Netherlands marking the start of the
Second Anglo-Dutch War.
• 1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England.
• 1681 – Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become
Pennsylvania.
• 1769 – Mozart departed Italy after the last of his three tours there.[3]
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights
with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston.
• 1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United
States Constitution into effect.
• 1790 – France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an
attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.
• 1791 – Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state.
• 1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress.
• 1797 – John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States of America,
becoming the first President to begin his presidency on March 4.
• 1804 – Castle Hill Rebellion: Irish convicts rebel against British colonial authority in the
Colony of New South Wales.
• 1813 – Cyril VI of Constantinople is elected Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
• 1814 – Americans defeat British forces at the Battle of Longwoods between London,
Ontario and Thamesville, near present-day Wardsville, Ontario.
• 1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated.
• 1848 – Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will later represent the first
constitution of the Regno d'Italia.
• 1849 – President-elect of the United States Zachary Taylor and Vice President-elect Millard
Fillmore did not take their respective oaths of office (they did so the following day), leading
to the erroneous theory that outgoing President pro tempore of the United States Senate
David Rice Atchison had assumed the role of acting president for one day.
• 1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the "Stars and Bars") is
adopted.
• 1865 – The third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted by
the Confederate Congress.
• 1865 – U.S. politician Andrew Johnson made his drunk vice-presidential inaugural address
in Washington, D.C.[4]
• 1878 – Pope Leo XIII reestablishes the Catholic Church in Scotland, recreating sees and
naming bishops for the first time since 1603.[5]
 • 1882 – Britain's first electric trams run in east London.
• 1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 8,094
feet (2,467 m) long, is opened by the Duke of Rothesay, later King Edward VII.
• 1899 – Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 metres (39 ft)
wave that reaches up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing over 300.

1901–present
• 1901 – McKinley inaugurated president for second time; Theodore Roosevelt is vice
president.[6]
• 1908 – The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.
• 1909 – U.S. President William Taft used what became known as a Saxbe fix, a mechanism
to avoid the restriction of the U.S. Constitution's Ineligibility Clause, to appoint Philander C.
Knox as U.S. Secretary of State.
• 1913 – First Balkan War: The Greek army engages the Turks at Bizani, resulting in victory
two days later.
• 1913 – The United States Department of Labor is formed.
• 1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States
House of Representatives.
• 1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the 32nd President of the United States. He was the
last president to be inaugurated on March 4.
• 1933 – Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member
of the United States Cabinet.
• 1933 – The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a quibble over procedure –
Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiates an authoritarian rule by decree.
• 1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten
Islands; the first large scale British Commando raid.
• 1943 – World War II: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the south-west Pacific comes to an
end.
• 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the
Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, begins. It ends on 6 March with
the surrender of an entire Italian battalion and the liberation of the town of Grevena.[7]
• 1944 – World War II: After the success of Big Week, the USAAF begins a daylight bombing
campaign of Berlin.
• 1955 – An order to protect the endangered Saimaa ringed seal (Pusa hispida saimensis) was
legalized.[8]
• 1957 – The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.
• 1960 – The French freighter La Coubre explodes in Havana, Cuba, killing 100.
• 1962 – A Caledonian Airways Douglas DC-7 crashes shortly after takeoff from Cameroon,
killing 111 – the worst crash of a DC-7.
• 1966 – A Canadian Pacific Air Lines DC-8-43 explodes on landing at Tokyo International
Airport, killing 64 people.
• 1966 – In an interview in the London Evening Standard, The Beatles' John Lennon declares
that the band is "more popular than Jesus now".
• 1970 – French submarine Eurydice explodes underwater, resulting in the loss of the entire
57-man crew.
• 1976 – The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern
Ireland resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London by the British parliament.
• 1977 – The 1977 Vrancea earthquake in eastern and southern Europe kills more than 1,500,
mostly in Bucharest, Romania.
• 1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become
Zimbabwe's first black prime minister.
• 1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for HIV infection, used
since then for screening all blood donations in the United States.
• 1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of
its nucleus.
• 1990 – American basketball player Hank Gathers dies after collapsing during the semifinals
of a West Coast Conference tournament game.[9]
• 1990 – Lennox Sebe, President for life of the South African Bantustan of Ciskei, is ousted
from power in a bloodless military coup led by Brigadier Oupa Gqozo.[10]
• 1994 – Space Shuttle program: the Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-62.[11]
• 1996 – A derailed train in Weyauwega, Wisconsin (USA) causes the emergency evacuation
of 2,300 people for 16 days.
• 1998 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the
United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when
both parties are the same sex.
• 2001 – BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre
in London, seriously injuring one person; the attack was attributed to the Real IRA.
• 2002 – Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers and 200 Al-Qaeda
Fighters are killed as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shah-i-Kot Valley on a low-
flying helicopter reconnaissance mission.
• 2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issu