ALSO ON THIS DAY
American Revolution
1774
British Parliament adopts the Coercive Acts
Upset by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property by American colonists, the British Parliament enacts the Coercive Acts, to the outrage of American Patriots, on this day in 1774. The Coercive Acts were a series of four acts established by the British government. The...
Automotive
1941
Land cleared for Ford’s Willow Run plant
On this day in 1941, workers start clearing trees from hundreds of acres of land near Ypsilanti, Michigan, some 30 miles west of Detroit, in preparation for the construction of the Ford Motor Company’s Willow Run plant, which will use Henry Ford’s mass-production technology to build B-24 bomber planes for...
Civil War
1862
Battle of Glorieta Pass
On this day in 1862, Union forces stop the Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory when they turn the Rebels back at Glorieta Pass.This action was part of the broader movement by the Confederates to capture New Mexico and other parts of the West. This would secure territory that the...
Cold War
1946
Acheson-Lilienthal Report released
The State Department releases the so-called Acheson-Lilienthal Report, which outlines a plan for international control of atomic energy. The report represented an attempt by the United States to maintain its superiority in the field of atomic weapons while also trying to avoid a costly and dangerous arms race with the...
Crime
1814
Funeral held for the man behind the guillotine
The funeral of Guillotin, the inventor and namesake of the infamous execution device, takes place outside of Paris, France. Guillotin had what he felt were the purest motives for inventing the guillotine and was deeply distressed at how his reputation had become besmirched in the aftermath. Guillotin had bestowed the...
2006
Duke lacrosse team suspended following sexual assault allegations
Duke University officials suspend the men’s lacrosse team for two games following allegations that team members sexually assaulted a stripper hired to perform at a party. Three players were later charged with rape. The case became a national scandal, impacted by issues of race, politics and class. In April 2007,...
Disaster
1979
Reactor overheats at Three Mile Island
The most serious nuclear accident in United States history takes place at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on this day in 1979, when one of the reactors overheats. Fortunately, a catastrophic meltdown was averted and there were no deaths or direct injuries from the accident. The Three...
General Interest
1939
Spanish Civil War ends
In Spain, the Republican defenders of Madrid raise the white flag over the city, bringing to an end the bloody three-year Spanish Civil War. In 1931, Spanish King Alfonso XIII approved elections to decide the government of Spain, and voters overwhelmingly chose to abolish the monarchy in favor of a liberal...
1969
Eisenhower dies
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States and one of the most highly regarded American generals of World War II, dies in Washington, D.C., at the age of 78.Born in Denison, Texas, in 1890, Eisenhower graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1915, and after World...
Hollywood
1920
Fairbanks and Pickford marry
Hollywood stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford marry on this day in 1920, just three and a half weeks after Pickford’s divorce from her first husband, actor Owen Moore. Pickford and Fairbanks had been business partners since the previous year, when they teamed up with Charlie Chaplin and director D.W....
Literary
1936
Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian novelist, is born
Peruvian novelist and unsuccessful presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa is born. Llosa, who built his fame as a writer on works ranging from novels to plays to critical essays, was educated in Bolivia, where he grandfather was Peruvian consul. He attended military school in Lima and began to publish short...
Music
1958
W.C. Handy—the “Father of the Blues”—dies
“With all their differences, my forebears had one thing in common: if they had any musical talent, it remained buried.” So wrote William Christopher Handy in his autobiography in discussing the absence of music in his home life as a child. Born in northern Alabama in 1873, Handy was raised...
Old West
1776
De Anza founds San Francisco
Juan Bautista de Anza, one of the great western pathfinders of the 18th century, arrives at the future site of San Francisco with 247 colonists. Though little known among Americans because of his Spanish origins, Anza’s accomplishments as a western trailblazer merit comparison with those of Lewis and Clark, John Fremont,...
Presidential
1834
Congress censures Jackson
On this day in 1834, President Andrew Jackson is censured by Congress for refusing to turn over documents. Jackson was the first president to suffer this formal disapproval from Congress. During his first term, Jackson decided to dismantle the Bank of the United States and find a friendlier source of funds...
Sports
1984
Baltimore Colts move to Indianapolis
On this day in 1984, Bob Irsay (1923-1997), owner of the once-mighty Baltimore Colts, moves the team to Indianapolis. Without any sort of public announcement, Irsay hired movers to pack up the team’s offices in Owings Mills, Maryland, in the middle of the night, while the city of Baltimore slept. Robert...
Vietnam War
1961
Diem’s popular support questioned
A U.S. national intelligence estimate prepared for President John F. Kennedy declares that South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and the Republic of Vietnam are facing an extremely critical situation. As evidence, the reports cites that more than half of the rural region surrounding Saigon is under communist control...
1967
American pacifists arrive in Haiphong
The Phoenix, a private U.S. yacht with eight American pacifists aboard, arrives in Haiphong, North Vietnam, with $10,000 worth of medical supplies for the North Vietnamese. The trip, financed by a Quaker group in Philadelphia, was made in defiance of a U.S. ban on American travel to North Vietnam. ...
World War I
1915
First American citizen killed during WWI
On March 28, 1915, the first American citizen is killed in the eight-month-old European conflict that would become known as the First World War. Leon Thrasher, a 31-year-old mining engineer and native of Massachusetts, drowned when a German submarine, the U-28, torpedoed the cargo-passenger ship Falaba, on its way from Liverpool...
World War II
1941
Cunningham leads fateful British strike at Italians
On this day, Andrew Browne Cunningham, Admiral of the British Fleet, commands the British Royal Navy’s destruction of three major Italian cruisers and two destroyers in the Battle of Cape Matapan in the Mediterranean. The destruction, following on the attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto by the British in...
