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March 31 |
In
1968, President Johnson stunned the country by
announcing he would not run for another term of
office.
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March 30 |
In 1981, President Reagan was
shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John W.
Hinckley Jr. Also wounded were White House news secretary James Brady, a
Secret Service agent and a District of Columbia police officer.
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March 29 |
In
1973, the last United States troops left South
Vietnam, ending America's direct military
involvement in the Vietnam War.
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March 28 |
In
1979, America's worst commercial nuclear accident
occurred inside the Unit Two reactor at the Three
Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pa.
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March 27
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In 1958, Nikita
Khrushchev became Soviet premier in addition to First
Secretary of the Communist Party.
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March 26 |
In 1979, the
Camp David peace treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the
White House.
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March 25 |
In 1965, the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state
capitol in Montgomery, Ala., to protest the denial of voting
rights to blacks.
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March 24 |
In 1989,
the nation's worst oil spill occurred as the supertanker
Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska's Prince
William Sound and began leaking 11 million gallons of
crude.
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March 23 |
In 1965,
America's first two-person space flight began as Gemini 3
blasted off from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Virgil I.
Grissom and John W. Young aboard.
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March 22 |
In 1972, Congress sent the
proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to the states for
ratification. It fell short of the three-fourths approval needed.
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March 21 |
In 1965, more
than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery,
Ala.
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March 20 |
In 1995, in
Tokyo, 12 people were killed, more than 5,500 others
sickened when packages containing the poisonous gas sarin
leaked on five separate subway trains.
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March 19 |
In 1920,
the United States Senate rejected for the second time
the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of 49-35, falling
short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.
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March 18 |
In 1965, the
first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei
Leonov left his Voskhod 2 capsule and remained outside the
spacecraft for 20 minutes, secured by a tether.
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March 17 |
In 1942, Gen. Douglas
MacArthur arrived in Australia to become supreme commander of Allied
forces in the southwest Pacific theater during World War II.
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March 16 |
In 1968, during the
Vietnam War, the My Lai Massacre was carried out by United
States troops under the command of Lt. William L. Calley Jr.
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March 15 |
In 1965,
addressing a joint session of Congress, President Johnson
called for new legislation to guarantee every American's
right to vote.
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March 14 |
In 1900,
Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act.
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March 13 |
In 1868, the
impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the
United States Senate.
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March 12 |
In 1947,
President Truman established what became known as the Truman
Doctrine to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.
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March 11 |
In 1941,
President Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill,
providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis.
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March 10 |
In 1985,
Konstantin U. Chernenko, Soviet leader for just 13 months,
died at age 73. His death was announced on March 11th.
Politburo member Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed
him.
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March 9 |
In 1862, during
the Civil War, the ironclads Monitor and Virginia (formerly
Merrimac) clashed for five hours to a draw at Hampton Roads,
Va.
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March 8 |
In 1917,
Russia's February Revolution (so called because of the
Old Style calendar used by Russians at the time) began
with rioting and strikes in St. Petersburg.
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March 7 |
In 1965, a march by
civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, Ala., by state
troopers and a sheriff's posse.
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March 6 |
In 1857, in its
Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court held that Scott, a
slave, could not sue for his freedom in a federal court.
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March 5 |
In 1946, Winston Churchill
delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech at Westminster College in
Fulton, Mo.
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March 4 |
In 1933, the start
of President Roosevelt's first administration brought with it
the first woman to serve in the Cabinet: Labor Secretary Frances
Perkins.
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March 3 |
In 1991, in a
case that sparked a national outcry, motorist Rodney King
was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in a
scene captured on amateur video.
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March 2 |
In 1877,
Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of
the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J.
Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.
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March 1 |
In 1932, the
infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped from
the family home near Hopewell, N.J.
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