- 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 the last of the Carolingian dynasty to reign in France.
- 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.
- 1657 – Great Fire of Meireki: A fire in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, caused more than 100,000 deaths; it lasted three days
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Patriot militia units arrest the Royal Governor of Georgia James Wright and attempt to prevent capture of supply ships in the Battle of the Rice Boats.
- 1791 – Claude Chappe demonstrates the first semaphore line near Paris.
- 1797 – The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound banknotes.
- 1807 – The U.S. Congress passes the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 1949 – Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky 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.
- 1962 – In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win seizes power in a coup d’état.
- 1962 – Wilt Chamberlain sets the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.
- 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 – Czech Vladimír 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.
- 1992 – Start of the war in Transnistria.
- 1992 – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, San Marino, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, all of which (except San Marino) were former Soviet republics, join the United Nations.
- 1995 – Researchers at Fermilab announce the discovery of the top quark.
- 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.
-Source: wikipedia
