Category: Today

On March 20, 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published.

On March 19, 1649, England’s House of Commons passed an act abolishing the House of Lords, declaring it “useless and dangerous to the people of England.”

This was during Oliver Cromwell’s rule as Lord Protector, after the execution of Charles I. The House of Lords did not again meet until the Convention Parliament of 1660, under the Restoration of the monarchy.

On March 18, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill enabling Hawaii to become the 50th state in the Union. The official day of statehood was set for (and became) August 21 of that year.

The statehood signing occurred exactly 85 years after The Kingdom of Hawaii formalized its treaty with the U. S. establishing exclusive trading rights.

On March 17, 1780, General George Washington granted the Continental Army a holiday “as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence.”

On March 17, 1941, the U.S. Selective Service held its first lottery for the draft, in preparation for World War II. (Image, above, from the Morning Oregonian, from that year.)

On March 16, 1995, the state of Mississippi formally ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state of the Union to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment had been officially ratified in 1865, one hundred thirty years earlier.

James Madison, fourth President of the United States and “Father of the Constitution,” was born on this date in 1751.

March 15 was “the Ides of March” in the Roman calendar. On that date in 44 BC, Julius Caesar, Dictator of the Roman Republic, was stabbed to death by a handful of prominent senators.

On the same date in 1783, General George Washington eloquently entreated his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy. His plea was successful and the threatened coup d’état never took place.

On March 14, 1900, the Gold Standard Act was ratified, ending the long practice of bimetallism by placing the United States Treasury — and banking and currency — on the gold standard.

On March 13, 1862, the U.S. federal government forbade all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.

On March 12, 2009, financier Bernard Madoff pled guilty to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in U. S. history. One year earlier to the day, in the same city, New York, the state’s governor, Eliot Spitzer, resigned a mere two days after reports had surfaced that he was listed as a client in a high-end escort/call-girl prostitution ring.

On March 11, 1702, The Daily Courant, England’s first national daily newspaper, was published for the first time. It was a one-sheet, concentrated on foreign news, sans commentary. The reverse side sported advertising. It was produced by Elizabeth Mallet (1672–1706), a printer and bookseller who lived, and published the paper, next to the Kings Arms tavern at Fleet Bridge in London.