Category: Today

On April 3, 1776, John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, signed the authorization for privateers to attack British vessels. Lacking sufficient funds for a strong navy, the Congress gave privateers permission to attack any and all British ships.

On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King spoke at the Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, Tennessee, in what has come to be known as his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech. The following day, King was assassinated in the city outside his hotel room.

On Apr 2, 1917, Jeannette Rankin took her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as the first woman ever elected to Congress, representing Montana. Four days later, she would be one of only 50 representatives to vote against U.S. entry into the First World War. In 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Rankin would cast the only dissenting vote against the country’s entry into World War II.

On April 1, 1787, James Madison, father of the Constitution, removed the General Welfare clause from his draft of the U.S. Constitution, telling friends that, “I fear future big-​government-​loving politicians will undoubtedly abuse the clause’s vague concept to drown the people in federal overreach.”

On April 1, 1918, Woodrow Wilson became the first and only President of the United States to be impeached and removed from office for lying about munitions being aboard the Lusitania in an effort to whip up war fever against Germany and push the nation into World War I.

On April 1, 2002, the U.S. Congress refused to grant President George W. Bush’s request for a declaration of war against Iraq. 

On March 31, 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry signed the Treaty of Kanagawa with Japan, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.

On March 31, 1959, the Dalai Lama fled the Chinese military suppression of the revolt in Tibet, crossing the border into India, where he was granted political asylum. Thirty years later, in 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his nonviolent campaign to end the Chinese domination of Tibet.

On March 31, 1990, an anti-​poll tax rally in London led to the city’s worst riots in a century, with 113 people injured, including 45 policemen, and 340 people arrested. The violence erupted after 70,000 people took to the streets in protest of the new government levy.

On March 30, 1775, King George III formally endorsed the New England Restraining Act, requiring New England colonies to trade exclusively with Great Britain and banning colonists from fishing in the North Atlantic.

On March 30, 1870, the 15th Amendment, granting African-​American men the right to vote, was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution. One day later, the first African-​American male voted in New Jersey.

On March 30, 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward signed a treaty with Russia purchasing Alaska for $7 million. Despite the price of approximately two cents an acre, the purchase was ridiculed in the press as “Seward’s folly.”

On March 29, 1918, Walmart founder Sam Walton was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. 

On March 29, 1945, Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army captured Frankfurt, Germany. Patton’s troops then crossed through southern Germany and into Czechoslovakia, only to encounter an order not to take the capital, Prague, as it had been reserved for the Soviets. 

On March 29, 1971, Lt. William Calley was found guilty of premeditated murder at My Lai by a U.S. Army court-​martial at Fort Benning, Georgia. Though investigators of the massacre produced a list of 30 people who knew of the atrocity, only 14 were charged with crimes, and all eventually had their charges dismissed or were acquitted by courts-​martial except Calley.
Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced later to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. He was paroled in 1974 after having served about a third of his 10-​year sentence.

On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. combat soldiers left Vietnam.