Category: Today

On March 28, 1774, the British Parliament adopted the Coercive Acts, a series of four acts aimed at restoring order in Massachusetts and punishing Bostonians for the Tea Party, in which the Sons of Liberty boarded three British ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 crates of tea — valued at nearly $1 million in today’s money — into the water to protest the Tea Act. Rather than abandon Bostonians to a kind of martial law, the other colonies rushed to the city’s defense and began to discuss British misrule, leading to the First Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia in September 1774.

On March 27, 1941, Yugoslavian Air Force officers launched a bloodless coup toppling the pro-​axis government. Two days before the coup, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia succumbed to pressure from Hitler to join the Tripartite Pact, a move that was deeply unpopular amongst the anti-​Axis Serbian public and military. 

On March 27, 1981, the Polish Solidarity movement staged a strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walked off their jobs for four hours.

On March 26, 1776, Samuel Ward, a colonial Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and a delegate to the Continental Congress, died. Ward was the only colonial governor to oppose the Stamp Act, threatening his position, but bringing him recognition as a great patriot.

On March 26, 1929, Tom Foley was born in Spokane, Washington. Foley would serve in Congress for 30 years and become Speaker in the House. But after suing the people of his Washington state to overturn the term limits initiative they passed in 1992, Foley became the first House Speaker in 132 years, since 1862, to be defeated for re-election.

On March 24, 1765, Parliament passed the Quartering Act, ordering the American colonies to provide housing for British soldiers in barracks, or if necessary to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, and the houses of sellers of wine. The popular belief that the Redcoats tossed colonists from their homes or moved into private homes was not the intent of the law or the practice. The New York colonial assembly refused to comply with the law, leading to Parliament enacting the New York Restraining Act in 1767. The Restraining Act prohibited the royal governor of New York from signing any further legislation until the assembly complied with the Quartering Act.

On March 24, 1958, Elvis Presley was conscripted into the U.S. Army.

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry gave his famous speech exclaiming “Give me liberty or give me death!” at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, where more than 100 Virginia patriots, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and Peyton Randolph gathered after leaving the colonial capitol of Williamsburg to avoid the wrath of Royal Governor Lord Dunmore. Less than a month later, the American Revolution began at Lexington and Concord with the shot heard ‘round the world.

On March 22, 1765, the British Parliament passed the controversial Stamp Act, hoping to raise the funds from the North American colonies to defend the vast new American territories won from the French in the Seven Years’ War. The legislation levied a direct tax on all materials printed for commercial and legal use in the colonies, including everything from broadsides and insurance policies to playing cards and dice, infuriating the colonists, who argued that, as British subjects, Parliament could not impose taxes upon them without their consent, through the various colonial assemblies. Even though Parliament eventually repealed the legislation, the quarrel moved many colonists against the British government, setting the stage for the eventual break and war for independence.