March 24, 1603: Queen Elizabeth I officially closes out her Death Pool slot, aged 69.
March 24, 1999: NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it had attacked a sovereign country.
March 25, 1911: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire kills 146 in New York City.
March 26, 1942: The first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.
The display of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man that this period represents is probably the closest yet mankind has come to Hell on earth, and it behooves us to make certain that generations yet unborn are never allowed to forget – or repeat – this.
But current events show that it’s not going to be easy,
-“BB”-
March 27, 1977: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). Sixty-one survived on the Pan Am flight. This is the worst aviation accident in history.
March 28, 1842: First concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, founded by Otto Nicolai.
March 28, 1854; During the [first] Crimean War, Britain and France declared war [special military operations] on Russia. [my topical edits]
March 29, 1886: John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta.
March 29, 2004: President George W. Bush welcomed seven former Soviet-bloc nations (Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) into NATO during a White House ceremony.
March 30, 1867: Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about 2¢/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.
March 31, 1492: Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.
April 1, 2001: Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, the first contemporary country to allow it.
April 2, 1800: Ludwig van Beethoven conducts the premiere of his First Symphony, in Vienna.
also for April 2:
April 2, 1982: Argentina invades and occupies the Falkland Islands under the guise of reclaiming its own territory, kicking off a ten-week long conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom before Argentina surrendered and returned the Islands to British control.
-“BB”-
April 3, 1860: The first successful United States Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, begins.
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
April 4, 1949: Twelve nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C.
April 5, 1951: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union.
April 6, 1973: The American League of Major League Baseball begins using the designated hitter.