March 11, 1818: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein; or The modern Prometheus, is published.
**March 11, 2011: **the Tōhoku earthquake, magnitude 9.0-9.1, was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded to hit Japan and the fourth most powerful recorded earthquake in the world. The earthquake moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 8 ft to the east, and it shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of 4-10 inches. The Tōhoku earthquake generated a tsunami of over 125 feet that caused meltdowns of 3 nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
**March 11, 2016: **Ben Carson endorses Donald Trump for President.
March 12, 1930: Mahatma Gandhi leads a 200-mile march, known as the Salt March, to the sea in defiance of British opposition, to protest the British monopoly on salt
**March 12, 2003: **Zoran Đinđić (Zoran Djindjic), former Mayor of Belgrade SRB and the then-Prime Minister of Serbia, was assassinated in Belgrade at 1223 hours local time by Zvezdan Jovanović, a Serbian former paramilitary, JSO Commander and convicted criminal with ties to the Serbian Mafia, and an operative of Milorad “Legija” Ulemek, the former commander of the Special Operations Unit of Yugoslavia’s secret police. With a single shot from a Heckler & Koch G3 assault rifle, the 7.62x51mm NATO round penetrated Đinđić’s heart and killed him almost instantly.
Just weeks before, on February 17, Đinđić had predicted his own assassination.
March 12: born this day in
1980 – Douglas Murray, San Jose Sharks ice hockey player;
1968 – Aaron Eckhart, American actor and producer;
1962 – Darryl Strawberry, American baseball player;
1960 – Courtney Vance, American actor;
1948 – (“Sweet Baby”) James Taylor, American singer-songwriter and guitarist;
1938 – Johnny Rutherford, American race car driver and Indy 500 winner in 1974, 1976, & 1980;
1933 – Barbara Feldon, American actress and Agent 99 in Get Smart;
1932 – Andrew Young, American pastor and politician, 14th US Ambassador to the United Nations;
1923 – Wally Schirra, American captain, pilot, and astronaut, and one of the Original Mercury Seven.
March 13, 1888: The Great Blizzard of 1888, AKA The Great White Hurricane, absolutely buries the Northeast United States. Temperatures in New York’s Central Park dropped to 6 degrees. Hundreds perish including many who are buried under snow on the streets of New York City.
March 13, 1997: The “Phoenix Lights” (a UFO sighting) are seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television.
13 March 1964: born this day, Will Clark, American baseball player, SF Giant great, Will the Thrill! GO GIANTS!
March 14, 1592: Ultimate Pi Day: the largest correspondence between calendar dates and significant digits of pi since the introduction of the Julian calendar.
At exactly 6:53 AM!
March 15, 1985: The first Internet domain name is registered (symbolics.com).
March 17, 1966: The DSV Alvinfinds the missing hydrogen bomb that had been lost in the Mediterranean Sea back on January 17th.
March 17, 1958: The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite. It was the first satellite to be solar powered. Although communication with it was lost in 1964, it remains the oldest manmade satellite still in orbit.
March 18, 1925: The Tri-State tornado touches down in Missouri and travels 219 miles across Illinois and into Indiana, destroying everything in its path. Nearly 700 people die in this F5 tornado, the most ever from a single twister. Thousands are injured.
March 18, 1990: Germans in the German Democratic Republic vote in the first democratic elections in the former communist dictatorship.
March 19, 1945: The USS* Franklin * is bombed by a Japanese kamikaze plane. Over 800 die, yet thanks to the extraordinary heroics of the crew and support ships, the aircraft carrier is saved.
March 19, 1978: Mr. Wrestling defeated Blackjack Mulligan for the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina.
March 19, 1945: Adolf Hitler issues his “Nero Decree” ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed, to prevent their use by Allied forces. The decree is deliberately disobeyed by Albert Speer.
March 20, 1905: The Grover Shoe Factory Disasterin Brockton, Massachusetts kills 58 and injures 150.