1514: Death of Bramante; Raphael takes over the building of St. Peter's
1544: Torquato Tasso born
1566: Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, receives Moray and his adherents
1602: Death of Emilio di Cavalieri, composer
1676: Allart van Everdingen, Dutch artist, dies at about 54
1731: Robert Treat Paine, a signer of the Declaration of Independence born
1810: Emperor Napoleon of France was married by proxy to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.
1829: The Bach revival began. At that time, when people said "Bach" they meant one of the sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The performance in Berlin on March 11th, 1829, of "St. Matthew Passion"conducted by the 20-year-old Mendelssohn himself, was a sensation.
1847: John Chapman 'Johnny Appleseed' died in Allen County, Indiana.
1851: "Rigoletto" premiered in Venice producing a tremendous success for Verdi.
1860: Thomas Hastings, architect of the New York Public Library. born
1861: The Confederate convention in Montgomery, Alabama, adopted a constitution.
1867: Great Mauna Loa eruption (volcano in Hawaii)
1888: Some 400 people died as a four-day snow storm crippled New York City. It came to be known as the Blizzard of '88.
1892: 1st public game of basketball.
1899: Frederick IX, King of Denmark born
1903: Band leader Lawrence Welk (some sources 1908)His "Lawrence Welk Show" was the longest-running TV show in history. (1955-1971). born
1903: New York's Metropolitan Opera took a great social step forward by performing an opera composed by a woman, "Der Wald" by Ethel Smyth.
1911: Tennessee Williams, American playwright born
1916: Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson born
1926: Civil rights leader The Rev. Ralph Abernathy born
1926: Irish statesman Eamon de Valera resigned as head of Sinn Fein. He later formed the Fianna Fail party.
1927: The "Flatheads Gang" was responsible for the first armored-car robbery which took place near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was reported that $104,250 was taken in the heist.
1930: William Howard Taft became the first president of the United States to be buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
1930: Babe Ruth signed a two-year contract with the New York Yankees for a sum of $80,000.
1931: Newspaper publisher Rupert Murdoch born
1931: Actress Valerie French (Harrison) born
1932: Jazz musician Leroy Jenkins born
1934: ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson born
1935: Actress Nancy Kovack born
1935: Hermann Goering officially created the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force.
1936: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia born
1939: Musician Flaco Jimenez (The Texas Tornadoes) born
1941: After a long debate, the Lend-Lease Bill to help Britain survive attack by Germany was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Roosevelt.
1942: As Japanese forces continued to advance in the Pacific during World War Two, General Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia, vowing: "I shall return."
1945: Actress Tricia O'Neil born
1947: Singer-musician (Vanilla Fudge) Mark Stein born
1950: Singer Bobby McFerrin born
1950: Movie director Jerry Zucler born
1951: Actress Dominique Sanda born
1952: Actress Susan Richardson born
1953: First woman doctor commissioned in regular army - F. M. Adams
1954: The US Army charged Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his subcommittee's chief counsel, Roy Cohn, had exerted pressure to obtain favored treatment for Private G. David Schine, a former consultant to the subcommittee.
1955: Singer Nina Hagen born
1955: Country singer Jimmy Fortune (The Statler Brothers) born
1957: Singer Cheryl Lynn born
1959: The Lorraine Hansberry drama "A Raisin in the Sun" opened at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater.
1961: Musician (Big Country) Bruce Watson born
1963: Actress Alex Kingston ("E-R") born
1964: Senator Carl Hayden broke the record for continuous service in the U.S. Senate. He completed 37 years and seven days in the upper chamber.
1965: Actor Wallace Langham ("Veronica's Closet") born
1965: The Reverend James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, died after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Alabama.
1967: Actor John Barrowman born
1968: Otis Redding posthumously received a gold record for the single, (Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay. Redding was killed in a plane crash in Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, on December 10, 1967.
1969: Singer Pete Droge born
1969: Levi starts to sell bell-bottomed jeans
1977: More than 130 hostages held in Washington DC by Hanafi Muslims were freed after ambassadors from three Islamic nations joined the negotiations.
1982: Actress Thora Birch ("American Beauty") born
1985: The Soviet Union announced the death the day before of its leader, Konstantin U. Chernenko. Politburo member Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed Chernenko.
1986: 187.27 million shares traded in the New York Stock Exchange.
1987: The US House of Representatives approved a resolution calling for a freeze on 40 million dollars in aid for the Nicaraguan Contras for six months.
1988: Saying, "The people have decided," Gary Hart withdrew a second time from the race for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.
1989: Former World Bank head John J. McCloy, who had advised several presidents, died in Stamford, Connecticut, at age 93.
1990: The Lithuanian parliament voted to break away from the Soviet Union and restore the republic's independence.
1991: Secretary of State James A. Baker III visited Israel, where he met with Foreign Minister David Levy to discuss prospects for Middle East peace.
1992: Members of the UN Security Council accused Iraq of playing a game of "cheat and retreat" from its promises to disarm and respect its people's human rights; Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz lashed back, saying his country was complying with Gulf War cease-fire resolutions.
1993: Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be the nation's first female attorney general.
1993: North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in a harsh rebuff of Western demands to open suspected nuclear weapons development sites for inspection.
1994: Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Beijing, the mood of his trip already soured by a fresh government crackdown on Chinese dissidents.
1995: President Clinton nominated Deputy Defense Secretary John Deutch to be CIA director.
1995: Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-allied Sinn Fein party, arrived in the United States for a St. Patrick's Day visit.
1996: On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 110.55 to end the day at 5,581 following a 171.24 plunge the Friday before.
1997: In a startling turnaround, Senate Republicans agreed to a broader investigation of campaign financing that would include a look at huge "soft money" donations.
1997: Senate confirmation hearings for CIA Director-designate Anthony Lake began.
1997: Rock star Paul McCartney was knighted by Queen Elizabeth the Second.
1998: The International Astronomical Union issued an alert, saying a mile-wide asteroid could zip very close to Earth on October 26th, 2028, possibly colliding with it. They said the asteroid, which had not been seen before, would pass as close as 30,000 miles to the Earth. Dr. Brian Marsden of the International Astronomical Union said. Even if it were on a path to hit Earth, technology might be available by then capable of deflecting the asteroid. (But the next day, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said there was no chance the asteroid will hit Earth.)
1998: A Florida appeals court restored Joe Carollo as mayor of Miami after charges of voter fraud on absentee ballots.
1998: President Suharto was sworn in for a seventh term as leader of Indonesia's 200 million people, warning them in somber tones of tough times ahead in overcoming the country's ravaging economic crisis. As Suharto was being sworn in, thousands of university students demonstrated in the central Java city of Yogyakarta, demanding an end to his rule.
1999: The House voted 219-191 to conditionally support President Clinton's plan to send U.S. troops to Kosovo if a peace agreement was reached.
2000: Ricardo Lagos was sworn in as president of Chile, the second socialist to take the post since Salvador Allende was killed in a 1973 coup.
