March 7
Twenty-nine-year-old Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for his revolutionary new invention, the telephone. – 1876.
More than 3,000 unemployed auto workers, led by the Communist Party of America, brave the cold in Dearborn, Mich. to demand jobs and relief from Henry Ford. The marchers got too close to the gate and were gassed. After re-grouping, they were sprayed with water and shot at. Four men die immediately, 60 are wounded. – 1932.
March 8
Mount Etna, on the island of Sicily in modern-day Italy, starts to rumble. Multiple eruptions over the next few weeks kill more than 20,000 residents and leave thousands more homeless. Most of the victims could have saved themselves by fleeing, but stayed, in a vain attempt to save their city. – 1669.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members disappears after taking off from Kuala Lumpur. Four months after Flight 370 vanished, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, en route to Kuala Lumpur is shot down over eastern Ukraine near the Russian border. All 298 passengers aboard the aircraft perished. Officials believe both aircraft were downed by a surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists battling the Ukrainian government. – 2014.
March 9
U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan and drop 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history. The majority of the 100,000 who perished, died from carbon monoxide poisoning and the sudden lack of oxygen. As a result of the attack more than 250,000 buildings were destroyed. – 1945.
The first Barbie doll goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City. The doll was created by Ruth Handler, who co-founded Mattel, Inc. in 1945. – 1959.
Work begins on the $8 Billion, 800-mile-long Alaska Oil pipeline to connect oil fields in northern Alaska to the sea port at Valdez. Tens of thousands of workers on the pipeline, endure long hours, cold temperatures, and brutal conditions. At least 32 died on the job. – 1974.
March 10
The first discernible speech is transmitted over a telephone system when inventor Alexander Graham Bell summons his assistant in another room by saying, “Mr. Watson, come here; I want you.” Bell had received a comprehensive telephone patent just three days earlier. – 1876.
Approximately 300,000 loyal Tibetans band together in revolt and surround the Summer palace of the Dalai Lama in defiance of Chinese occupation forces. By March 17, Chinese artillery was aimed at the palace, and the Dalai Lama was evacuated to neighboring India. March 21 the Chinese began shelling Norbulinka and slaughtered tens of thousands of men, women, and children still camped outside. – 1959.
March 11
One of the worst blizzards in American history strikes the Northeast, and kills more than 400 persons and dumps as much as 55 inches of snow in some areas. Wind gusts are recorded at 85 miles per hour in New York City which end with drifts that reach as high as the second story of some buildings. – 1888.
U.S. Army private Albert Gitchell of the U.S. Army reports to the hospital at Fort Riley, Kan., complaining of the cold-like symptoms of sore throat, fever, and headache. That was the first documented case from the historic influenza epidemic of 1918, dubbed the Spanish flu which killed some 8 Million in Spain and eventually kills 675,000 Americans and more than 20 Million persons worldwide. – 1918.
March 12
In a dramatic speech to a joint session of Congress, U.S. president Harry S Truman asks for U.S. assistance for Greece and Turkey to forestall communist domination of the two nations. Some historians often have cited Truman’s address, which came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, as the official declaration of the Cold War. – 1947.
March 13
The German-born English astronomer William Hershel discovers Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. Herschel’s discovery of a new planet was the first in modern times, and the first by use of a telescope, which allowed Herschel to distinguish Uranus as a planet, not a star, as previous astronomers believed. – 1781.
Sources: History.com, Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council.
• “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” —George Santayana, Philosopher