March 22 is the 81st day of the year (82nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 284 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- Christian Feast Day:
- Day of the People’s Party (Laos)
- Earliest day on which Earth Hour can fall, while March 28 is the latest; celebrated on the fourth Saturday in March. (International)
- Earliest day on which Easter Sunday can fall (last in 1818, will not happen again until 2285), while April 25 is the latest. (Christianity)
- Emancipation Day or Día de la Abolición de la Esclavitud (Puerto Rico)
- Nevruz Day (Albania)
- World Water Day (International)
History
In 238, Gordian I and his son Gordian II are proclaimed Roman Emperors.
In 871, Æthelred of Wessex defeats a Danish invasion army at the Battle of Marton.
In 1457, the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed.
In 1508, Ferdinand II of Aragon commissions Amerigo Vespucci chief navigator of the Spanish Empire.
In 1621, Massasoit of the Wampanoags & Pilgrims agree on league of friendship. This treaty is made by Plymouth Colony with the Indians , and is kept, by both sides, for 50 years.
In 1622, Jamestown massacre: Algonquian Indians kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony’s population, during the Second Anglo-Powhatan War.
In 1630, the first colonial legislation prohibiting gambling was enacted in Boston by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In 1638, religious dissident Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In 1672, The first regular mail service between New York and Boston is established.
In 1713, The Tuscarora War comes to an end with the fall of Fort Neoheroka, effectively opening up the interior of North Carolina to European colonization.
In 1739, Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city, stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne.
In 1758, Jonathan Edwards, American minister and theologian (b. 1703) dies. He was a Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian. Edwards “is widely acknowledged to be America’s most important and original philosophical theologian,” and one of America’s greatest intellectuals Edwards’s theological work is broad in scope, but he was rooted in Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life’s work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central The Enlightenment was to his mindset. Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening, and oversaw some of the first revivals in 1733–35 at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards delivered the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God“, a classic of early American literature, during another revival in 1741, following George Whitefield‘s tour of the Thirteen Colonies. Edwards is well known for his many books, The End For Which God Created the World, The Life of David Brainerd, which served to inspire thousands of missionaries throughout the 19th century, and Religious Affections, which many Reformed Evangelicals still read today. Edwards died from a smallpox inoculation shortly after beginning the presidency at the College of New Jersey (Princeton). He was the grandfather of Aaron Burr, third Vice President of the United States.
In 1765, once passed by the English Parliament, the Stamp Act was enacted in Britain as the first direct British tax on the colonists to raise money from the American colonies. (The Act set off such a strong protest that it was repealed the following year). You could say that the Colonists stamped-out the Stamp Act.
In 1772, Joseph Priestly (father of soda pop) invented carbonated water, a basic ingredient in soda pops.
In 1784, The Emerald Buddha is moved with great ceremony to its current location in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand.
In 1790, Thomas Jefferson became the first U.S. Secretary of State.
In 1791, Congress enacted legislation forbidding slave trading with foreign nations.
In 1820, U.S. naval hero Stephen Decatur was killed in a duel with Commodore James Barron near Washington, D.C. He was a United States naval officer and Commodore notable for his many naval victories in the early 19th century. He was born on the eastern shore of Maryland, in Worcester County, the son of a U.S. naval officer who served during the American Revolution. Shortly after attending college, Decatur followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the U.S. Navy at the age of nineteen. He was the youngest man to reach the rank of captain in the history of the United States Navy. Decatur’s father, Stephen Decatur, Sr., also became a commodore in the U.S. Navy – which brought the younger Stephen into the world of ships and sailing early on. Decatur supervised the construction of several U.S. naval vessels, one of which he would later command. He became an affluent member of Washington society and counted James Monroe and other Washington dignitaries among his personal friends.
In 1822, New York Horticultural Society founded.
In 1829, In the London Protocol, the three protecting powers (United Kingdom, France and Russia) establish the borders of Greece.
In 1841, Cornstarch was patented by Orlando Jones. Sounds corny.
In 1849, Niagara Falls runs short of water. No water flows over the great cataract for 30 or 40 hours. Strong southwest gale winds had pushed huge chunks of lake ice to the extreme northeastern tip of Lake Erie, blocking the lake’s outlet into the head of the Niagara River. The ice jam had become an ice dam.
In 1849, The Austrians defeat the Piedmontese at the Battle of Novara.
In 1854, the first Young Men’s Hebrew Association in the U.S. was setup in Baltimore to provide help for Jewish immigrants.
In 1857, The first department store elevator was installed in N.Y.; the invention is by Elisha Graves Otis.
In 1860, Florence Nightingale was one of the pioneers in establishing the idea of nursing schools from her base at St Thomas’ Hospital, London in 1860 when she opened the ‘Nightingale Training School for Nurses‘, now part of King’s College London.
In 1871, William Holden of NC is first governor removed from office by impeachment.
In 1872, Illinois became the first state to require sexual equality in employment.
In 1873, Slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico.
In 1882, The Edmunds Act is adopted by the U.S. to suppress polygamy in the territories; bad news for Mormons.
In 1894, The first playoff game for the Stanley Cup starts.
In 1901, Japan proclaims that it is determined to keep Russia from encroaching on Korea.
In 1902, Great Britain and Persia agree to link Europe and India by telegraph.
In 1904, The first color photograph is published in the London Daily Illustrated Mirror.
In 1906, The first England vs France rugby union match is played at Parc des Princes in Paris
In 1911, SMS Kaiser was the lead ship of her class of battleships of the Imperial German Navy. The ship was built by the Imperial Dockyard at Kiel, launched on 22 March 1911, and commissioned in August 1912 with ten 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns and a top speed of 23.4 knots (43.3 km/h; 26.9 mph). Kaiser was assigned to the Third Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of World War I. The ship participated in most of the major fleet operations of the war, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where she was hit once, suffering negligible damage. The ship was also present during Operation Albion in the Baltic Sea in September and October 1917, and at the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917. After the war she was interned with other ships of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in Scotland. In June 1919 the commander of the interned fleet, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, ordered the fleet to be scuttled to ensure that the British would not be able to seize the ships. Kaiser‘s wreck was raised in 1929 and broken up in Rosyth in 1930.
In 1914, The world’s first airline starts operation in St. Petersburg, Florida and is called the St. Petersburg Tampa Airboat Line.
In 1915, A German Zepplin makes a night raid on Paris railway stations.
In 1916, The last Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicates the throne and the Republic of China is restored.
In 1917, The United States became the first country to recognize the provisional government of Russia following the collapse of the monarchy.
In 1920, Azeri and Turkish army soldiers with participation of Kurdish gangs attacked the Armenian inhabitants of Shushi (Nagorno Karabakh).
In 1923, The first radio broadcast of ice hockey is made by Foster Hewitt.
In 1929, A U.S. Coast Guard vessel sank a Canadian-registered schooner, the “I’m Alone,” in the Gulf of Mexico. (The schooner was suspected of carrying bootleg liquor.)
In 1933, during Prohibition, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure to make wine and beer containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol legal.
In 1935, the use of blood tests as evidence in court cases is first authorized in New York.
In 1939, World War II: Germany takes Memel from Lithuania.
In 1941, the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River began producing electric power for the Pacific Northwest.
In 1942, World War II: In the Mediterranean Sea, the Royal Navy confronts Italy’s Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte.
In 1943, World War II: the entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by German occupation forces.
In 1945, The Arab League is founded when a charter is adopted in Cairo, Egypt.
In 1945, US third Army attacks Nierstein on the Rhine.
In 1946, the first U.S.-built rocket to leave the earth’s atmosphere reaches a height of 50 miles.
In 1947, President Harry S Truman announces a program to root out unfaithful federal workers with sweeping F.B.I.-led “loyalty checks.”
In 1954, the first shopping mall opened in Southfield, Michigan.
In 1960, The first patent for lasers is granted to Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes. Six years later I built my first one with moderate success.
In 1968, President Johnson recalled Gen. William Westmoreland as commander of U.S. troops in Vietnam and made him Army chief of staff. Gen. Creighton Abrams took over in Saigon.
In 1972, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse urges an end to criminal penalties for the private possession and use of marijuana.
In 1972, Congress sent the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification. It fell short of the necessary two-thirds needed for approval.
In 1977, President Carter proposes the abolition of the Electoral College.
In 1990, President Geroge Bush declared “I do not like broccoli and I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it and I’m the President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli”.
In 1993, Intel Corporation formally introduced the Pentium-processor (80586) 64 bits-60 MHz-100+ MIPS.
In 1995, Shouting erupted in the U.S. House of Representatives as Democrats bitterly accused majority Republicans of trying to ram through a “mean-spirited” welfare overhaul bill.
In 1995, Cosmonaut Valeriy Polyakov returns to earth after setting a record of 438 days in space.
In 1997, Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and 10 months, becomes the youngest champion women’s World Figure Skating Champion.
In 1997, The Comet Hale-Bopp has its closest approach to Earth.
In 2004, Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas, two bodyguards, and nine civilian bystanders are killed in the Gaza Strip when hit by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache fired Hellfire missiles.
In 2006, Three Christian Peacemaker Team hostages are freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days of captivity and the murder of their colleague, American Tom Fox.
In 2013, Nashville, Tenn. – Conservative and Tea Party groups across the state of Tennessee have signed a resolution condemning Senator Lamar Alexander, Governor Bill Haslam, and Senator Bob Corker’s push for a national Internet sales tax scheme, known as the “Marketplace Fairness Act” (MFA).
In 2014, U.S. first lady Michelle Obama told an audience of college students in the Chinese capital on Saturday that open access to information – especially online – is a universal right.
In 2015, Two sets of parents of children attending a Tennessee virtual district public school have filed a lawsuit to keep the school open. State officials want to shut it down after the school year. As reported, parents at Tennessee’s Virtual Academy said test scores are gradually improving, and closing the school now is premature. Specifically, the parents are suing Candice McQueen, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education. Hendersonville resident Regina Taylor, one of the parents who filed the lawsuit, said one of her children has cerebral palsy; the other has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Read more.