597 BC – Babylonians capture Jerusalem, and replace Jeconiah with Zedekiah as king.
1621 – Samoset, a Mohegan, visited the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, “Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset.”
1792 – King Gustav III of Sweden is shot; he dies on March 29.
1815 – Prince Willem proclaims himself King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first constitutional monarch in the Netherlands.
1865 – American Civil War: The Battle of Averasborough began as Confederate forces suffer irreplaceable casualties in the final months of the war.
1900 – Sir Arthur Evans purchased the land around the ruins of Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete.
1916 – The 7th and 10th US cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the US-Mexico border to join the hunt for Pancho Villa.
1935 – Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.
1936 – Warmer-than-normal temperatures rapidly melt snow and ice on the upper Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, leading to a major flood in Pittsburgh.
1939 – From Prague Castle, Hitler proclaims Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.
1945 – Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers, resulting in around 5,000 deaths.
1958 – The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company’s founding.
1962 – A Flying Tiger Line Super Constellation disappears in the western Pacific Ocean, with all 107 aboard missing and presumed dead.
1966 – Launch of Gemini 8, the 12th manned American space flight and first space docking with the Agena target vehicle.
1968 – Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre occurs; between 347 and 500 Vietnamese villagers are killed by American troops.
1968 – General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.
1976 – British PM Harold Wilson resigns, citing personal reasons.
1978 – Former Italian PM Aldo Moro is kidnapped. (He is later murdered by his captors.)
1984 – William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists. (He later dies in captivity.)
1988 – Iran-Contra affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
1989 – In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found near the Pyramid of Cheops.
1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.
Births
1751 – James Madison, American academic and politician, 4th President of the United States (d. 1836)
1799 – Anna Atkins, English botanist and photographer (d. 1871)
1856 – Napoléon, Prince Imperial of France (d. 1879)
1903 – Mike Mansfield, 22nd United States Ambassador to Japan (d. 2001)
1926 – Jerry Lewis, American actor and comedian
1927 – Daniel Patrick Moynihan, American sociologist and politician, 12th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (d. 2003)
1930 – Tommy Flanagan, American pianist and composer (d. 2001)
1933 – Sanford I. Weill, Banker, financier, and philanthropist
1940 – Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian director and screenwriter.His films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky, Stealing Beauty and The Dreamers
Deaths
AD 37 – Tiberius, Roman emperor (b. 42 BC)
1485 – Anne Neville, queen of Richard III of England (b. 1456)
1738 – George Bähr, German architect, designed the Dresden Frauenkirche (b. 1666)
1898 – Aubrey Beardsley, English author and illustrator (b. 1872)
1957 – Constantin Brâncuși, Romanian-French sculptor, painter, and photographer was born in 1876.
He was one of the pioneers of modernism in the the 20th-century.
1971 – Thomas E. Dewey, 47th Governor of New York (b. 1902)
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com Wikipedia and other internet searches