March 7 - Events

Events

• 161 – Emperor Antoninus Pius dies and is succeeded by his adoptive sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
• 238 – Roman subjects in Africa revolt against Maximinus Thrax and elect Gordian I as emperor.
• 321 – Emperor Constantine I decrees that the dies Solis Invicti (sun-day) is the day of rest in the Empire.
• 1277 – Stephen Tempier, bishop of Paris, condemns 219 philosophical and theological theses.
• 1799 – Napoleon Bonaparte captures Jaffa during the Siege of Jaffa in Palestine and his troops proceed to kill more than 2,000 Albanian captives.
• 1814 – Emperor Napoleon I of France wins the Battle of Craonne.
• 1827 – Brazil marines unsuccessfully attack the temporary naval base of Carmen de Patagones, Argentina.
• 1827 – Shrigley Abduction: Ellen Turner is abducted by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a future politician in colonial New Zealand.
• 1850 – Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech endorsing the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces defeat Confederate troops at Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas.
• 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention he calls the telephone.
• 1886 – The City of Lábrea in Amazonas, Brazil is founded. Today, the town is the seat of the Territorial Prelature of Lábrea.
• 1900 – The German liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse becomes the first ship to send wireless signals to shore.
• 1902 – Second Boer War: In the Battle of Tweebosch, a Boer commando led by Koos de la Rey inflicts the biggest defeat upon the British since the beginning of the war
• 1912 – Roald Amundsen announces that his expedition had reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911.
• 1914 – Prince William of Wied arrives in Albania to begin his reign.
• 1936 – World War II (Prelude to): In violation of the Locarno Pact and the Treaty of Versailles, Germany reoccupies the Rhineland.
• 1945 – World War II: American troops seize the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen.
• 1950 – Cold War: The Soviet Union issues a statement denying that Klaus Fuchs served as a Soviet spy.
• 1951 – Korean War: Operation Ripper – United Nations troops led by General Matthew Ridgeway begin an assault against Chinese forces.
• 1965 – Bloody Sunday: A group of 600 civil rights marchers are forcefully broken up in Selma, Alabama.
• 1968 – Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnamese military begin Operation Truong Cong Dinh to root out Viet Cong forces from the area surrounding Mỹ Tho.
• 1971 – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman delivered his historic speech at Suhrawardy Udyan
• 1985 – The song "We Are the World" has its international release.
• 1986 – Challenger Disaster: Divers from the USS Preserver locate the crew cabin of Challenger on the ocean floor.
• 1989 – Iran and the United Kingdom break diplomatic relations after a row over Salman Rushdie and his controversial novel.
• 1994 – Copyright Law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use.
• 2006 – The terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba coordinates a series of bombings in Varanasi, India.
• 2007 – The British House of Commons votes to make the upper chamber, the House of Lords, 100% elected.
• 2009 – The Real Irish Republican Army kills two British soldiers and two civilians, the first British military deaths in Northern Ireland since The Troubles.
• 2009 – The Kepler space observatory, designed to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, is launched.