Events

• 1573 – A peace treaty is signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice, ending the Ottoman-Venetian War and leaving Cyprus in Ottoman hands.
• 1799 – French Revolution: Napoleon Bonaparte captures Jaffa in Palestine and his troops proceed to kill more than 2,000 Albanian captives.
• 1814 – Napoleonic Wars: Emperor Napoleon I of France wins the Battle of Craonne.
• 1827 – Brazilian marines unsuccessfully attack the temporary naval base of Carmen de Patagones, Argentina.
• 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 engage Confederate troops at the Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas.
• 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention he calls the “telephone”.
• 1902 – Second Boer War: Boers, led by Koos de la Rey, inflict the biggest defeat upon the British since the beginning of the war, at Tweebosch.
• 1936 – Prelude to World War II: In violation of the Locarno Pact and the Treaty of Versailles, Germany reoccupies the Rhineland.
• 1941 – Günther Prien and the crew of German submarine U-47, one of the most successful U-boats of World War II, disappear without a trace.
• 1945 – World War II: American troops seize the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine river at Remagen.
• 1951 – Korean War: Operation Ripper: United Nations troops led by General Matthew Ridgway begin an assault against Chinese forces.
• 1967 – The Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat Sementara (MPRS), Indonesia’s provisional parliament, revoked Sukarno’s mandate as President of Indonesia.
• 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, political leader of then East Pakistan (present day-Bangladesh), delivers his historic 7th March speech in the Racecourse Field (Now Suhrawardy Udyan) in Dhaka.
• 1986 – Challenger Disaster: Divers from the USS Preserver locate the crew cabin of Challenger on the ocean floor.
• 1987 – Lieyu massacre: Taiwanese military massacre of 19 unarmed Vietnamese refugees at Donggang, Lieyu, Kinmen.
• 2009 – The Real Irish Republican Army kills two British soldiers and injures two other soldiers and two civilians at Massereene Barracks, the first British military deaths in Northern Ireland since the end of The Troubles.
• Liberation of Sulaymaniyah (Iraqi Kurdistan).

People (Births)

• 1715 – Ewald Christian von Kleist, German soldier and poet (d. 1759).
• 1730 – Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, French soldier and politician, Prime Minister of France (d. 1807).
• 1765 – Nicéphore Niépce, French inventor, invented photography (d. 1833).
• 1885 – John Tovey, 1st Baron Tovey, English admiral (d. 1971).
• 1904 – Reinhard Heydrich, German SS officer (d. 1942).
• 1913 – Dollard Ménard, Canadian general (d. 1997).
• 1915 – Jacques Chaban-Delmas, French general and politician, Prime Minister of France (d. 2000).
• 1925 – Rene Gagnon, American soldier (d. 1979).
• 1944 – Ranulph Fiennes, English soldier and explorer.
• 1945 – Elizabeth Moon, American lieutenant (USMC) and author.
• 1960 – Jim Spivey, American runner and coach.
• 1985 – Cameron Prosser, Australian swimmer.
• 1994 – Chase Kalisz, American swimmer.

People (Deaths)

• 413 – Heraclianus, Roman politician and failed usurper.
• 1226 – William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, English commander (b. 1176).
• 1809 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard, French inventor, best known as a pioneer in balloon flight (b. 1753).
• 1810 – Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood, English admiral (b. 1750).
• 1838 – Robert Townsend, American spy (part of the Culper Ring during the American War of Independence) (b. 1753).
• 1986 – Jacob K. Javits, American colonel and politician, 58th New York State Attorney General (b. 1904).
• 2016 – Leonard Berney, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp liberator (b. 1920).