On March 13, 2020, President Donald Trump stood in the Rose Garden and announced a step rarely taken in American history: the formal declaration of a national emergency in response to the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic. What had begun months earlier as a mysterious…
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On March 13, 1639, Harvard College—America’s first higher education institution—was officially named in honor of John Harvard, an English clergyman whose generous bequest helped secure its future. Though founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the institution lacked a formal name until Harvard’s…
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Following the attack on Poland in 1939, Nazi forces made Kraków the capital of the General Government, an occupied territory not initially annexed into the Third Reich. Soon after the invasion, persecution of the city’s Jewish residents began, marked by the compulsory wearing of…
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On March 12, 1912, in Savannah, Georgia, Juliette Gordon Low did something quietly revolutionary. She gathered a small group of girls—just eighteen in all—and introduced them to a radical idea for the early twentieth century: girls should learn leadership, self-reliance, and outdoor skills just…
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On March 12, 2009, Bernard L. Madoff, once a respected figure on Wall Street, pleaded guilty to orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history. His admission in a Manhattan courtroom marked the downfall of a financier who had previously served as chairman of Nasdaq…
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Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats were a series of radio broadcasts delivered by the 32nd President of the United States to the American people during the turbulent years of the Great Depression and World War II. FDR used this innovative form of communication to…
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On March 11, 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from the seceded Southern states adopted the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, a document that at once resembled and diverged from the United States Constitution it sought to replace. Written in the opening weeks…
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The Lend-Lease Act, enacted by the United States on March 11, 1941, marked a significant shift in the nation’s foreign policy leading up to its direct involvement in World War II. This landmark legislation was a pivotal step in providing military and economic assistance…
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On March 11, 1708, Queen Anne exercised her royal prerogative in what would become the final instance of a British monarch vetoing legislation. She withheld Royal Assent from the Scottish Militia Bill, marking a historic moment in the evolving balance of power between the…
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On March 10, 1661, the political landscape of France shifted in a way that would shape the course of European history for decades. With the death of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the powerful chief minister who had governed France during the minority of King Louis…
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