Mary Mallon—better known to history as Typhoid Mary—was placed into quarantine for the second and final time. She would remain isolated for the rest of her life, becoming an infamous figure and a lasting symbol of asymptomatic disease transmission in the United States. An…
Read MoreOn March 26, 1830, a little-known print shop in Palmyra, New York, released what would become one of the most influential—and controversial—religious texts in American history: The Book of Mormon. Purporting to be a translation of ancient records inscribed on golden plates by prophets…
Read MoreOn March 25, 1957, U.S. Customs officials confiscated over 500 copies of Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg as they arrived in San Francisco from a British printer. What began as a government seizure quickly became one of American literary history’s most important…
Read MoreIn the final months of World War II in Europe—when Nazi forces, though weakening, still held dangerous power—March 24, 1944, marked a bold act of resistance. On that night, seventy-six Allied prisoners escaped from Stalag Luft III, a German-run prisoner-of-war camp in Sagan, Lower…
Read MoreOn March 23, 1933, the German Reichstag passed the Enabling Act (Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich), granting Adolf Hitler the authority to enact laws without parliamentary approval. Voted into law under immense political pressure and threats of violence, this moment…
Read MoreOn March 22, 1312, Pope Clement V issued the papal bull Vox in excelso, officially dissolving the Order of the Knights Templar, a once-powerful religious-military institution that had long held significant sway across medieval Christendom. This decree marked the end of a calculated campaign…
Read MoreIn 1804, legal history took a transformative turn with the adoption of the Napoleonic Code on March 21. Officially known as the Code civil des Français, this legal framework had a profound impact not only on France but also on the development of modern…
Read MoreThe Republican Party of the United States was officially founded on March 20, 1854, in Ripon, Wisconsin, as a direct response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act—a divisive law that threatened to extend slavery into new territories. The party’s formation reflected the increasing sectional tensions of…
Read MoreThe first recorded bank heist in U.S. history took place in 1831 when burglars infiltrated the City Bank of New York (now Citibank) on Wall Street, escaping with an astounding $245,000—an enormous sum in early 19th-century America. This audacious crime, carried out in the…
Read MoreOn March 18, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii Admission Act into law, paving the way for Hawaii to become the 50th state of the United States later that year. This landmark legislation was the culmination of decades of political struggle, economic…
Read More