On This Day: March 19

This is the 78th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: United Nations

Deep in the heart of New York City in the US lies 18 acres of foreign land. The United Nations headquarters on Manhattan Island is an "international territory" owned by the United Nations and beyond US jurisdiction.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Alcmund, St. Joseph, St. John of Panaca, and St. Landoald.

St. Joseph's Day, the day that swallows traditionally return to the Mission San Juan Capistrano in California. Every March 19th since 1776 (with very few exceptions), the birds have come back to usher in spring.

Iran: National Day of Oil.

Events

721 B.C.E. - The first-ever recorded solar eclipse was seen from Babylon.

1628 - The New England Company was formed in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1831 - The first bank robbery in America was reported, at The City Bank of New York City, which lost $245,000 in the heist.

1918 - U.S. Congress approved Standard Time Act, which established Daylight Saving Time.

1920 - The U.S. Senate rejected American involvement in the League of Nations.

1931 - Nevada legalized gambling in an attempt to lift the state out of the hard times of the Great Depression.

1953 - The Academy Awards ceremony was televised for the first time, with comedian Bob Hope serving as host.

1970 - "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" debuted on television.

1976 - Buckingham Palace announced the separation of Princess Margaret and her husband, the Earl of Snowdon, after 16 years of marriage.

1995 - After his first retirement from basketball (to try pro baseball for 17 months), Michael Jordan returned to play pro basketball.

2003 - A U.S.-led coalition initiated a war against Iraq, launching cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs aimed at Saddam Hussein near Baghdad.

Births

1589 - William Bradford, governor of Plymouth colony for 30 years.

1813 - David Livingstone, Scottish missionary, explorer, who opened Africa to missions.

1848 - Wyatt Earp, American frontiersman, lawman, gunfighter.

1860 - William Jennings Bryan, American orator, statesman (three-time presidential candidate).

1872 - Sergei Diaghilev, Russian ballet impresario.

1881 - Edith Nourse Rogers, created Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, reelected 17 times to U.S. House of Representatives (1925-1960).

1891 - Earl Warren, 14th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1953-69), governor of California.

1904 - John Joseph Sirica, American jurist, the "Watergate Judge."

1916 - Irving Wallace, American novelist and biographer.

Deaths

1687 - French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, murdered by his own men while searching for the mouth of the Mississippi.