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Lindbergh baby kidnapped

Born on This Day

Harry Belafonte

1927 - 2023

Singer, actor and civil-rights activist dubbed the "King of Calypso" for hits like "Day-O."

Frederic Chopin

1810 - 1849

Polish-French composer of the Romantic era best known for his virtuoso piano work.

Lupita Nyong'o

1983 -

Oscar-winning Kenyan-Mexican actress best known for "12 Years a Slave" and the horror hit "Us."

Harry BelafonteGetty Images

Frederic ChopinDe Agostini via Getty Images

Lupita Nyong'oSamir Hussein/WireImage

1973

MAR1

Pink Floyd releases their album "Dark Side of the Moon"—a reference to madness, not the lunar surface—and it stays on the Billboard 200 chart for a record 937 weeks. Proceeds from the album helped fund the film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on March 1st

Salem Witch Hunt begins

In Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne and Tituba, an enslaved woman from the Barbados, are charged with the illegal practice of witchcraft. Later that day, Tituba, possibly under coercion, confessed to the crime, encouraging the authorities to seek out more Salem witches. Thus began the hysteria known as the […]

The Articles of Confederation are ratified after nearly four years

On March 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation are finally ratified. Congress had signed the Articles and sent them to individual states for ratification on November 15, 1777, after 16 months of debate. Bickering over land claims between Virginia and Maryland delayed final ratification for almost four more years. Maryland finally approved the Articles on […]

Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes first Black woman to earn a medical degree

On March 1, 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes the first African American woman to earn a medical degree. For much of her career she practiced community medicine in Boston, but in the aftermath of the Civil War she traveled south to treat thousands of formerly enslaved refugees. Crumpler wrote one of the first medical manuals […]

Yellowstone, America’s first national park, established

President Grant signs the bill creating the nation’s first national park at Yellowstone on March 1, 1872. Native Americans had lived and hunted in the region that would become Yellowstone for hundreds of years before the first Anglo explorers arrived. Abundant game and mountain streams teeming with fish attracted the Indians to the region, though […]

Two trains buried by massive avalanche

Two trains are swept into a canyon by an avalanche in Wellington, Washington, on March 1, 1910, killing 96 people. Due to the remote location of the disaster and the risk of further avalanches, efforts to rescue survivors and find the bodies of the dead were not completed until several days later. The Great Northern […]

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Zimmermann Telegram published in United States

On March 1, 1917, the text of the so-called Zimmermann Telegram—a message from the German foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German ambassador to Mexico proposing a Mexican-German alliance in the case of war between the United States and Germany—is published on the front pages of newspapers across America. In the telegram, intercepted and deciphered […]

President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps

On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order #10924, establishing the Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of State. The same day, he sent a message to Congress asking for permanent funding for the agency, which would send trained American men and women to foreign nations to assist in […]

Soviet probe crashes into Venus

Venera 3, a Soviet probe launched from Kazakhstan on November 15, 1965, collides with Venus, the second planet from the sun. Although Venera 3 failed in its mission to measure the Venusian atmosphere, it was the first unmanned spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet. Four years earlier, the U.S. probe Mariner 2 was […]

Thousands of Chicano students stage school walkouts in East L.A.

Thousands of Mexican American students walk out of schools in East Los Angeles to protest unequal conditions. Their action amplifies a growing movement for Chicano civil rights. When some 22,000 students across seven schools in East L.A walked out of their classrooms over the first week of March, 1968, they sought to spotlight discrimination and […]

New York Yankees star Mickey Mantle retires

On March 1, 1969, New York Yankees center fielder Mickey Mantle announces his retirement from baseball. Mantle was an idol to millions, known for his remarkable power and speed and his everyman personality. While “The Mick” patrolled center field and batted clean-up between 1951 and 1968, the Yankees won 12 American League pennants and seven […]

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War protesters set off bomb in U.S. Capitol building

A bomb explodes in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., causing an estimated $300,000 in damage but hurting no one. A group calling itself the Weather Underground claimed credit for the bombing, which was done in protest of the ongoing U.S.-supported Laos invasion. The so-called Weathermen were a radical faction of the Students for a […]

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