By: HISTORY.com Editors

1965

First anti-war teach-in conducted

Published: November 16, 2009Last Updated: May 27, 2025

The first “teach-in” is conducted at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor; two hundred faculty members participate by holding special anti-war seminars. Regular classes were canceled, and rallies and speeches dominated for 12 hours. On March 26, a similar teach-in took place at Columbia University in New York City; this form of protest eventually spread to many colleges and universities.

How the Vietnam War Empowered the Hippie Movement

The hippie counterculture reached its height during the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and subsided as the conflict drew to a close.

By: Sarah Pruitt

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 24th

1603

Queen Elizabeth I dies

After 44 years of rule, Queen Elizabeth I of England dies, and King James VI of Scotland ascends to the throne, uniting England and Scotland under a single British monarch. The daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne in 1558 upon the death of her half-sister Queen Mary. The […]

1:58m read

1862

Abolitionist Wendell Phillips booed in Cincinnati

On March 24, 1862, abolitionist orator Wendell Phillips is booed while attempting to give a lecture in Cincinnati, Ohio. The angry crowd was opposed to fighting for the freedom of enslaved people, as Phillips advocated. He was pelted with rocks and eggs before friends whisked him away when a small riot broke out. Phillips was […]

1:46m read

1918

German forces cross the Somme River

On March 24, 1918, German forces cross the Somme River, achieving their first goal of the major spring offensive begun three days earlier on the Western Front. Operation Michael, engineered by the German chief of the general staff, Erich von Ludendorff, aimed to decisively break through the Allied lines on the Western Front and destroy […]

1944

British Army officer Orde Wingate killed in plane crash

Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate, leader of the 77th Indian Brigade, also called the Chindits, dies in a transport plane crash. He was 41 years old. Wingate, a graduate of the Royal Military Academy, was a famous eccentric who both quoted the Bible and advocated irregular warfare tactics. His career as a guerrilla fighter began as […]

2:00m read

1944

Germans slaughter Italian civilians

German occupiers shoot more than 300 Italian civilians as a reprisal for an Italian partisan attack on an SS unit. Since the Italian surrender in the summer of 1943, German troops had occupied wider swaths of the peninsula to prevent the Allies from using Italy as a base of operations against German strongholds elsewhere, such […]

1:24m read

1946

Soviets announce withdrawal from Iran

In conclusion to an extremely tense situation of the early Cold War, the Soviet Union announces that its troops in Iran will be withdrawn within six weeks. The Iranian crisis was one of the first tests of power between the United States and the Soviet Union in the postwar world. The Iranian crisis began during […]

2:34m read

1955

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” opens

Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens in New York, two days before his 44th birthday. The play would win Williams his second Pulitzer Prize. Williams had been an award-winning playwright since 1945, when his first hit play, The Glass Menagerie, opened, winning the Drama Critics Circle Award. Two years later, he […]

1:36m read

1958

Elvis Presley is inducted into the U.S. Army

On March 24, 1958, Elvis Presley is inducted into the U.S. Army, starting his day as the King of Rock and Roll, but ending it as a lowly buck private in the United States Army. When Elvis Presley turned 18 on January 8, 1953, he fulfilled his patriotic duty and legal obligation to register his […]

2:34m read

1972

Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” opens

On March 24, 1972, The Godfather—a three-hour epic chronicling the lives of the Corleones, an Italian-American crime family led by the powerful Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)—is released in theaters nationwide. The Godfather was adapted from the best-selling book of the same name by Mario Puzo, a novelist who grew up in New York City’s Hell’s […]

2:28m read

1987

ACT UP holds its first action on Wall Street

On March 24, 1987, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) holds its first-ever demonstration on Wall Street—the world’s financial center—targeting pharmaceutical companies that were profiting off the AIDS pandemic. At the busy intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in New York City, 250 protestors disrupted morning rush hour traffic. Demonstrators laid in the […]

1:12m read

1989

Exxon Valdez crashes, causing one of the worst oil spills in history

The supertanker Exxon Valdez, owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, runs aground on a reef in Prince William Sound in Alaska and spills an estimated 11 million gallons of oil into the water.

1:22m read

1998

A school shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas, kills five

Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shoot their classmates and teachers in Jonesboro, Arkansas on March 24, 1998. Golden, the younger of the two boys, asked to be excused from his class, pulled a fire alarm and then ran to join Johnson in a wooded area 100 yards away from the school’s gym. As the […]

1:18m read

1999

NATO bombs Yugoslavia

On March 24, 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commences air strikes against Yugoslavia with the bombing of Serbian military positions in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. The NATO offensive came in response to a new wave of ethnic cleansing launched by Serbian forces against the Kosovar Albanians on March 20. The Kosovo region […]

2002

Halle Berry becomes first Black woman to win Best Actress Oscar

On March 24, 2002, Halle Berry becomes the first Black woman to win the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a struggling widow who falls in love with her husband’s death row executioner in Monster’s Ball. As an emotional Berry clutched her Oscar, she tearfully called the moment “so much bigger than me” and […]

2:58m read

2015

Germanwings pilot intentionally crashes plane, killing 150 people

On March 24, 2015, the co-pilot of a German airliner deliberately flies the plane into the French Alps, killing himself and the other 149 people onboard. When it crashed, Germanwings flight 9525 had been traveling from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany. The plane took off from Barcelona around 10 a.m. local time and reached its […]

2:28m read

Vietnam War

41 videos

Vietnam War

Behind the Image: Fall of Saigon Helicopter Evacuation

The dramatic rooftop photo was long mistakenly misidentified.

Vietnam War

Fall of Saigon: What Led to the Final, Chaotic Moments

The conflict in Vietnam ended in turmoil with the largest helicopter evacuation of its kind in history.

Vietnam War

Why the Battle for Hamburger Hill Was So Controversial

After 10 days of bruising battle, U.S. forces took the hill, only to abandon it days later. Sniper fire was so intense, one soldier called it 'a human meat grinder.'

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