On March 18, 1911, composer Irving Berlin copyrights “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” the multimillion-selling smash hit that helped turn American popular music into a major international phenomenon, both culturally and economically. A century ago, even before the phonograph had become a common household item, there was already a burgeoning music industry in the United States based […]

On this day in 1933, American automaker Studebaker, then heavily in debt, goes into receivership. The company’s president, Albert Erskine, resigned and later that year died by suicide. Studebaker eventually rebounded from its financial troubles, only to shut down the assembly line and transition out of the automobile business in 1966. The origins of the […]

On March 18, the War Relocation Authority is created to “Take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war.” Anger toward and fear of Japanese Americans began in Hawaii shortly after the bombing of […]

U.S. B-52 bombers are diverted from their targets in South Vietnam to attack suspected communist base camps and supply areas in Cambodia for the first time in the Vietnam war. While meant to shut down reinforcements for enemy Viet Cong, the bombs terrorize innocent civilians in a country that was still officially neutral in the […]