Saturday, March 5, 2011

This Week in US History

Print
March 6

1836   A Mexican army overwhelms the defenders of the Alamo.

A man in buckskin clothes holds a rifle over his head. He is surrounded by dead soldiers.

1896   Charles King tests his "horseless carriage" in Detroit, becoming the first person to drive a car in Motor City.

March 7

1876   Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for the telephone.

1965   Police attack peaceful civil rights demonstrators trying to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Alabama state troopers attack civil-rights demonstrators outside Selma, Alabama, on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965.

File:Bloody Sunday-officers await demonstrators.jpeg
Police wait for marchers to come across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965.

File:SelmaHeschelMarch.jpg
The 3rd Selma Civil Rights March. From far left: John Lewis, an unidentified nun; Ralph Abernathy; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Ralph Bunche; Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel; Frederick Douglas Reese. Second row: Between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Bunche is Rabbi Maurice Davis. Heschel later wrote, "When I marched in Selma, my feet were praying."


March 8

1817   The New York Stock Exchange is formally chartered.

1983   In a speech in Florida, President Ronald Reagan refers to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," signaling that he is determined to stand fast against Communist totalitarianism.  Click HERE to watch this speech via YouTube.

March 9

1862   The first battle between two ironclad ships, the Union Monitor and the Confederate Virginia (formerly the Merrimack), takes place at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

1945   U.S. bombers drop incendiary bombs on Tokyo, engulfing much of the city in a firestorm.

March 10

1785   Thomas Jefferson is appointed minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.

1864   Abraham Lincoln promotes Ulysses S. Grant to commander of all the Union armies.

March 11

1888   One of the worst blizzards in U.S. history hits the Northeast, killing some 400 people.

2002   Two columns of light beam skyward from ground zero in New York City in tribute to, victims of the September 11, 2011, attacks.


March 12

1912   Juliette Gordon Low founds the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. in Savannah, Georgia.

Center: Juliette Gordon Low

1933   In the first of his radio "fireside chats," President Franklin Delano Roosevelt urges Depression-weary Americans to have faith in U.S. banks.  Click HERE to access an audio of the radio broadcast.

Blessings,
Ellen

0 thoughts shared:

Post a Comment

Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts with me! I look forward to getting to know you better.

If you do not wish to sign-in, please email me your comments and I will post them. Due to too many spam comments, I have chosen to close the comments to anonymous users. Thank you for understanding. ~ Ellen

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...