This Week In History (March 1, 2024-March 7)

March 1, 1781 – Formal ratification of the Articles of Confederation was announced by Congress. Under the Articles, Congress was the sole governing body of the new American national government, consisting of the 13 original states. The Articles remained in effect through the Revolutionary War until 1789, when the current U.S. Constitution was adopted.

March 1, 1904 – “America’s No. 1 Bandleader,” Glenn Miller, was born in Carilinda, IA. His name became synonymous with the “big band era” of the 1930s and 1940s, and his music became identified as the soundtrack of the World War II era through recordings such as Moonlight Serenade, String of Pearls, Chattanooga Choo Choo, Kalamazoo, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, and Pennsylvania Six-Five Thousand. During World War II, he traded in his commercial success for a military uniform to entertain US troops. On December 15, 1944, his plane disappeared over the English Channel while en route to Paris where he was scheduled to perform. Since that fateful day, Glenn Miller’s disappearance has remained a mystery.

March 1, 1936 – Boulder (Hoover) Dam is fully completed.

March 2, 1793 – Sam Houston was born in Rockbridge County, VA. As a teenager he ran away and joined the Cherokee Indians who accepted him as a member of their tribe. He later served as a Congressman and Governor of Tennessee. In 1832, he became commander of the Texan army in the War for Texan Independence, defeating the larger Mexican army in 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto. He then served as Senator and Governor of the new state of Texas but was removed in 1861 after refusing to swear allegiance to the Confederacy.

March 2, 1938 – Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, a founder of Germany’s “Confessing Church,” is sentenced to seven years in prisons and concentration camps for opposing Hitler. “First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist,” he famously said. “Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”

March 3, 1849 – Minnesota Territory is signed into existence by President James K. Polk. The territory has a population of about 10,000 Native people and 5,000 white settler colonists and includes present-day North and South Dakota east of the Missouri River.

March 3, 1855 – St. Louis County, Minnesota’s largest (6,611 square miles), is established, named for the St. Louis River.

March 3, 1990 – A team led by Will Steger of Ely, MN completes the 3,800-mile International Trans-Antarctica Expedition, the first dog-sled traverse of the continent by its widest distance.

March 4, 51 – Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, and of whom Tacitus said engaged in “every filthy, depraved act, licit or illicit”—including pedophilia—is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth).

March 4, 1747 – Revolutionary war hero Casimir Pulaski was born in Poland. Before aiding in the American Revolution, he was a military leader in Poland’s struggle against Imperial Russia. He joined the Americans in 1777 and fought alongside General Washington at Brandywine, served at Germantown and Valley Forge, and was mortally wounded during a heroic charge in the Siege of Savannah, GA.

March 4, 1830 – Former President John Quincy Adams returned to Congress as a representative from Massachusetts. He was the first ex-president ever to return to the House and served eight consecutive terms.

March 4, 1888 – American football legend Knute Rockne was born in Voss, Norway. He coached the Notre Dame Football team for 13 seasons, amassing an overall record of 105 wins, 12 losses and 5 ties. He became famous for his locker room pep talks and the saying, “Win one for the Gipper.”

March 4, 1892 – In Tower MN, Father Joseph F. Buh publishes Issue No. 11 of Amerikanski Slovenec (American Slovene), the first national newspaper for Slovenes in the U.S. The paper started in Chicago but had ceased publication after ten issues. Buh, who served St. Martin’s Catholic Church in Tower and St. Anthony parish at Ely, would supervise the paper’s publication until 1899.

March 5, 1770 – The Boston Massacre occurred as a group of rowdy Americans harassed British soldiers who then opened fire, killing five and injuring six.

March 5, 1868 – The U.S. Senate convened to hear charges against Democrat President Andrew Johnson during impeachment proceedings. The House of Representatives had already voted to impeach the President. The vote followed bitter opposition by Republicans in Congress to Johnson’s reconstruction policies in the South. However, the effort to remove him failed in the Senate by just one vote and he remained in office.

March 5, 1946 – The “Iron Curtain” speech was delivered by Winston Churchill at Westminster College in Fulton, MO. Churchill used the term to describe the boundary in Europe between free countries of the West and socialist-communist nations of Eastern Europe under Soviet Russia’s shady iron-fisted control.

March 5, 2017 – The first report was finally issued of former Democrat President Barack Obama’s illegal wiretapping of Trump Towers in 2016.

March 6, 1475 – Renaissance genius Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in Caprese, Italy. He was a painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and visionary best known for his fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and his sculptures David and The Pieta.

March 6, 1836 – Fort Alamo fell to 3,000 Mexican troops led by General Santa Anna. The Mexicans had begun the siege of the Texas fort on February 23rd, ending it with the killing of the last of 257 defenders, including William Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett. “Remember the Alamo” became a rallying cry for Texans who went on to defeat Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto in April.

March 6, 1899 – Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is patented by Felix Hoffmann at German company, Bayer.

March 7, 203 – Perpetua, a Christian about 22 years old, her slave, Felicitas, and several others are martyred at the arena in Carthage. They were flogged, attacked by hungry leopards, and finally beheaded. Perpetua remains one of early Christianity’s most famous martyrs.

March 7, 1274 – Thomas Aquinas, one of the most significant theologians of all time, dies at age 48. Known for his adaptation of Aristotle’s writings to Christianity, he became famous for his massive Summa Theologiae (or “summation of theological knowledge”). Thomas proceeded to distinguish between philosophy and theology and between reason and revelation.

March 7, 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for the telephone.

March 7, 1939 – Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians first record “Auld Lang Syne.”