March 10
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Featured Event
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Temporary planetary alignment occurs
On this day in 1982, people braced for the world to end as a result of all nine (now eight) planets of the solar system aligning on one side of the Sun. The panic had come about thanks to the 1974 book The Jupiter Effect, written by scientists John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann. They had predicted global disasters such as tidal waves, catastrophic storms, and earthquakes as a result of the alignment. (Syzygy is the name given to any alignment of three or more celestial bodies in a row, and it is a fairly common occurrence.) Despite the doomsday predictions, the world continued to turn, though some people did throw end-of-the-world parties. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Norm Betts—Canada Wide/Sygma
Progressive Conservative Kim Campbell, who became Canada’s first woman prime minister and its first leader from the West Coast when she succeeded Brian Mulroney in 1993, was born this day in 1947 in British Columbia.
Famous Birthdays
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© Frederic Legrand - COMEO/Shutterstock.com
2017
South Korean politician Park Geun-Hye’s presidency ended when the country’s Constitutional Court upheld her impeachment. She became South Korea’s first democratically elected president to be removed from office. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Korea.]
JPL-Caltech/NASA
2006
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter entered Mars orbit and began searching for signs of water on the planet. [Test your knowledge of Mars.]
Courtesy, WB Television Network/Warner Bros.
1997
The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered. Created by Joss Whedon, the show, which emphasized feminist themes, centered on Buffy Summers, who battles vampires, demons, and other assorted supernatural forces of evil. [Take our quiz about famous vampires.]
FBI
1969
James Earl Ray pled guilty to murdering American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. [Read more the assassination of the civil rights leader]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1949
American citizen Mildred Gillars, who earned the nickname “Axis Sally” as a radio propagandist for the Nazi government during World War II, was convicted of treason; she served 12 years in prison. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about World War II.]
© Lydia Chagoll/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; www.ushmm.org
1933
Five weeks after Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Nazi Germany, the country’s first concentration camp opened at Dachau. At least 32,000 people died there between 1933 and 1945.
© Razvan Nitoi/Dreamstime.com
1913
In Toledo, Ohio, William Knox became the first bowler to make a perfect score of 300 in an American Bowling Congress tournament. [Take our quiz about fun sports facts.]
Camera Press/Globe Photos
1903
Clare Boothe Luce—who was noted for her satiric sense of humor, which she displayed in witty quips such as “No good deed goes unpunished”—was born. [Test your knowledge of literary devices.]
© JP Jazz Archive—Redferns/Getty Images
1903
Jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, an outstanding improviser whose style is characterized by lyricism and purity of tone, was born in Davenport, Iowa. [Take our music quiz.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1876
Alexander Graham Bell’s “liquid” transmitter design permitted the first transmission of speech by Bell to his assistant, Thomas Watson. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about inventions and inventors.]
Civil War glass negative collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: LC-DIG-cwpb-06291)
1864
The Red River Campaign began in the American Civil War, and it lasted for several months before Confederate troops under General Richard Taylor defeated the Union forces. [How much do you know about the American Civil War?]
J.E. Bulloz
1793
In Paris, on the proposal of Georges Danton, the National Convention decreed the establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about France.]