March 26
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Featured Event
Digital image courtesy of the University of California, Los Angeles/University of California, Los Angeles via the Hathi Trust Digital Library. Published in Burke and Hare, 1921, edited by William Roughead, Edinburgh and London, William Hodge and Company, Ltd. (HathiTrust Catalog #007697122)
Britain enacts the Murder Act
On this day in 1752, Great Britain enacted the Murder Act, a law that imposed harsh punishments for those convicted of murder—such as allowing murderers’ bodies to be dissected postmortem. Lawmakers hoped that this would help meet surgeons’ need for cadavers, as body snatching, sometimes orchestrated by murderers-for-profit, was the illicit practice often used to acquire corpses. However, the act was ultimately unsuccessful, and the 1832 Anatomy Act repealed most of the main clauses in the Murder Act.[Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Richard Garner/Shutterstock.com
Born this day in 1940, Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, became one of the most powerful—and polarizing—politicians in the U.S., serving as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives (2007–11; 2019–23).
Famous Birthdays
More on March 26
PhotoQuest—Archive Photos/Getty Images
2011
American Democratic politician Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first woman to be nominated (1984) for vice president by a major political party in the United States, died at age 75. [Take our quiz about women in U.S. politics.]
BBC
2005
Sixteen years after being canceled, the BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who returned to television with a new episode, with Christopher Eccleston appearing in the title role. [Sort fact from fiction in our pop culture quiz.]
© ID1974/Shutterstock.com
2000
Vladimir Putin was elected president of Russia for the first time. [Test your knowledge of Russian history.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1997
Police discovered the bodies of 39 members of Heaven’s Gate, an American religious group founded on a belief in unidentified flying objects; they had died by suicide in the belief that a spaceship was arriving to take them to a better place.
© Timothy A. Clary—AFP/Getty Images
1992
Heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison following a rape conviction in Indianapolis, Indiana. [How much do you know about boxing?]
Bettmann/Getty Images
1979
The historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, agreed to by Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat and based on the Camp David Accords mediated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter in September 1978, was signed.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1971
Members of the Awami League set up a government-in-exile in what is today Kolkata and declared Bangladesh an independent state. [Test your knowledge of Asia.]
© Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
1944
American pop singer and actress Diana Ross—who achieved international stardom, first as leader of the vocal group the Supremes and later as a solo artist—was born. [Take our quiz about singers, musicians, and composers.]
© Laurence Agron/Dreamstime.com
1941
British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who maintained that genes are the driving force of evolution and advocated atheism, was born in Nairobi, Kenya.
Collection, The Supreme Court of the United States, courtesy of the Supreme Court Historical Society
1930
Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice, was born in El Paso, Texas. [Test your knowledge of some famous firsts for women.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1927
The Mille Miglia, the famed automobile race across Italy, was inaugurated. [How much do you know about auto racing?]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1911
American dramatist Tennessee Williams, whose plays reveal a world of human frustration in which sex and violence underlie an atmosphere of romantic gentility, was born in Columbus, Mississippi. [Take our history of theatre quiz.]
Library and Archives Canada (ID no. 3228116)
1885
The first clash of the North-West Rebellion, led by Louis Riel, took place in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. [Test your knowledge of Canada.]
Ruohomaa/Black Star
1874
American poet Robert Frost, much admired for his depictions of rural New England life and his realistic verse portraying ordinary people, was born in San Francisco. [Sort fact from fiction in our poetry quiz.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (file no. LC-DIG-pga-02397)
1827
German composer Ludwig van Beethoven died of cirrhosis of the liver at age 56. [How much do you know about classical composers?]
© North Wind Picture Archives
1812
In opposition to the redrawing of districts to favour incumbents in an upcoming election, the Boston Gazette published a satiric cartoon that graphically transformed the districts into a fabulous animal, “The Gerry-mander”; the term gerrymander thus entered the American lexicon. [Take our history of American politics quiz.]