First modern Olympics is held
On April 6, 1896, the first modern Olympic Games are held in Athens, Greece, with athletes from 14 countries participating. The International Olympic Committee met for the first time in Paris in June 1984 and […]
This Day In History
Pocahontas marries John Rolfe
Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indian confederacy, marries English tobacco planter John Rolfe in Jamestown, Virginia. The marriage ensured peace between the Jamestown settlers and the Powhatan Indians for several years. In […]
Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated
Martin Luther King Jr. is shot to death at a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. A single shot fired by James Earl Ray from over 200 feet away at a nearby motel struck King in the […]
Texas Ranger “Big Foot” Wallace born
The legendary Texas Ranger and frontiersman “Big Foot” Wallace is born in Lexington, Kentucky.In 1836, 19-year-old William Alexander Anderson Wallace received news that one of his brothers had been killed in the Battle of Goliad, […]
Hans Christian Andersen is born
Hans Christian Andersen, one of the world’s greatest storytellers, is born in Odensk, near Copenhagen.During Andersen’s boyhood, his father died, and the child went to work in a factory briefly. However, he showed great talent […]
Marvin Gaye is shot and killed by his own father
At the peak of his career, Marvin Gaye was the Prince of Motown—the soulful voice behind hits as wide-ranging as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).” […]
Eiffel Tower opens
On March 31, 1889, the Eiffel Tower is dedicated in Paris in a ceremony presided over by Gustave Eiffel, the tower’s designer, and attended by French Prime Minister Pierre Tirard, a handful of other dignitaries, […]
President Reagan shot
On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by a deranged drifter named John Hinckley Jr. The president had just finished addressing a labor meeting at […]
U.S. withdraws from Vietnam
Two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam as Hanoi frees the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America’s direct eight-year intervention […]
W.C. Handy—the “Father of the Blues”—dies
“With all their differences, my forebears had one thing in common: if they had any musical talent, it remained buried.” So wrote William Christopher Handy in his autobiography in discussing the absence of music in […]