http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Mar 28, 1979: Nuclear accident at Three Mile Island
At 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, the worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island fails to close. Cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the core began to dangerously overheat.
The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was built in 1974 on a sandbar on Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River, just 10 miles downstream from the state capitol in Harrisburg. In 1978, a second state-of-the-art reactor began operating on Three Mile Island, which was lauded for generating affordable and reliable energy in a time of energy crises.
After the cooling water began to drain out of the broken pressure valve on the morning of March 28, 1979, emergency cooling pumps automatically went into operation. Left alone, these safety devices would have prevented the development of a larger crisis. However, human operators in the control room misread confusing and contradictory readings and shut off the emergency water system. The reactor was also shut down, but residual heat from the fission process was still being released. By early morning, the core had heated to over 4,000 degrees, just 1,000 degrees short of meltdown. In the meltdown scenario, the core melts, and deadly radiation drifts across the countryside, fatally sickening a potentially great number of people.
As the plant operators struggled to understand what had happened, the contaminated water was releasing radioactive gases throughout the plant. The radiation levels, though not immediately life-threatening, were dangerous, and the core cooked further as the contaminated water was contained and precautions were taken to protect the operators. Shortly after 8 a.m., word of the accident leaked to the outside world. The plant's parent company, Metropolitan Edison, downplayed the crisis and claimed that no radiation had been detected off plant grounds, but the same day inspectors detected slightly increased levels of radiation nearby as a result of the contaminated water leak. Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh considered calling an evacuation.
Finally, at about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they needed to get water moving through the core again and restarted the pumps. The temperature began to drop, and pressure in the reactor was reduced. The reactor had come within less than an hour of a complete meltdown. More than half the core was destroyed or molten, but it had not broken its protective shell, and no radiation was escaping. The crisis was apparently over.
Two days later, however, on March 30, a bubble of highly flammable hydrogen gas was discovered within the reactor building. The bubble of gas was created two days before when exposed core materials reacted with super-heated steam. On March 28, some of this gas had exploded, releasing a small amount of radiation into the atmosphere. At that time, plant operators had not registered the explosion, which sounded like a ventilation door closing. After the radiation leak was discovered on March 30, residents were advised to stay indoors. Experts were uncertain if the hydrogen bubble would create further meltdown or possibly a giant explosion, and as a precaution Governor Thornburgh advised "pregnant women and pre-school age children to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice." This led to the panic the governor had hoped to avoid; within days, more than 100,000 people had fled surrounding towns.
On April 1, President Jimmy Carter arrived at Three Mile Island to inspect the plant. Carter, a trained nuclear engineer, had helped dismantle a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor while serving in the U.S. Navy. His visit achieved its aim of calming local residents and the nation. That afternoon, experts agreed that the hydrogen bubble was not in danger of exploding. Slowly, the hydrogen was bled from the system as the reactor cooled.
At the height of the crisis, plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but no one outside Three Mile Island had their health adversely affected by the accident. Nonetheless, the incident greatly eroded the public's faith in nuclear power. The unharmed Unit-1 reactor at Three Mile Island, which was shut down during the crisis, did not resume operation until 1985. Cleanup continued on Unit-2 until 1990, but it was too damaged to be rendered usable again. In the more than two decades since the accident at Three Mile Island, not a single new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States.
Mar 28, 1939: Spanish Civil War ends
In Spain, the Republican defenders of Madrid raise the white flag over the city, bringing to an end the bloody three-year Spanish Civil War.
In 1931, Spanish King Alfonso XIII approved elections to decide the government of Spain, and voters overwhelmingly chose to abolish the monarchy in favor of a liberal republic. Alfonso subsequently went into exile, and the Second Republic, initially dominated by middle-class liberals and moderate socialists, was proclaimed. During the first five years of the Republic, organized labor and leftist radicals forced widespread liberal reforms, and the independence-minded Spanish regions of Catalonia and the Basque provinces achieved virtual autonomy.
The landed aristocracy, the church, and a large military clique increasingly employed violence in their opposition to the Second Republic, and in July 1936 General Francisco Franco led a right-wing army revolt in Morocco, which prompted the division of Spain into two key camps: the Nationalists and the Republicans. Franco's Nationalist forces rapidly overran much of the Republican-controlled areas in central and northern Spain, and Catalonia became a key Republican stronghold.
During 1937, Franco unified the Nationalist forces under the command of the Falange, Spain's fascist party, while the Republicans fell under the sway of the communists. Germany and Italy aided Franco with an abundance of planes, tanks, and arms, while the Soviet Union aided the Republican side. In addition, small numbers of communists and other radicals from France, the USSR, America, and elsewhere formed the International Brigades to aid the Republican cause. The most significant contribution of these foreign units was the successful defense of Madrid until the end of the war.
In June 1938, the Nationalists drove to the Mediterranean Sea and cut Republican territory in two. Later in the year, Franco mounted a major offensive against Catalonia. In January 1939, its capital, Barcelona, was captured, and soon after the rest of Catalonia fell. With the Republican cause all but lost, its leaders attempted to negotiate a peace, but Franco refused. On March 28, 1939, the victorious Nationalists entered Madrid in triumph, and the Spanish Civil War came to an end. Up to a million lives were lost in the conflict, the most devastating in Spanish history.
Mar 28, 1969: Eisenhower dies
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States and one of the most highly regarded American generals of World War II, dies in Washington, D.C., at the age of 78.
Born in Denison, Texas, in 1890, Eisenhower graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1915, and after World War I he steadily rose in the peacetime ranks of the U.S. Army. After the U.S. entrance into World War II, he was appointed commanding general of the European theater of operations and oversaw U.S. troops massing in Great Britain. In 1942, Eisenhower, who had never commanded troops in the field, was put in charge of Operation Torch, the Anglo-American landings in Morocco and Algeria.
As supreme commander of a mixed force of Allied nationalities, services, and equipment, Eisenhower designed a system of unified command and rapidly won the respect of his British and Canadian subordinates. From North Africa, he successfully directed the invasions of Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy, and in January 1944 was appointed supreme Allied commander of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of northwestern Europe. Although Eisenhower left much of the specific planning for the actual Allied landing in the hands of his capable staff, such as British Field Marshall Montgomery, he served as a brilliant organizer and administrator both before and after the successful invasion.
After the war, he briefly served as president of Columbia University before returning to military service in 1951 as supreme commander of the combined land and air forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Pressure on Eisenhower to run for U.S. president was great, however, and in the spring of 1952 he relinquished his NATO command to run for president on the Republican ticket.
In November 1952, "Ike" won a resounding victory in the presidential elections and in 1956 was reelected in a landslide. A popular president, he oversaw a period of great economic growth in the United States and deftly navigated the country through increasing Cold War tension on the world stage. In 1961, he retired with his wife, Mamie Doud Eisenhower, to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He died in 1969 and was buried on a family plot in Abilene, Kansas.
Mar 28, 1814: Funeral held for the man behind the guillotine
The funeral of Guillotin, the inventor and namesake of the infamous execution device, takes place outside of Paris, France. Guillotin had what he felt were the purest motives for inventing the guillotine and was deeply distressed at how his reputation had become besmirched in the aftermath. Guillotin had bestowed the deadly contraption on the French as a "philanthropic gesture" for the systematic criminal justice reform that was taking place in 1789. The machine was intended to show the intellectual and social progress of the Revolution; by killing aristocrats and journeymen the same way, equality in death was ensured.
The first use of the guillotine was on April 25 1792, when Nicolas Pelletier was put to death for armed robbery and assault in Place de Greve. The newspapers reported that guillotine was not an immediate sensation. The crowds seemed to miss the gallows at first. However, it quickly caught on with the public and many thought it brought dignity back to the executioner.
However, the prestige of the guillotine fell precipitously due to its frequent use in the French Terror following the Revolution. It became the focal point of the awful political executions and was so closely identified with the terrible abuses of the time that it was perceived as partially responsible for the excesses itself. Still, it was used sporadically in France into the 20th century.
Mar 28, 1984: Baltimore Colts move to Indianapolis
On this day in 1984, Bob Irsay (1923-1997), owner of the once-mighty Baltimore Colts, moves the team to Indianapolis. Without any sort of public announcement, Irsay hired movers to pack up the team's offices in Owings Mills, Maryland, in the middle of the night, while the city of Baltimore slept.
Robert Irsay gained control of the Colts in 1972 when he essentially traded his ownership in the Los Angeles Rams with Carol Rosenbloom, then the owner of the Colts franchise. The Colts, led by quarterback Johnny Unitas, halfback Lenny Moore and defensive linemen Gino Marchetti and Art Donovan, had been the best team in the NFL in the late 1950s and had come to embody the working class spirit of Baltimore. The players lived among the fans, worked alongside the fans in the off-season and performed with evident pride in their adopted city. It wasn't until Irsay purchased the team that the franchise began its downward spiral. After winning Super Bowl V in 1971, the Colts had a few winning years, but by the late 1970s, the franchise was so bad that when future Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway was drafted number one overall by the Colts out of Stanford in 1983, he refused to report to the team, saying he would play baseball for the New York Yankees instead. The Colts were forced to trade Elway to the Denver Broncos.
To make matters worse for the Colts, Irsay was by most accounts a difficult boss--he was infamous for his temper and was known to angrily lash out at players and employees. In 1984, Irsay asked the city of Baltimore to pay for improvements to Memorial Stadium, where the Colts played. But, here again, his irascibility may have gotten in the way. Although the two sides told different stories of what went on in the negotiations, it did not go well by any account, and on March 28, the Maryland state legislature passed a law allowing they city of Baltimore to seize the Colts from Irsay. Rather than give up his team, Irsay quickly took a deal offered by the city of Indianapolis and moved the Colts before anyone knew what had happened. Baltimore fans were stunned, and the Colts marching band, long a fixture at games, defiantly continued to perform in the city.
Football did not return to the Charm City until 1996, when Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell (1925-2012 ), in a dispute with the city of Cleveland over the stadium the Browns played in, agreed to move the Browns to Baltimore in return for a brand-new stadium built with taxpayer money. Although the Browns had enjoyed many years of success and rabid fan support while in Cleveland, Modell claimed that financial hardship forced his hand. The Browns were renamed the Baltimore Ravens after the poem "The Raven," penned by Baltimore native Edgar Allen Poe. Under the leadership of General Manager Ozzie Newsome, a Browns Hall of Famer, the franchise has seen consistent success in Baltimore, including victory in Super Bowl XXXV in 2001, with many players that had actually been drafted as Browns. Art Modell, however, is now as reviled a man in Cleveland as Bob Irsay was in Baltimore. He sold controlling interest in the team in 2003.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
37 - Roman Emperor Caligula accepts the titles of the
Principate, entitled to him by the Senate.
193 - Roman Emperor Pertinax is assassinated by Praetorian
Guards, who then sell the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus.
364 - Roman Emperor Valentinian I appoints his brother
Flavius Valens co-emperor.
845 - Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under
Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving.
1535 - Bloemkamp Abbey (Oldeklooster) attacked &
destroyed
1556 - Karel V's son Philip II crowned king of Spain
1556 - Origin of Fasli Era (India)
1738 - English parliament declares war on Spain (War of
Jenkin's Ear)
1774 - Britain passes Coercive Act against Massachusetts
1776 - Juan Bautista de Anza finds the site for the Presidio
of San Francisco.
1794 - Louvre opens to the public (although officially
opened since August)
1794 - Allies under the prince of Coburg defeat French
forces at Le Cateau.
1795 - Partitions of Poland: The Duchy of Courland, a
northern fief of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ceases to exist and
becomes part of Imperial Russia.
1796 - Bethel African Methodist Church of Phila is 1st
US-African church
1797 - Nathaniel Briggs of NH patents a washing machine
1799 - NY State abolished slavery
1802 - Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers discovers 2 Pallas,
the second asteroid known to man.
1804 - Ohio passed law restricting movement of Blacks, 1804
1809 - Peninsular War: France defeats Spain in the Battle of
Medelin.
3rd Roman Emperor Caligula3rd Roman Emperor Caligula 1834 -
Senate censure President Jackson for taking fed deposits from Bank of US
1844 - Jose Zorilla's "Don Juan Tenorio,"
premieres in Madrid
1845 - Mexico drops diplomatic relations with US
1854 - During the Crimean War, Britain & France declare
war on Russia
1859 - 1st performance of John Brahms' 1st Serenade for
orchestra
1860 - First Taranaki War: The Battle of Waireka begins.
1862 - Skirmish at Bealeton Station, Virginia
1866 - 1st ambulance goes into service
1871 - SF Art Association holds open reception at 430 Pine
1881 - Greatest Show On Earth was formed by PT Barnum &
James A Bailey
1885 - US Salvation Army officially organized
1891 - 1st world weightlifting championship held
1896 - The opera "Andrea Chenier" is produced
(Milan)
1902 - 27.9 cm precipitation at McMinnville, Tennessee
(state record)
1905 - Paramaribo-Dam railway opens in Suriname, never used
1910 - 1st seaplane, takes off from water at Martinques
France (Henri Fabre)
1913 - Guatemala becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires
copyright treaty.
1917 - Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv & Jaffa by
Turkish authorities
1917 - Puccini's "La Rondine," premieres in Monte
Carlo
1920 - Thomas Masaryk elected president of Czechoslovakia
1920 - Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1920 affects the
Great Lakes region and Deep South states.
1922 - 1st microfilm device introduced
1922 - Stanley Cup: Toronto St Pats (NHL) beat Vancouver
Millionaires (PCHA), 3 games to 2
1924 - WGN-AM in Chicago IL begins radio transmissions
1927 - Majestic Theater opens at 245 W 44th St NYC
1929 - Democratic constitution goes into effect in Ecuador
1930 - 1st performance of Walter Piston's Suite for
orchestra (Boston)
1930 - Constantinople & Angora changes names to Istanbul
& Ankara
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi
Germany Adolf Hitler 1933 - German Reichstag confers dictatorial powers on
Hitler
1935 - Robert Goddard uses gyroscopes to control a rocket
1939 - Dutch hunter shoots English bombers down
1939 - Philip Barry's "Philadelphia Story,"
premieres in NYC
1939 - Renaissance Big 5 win 1st pro basketball championship
1939 - Spanish Civil War ends, Madrid falls to Francisco
Franco
1940 - Construction begins of the exhibition center to host
the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair.
1941 - Sea battle at Cape Matapan: Brit fleet under
Cunningham defeats Italy
1942 - -29] 234 RAF bombers attack Lubeck
1942 - 4th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Stanford
beats Dartmouth 53-38
1942 - British naval forces raid Nazi occupied French port
of St Nazaire
1942 - Raid on lock/dock St Nazaire
1944 - 6th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Utah defeats
Dartmouth 42-40
1944 - Astrid Lindgren sprains ankle & begins writing
Pippi Longstocking
1944 - NBA rookie of the year in 1966, Rick Barry
Spanish Dictator and General Francisco FrancoSpanish
Dictator and General Francisco Franco 1945 - Last German V-1 (buzz bomb) attack
on London
1946 - Cold War: The United States State Department releases
the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control
of nuclear power.
1948 - 2nd Tony Awards: Mister Roberts win
1950 - 12th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: CCNY beats
Bradley 71-68 NYC college becomes 1st to win NCAA & Natl Inv Basketball in
same year
1952 - US Ladies Figure Skating championship won by Tenley
Albright
1952 - US Mens Figure Skating championship won by Richard
Button
1953 - "New Faces (of 1952)" closes at Royale
Theater NYC after 365 perfs
1953 - "Stock exchanges open, dikes closed" raises
5,200,000 gulden
1953 - 7th Tony Awards: Crucible & Wonderful Town win
1953 - KCAU TV channel 9 in Sioux City, IA (ABC) begins
broadcasting
1953 - US Ladies Figure Skating championship won by Tenley
Albright
1953 - US Mens Figure Skating championship won by Hayes A
Jenkins
1954 - 8th Tony Awards: Teahouse of the August Moon &
Kismet win
1954 - Louise Suggs wins LPGA Betsy Rawls Golf Open
1954 - WKAQ TV channel 2 in San Juan, PR (TM) begins
broadcasting
1955 - NZ cricket all out for 26 v England at Eden Park
1957 - 1st National Curling Championship held
1959 - 11 days after Tibet uprising, China dissolves Tibet's
government & installs Panchen Lama
1960 - Pope John raises the 1st Japanese, 1st African &
1st Filipino cardinal
1960 - Scotch factory explodes burying 20 fire fighters
(Glasgow Scotland)
1962 - Devastating 8 for 6 spell by Gibbs gives WI cricket
victory over India
1962 - Military coup in Syria, President Nazim al-Kudsi
flees
1963 - AFL's NY Titan's become the NY Jets
1964 - 1st pirate radio station near England (Radio
Caroline)
1964 - 9.2 earthquake shakes Prince William Sound, Alaska
1965 - Jo Ann Prentice wins LPGA All State Ladies' Golf
Invitational
1967 - "Sherry!" opens at Alvin Theater NYC for 65
performances
1967 - UN Sect General U Thant makes public proposals for
peace in Vietnam
1969 - Pope Paul VI names JGM Willebrands cardinal
1969 - Greek poet and Nobel Prize laureate Giorgos Seferis
makes a famous statement on the BBC World Service opposing the junta in Greece.
1970 - 1,086 die when 7.4 quake destroys 254 villages (Gediz
Turkey)
1971 - 25th Tony Awards: Sleuth & Company win
1972 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1972 - Wilt Chamberlain plays his last pro basketball game
1974 - Rock group Raspberries breakup
1975 - Wash Caps win 1st game on road after 37 straight road
loses also
1977 - 39th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Marquette
beats NC 67-59
Actress Faye DunawayActress Faye Dunaway 1977 - 49th Academy
Awards - "Rocky," Peter Finch & Faye Dunaway win
1977 - Morarji Desai forms government in India
1979 - British government of Callaghan falls
1979 - Lazarus & Vosburgh's "Day in Hollywood &
night in Ukraine," premieres
1979 - Major nuclear accident at 3 Mile Island, Middletown,
Pa (no deaths)
1981 - Christa Rothenburger skates ladies world record 500 m
40.18 sec)
1981 - France performs nuclear test
1981 - Gabi Schonbrunn skates ladies world record 3 km
(4:21.70)
1981 - Viv Richards scores century in the 1st Test at his home
Antigua
1981 - Yevgeni Kulikov skates world record 500m (36.91 secs)
1982 - 12th Easter Seal Telethon raises $19,500,000
1982 - 1st NCAA Women's Basketball Championship: LA Tech
beats Cheney 76-62
1982 - Amy Alcott wins LPGA Women's Kemper Golf Open
1982 - JN Duartes christian-democrats win elections in El
Salvador
1985 - International Cometary Explorer measures solar wind
ahead of Halley
1985 - Neil Simon's "Biloxi Blues," premieres in
NYC
1985 - STS 51-D vehicle moves to launch pad
1986 - Extremist Sikhs kill 13 hindus in Ludhiana India
1986 - John N McMahon, ends term as deputy director of CIA
1987 - Stacking of Discovery's SRBs gets underway
1989 - New Zealand wins America's Cup over Stars &
Stripes, in a NY court
1990 - Bengal beat Delhi in rained-out cricket Ranji Trophy
final on quotient
Basketball Superstar Michael JordanBasketball Superstar
Michael Jordan 1990 - Michael Jordan scores 69 points, 4th time he scores 60
pts in a game
1990 - President Bush awards Jesse Owen the Congressional
Gold Medal
1991 - Mike Tyson admits paternity to Kimberly Scarborough's
son
1992 - 6th American Comedy Award: Cathy Ladman, Judy
Watkins, Billy Crystal
1992 - Ann Transon runs female world record 50k (3:35:31)
1992 - PBA National Championship Won by Eric Forkel
1993 - 13th Golden Raspberry Awards: Shining Through wins
1993 - 22nd Nabisco Dinah Shore Golf Championship won by
Helen Alfredsson
1993 - Conservatives win French parliamentary election
1993 - Type II supernova detected in M81 (NGC 3031)
1994 - Armed Zulus demonstrate in Johannesburg, over 53
killed
1994 - Italy's right-wing alliance under Silvio Berlusconi
wins election
1994 - BBC Radio Five Live broadcasts for first time in
United Kingdom
1995 - Julia Roberts & Lyle Lovette split-up
1995 - Queensland beat S Aust to win 1st ever cricket
Sheffield Shield
Actress Julia RobertsActress Julia Roberts 1995 - World's
largest bank-Japan's Mitsubishi Bank & Bank of Tokyo merge
1996 - "Seven Guitars," opens at Walter Kerr
Theater NYC
1996 - Katie Beam, 17, of Oklahoma, crowned 35th Miss
Teenage America
1997 - "City" soap opera's final episode on ABC-TV
1999 - 18th NCAA Women's Basketball Championship: at San
Jose
2000 - A Murray County, Georgia, school bus is hit by a CSX
freight train (3 children die in this accident).
2003 - In a "friendly fire" incident, two A-10
Thunderbolt II attack aircraft from the United States Idaho Air National
Guard's 190th Fighter Squadron attack British tanks participating in the 2003
invasion of Iraq, killing British soldier Matty Hull.
2005 - The 2005 Sumatran earthquake rocks Indonesia, and at
magnitude 8.7 is the second strongest earthquake since 1960.
2006 - At least 1 million union members, students and
unemployed take to the streets in France in protest at the government's
proposed First Employment Contract law.
2013 - 143 rebels and 20 government troop are killed in
conflict in Pibor County, Sudan
2013 - 15 students are killed and 7 are injured after a
mortar strikes Damascus University
2013 - Pope Francis becomes the first Pope to wash the feet
of women in the Maundy Thursday service
1774 - Britain passed the Coercive Act against Massachusetts. 1797 - Nathaniel Briggs patented a washing machine. 1834 - The U.S. Senate voted to censure President Jackson for the removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States. 1854 - The Crimean War began with Britain and France declaring war on Russia. 1864 - A group of Copperheads attack Federal soldiers in Charleston, IL. Five were killed and twenty were wounded. 1865 - Outdoor advertising legislation was enacted in New York. The law banned "painting on stones, rocks and trees." 1885 - The Salvation Army was officially organized in the U.S. 1898 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the U.S. to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen. This meant that they could not be deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act. 1903 - Anatole France's "Crainquebille" premiered in Paris. 1905 - The U.S. took full control over Dominican revenues. 1908 - Automobile owners lobbied the U.S. Congress, supporting a bill that called for vehicle licensing and federal registration. 1910 - The first seaplane took off from water at Martinques, France. The pilot was Henri Fabre. 1911 - In New York, suffragists performed the political play "Pageant of Protest." 1917 - During World War I the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was founded. 1921 - U.S. President Warren Harding named William Howard Taft as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. 1922 - Bradley A. Fiske patented a microfilm reading device. 1930 - Constantinople and Angora changed their names to Istanbul and Ankara respectively. 1933 - In Germany, the Nazis ordered a ban on all Jews in businesses, professions and schools. 1938 - In Italy, psychiatrists demonstrated the use of electric-shock therapy for treatment of certain mental illnesses. 1939 - The Spanish Civil War ended as Madrid fell to Francisco Franco. 1941 - The Italian fleet was defeated by the British at the Battle of Matapan. 1942 - British naval forces raided the Nazi occupied French port of St. Nazaire. 1945 - Germany launched the last of the V-2 rockets against England. 1947 - The American Helicopter Society revealed a flying device that could be strapped to a person's body. 1962 - The U.S. Air Force announced research into the use of lasers to intercept missiles and satellites. 1963 - Sonny Werblin announced that the New York Titans of the American Football League was changing its name to the New York Jets. (NFL) 1967 - Raymond Burr starred in a TV movie titled "Ironside." The movie was later turned into a television series. 1968 - The U.S. lost its first F-111 aircraft in Vietnam when it vanished while on a combat mission. North Vietnam claimed that they had shot it down. 1974 - A streaker ran onto the set of "The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson." 1979 - A major accident occurred at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. A nuclear power reactor overheated and suffered a partial meltdown. 1981 - In Bangkok, Thailand, Indonesian terrorists hijacked an airplane. Four of the five terrorists were killed on March 31. 1986 - The U.S. Senate passed $100 million aid package for the Nicaraguan contras. 1986 - More than 6,000 radio stations of all format varieties played "We are the World" simultaneously at 10:15 a.m. EST. 1990 - Jesse Owens received the Congressional Gold Medal from U.S. President George H.W. Bush. 1990 - In Britain, a joint Anglo-U.S. "sting" operation ended with the seizure of 40 capacitors, which can be used in the trigger mechanism of a nuclear weapon. 1991 - The U.S. embassy in Moscow was severely damaged by fire. 1994 - Violence between Zulus and African National Congress supporters took the lives of 18 in Johannesburg. 1999 - Paraguay's President Raúl Cubas Grau resigned after protests inspired by the assassination of Vice-President Luis María Argaña on March 23. The nation's Congress had accused Cubas and his political associate, Gen. Lino César Oviedo, for Cubas' murder. Senate President Luis González Macchi took office as Paraguay's new chief executive. 2002 - The exhibit "The Italians: Three Centuries of Italian Art" opened at the National Gallery of Australia. 2010 - China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. signed a deal to buy Ford Motor Co.'s Volvo car unit.
1797 Nathaniel Briggs patented a washing machine. 1930 The cities of Constantinople and Angora changed names to Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. 1939 The Spanish Civil War ended. 1941 Author Virginia Woolf drowned herself. 1979 Nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 2000 Supreme Court rules unanimously that an anonymous tip does not justify a stop-and-frisk action against a person. Read more: This Day in History: March 28 | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory#ixzz2xFqeMbCU
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/mar28.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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