On This Day - 5th March

1908 - Rex Harrison born
1922 - James Noble born
1936 - Dean Stockwell born
1939 - Samantha Eggar born
1946 - Michael Warren born
1953 - Rumours are circulating in Moscow that Joseph Stalin, the long-time leader of the Soviet Union, is near death.
1956 - The United States Supreme Court upholds a ban on racial segregation in state schools, colleges and universities.
1958 - Andy Gibb born
1966 - A BOAC Boeing 707 crashes into Mount Fuji in Japan killing all 124 people on board, just 25 minutes after take-off.
1973 - Sixty-eight passengers and crew die when two Spanish aircraft collide in mid-air over France.
1974 - Kevin Connolly born
1975 - Niki Taylor born
1993 - Disgraced Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson is banned from athletics for life after failing a drugs test for a second time.

On This Day - 4th March

1678 - Antonio Vivaldi born
1885 - Grover Cleveland becomes US President
1888 - Knute Rockne born
1929 - Herbert Hoover becomes US President
1932 - Miriam Makeba born
1938 - Paula Prentiss born
1948 - Chris Squire born
1958 - Patricia Heaton born
1963 - Jason Curtis Newsted born
1968 - Patsy Kensit born
1969 - The Kray twins, Ronald and Reginald, face life sentences after being found guilty of murder at the Central Criminal Court. Also Chastity Bono born

1975 - Silent film legend Charlie Chaplin becomes Sir Charles after a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
1976 - A 40-year-old Irish born mother-of-four and six others are jailed for possessing explosives. Their convictions were later quashed.

1980 - Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister.
1982 - Landon Donovan born
1986 - Margo Harshman born
1989 - Six people die and 80 are injured, some of them seriously, in a train crash at Purley in Surrey.

2001 - Police say a bomb which exploded outside the BBC's main news centre in London was the work of an Irish dissident group.

On This Day - 3rd March

1847 - Alexander Graham Bell born
1911 - Jean Harlow born
1920 - James Doohan born
1959 - Ira Glass born
1962 - Herschel Walker and Jackie Joyner-Kersee born
1966 - The BBC announces plans to begin broadcasting television programmes in colour from next year.
1974 - A Turkish Airlines DC10 crashes near Paris, en route to London, killing all 345 people on board.
1982 - The Queen opens the new £153m Barbican Arts Centre in the City of London and Jessica Biel born

1985 - Miners' leaders vote to end the longest-running industrial dispute in Britain without any peace deal over pit closures.
1995 - A bill which would ban hunting with hounds in England and Wales has become the first such proposal to get a second reading in parliament.
2005 - US millionaire Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo, non-stop around the globe without refuelling.

On This Day - 2nd March

1904 - Dr. Seuss born
1917 - Desi Arnaz born
1919 - Jennifer Jones born
1930 - Author D.H. Lawrence dies
1931 - Mikhail Gorbachev born
1944 - Lou Reed born
1950 - Karen Carpenter born
1952 - Laraine Newman born
1956 - King Hussein of Jordan sacks the British commander of the Arab Legion in an effort to strengthen his own position within the Arab world.
1962 - Jon Bon Jovi born
1969 - The supersonic airliner Concorde makes a "faultless" maiden flight.

1970 - Prime Minister of Rhodesia Ian Smith declares his country a republic, cutting its last link with the British Crown.
1991 - The Tamil Tigers are being blamed for the assassination of Sri Lanka's Deputy Defence Minister, Ranjan Wijeratne.
2000 - Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet heads home after being told the UK would not extradite him on torture charges.
2011 - Ireland beat England by 3 wickets in the Cicket World Cup in India. Kevin O'Brien hammered a record-breaking century in 50 balls to help Ireland chase down a total of 328 for victory.

On This Day - 1st March

1904 - Glenn Miller born
1910 - David Niven born
1914 - Harry Caray and Ralph Ellison born
1926 - Pete Rozelle born
1927 - Harry Belafonte born
1935 - Robert Conrad born
1944 - Roger Daltrey born
1947 - Alan Thicke born
1950 - Nuclear scientist Klaus Fuchs is sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for espionage.
1954 - The biggest explosion ever made by man is witnessed in the Pacific when US scientists explode their second H-bomb at Bikini Atoll
1958 - Nik Kershaw born
1963 - Russell Wong born
1965 - Booker T born
1966 - Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan confirms the "historic and momentous" decision to change over to decimal coinage in 1971.
1971 - Hundreds of thousands of workers across Britain take part in an unofficial day of protest against the government's new industrial relations Bill.
1973 - The armed Palestinian group Black September has seized the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum.
1974 - Mark-Paul Gosselaar born
1977 - Donovan Patton born
1978 - Jensen Ackles born
1990 - Whistleblowers and journalists will, from today, risk criminal prosecution if they reveal information viewed as damaging to the defence of the UK
1994 - Fred West is charged with two further murders following the discovery of more human remains in the garden of his Gloucester home.

2011 - A large earthquake strikes close to New Zealand's capital Wellington, a week after another quake devastated the second city Christchurch. Also Japanese electronics brand Sanyo announce it is withdrawing from the huge advertising display at Piccadilly Circus after 33 years.

On This Day - 29th February

1504 - Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to frighten hostile Jamaican Indians
1692 - Sarah Good & Tituba, an Indian servant, accused of witchcraft, Salem
1696 - English ex-premier Earl Danby accused of corruption
1704 - French & Indians attack Deerfield, Mass, kill 50, abduct 100
1712 - February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Old style.
1720 - Queen Ulrica Eleonora of Sweden resigns
1780 - The Omicron Delta Omega fraternity was founded by Benjamin Franklin at James Madison University.
1784 - Marquis de Sade transferred from Vincennes fortress to the Bastille
1796 - Jay's Treaty proclaimed, settles some differences with England
1816 - Dutch (King) Willem II marries Russian grand-duchess Anna Paulowna
1832 - Charles Darwin visits jungle near Bahia Brazil
1836 - Giacomo Meyerbeers opera "Les Huguenots," premieres in Paris
1848 - Neufchatel declares independence of Switzerland
1856 - Hostilities in Russo-Turkish War cease
1868 - 1st British govt of Disraeli forms
1880 - Gotthard railway tunnel between Switzerland & Italy completed
1892 - Britian & US sign treaty on seal hunting in Bering Sea
1892 - St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated.
1904 - Theodore Roosevelt, appoints 7 man committee to study Panama Canal
1908 - Dutch scientists produce solid helium
1932 - Failed coup attempt by fascist Lapua Movement in Finland
1932 - TIME magazine features eccentric American politician William "Alfalfa" Murray on its cover after Murray stated his intention to run for President of the United States.
1936 - FDR signs 2nd neutrality act
1940 - 45 U boats sunk this month (170,000 ton)
1940 - Frederic from G & S "Pirates of Penzance" finally released by pirate
1940 - "Gone with the Wind," wins 8 Oscars
1940 - Hattie McDaniel becomes 1st black woman to win an Oscar
1940 - Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations
1944 - 5 leaders of Indonesia Communist Party sentenced to death
1944 - US troop land on Los Negros, Admirality Islands
1948 - Stern-group bomb Cairo-Haifa train, 27 British soldiers died
1952 - Ice Dance Championship at Paris France won by Westwood & Demmy GRB
1952 - Ice Pairs Championship at Paris won by Ria Falk & Paul Falk of GER
1952 - Ladies Figure Skating Champ in Paris won by Jacqueline du Bief of FRA
1952 - Men's Figure Skating Championship in Paris won by Richard Button USA
1952 - The island of Heligoland is restored to German authority.
1956 - The British Foreign Secretary, John Selwyn Lloyd, leaves London for a tour of the Middle East and Asia.
1956 - Islamic Republic forms in Pakistan
1956 - Pres Eisenhower announces he would seek a 2nd term
1960 - 1st Playboy Club, featuring bunnies, opens in Chicago

1960 - Earthquake kills 1/3 of Agadir Morocco population (12,000) in 15 sec
1960 - JFK makes "missile gap" the presidential campaign issue
1960 - KRET TV channel 23 in Richardson, TX (PBS) begins broadcasting
1964 - "Rugantino" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 28 performances
1964 - Frank Rugani sets badminton shuttlecock distance record, 24.3 m
1964 - LBJ reveals US secretly developed the A-11 jet fighter
1964 - The Queen's cousin, Princess Alexandra, gives birth to a son at her home in Surrey.
1964 - NC high school basketball teams play to 56-54 score in 13 overtime
1968 - 1st pulsar announced (CP 1919 by Jocelyn Burnell at Cambridge)
1968 - Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" wins Grammy
1968 - Howard Hanson's 6th Symphony, premieres
1968 - US end regular flights with nuclear bombs
1968 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1968 - National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Comm) reports against racism & demands aid given to blacks
1972 - Hank Aaron becomes 1st baseball player to sign for $200,000 a year
1972 - Jack Anderson discloses Dita Beard (ITT) memo indicating antitrust charges were dropped for $400,000 contribution to Republican Party
1980 - Gordie Howe becomes 1st NHL player to score 800 career goals
1980 - Michael Bracey ends 59 h 55 m trapped in an elevator, England

1984 - Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, announces he will step down after more than 15 years in office.
1988 - KWK-FM in St Louis Missouri changes call letters to WKBG
1988 - Mark Greatbatch scores 107* v England on Test Cricket debut
1988 - NYC Mayor Koch calls Reagan a "WIMP" in the war on drugs
1988 - Nazi document implicates Waldheim in WW II deportations
1992 - Dawn Coe wins LPGA Women's Kemper Golf Open
1992 - Professional Spring Football League begins

1996 - The siege of Sarajevo is officially over - four years to the day since Bosnian Muslims and Croats voted in a referendum to break away from Yugoslavia.
1996 - Kenya defeat West Indies (all out 93) in Cricket World Cup
1996 - Soyuz TM-23, lands
2000 - International aid agencies in Mozambique say they need extra helicopters to rescue thousands trapped by rising flood waters.
2004 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns as President of Haiti following popular rebel uprising.

2012 - 'The Monkees' singer Davy Jones dies of a heart attack aged 66.

On This Day - 28th February

1901 - Linus Pauling born
1907 - Earl Scheib born
1912 - The first parachute jump from a plane
1915 - Zero Mostel born
1916 - Author Henry James dies
1923 - Charles Durning born
1930 - Gavin MacLeod born
1939 - Tommy Tune born
1940 - Mario Andretti born
1942 - Brian Jones born
1948 - Bernadette Peters born
1955 - Gilbert Gottfried born
1973 - Eric Lindros born
1975 - A London Underground train crashes at Moorgate, killing the driver and at least 29 passengers.
1986 - Olof Palme, the prime minister of Sweden, is shot dead and his wife Lisbeth wounded in a street ambush in central Stockholm.

1991 - US President George Bush announces a ceasefire in the Gulf after Iraq accepts all 12 UN resolutions.
2000 - British Nuclear Fuels confirms its chief executive, John Taylor, has resigned over a safety scandal.

2001 - 10 people are killed and more than 70 injured when a high speed train is hit by a car which careered off the motorway at Selby, North Yorkshire.
2011 - Star of silver screen Jane Russell dies aged 89.

On This Day - 27th February

1807 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow born
1891 - David Sarnoff born
1897 - Marian Anderson born
1900 - The British Labour Party formed
1902 - John Steinbeck born
1928 - Ariel Sharon born
1930 - Joanne Woodward born
1932 - Elizabeth Taylor born
1934 - Ralph Nader born
1940 - Howard Hesseman born
1943 - Mary Frann born
1953 - A proposal to simplify English spelling has cleared its second hurdle in parliament.
1963 - Antoine Argoud, President De Gaulle's arch enemy and a former colonel in the French Army, is charged with an assassination attempt.
1971 - Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas born
1975 - Scotland Yard says the man who shot dead a police officer in London yesterday had been staying in a flat used as a "bomb factory" by the IRA.
1980 - Chelsea Clinton born
1981 - Josh Groban born
1999 - Voters flock to polling stations in Nigeria to elect a civilian president and end military rule that has lasted 15 years.
2002 - A fire on a train in India results in the deaths of 57 Hindu pilgrims returning from the disputed holy site of Ayodhya.
2010 - Colin Firth wins the Best Actor Oscar for The King's Speech and Christian Bale Best Supporting Actor for The Fighter, at the 83rd Academy Awards.