But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.



Psalm 1:2

0493: Negotiations open between the Roman Army, besieged at Ravenna, and the Ostrogoths

0616: Death of St. Ethelbert, King of Kent

0779: Death of St. Walburga

1450: Surrender of Florence to Francesco Sforza

1451: Pope Nicholas V bans all social intercourse between Christians & Jews

1525: French King Francis I is defeated and captured by Imperial forces at Pavia.

1547: Death of Vittoria Colonna, poet

1570: Pope Pius V issued the papal bull Regnana in Excelsis , excommunicating Queen Elizabeth I of England.

1601: Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex, beheaded

1634: Assassination of Albrecht von Wallenstein

1642: Dutch settlers slaughter lower Hudson Valley Indians

1643: An Indian War begins on the West Bank of the Hudson River

1751: Edward Willet of New York City displayed the first trained monkey act in the United States. For the price of one shilling, the audience saw the monkey walk a tightrope, dance and "exercise" a gun.

1779: The British surrender the Illinois country to George Rogers Clark at Vincennes.

1781: American General Nathanael Greene crosses the Dan River on his way to his March 15th confrontation with Lord Charles Cornwallis at Guilford Court House, N.C.

1793: The department heads of the U.S. government met with President Washington at his home for the first cabinet meeting on record.

1804: Thomas Jefferson is nominated for president at the Democratic-Republican caucus.

1815: Napoleon leaves his exile on the Island of Elba, intending to return to France.

1836: Samuel Colt patents the first revolving barrel multi-shot firearm. "Revolving gun," (revolver).

1865: General Joseph E. Johnston replaces John Bell Hood as Commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

1870: Hiram R. Revels, R-MS, became the first black member of the U.S. Senate as he was sworn in to serve out the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis.

1901: United States Steel Corp. was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.

1904: "The faun must have had a terrible afternoon." That's what Louis Elson said in the Boston Daily Advertizer. Elson cited Debussy's "Prelude of the Afternoon of a Faun" for what he called its "erratic and erotic spasms."

1906: The Russian composer Anton Arensky died of tuberculosis in St. Petersburg. Arensky's chamber music is still played today. He was a student of Rimsky-Korsakov, who considered him to be a major talent, but Arensky drank too much and gambled his money away.

1910: The Dalai Lama flees from the Chinese and takes refuge in India.

1913: The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving Congress the power to levy and collect income taxes, was declared in effect.

1919: Oregon became the first state to tax gasoline. The one cent per gallon tax was to be used for road construction.

1924: Ty Cobb, one of the legends of baseball, issued an edict to his team, the Detroit Tigers, that forbid players to play the game of golf during training camp.

1926: Poland demands a permanent seat on the League Council.

1928: Bell Labs introduces a new device to end the fluttering of the television image.

1928: The Federal Radio Commission issued the first U.S. television license to Charles Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, D.C. The first commercial TV license was issued in 1941.

1943: U.S. troops reoccupied the Kasserine Pass.

1944: U.S. forces destroy 135 planes in Marianas and Guam.

1948: Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.

1950: "Your Show of Shows," starring Sid Caesar, Inogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris made its debut on NBC.

1953: General de Gaulle condemns the European Defense Community.

1956: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev harshly criticized the late Joseph Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow.

1957: Buddy Holly and The Crickets traveled to Clovis, New Mexico, to record "That'll Be The Day" (one of the classics of rock 'n' roll) and "I'm Looking For Someone To Love". Both songs were released on Brunswick Records in May of that year.

1961: John F. Kennedy names Henry Kissinger national security adviser.

1964: 22-year-old Cassius Clay (later Muhammed Ali) became world heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Sonny Liston in the seventh round in Miami Beach, Florida. Clay had been an 8-1 underdog. Attendance: 8,297.

1966: Nancy Sinatra received a gold record award for the hit, "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'".

1972: Germany gave in to ransom demands from the Arab terrorist hijackers of a jumbo jet and paid $5 million for the release of its passengers.

1973: The Stephen Sondheim musical, "A Little Night Music," opened at Broadway's Shubert Theater.

1976: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that states may ban the hiring of illegal aliens.

1981: Christopher Cross won five Grammy Awards at ceremonies in Radio City Music Hall in New York City. He was awarded the Album of the Year award for "Christopher Cross" and his hit, "Sailing", won for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s), Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Christopher was also voted Best New Artist of 1980.

1983: Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tennessee Williams was found dead in his New York hotel suite; he was 71.

1984: Michael Spinks defeated Eddie Davis in a unanimous decision to retain the light heavyweight championship; in 12 rounds in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

1985: Edwin Meese III was sworn in as attorney general, succeeding William French Smith, in a private White House ceremony.

1986: President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule in the wake of a tainted election; Corazon Aquino assumed the presidency.

1986: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author Robert Penn Warren was named the first poet laureate of the United States by Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin.

1986: "We Are The World" captured four Grammy Awards this night. The song, featuring more than 40 superstar artists gathered at one time, was awarded the Top Song, Record of the Year, Best Pop Performance and Best Short Video Awards.

1987: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld an affirmative action program in Alabama that provided for promoting equal numbers of black and white state troopers.

1988: Panama's civilian president, Eric Arturo Delvalle, announced the dismissal of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega as commander of the country's Defense Forces. (The next day, the National Assembly ousted Delvalle.)

1989: President Bush left Japan, where he had attended the funeral of Emperor Hirohito, and arrived in China for a three-day visit.

1990: U.S.-backed opposition presidential candidate Violeta Chamorro won a stunning upset victory over President Daniel Ortega, leader of the leftist Sandinista Liberation Front.

1990: Nicaraguans went to the polls in an election that resulted in an upset victory for the alliance opposed to the ruling Sandinistas.

1991: During the Persian Gulf War, 28 Americans were killed when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

1992: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled prison guards who use unnecessary force against inmates may be violating the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment even if they inflict no serious injuries.

1992: President Bush won the South Dakota Republican primary, Bob Kerrey the Democratic primary.

1992: Natalie Cole won seven awards at the 34th annual Grammys, including best album for "Unforgettable."

1993: A bomb exploded in the parking garage of New York's World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.

1994: American-born Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire with an automatic rifle inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank, killing 29 Muslims before he was beaten to death by worshippers.

1994: At the Winter Olympics in Norway, Oksana Baiul of Ukraine won the gold medal in ladies' figure skating while Nancy Kerrigan won the silver and Chen Lu of China the bronze; Tonya Harding came in eighth.

1995: Former President Jimmy Carter wound up a 54-hour visit to Haiti, denying he'd been given a chilly reception by Haitians whom he'd helped save from a potentially bloody U.S.-led intervention.

1996: A 12-mile tether connecting a half-tin satellite to the space shuttle Columbia broke loose as it almost completely unreeled.

1996: Cambodian activist Dr. Haing S. Ngor, who won an Academy Award for his performance in the 1984: movie "The Killing Fields," was shot to death outside his Los Angeles apartment.

1996: Blasts apparently set off by suicide bombers rip city bus in Jerusalem and soldiers' hitchhiking post in the coastal city of Ashkelon, killing 27 people and wounding more than 80 others.  

1997: China's elite bid a final farewell to Deng Xiaoping, the country's last great revolutionary leader.

1997: A jury in Media, Pennsylvania, convicted multimillionaire John E. du Pont of third-degree murder, deciding he was mentally ill when he killed world-class wrestler David Schultz.

1998: The Supreme Court threw out a 16-year-old government rule that allowed company credit unions to accept members from other companies.

1998: President Clinton visited a portion of central Florida ravaged by a string of deadly tornadoes, comforting survivors whose homes were torn to pieces by the storms. The president followed the storms' paths by helicopter and on foot, spending an hour walking though Kissimmee's Ponderosa Pines Campground, where federal officials said 10 people died.

1998: Kim Dae-jung, once South Korea's leading dissident, was inaugurated as its president.

1998: At the Grammy Awards, Bob Dylan won best album and best contemporary folk album for "Time Out of Mind" while Whawn Colvin won song and record of the year for "Sunny Came Home."

1998: Pope John Paul ushered the world's 980 million Roman Catholics into the pre-Easter Lent season, urging them to repent for their sins and reopen dialogue with God. "Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with tears and cries," the pope said, reading from the scriptures during his homily at a traditional Ash Wednesday service in the church of Santa Sabina on Rome's Aventine Hill.

1998: Switzerland's first legal brothel opened in Zurich. Thirty prostitutes set up shop at the Petite Fleur bordel. The brothel was the brainchild of Landmann and carpenter Hans Berchtold. The women are self-employed and pay $138 a day to rent a room. They can charge what they want for services, depending on what is on offer and what the market will bear.

1998: Umberto Mastroianni, one of the most illustrious Italian sculptors of the 20th century, died at 87. Mastroianni, combined futurist and cubist elements in his works. 

1999: In a move that threatened to revive a strain on U.S.-Israeli relations, Israel's Supreme Court blocked the extradition of American teenager Samuel Sheinbein to the United States to face charges stemming from a slaying in Maryland.

1999: A jury in Jasper, Texas, sentenced white supremacist John William King to death for chaining James Byrd Jr., a black man, to a pickup truck and dragging him to pieces.

2000: A jury in Albany, New York, acquitted four white New York City police officers of all charges in the shooting death of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo.