Today in History

1624   Class-based legislation is passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper class from punishment by whipping.
1766   Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.  
1793   Austrian troops crush the French and recapture Liege.  
1821   James Monroe becomes the first president to be inaugurated on March 5, only because the 4th was a Sunday.  
1905   Russians begin to retreat from Mukden in Manchuria, China.  
1912   The Italians become the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.  
1918   The Soviets move the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.  
1928   Hitler's National Socialists win the majority vote in Bavaria.  
1933   Newly inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt halts the trading of gold and declares a bank holiday.  
1933   Hitler and Nationalist allies win the Reichstag majority. It will be the last free election in Germany until after World War II.
 1943   In desperation due to war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military service in the German army.  
1946   In Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill tells a crowd that "an iron curtain has descended on the Continent [of Europe]."
1956   The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the ban on segregation in public schools in Brown vs. Board of Education.  
1969   Gustav Heinemann is elected West German President.
1976   Britain gives up on the Ulster talks and decides to retain rule in Northern Ireland indefinitely.