On this date...

1888 Blizzard

In 1776, Washington prepared for movement. The army must be ready to march “the Instant occasion shall require,” and he urges officers and men to carry as little baggage as possible. He also begins forming what will become his Life Guard, ordering each regiment to send four tall, sober, “neat, and spruce” men to headquarters. From them, Washington will select the men responsible for guarding his person, quarters, papers, and baggage.

In 1779, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was established by the U.S. Congress. It was reorganized under a new name after the War of Independence, and then re-established in 1802.

In 1789, Benjamin Banneker and Pierre Charles L'Enfant began to lay out Washington, D.C.

In 1824, U.S. Secretary of War John C. Calhoun established the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) within the War Department. The agency is charged with managing the nation-to-nation relationships between the United States and Indian tribes, overseeing trade, treaty-making, and other administrative matters.

In 1850, the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania opened, it was the 2nd female medical school in the US.

In 1855, Bowery Boys gang leader William Poole, aka "Bill the Butcher" was buried in Brooklyn with 155 carriages and 6,000 mourners

In 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas adopted the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America.

In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln removed Gen. George B. McClellan as general-in-chief of the Union armies.

In 1865, Union General Sherman captured the town of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and promptly destroyed the Fayetteville arsenal.

In 1888, A winter storm began on the Atlantic coast of the United States, ultimately blanketing New York City with 22 inches (550 mm) of snow and other areas with up to 50 inches (1,250 mm); the Great Blizzard of 1888, as it became known, killed more than 400 people and caused widespread property damage.

In 1892, 1st public basketball game was held in Springfield, Massachusetts.

In 1897, a meteorite entered the Earth's atmosphere and exploded over New Martinsville, West Virginia. The debris causes damage, but no human injuries are reported.

In 1918, one of the most devastating pandemics in human history reached the United States as the country reported its first cases of the Spanish flu.

In 1930, William Howard Taft was the first U.S. president to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

In 1941, the U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, which gave the president authority to aid any nation whose defense was believed vital to U.S. interests.

In 1942, during World War II, Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific Theater came under the command of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur following his tour on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.

In 1954, the US Army charged Senator Joseph McCarthy with using undue pressure tactics.

In 1963, US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara ordered the adoption by the US military of the M16 assault rifle, originally designed as the AR-15 by Eugene Stoner

In 1973, the first formal meeting of “Parents of Gays,” co-founded by the parents of a gay son, was held in a church in Greenwich Village in New York. In 1982, it became a national organization called “Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays,” or PFLAG—the largest family and ally organization in the United States for the LGBTQ community.

In 1989, on March 11, 1989, "Cops," a documentary-style television series that follows police officers and sheriff’s deputies as they go about their jobs, debuts on Fox.

In 1993, Janet Reno was confirmed as the US's first female attorney general.

In 2002, two columns of light soared skyward from ground zero in New York as a temporary memorial to the victims six months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In 2009, the Toyota Motor Company announced on March 11, 2009, that it had sold more than 1 million gas-electric hybrid vehicles in the U.S. under its six Toyota and Lexus brands.

In 2010, a federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the use of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency.

In 2011, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a measure to eliminate most union rights for public employees, a proposal that provoked three weeks of protests.

In 2012, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales shot and killed 16 Afghan villagers — mostly women and children — as they slept. (Bales later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.)

In 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

In 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that he said would help defeat the virus and nurse the economy back to health. Lower-income Americans would receive up to $1,400 in direct payments, along with extended unemployment benefits.