March 20

43 BC The Roman poetical writer Ovid was born in Sulmo (modern Sulmona), in an Apennine valley 90 miles east of Rome, to a wealthy family, on March 20, 43 BC. Ovid's full name was Publius Ovidius Naso. The cognomen Naso means "the one with the nose" (i.e. "Big nose") in Latin. Ovid habitually referred to himself by his nickname.

Bust of Ovid by anonymous sculptor. By Lucasaw Wikipedia

1413 Henry V became the king of England on March 20, 1413, following the death of his father Henry IV. Henry came home from his victory at Agincourt a conquering hero and he was greeted by cheering crowds at Blackheath Common. After another successful military campaign, the 1520 Treaty of Troyes recognized Henry as the heir and regent of France. He was the most influential ruler in Europe at the time of his death in 1422.

1602 The Dutch East India Company was established on March 20, 1602, when the Netherlands gave a group of small trading companies a 21-year monopoly to trade in Asia. It was the first company to issue stock and, one of the first multinational corporations, Between 1602 and 1796 the Dutch East Company sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods.

T he Dutch East India Company's headquarters in Amsterdam. Wikipedia

1612 The Puritan poetess Anne Bradstreet (March 20, 1612 – September 16, 1672) was the first American female writer. Her first volume of poetry, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, was published in 1650. It was widely read in America and England.

1726 Sir Isaac Newton died in his sleep at his Jermyn Street London home on March 20, 1726. As a bachelor, he had divested much of his estate to relatives during his last years, and died intestate. His last words were: "I don't know what I may seem to the world , but as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy laying on the seashore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

1760 The "Great Fire" of Boston destroyed 349 buildings on March 20, 1760. Two hundred and twenty families were left homeless, and the total estimated losses of £53,334 hit especially hard a town that was already bearing the huge expense of the ongoing French and Indian War.

Map of Boston in 1760, showing the extent of the Great Fire (dotted area)

1792 In 1789, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician, stood before the National Assembly and proposed an apparatus designed for carrying out executions by beheading be adopted as the official means of capital punishment. The French National Assembly approved the adoption of the guillotine as a humane method of execution for the poor on March 20, 1792.

1815 After escaping from forced exile on the island of Elba, Napoleon made a surprise march to Paris, accompanied by a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, Napoleon again became ruler of France. The period of Napoleon's last period of power in France, from March 20 to July 8, 1815 is often called the Hundred Days. It is in fact 111 days.

Napoleon returned from Elba, by Karl Stenben, 19th century

1819 The shopping center arrived in the west on March 20, 1819 with the opening of George Cavendish's Burlington Arcade in London. It was built "for the sale of jewellery and fancy articles of fashionable demand, for the gratification of the public". The Burlington Arcade consisted of a single straight top-lit walkway lined with seventy-two small two storey shop units.

1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin, the anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was first published in book form on March 20, 1852. The book's popularity exploded quickly, with sales figures reaching staggering heights within a short timeframe. This success significantly influenced public opinion on slavery, particularly in the Northern states, and is considered a pivotal moment in the lead-up to the American Civil War.

1854 The Republican Party was founded on March 20, 1854 in a little white schoolhouse (see picture below) in Ripon, Wisconsin. About 50 slavery opponents began the new political group to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska act, which would permit each territory to allow slavery if they wanted to. The name was partly chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party.

Republican Party Birthplace Museum, Little White Schoolhouse, Ripon

1871 In July 1870 the Prussian forces under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck then began the Franco-Prussian War. The French army was rapidly defeated and Napoleon III was captured at the Battle of Sedan and deposed by the forces of the Third Republic in Paris. When peace was arranged between France and Germany, Bismarck released Napoleon. He decided to go into exile in England and arrived on March 20, 1871.

1899 Martha Place was the first woman to be executed in the electric chair. The procedure took place at Sing Sing Prison, New York on March 20, 1899. She had murdered her stepdaughter, Ida Place.
Place's executioner was Edwin Davis, who had been given the official title of "State Electrician." Davis performed 240 executions, including convicted axe murderer William Kemmler, the first person executed in US by electrocution in the electric chair nine years earlier.

Martha Place

1915 On March 20, 1915, Albert Einstein revolutionized physics by publishing his theory of General Relativity in the German scientific journal Annalen der Physik. Based on calculations Einstein made in 1911, about his new theory of general relativity, light from another star would be bent by the Sun's gravity. In 1919 that prediction was confirmed by Sir Arthur Eddington during the solar eclipse of May 29th.

1917 The design for the modern zip, the Talon Slide Fastener, was invented in 1913 by Swedish engineer Gideon Sundback, who was living in Meadville, Pennsylvania, Sundback substituted two parallel strings of metal teeth in place of Judson's hooks and eyes and called it the Hookless #2. Sundback received a patent for his zip, which he called a "Separable fastener" on March 20, 1917.

1922 On March 20, 1922, the US Postmaster General (Hubert Work) ordered all homes to get mailboxes or relinquish delivery of mail. The regulation was issued as a response to the growing number of people living in rural areas who were not receiving regular mail delivery because they did not have a mailbox. 

1923 The Arts Club of Chicago hosted the opening of Pablo Picasso's first solo United States showing on March 20, 1923. Entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso, the artist wrote to the organizers instructing them how to mount and display his work. The exhibition, which included 53 pieces made from 1907–21 was an early proponent of modern art in the United States. It ran until April 22, 1923.

1933 Italian immigrant Giuseppe Zangara was executed in Florida's electric chair on March 20, 1933 for fatally shooting Anton Cermak in an assassination attempt against President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Zangara became enraged when he learned no newsreel cameras would be filming his final moments.

1969 John Lennon married Yoko Ono on March 20, 1969 at the British-owned Rock of Gibraltar in Spain. They originally attempted to marry in Paris, but were caught "standing in the dock at Southampton. Trying to get to Holland or France," as later documented in "The Ballad Of John And Yoko." Passport problems keep them from boarding.

1986 The strongest ever winds in the United Kingdom have been recorded on mountains. The highest verified gust of wind in the United Kingdom was 194 mph (314 km/h), recorded at Cairngorm Summit Station in the Eastern Highlands of Scotland on March 20, 1986. 

1987 On March 20, 1987 the US Food and Drug Administration approved the antiretroviral drug zidovudine (AZT), the first antiviral medication approved for use against HIV and AIDS. The paucity of alternatives for treating HIV/AIDS at that time meant the drug's side-effect of transient anemia and malaise outweighed the slow, disfiguring, and painful death from HIV. AZT was subsequently approved unanimously for infants and children three years later.

AZT in oral, injectable, and suppository form

1989 The flag of Lithuania was first used in Lithuania's first period of independence (in the 20th century) from 1918 to 1940. It was re-adopted on March 20, 1989, a year before the re-establishment of Lithuania's independence. The colors of the Lithuanian flag are yellow (at the top), for the sun, green (in the middle), for the fields, and red (at the bottom), for the blood of Lithuanians fighting for its independence.

1991 Rock guitarist Eric Clapton's four-year-old son, Conor, fell to his death from the 53rd story of a New York City apartment March 20, 1991 after a housekeeper who was cleaning the room left a window open. The tragedy inspired his song "Tears in Heaven," which won Grammys in 1993 for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal.

1992 When Southwest Airlines tried to change their motto to “Just Plane Smart” in the early 1990s, they found out a much smaller company was already using it. To settle the issue, the CEOs of each airline engaged in an arm wrestling match on March 20, 1992. The smaller company, Steven’s Aviation, ended up winning.

2003 In the early hours of the March 20, 2003 morning, an invasion led by American, British, Australian, Danish and Polish forces commenced against Iraq to disarm them of weapons of mass destruction deployment and remove Saddam Hussein from power. Iraqi Muslims accused President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair of waging a crusade against Islam comparable to the Middle Ages.

2018 The death of Sudan, the world’s last male northern white rhinoceros was announced on March 20, 2018. He was 45 years old and had lived at a conservation in Kenya for the last nine years of his life, Sudan was survived by his daughter and granddaughter.