TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

On this day:

1774 - Britain passed the Coercive Act against Massachusetts.

1797 - Nathaniel Briggs patented a washing machine. 1854 - The Crimean War began with Britain and France declaring war on Russia. 1908 - Witches Falls, the world’s third oldest national park, is declared the first National Park in Queensland. 1910 - The first seaplane took off from water at Martinques, France. The pilot was Henri Fabre.

1917 - During World War I the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was founded.

1921 - U.S. President Warren Harding named William Howard Taft as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

1922 - Bradley A. Fiske patented a microfilm reading device.

1930 - Constantinople and Angora changed their names to Istanbul and Ankara respectively.

1933 - In Germany, the Nazis ordered a ban on all Jews in businesses, professions and schools.

1939 - The Spanish Civil War ended as Madrid fell to Francisco Franco.

1941 - The Italian fleet was defeated by the British at the Battle of Matapan.

1942 - British naval forces raided the Nazi occupied French port of St. Nazaire. 1942 - Critchley Parker sets off in search of a new Jewish homeland within Australia. 1945 - Germany launched the last of the V-2 rockets against England.

1968 - The U.S. lost its first F-111 aircraft in Vietnam when it vanished while on a combat mission. North Vietnam claimed that they had shot it down.

1979 - A major accident occurred at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. A nuclear power reactor overheated and suffered a partial meltdown. 2002 - The exhibit “The Italians: Three Centuries of Italian Art” opened at the National Gallery of Australia. 2008 - A strange object found on an outback property in Queensland is identified as ‘space junk’.