TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2018

On this day:

1461 - Edward IV secured his claim to the English thrown by defeating Henry VI’s Lancastrians at the battle of Towdon.

1841 - The isolated town of Eyre is named, after Eyre’s party finds fresh water two metres below the sandy surface.

1848 - Niagara Falls stopped flowing for one day due to an ice jam.

1867 - The British Parliament passed the North America Act to create the Dominion of Canada.

1901 - The first federal elections were held in Australia. Sir Edmund Barton is officially elected as the first Prime Minister of Australia.

1916 - The Italians call off the fifth attack on Isonzo.

1941 - The British sank five Italian warships off the Peloponnesus coast in the Mediterranean.

1946 - Gold Coast became the first British colony to hold an African parliamentary majority. 1967 - France launched its first nuclear submarine.

1973 - The last U.S. troops left South Vietnam.

1974 - Mariner 10, the U.S. space probe became the first spacecraft to reach the planet Mercury. It had been launched on November 3, 1973.

1993 - Clint Eastwood won his first Oscars. He won them for best film and best director for the film “Unforgiven.”

1995 - The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a constitutional amendment that would have limited terms to 12 years in the U.S. House and Senate.

1998 - Tennessee won the woman’s college basketball championship over Louisiana. Tennessee had set a NCAA record with regular season record or 39-0.

1999 - At least 87 people died in an earthquake in India’s Himalayan foothills.

1999 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 10,000 mark for the first time.

2004 - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia became members of NATO.

2010 - In Japan, the Tokyo Skytree tower became the tallest structure in Japan when it reached 1,109 feet.