Today in history

On March 20, 1602, the Dutch East India Company was chartered to establish bases and fortifications against Spain and Portugal and protect Dutch trade in the Indian and Pacific oceans. In 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris triumphantly and began his “Hundred Days” rule. In 1816 the Supreme Court affirmed its right to review state court decisions. In 1852 “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel about slavery, was published.

In 1896 American Marines landed in Nicaragua to protect U.S. citizens in the wake of a revolution.

In 1899 Martha Place of Brooklyn, N.Y., became the first woman to be put to death by electrocution. She was executed at Sing Sing prison for the murder of her stepdaughter. In 1956 France recognized the independence of Tunisia. In 1969 Beatles singer John Lennon married artist Yoko Ono in Gibraltar. In 1976 newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was convicted of armed robbery for

her part in a San Francisco bank holdup staged by the revolutionaries who had kidnapped her.

In 1981 former girls’ school headmistress Jean Harris was sentenced in White Plains, N.Y., to 15 years to life in prison for slaying “Scarsdale Diet” author Dr. Herman Tarnower. (Harris ended up serving almost 12 years.) In 1985 Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, traveling from Anchorage to Nome in 18 days 20 minutes 17 seconds. In 1987 the Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of AZT, a drug shown to

prolong the lives of some AIDS patients. In 1990 Namibia became an independent nation, marking the end of 75 years of South African rule.

In 1995, in Tokyo, 12 people were killed, more than 5,500 others sickened when packages containing the poisonous gas sarin were leaked on five separate subway trains by Aum Shinrikyo cult members. In 1996 a Los Angeles jury convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez of first-degree murder in the shotgun slayings of their millionaire parents.

In 1999 Bertrand Piccard, of France, and Brian Jones, of England, completed the first round-the-world nonstop balloon voyage. They had lifted off from Switzerland 20 days earlier.

In 2010 the volcano Eyjafjallajokull in southern Iceland erupted for the first time in 200 years. Smoke and ash from the volcano would cause major problems for European air travel for months to come. In 2016 President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president in nearly 90 years to visit Cuba when he and his family arrived in Havana for a three-day visit.