On this day, March 10
1496 Christopher Columbus concluded his second visit to the Western Hemisphere as he left Hispaniola for Spain.
1785 Thomas Jefferson was appointed America’s minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.
1864 President Abraham Lincoln assigned Ulysses S. Grant, who had just received his commission as lieutenantgeneral, to the command of the Armies of the United States.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant, Thomas Watson, heard Bell say over his experimental telephone: “Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you” from the next room of Bell’s Boston laboratory.
1906 About 1,100 miners in northern France were killed by a coal-dust explosion.
1913 Former slave, abolitionist and Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriet Tubman died in Auburn, New York; she was in her 90s.
1965 Neil Simon’s play “The Odd Couple,” starring Walter Matthau and Art Carney, opened on Broadway.
1969 James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tenn., to assassinating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (Ray later repudiated that plea, maintaining his innocence until his death.)
1985 Konstantin U. Chernenko, who was the Soviet Union’s leader for 13 months, died at age 73; he was succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev.
1988 Pop singer Andy Gibb died in Oxford, England, at age 30 of heart inflammation.
2015 Breaking her silence in the face of a growing controversy over her use of a private email address and server, Hillary Rodham Clinton conceded that she should have used government email as secretary of state but insisted she had not violated any federal laws or Obama administration rules.
2019 A Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed shortly after taking off from the capital, Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.
2021 The House gave final congressional approval to a landmark $1.9 trillion COVID19 relief bill against the opposition of Republicans, while the Senate confirmed Merrick Garland to be U.S. attorney general with a strong bipartisan vote.
2022 Civilians trapped inside the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol desperately scrounged for food and fuel as Russian forces kept up their bombardment amid international condemnation over an airstrike a day earlier that killed three people at a maternity hospital.
2023 The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation seized the assets of Silicon Valley Bank, leaving many Silicon Valley workers and companies potentially locked out of their money in the second-largest bank failure in history, behind only the failure of Washington Mutual in 2008.
Today’s birthdays: Bluegrass/ country singer-musician Norman Blake, 86. Actor Chuck Norris, 84. Playwright David Rabe, 84. Singer Dean Torrence (Jan and Dean), 84. Actor Katharine Houghton (Film: “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”), 82. Actor Richard Gant, 80. Rock musician Tom Scholz (Boston), 77. Former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, 77. TV personality/businesswoman Barbara Corcoran (TV: “Shark Tank”), 75. Actor Aloma Wright, 74. Blues musician Ronnie Earl (Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters), 71. Altcountry/rock musician Gary Louris, 69. Actor Shannon Tweed, 67. Pop/jazz singer Jeanie Bryson, 66. Actor Sharon Stone, 66. Rock musician Gail Greenwood, 64. Magician Lance Burton, 64. Actor Jasmine Guy, 62. Rock musician Jeff Ament (Pearl Jam), 61. Music producer Rick Rubin, 61. Britain’s Prince Edward, 60. Rock singer Edie Brickell, 58. Actor Stephen Mailer, 58. Actor Philip Anthony-Rodriguez, 56. Actor Paget Brewster, 55. Actor Jon Hamm, 53. Rapper-producer Timbaland, 52. Actor Cristián de la Fuente, 50. Rock musician Jerry Horton (Papa Roach), 49. Actor Jeff Branson, 47. Singer Robin Thicke, 47. Actor Bree Turner, 47. Olympic gold medal gymnast Shannon Miller, 47. Contemporary Christian singer Michael Barnes (Red), 45. Actor Edi Gathegi, 45. Actor Thomas Middleditch, 42. Country singer Carrie Underwood, 41. Actor Olivia Wilde, 40. R&B singer Emeli Sandé, 37. Country singer Rachel Reinert, 35. Country musician Jared Hampton (LANCO), 33. Actor Emily Osment, 32.