March 26
1917: The Seattle Metropolitans became the first U.S. ice hockey team to win the Stanley Cup, defeating the Montreal Canadiens 9-1 to clinch the championship series three games to one.
1945: U.S. forces declared victory in the Battle of Iwo Jima against Japan after a 36-day fight that left about 27,000 Americans killed or wounded and more than 18,000 Japanese troops dead.
1997: The bodies of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate were discovered inside a rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California, after the group carried out a mass suicide.
March 27
1794: Congress approved the “Act to Provide a Naval Armament” authorizing six-armed ships and laying the foundation for the permanent U.S. Navy.
1912: In Washington, D.C., first lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda planted the first two of 3,000 cherry trees gifted by the mayor of Tokyo.
1964: Alaska was struck by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake — still the strongest recorded in North America.
March 28
1935: The Nazi propaganda film “Triumph des Willens” (“Triumph of the Will”), directed by Leni Riefenstahl, premiered in Berlin.
1941: Author Virginia Woolf, 59, drowned herself near her home in Lewes, East Sussex, England.
1979: America’s worst commercial nuclear accident occurred when a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, partially melted down.
March 29
1943: World War II rationing of meat, fats and cheese began in the United States, limiting consumers to about two pounds a week of beef, pork, lamb and mutton through a coupon system.
1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted in New York of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union. (They were executed in June 1953.)
1974: Chinese farmers digging a well uncovered fragments of buried terra-cotta figures, leading archaeologists to discover the famed “Terracotta Army” — more than 8,000 life-size soldiers and other figures.
March 30
1822: Florida became a United States territory.
1867: U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million.
1981: President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously wounded by John Hinckley Jr. outside a Washington, D.C., hotel. White House press secretary James Brady and two others were also wounded.
March 31
1492: Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree ordering Jews to leave Spanish territory unless they converted to Christianity.
1854: Japan and the United States signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening two Japanese ports to American ships and beginning Japan’s move away from isolation.
1889: The Eiffel Tower in Paris opened for dignitaries; at 1,024 feet, it was the tallest structure in the world at the time.
April 1
1945: American forces launched the amphibious invasion of Okinawa during World War II. The island was captured June 22 after a battle that left more than 240,000 dead.
1976: Apple Computer was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.
1984: Singer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father after intervening in an argument between his parents at their home.
