3rd March 1914 (107 Years)
Asger Jorn, Danish painter and founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA, was born.
3rd March 1996 (25 Years)
Marguerite Duras, a French writer of award-winning books such as L'Amant and film director, dies.
4th March 1193 (828 Years)
Saladin, Iraqi-Egyptian sultan who led the Muslim opposition to the Crusaders in the Levant, died.
4th March 1493 (528 Years)
Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what is now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.
4th March 1890 (131 Years)
The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Rail Bridge in Scotland, measuring 1,710 feet (520 m) long, is opened by the Prince of Wales, who later becomes King Edward VII.
4th March 1917 (104 Years)
Jeannette Rankin, first woman elected to hold national office in the United States: "I may be the first woman member of Congress but I won’t be the last.".
4th March 1918 (103 Years)
The USS Cyclops departs from Barbados and is never seen again, lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
4th March 1932 (89 Years)
Miriam Makeba, South African singer-songwriter, actress, and activist, was born.
4th March 1936 usa (85 Years)
German airship Hindenburg made its first flight. It was destroyed by fire in May 1937.
4th March 1980 (41 Years)
Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister.
5th March 1817 (204 Years)
The Rt Hon Sir Austen Henry Layard, English traveller, archaeologist, cuneiformist, art historian, best known as the excavator of Nimrud and Niniveh was born.
5th March 1827 (194 Years)
Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist known for inventing the battery, dies.
5th March 1868 (153 Years)
Mefistofele, an opera by Arrigo Boito receives its première performance at La Scala.
5th March 1966 (55 Years)
Anna Akhmatova, Russian modernist poet and one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon, dies.
6th March 1986 (35 Years)
Georgia O'Keeffe, American painter of nature and the southwestern landscape, dies.
