History

On March 11, 1779, Congress establishes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help plan, design and prepare environmental and structural facilities for the U.S. Army. Made up of civilian workers, members of the Continental Army and French officers, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers played an essential role in the critical Revolutionary War battles at Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown. The members of …

On March 11, 1669, Mount Etna, on the island of Sicily in modern-day Italy, begins rumbling. Multiple eruptions over the next few weeks killed more than 20,000 people and left thousands more homeless. Most of the victims could have saved themselves by fleeing, but stayed, in a vain attempt to save their city. Mount Etna dominates the …

In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas adopt the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America. The constitution resembled the Constitution of the United States, even repeating much of its language, but was actually more comparable to the Articles of Confederation—the initial post-Revolutionary War U.S. constitution—in its delegation of extensive powers …

On March 11, 2004, 193 people are killed and nearly 2,000 are injured when 10 bombs explode on four trains in three Madrid-area train stations during a busy morning rush hour. The bombs were later found to have been detonated by mobile phones. The attacks, the deadliest against civilians on European soil since the 1988 Lockerbie airplane bombing, …

Paul McCartney of the Beatles was knighted Sir Paul McCartney by Queen Elizabeth the II. Plus, a four day blizzard began called the White Hurricane, that paralyzed the Eastern part of the United States. In New York City, A Raisin in the Sun debuted with Stars Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil. The first woman, Janet …

On March 11, 1973, the first formal meeting of “Parents of Gays,” co-founded by the parents of a gay son, is held in a church in Greenwich Village in New York. In 1982, it became a national organization called “Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays,” or PFLAG—the largest family and ally organization in the …

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, the first Broadway play written by a Black woman, opens at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York on March 11, 1959. Taking its title from the Langston Hughes poem “Harlem,” Hansberry’s story follows a working-class Black family from the South Side of Chicago hoping to improve their lives. Raised …

Captain James Cook discovered the Northwest coast of the Americas on this day. He discovered what is now the coast of Oregon, and was the first European to do so. German troops violated the Treaty of Versailles on this day in 1936. Broadway musicals were put on pause for four days during the musician walkout. …