March 4: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1493 - Explorer 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.
2. 1519 - Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and their wealth.
3. 1681 - Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.
4. 1789 - In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect. The United States Bill of Rights is written and proposed to Congress.
5. 1790 - France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.
6. 1791 - Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state.
7. 1794 - The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress.
8. 1917 - Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.
9. 1986 - The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus.
10. 2009 - The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.
11. Famous Birthdays: Antonio Vivaldi (Italian violinist and composer), Theodore Judah (American engineer, founded the Central Pacific Railroad), Carl Josef Bayer (Austrian chemist), Richard C. Tolman (American physicist and chemist), Charles Herbert Colvin (American engineer, co-founded the Pioneer Instrument Company)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: March 3

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: March 5

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.