31 newsworthy historical anniversaries in March 2026

Here are 31 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in March 2026 (listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are great for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly selected an anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2026, which lists more than 3,600 anniversaries. The Date-A-Base Book 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030 are also available.

Each edition is available in British and U.S. versions. Both have the same content, but with different date formats and spellings. If you click on the links above, you should be directed to the correct version, based on your location. We’ve taken the anniversaries below from the British version.

1 Mar 1901 – 125 years ago
The Australian Army was founded.

2 Mar 1901 – 125 years ago
U.S. Steel (the United States Steel Corporation) was founded by J. P. Morgan when the Carnegie Steel Company merged with the Federal Steel Company and the National Steel Company.
Andrew Carnegie announced his retirement on 13^th March and said he would become a philanthropist and give away his fortune.

3 Mar 1951 – 75 years ago
The first rock and roll record, Rocket 88, was recorded by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
(The Delta Cats were actually Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm). The record was released in April.

4 Mar 1966 – 60 years ago
British rock musician John Lennon famously said the Beatles were ‘more popular than Jesus’ in an interview for the London Evening Standard. His comment drew no complaints in the UK, but generated huge controversy when it was reprinted in the USA in July. In August, many U.S. radio stations staged public burnings of the Beatles’ records and memorabilia.

5 Mar 1936 – 90 years ago
The Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane made its first flight, in Eastleigh, Southampton, UK.

6 Mar 1951 – 75 years ago
Death of Ivor Novello, Welsh composer, playwright, actor, songwriter, entertainer and manager.

7 Mar 1876 – 150 years ago
Scottish-born American inventor Alexander Graham Bell was granted a U.S. patent for the telephone. The patent application was hotly contested by Elisha Gray, who had filed his own patent on the same day as Bell (14^th February). (U.S. Patent 174,465.)

8 Mar 1936 – 90 years ago
The first stock car race was held at Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.

9 Mar 1946 – 80 years ago
The Burnden Park football (soccer) stadium disaster, Bolton, UK.
33 people were killed and hundreds injured in a crush during a match between Bolton Wanderers and Stoke City. The crush was caused by overcrowding, and led to a control on crowd sizes being introduced.

10 Mar 1876 – 150 years ago
The world’s first telephone call. Alexander Graham Bell used his telephone to call his assistant, Thomas Watson, after spilling acid in his laboratory. The first words spoken by telephone were: ‘Mr Watson, come here. I want you.’

11 Mar 2011 – 15 years ago
The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Japan. 15,897 people were killed, 2,533 went missing and nearly a quarter of a million were made homeless. The earthquake shifted Japan’s main island, Honshu, eight feet (2.4 metres) east. Three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant went into meltdown. It was the second-largest nuclear accident in history, after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

12 Mar 1951 – 75 years ago
Hank Ketcham’s comic strip Dennis the Menace first appeared in 16 newspapers in the USA.
(Not to be confused with the British comic strip of the same name, which first appeared in the British children’s comic The Beano a few days later. (Issue dated 17^th March. On sale from 15^th March.)

13 Mar 1996 – 30 years ago
The Dunblane massacre, Scotland.
Thomas Hamilton, a former scout leader, entered Dunblane Primary School, shot dead 16 children and a teacher, and wounded 15 others. He then committed suicide. As a result, the private ownership of handguns was banned in the UK.

14 Mar 1976 – 50 years ago
Death of Busby Berkeley, American film director and choreographer. Known for his elaborate musical production numbers, which often featured large numbers of dancing girls forming kaleidoscopic patterns.

15 Mar 1986 – 40 years ago
Cosmonauts Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyev became the first occupants of the Soviet Union’s Mir space station. They remained on board for 50 days.

16 Mar 1926 – 100 years ago
American physicist and inventor Robert H. Goddard launched the world’s first successful liquid-fuelled rocket, in Auburn, Massachusetts. It reached a height of 41 feet (12.5 metres) and landed 184 feet (56 metres) away, demonstrating that liquid propellants were possible. (The site is now a National Historic Landmark: the Goddard Rocket Launching Site.)

17 to 18 Mar 1936 – 90 years ago
The Great St. Patrick’s Day flood, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Warm weather melted snow and ice, and combined with torrential rain to flood the city. About 100,000 buildings were destroyed, steel mills were devastated and workers were made unemployed. The flood caused $250 million worth of damage (equivalent to around $4.75 billion today).

18 Mar 1996 – 30 years ago
The Ozone Disco fire, Quezon City, Philippines.
The worst fire in Philippine history broke out in the nightclub. There were around 350 patrons and 40 staff inside the club at the time, though it was only licensed to hold 35 people. The only exit was a small door that opened inwards, fire extinguishers were defective, and the sprinklers did not work. 162 people were killed and 95 injured. (Cause: electrical fire in the DJ’s booth.) The club’s owners and numerous government officials were subsequently convicted of negligence.

19 Mar 1951 – 75 years ago
The novel The Caine Mutiny by American author Herman Wouk was published.
Wouk was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the book, and it was adapted into a film of the same name in 1954.

20 Mar 1956 – 70 years ago
Tunisia gained its independence from France.

21 Mar 2006 – 20 years ago
Twitter (later renamed X), the online social networking/micro-blogging service, was founded. Its website went live on 15^th July.

22 Mar 2001 – 25 years ago
Death of William Hanna, American cartoon animator. Co-founder of Hanna-Barbera (with Joseph Barbera). They created popular characters including Tom and Jerry, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, and the Jetsons.

23 Mar 1956 – 70 years ago
Pakistan became the world’s first Islamic Republic.

24 Mar 1776 – 250 years ago
Death of John Harrison, British carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, which enabled sailors to calculate longitude at sea.

25 Mar 1946 – 80 years ago
London’s Heathrow Airport was opened (as London Airport – it was renamed Heathrow Airport in 1966).

26 Mar 2001 – 25 years ago
The UK Post Office was rebranded as Consignia, at a cost of around £2 million. The new name proved extremely unpopular and it was renamed Royal Mail Group in 2002.

27 Mar 1851 – 175 years ago
The first recorded sighting of Yosemite Valley in California, USA by non-Native Americans (the Mariposa Battalion).

28 Mar 1776 – 250 years ago
The Presidio of San Francisco was established in California, USA. It became a fortified U.S. Army post and is now a park and a National Historic Landmark.

29 and 30 Mar 1901 – 125 years ago
The first federal elections were held in Australia, to elect members of the first Parliament of Australia.

30 Mar 1926 – 100 years ago
Birth of Ingvar Kamprad, Swedish businessman who founded the furniture retail company IKEA. (Died 2018.)

31 Mar 1951 – 75 years ago
UNIVAC I was unveiled. It was the first commercial computer built in the USA that was designed for business and administrative use (rather than scientific/ military use). It was built by the Sperry Rand Corporation for the U.S. Census Bureau.
It was officially dedicated on 14^th June.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2026.

The 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030 editions are also available if you work further ahead.

Each edition is available as a PDF ebook (with a free Excel spreadsheet) or as a printed paperback book, in British or U.S. versions.

How to use the anniversaries:

How can you turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines, newspapers and websites? How do you get paid for writing them, and how can you make a great living from it?

Download our free guide Ditch Your Day Job. It tells you everything you need to know!