Historic moments from pop culture and beyond — one day at a time.
Just after midnight on March 24, 1989, a 987-foot oil tanker with 53 million gallons of Prudhoe Bay crude in its belly tore open its hull on a reef everyone on board had a chart for. Within six hours, more than 10.8 million gallons of oil were on the move through one of the cleanest…
President Reagan addresses the nation from the Oval Office on March 23, 1983, unveiling his ambitious Strategic Defense Initiative. On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan sat behind his desk in the Oval Office and delivered a televised address that would reshape the Cold War, terrify the Soviet Union, and earn one of the most…
On March 22, 1997, 14-year-old Tara Lipinski broke Sonja Henie’s 70-year record to become the youngest World Figure Skating Champion in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Picture this: It’s October 18, 1985, and you’re walking through the toy aisles of a New York City store. Among the Transformers and Care Bears sits something completely different – a sleek gray box with a futuristic robot companion. The Nintendo Entertainment System had just landed in America, and none of us knew we were…
At 11:58 PM on March 19, 1980, a DJ named Stevie Gordon leaned into the microphone aboard a rusted Panamanian coaster called the Mi Amigo and told listeners across Britain that Radio Caroline was about to go off the air. Force-ten gales were already over the gunwales. The 134-foot mast that had beamed sixteen years…
March 19, 1990 marked a revolutionary moment in sports history when the puck dropped on the very first IIHF-sanctioned Women’s World Ice Hockey Championship in Ottawa, Canada. This groundbreaking tournament would change women’s hockey forever, establishing it as a legitimate international sport and launching careers that would inspire generations of female athletes. The Road to…
On the night of March 18, 1990, two men in Boston Police uniforms buzzed the side entrance of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and said they were responding to a disturbance call. It was 1:24 AM. The security guard on duty — Rick Abath, a 23-year-old Berklee music student working a graveyard shift — broke…
On March 18, 1992, white South Africans voted 68.7% YES in a historic referendum to end apartheid. F.W. de Klerk’s bold gamble, Nelson Mandela’s release, and the vote that changed South Africa forever.
On March 15, 1985, Symbolics Inc. registered symbolics.com — the very first .com domain name in internet history. From MIT AI Lab to Hollywood CGI, discover the full story of the company that kicked off the digital revolution.
On March 14, 1982, four teenagers took the stage at Radio City in Anaheim, California for Metallica’s very first live show. With broken guitar strings, a setlist packed with NWOBHM covers, and about 200 friends in the audience, nobody knew they were witnessing the birth of the biggest metal band in history.
On March 13, 1986, cosmonauts Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyev launched aboard Soyuz T-15 to become the first crew of the Mir space station — beginning 15 years of continuous human habitation in orbit and changing space exploration forever.
On March 11, 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence, starting the domino effect that would topple the entire communist empire within 18 months. This is the story of the small Baltic nation that dared to be first and changed the world.
