Things that happened on March 19:
1. In 1687, La Salle was killed. René‑Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was a French explorer who claimed the Mississippi River basin for France and named it Louisiana. On his final expedition, after missing the river’s mouth by hundreds of miles, his exhausted and starving men mutinied and shot him. His death marked the collapse of France’s most ambitious North American colonial dream.
2. In 1815, The Battle of New Orleans officially ended. However, the War of 1812 was already over on paper, as the Treaty of Ghent had been signed months earlier. News traveled slowly. Andrew Jackson’s ragtag force of regulars, militia, free Black soldiers, and Jean Lafitte’s pirates defeated the British anyway. The victory turned Jackson into a national hero and reshaped American identity, even though it changed nothing diplomatically.
3. In 1831, the first U.S. bank heist occurred when thieves broke into City Bank on Wall Street and stole $245,000. It was an astronomical sum at the time. Most of the money was recovered, but the heist exposed how quickly the young nation’s financial system was growing, and how unprepared it was for modern crime.
4. In 1863, The SS Georgiana sank. This state‑of‑the‑art Confederate cruiser, loaded with munitions and medicines, attempted to slip through the Union blockade. She ran aground and was destroyed on her maiden voyage. The wreck, found exactly 102 years later, became a touchstone for Civil War maritime archaeology.
5. In 1865, The Battle of Bentonville began. This was one of the last major battles of the Civil War, fought in North Carolina as Confederate General Joseph Johnston tried - and failed - to halt Sherman’s march. It was a final, desperate attempt to slow the inevitable end of the Confederacy.
6. In 1918, the U.S. standardized time zones and adopted Daylight Saving Time. What began as a wartime energy‑saving measure became a permanent reshaping of American timekeeping. Railroads had pushed for standardization for decades; Congress finally made it law.
7. In 1920, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles again. President Wilson wanted the U.S. to join the League of Nations. The Senate refused - twice - choosing isolation over internationalism. The decision shaped American foreign policy for the next two decades and arguably helped set the stage for World War II.
8. In 1931, Nevada legalized gambling. In the depths of the Great Depression, Nevada took a gamble of its own. Legalizing casinos was meant to boost the economy; instead, it transformed the state’s identity and eventually created Las Vegas as a global symbol of spectacle and excess.
9. In 1941, The Tuskegee Airmen’s 99th Pursuit Squadron was activated. The first Black military aviators in U.S. history began their service under segregation, scrutiny, and doubt. Their combat record in WWII helped dismantle racist assumptions within the military and paved the way for desegregation in 1948.
10. In 1962, Bob Dylan’s debut album was released. The album was mostly traditional folk songs, recorded quickly and cheaply. It barely sold. But it introduced a voice that would reshape American music, politics, and protest culture within just a few years.
11. In 1979, the U.S. House began formal consideration of the ERA extension. Congress had already passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, but not enough states ratified it by the deadline. In 1979, lawmakers debated extending the deadline to 1982. It still fell short. Where it stands now: Nevada (2017), Illinois (2018), and Virginia (2020) eventually ratified it, reaching the required 38 states. Legal and procedural disputes mean the ERA remains unrecognized at the federal level.
12. In 1991, NFL owners stripped Phoenix of the 1993 Super Bowl. Arizona voters had refused to establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a state holiday. The NFL responded by pulling the Super Bowl, a rare moment when a sports league took a public stand on civil rights. Arizona reversed course in 1992.
13. In 2003, The Iraq War began. The U.S. launched airstrikes on Baghdad, beginning a war justified by claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons were never found. The conflict reshaped U.S. foreign policy, destabilized the region, and continues to influence global politics and veterans’ lives today.
Sources include the National Archives, the U.S. Senate Historical Office, the National Park Service, Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Nevada State Museum, the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, and contemporary reporting from the New York Times and BBC News.
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