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February/March 2002 | Volume 53, Issue 1
Time Machine
Text Complexity Grade Level
9
March 1, 1977 To protect its fisheries, the United States declares that its territory extends 200 miles offshore, a limit that still holds today.
March 9-11, 1977 Gunmen from a Muslim sect occupy three government buildings in Washington, D.C., demanding, among other things, that seven prisoners convicted of killing the ringleader’s family be turned over to them. After 39 hours, the gunmen surrender.
March 3, 1952 The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a 1939 law that prohibits any member of an organization advocating the illegal overthrow of the government from teaching in public schools.
February 18, 1927 For the first time, the United States and Canada establish direct diplomatic relations independent of Great Britain.
March 7, 1927 The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Texas law prohibiting African-Americans from voting in primary elections.
March 10, 1902 President Theodore Roosevelt announces his administration’s first antitrust prosecution, against the Northern Securities Company, owned by J. P. Morgan.
March 3, 1877 The Desert Land Act offers 640-acre tracts in arid sections of the West at $1.25 per acre to buyers who agree to irrigate. The chief beneficiaries are cattle barons who hire sham applicants to stake claims and then sell them for a nominal fee.
March 20, 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe’s extremely popular antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin , which had been serialized in a Washington newspaper, is published in book form.
March 16, 1802 Congress establishes the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
March 12, 1652 The colony of Virginia abandons its loyalty to the beheaded King Charles I and submits to the authority of Parliament and Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth. On March 29, Maryland does the same.