Human Saga

On March 3

On March 3, 2 pivotal events are recorded in the Human Saga, including Emancipation of the serfs in Russia (1861).

On this day

3 March 1861 (19 February O.S.)Emancipation of the serfs in RussiaSocial & demographic

On 3 March 1861 (19 February in the Russian Julian calendar) Tsar Alexander II issued the Emancipation Manifesto, freeing more than 23 million privately held serfs and inaugurating the most far-reaching reform of nineteenth-century Russia.

3 March 1918Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and Russia's exit from the warPolitics & governance

On 3 March 1918 the Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), formally ending Russia's participation in World War I.

Also this week in history (Feb 29 – Mar 6)

6 March 1869 (O.S.)Mendeleev presents the periodic tableScience, technology & invention

On 6 March 1869 (Old Style; 18 March by the Gregorian calendar) a paper by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev on 'The Dependence between the Properties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements' was read to the Russian Chemical Society in St…

1 March 1872Yellowstone, the world's first national parkEnvironment & climate

On 1 March 1872 President Ulysses S. Grant signed the act establishing Yellowstone National Park in the territories of Wyoming and Montana, creating the first federally protected national park in the world.

1 March 1896Battle of Adwa: Ethiopia defeats ItalyMilitary & conflict

On 1 March 1896, near the town of Adwa in northern Ethiopia, an Ethiopian army under Emperor Menelik II decisively defeated an invading Italian colonial force led by General Oreste Baratieri.

5 March 1946Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech at FultonPolitics & governance

Speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered an address officially titled "The Sinews of Peace." In it he warned that "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste…

1 March 1954Castle Bravo Test and the Nuclearisation of the PacificScience, technology & invention

On 1 March 1954 the United States detonated Castle Bravo, a lithium-deuteride-fuelled thermonuclear device, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands as the opening shot of Operation Castle.

6 March 1957Independence of GhanaPolitics & governance

On 6 March 1957 the Gold Coast became the independent state of Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African colony to win majority-rule independence from a European power.

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