On March 28, 1797, Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire patented a washing machine.
In 1834 the U.S. Senate voted to censure President Andrew Jackson for the removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States.
In 1898 the Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen.
In 1930 the names of the Turkish cities of Constantinople and Angora were changed to Istanbul and Ankara.
In 1939 the Spanish Civil War ended as Madrid fell to the forces of Francisco Franco.
In 1941 novelist and critic Virginia Woolf died in Lewes, England; she was 59.
In 1943 four days short of his 70th birthday, composer Sergei Rachmaninoff died in Beverly Hills, Calif.
In 1953 athlete Jim Thorpe died in Lomita, Calif.
In 1958 blues composer W.C. Handy died in New York; he was 84.
In 1969 the 34th president, Dwight Eisenhower, died in Washington; he was 78.
In 1979 America’s worst commercial nuclear accident occurred inside the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pa.
In 1996 Congress passed the line-item veto, giving the president power to cut government spending by scrapping specific programs.
In 1999 the Baltimore Orioles beat a Cuban all-star team 3-2 in Havana.
In 2000 in a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court sharply curtailed police power in relying on anonymous tips to stop and search people.
In 2001 the authors of a book on the Oklahoma City bombing disclosed that during prison interviews, Timothy McVeigh showed no remorse for what happened and called the 19 children who died “collateral damage.”
In 2003 Japan launched its first spy satellites to monitor communist neighbor North Korea’s missile development and suspected nuclear weapons programs.
In 2004 Sir Peter Ustinov, the actor whose 60-year career included Oscar-winning roles in “Spartacus”‘ and “Topkapi,” died in Genolier, Switzerland; he was 82.
In 2005 the Colorado Supreme Court threw out the death penalty in a rape-and-murder case because five of the jurors had consulted the Bible and quoted Scripture during deliberations. Also in 2005 a major earthquake off the west coast of Indonesia killed up to 1,000 people.
In 2006 former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger died in Bangor, Maine; he was 88.
