March 6th

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of lying and obstructing an investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

Queen Elizabeth II launched the first royal website.

193 people die when a ferry capsizes in the North Sea. The Herald of Free Enterprise sank just minutes after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

Walter Cronkite, "the most trusted man in America," retired from the CBS Evening News and was replaced by Dan Rather.

A bomb being built inside a Greenwich Village townhouse by the radical Weathermen accidentally went off, destroying the house and killing three group members.

Stalin's daughter defects to the West. The Soviet dictator's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, caused an international uproar when she approached the United States embassy in New Delhi and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

The former British African colonies of the Gold Coast and Togoland became the independent nation of Ghana.

Heavy bombers staged the first American raid on Berlin during World War II.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. died two days shy of his 94th birthday.

A nationwide bank holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt went into effect.

Clarence Birdseye started to sell prepackaged frozen food for the first time, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Oreo sandwich cookies were first introduced by the National Biscuit Co., which later became Nabisco.

Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) patented by Felix Hoffmann at German company Bayer.

Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table of the elements to the Russian Chemical Society.

The Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that slaves were not citizens.

Giuseppe Verdi's Opera "La Traviata" premieres in Venice.

Battle of the Alamo: After 13 days of fighting 1,500-3,000 Mexican soldiers overwhelm the Texan defenders, killing 182-257 Texans including William Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett.

The city of Toronto was incorporated.

Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in Durham, England.

Treaty of Alcaçovas: Portugal gives the Canary Islands to Castile in exchange for claims in West Africa.