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Explore 10 March

Explore 10 March: Bell makes the first telephone call, crowds rise in Lhasa, fire bombs destroy much of Tokyo and a lost bishop comes upon the Galápagos Islands. Meet Tsar Alexander III, Bix Beiderbecke and Samuel Eto’o, born on this date.

This day through time →13 verified events across 4 eras

⌛13Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙7Born
Today ✦5Lives
Remembered ◉3Firsts &
Discoveries ♫1Culture
Stories
The Dalai Lama (seated, centre) with members of the escort who protected him during his flight to India, March 1959.
The Dalai Lama (seated, centre) with members of the escort who protected him during his flight to India, March 1959.
Image creditUnknown photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1959

Tibetans rise against Chinese rule in Lhasa

On the morning of 10 March 1959 thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama’s summer palace in Lhasa. They feared he would be seized if he accepted an invitation to a performance at the Chinese army’s headquarters, and the protest grew into a revolt against Chinese rule.

On 17 March the Dalai Lama slipped out of the city in disguise. He reached India at the end of the month, and Chinese troops crushed the rising. Tens of thousands of Tibetans followed him into exile, where the anniversary is marked each year as Tibetan Uprising Day.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Central Tibetan Administration: Tibetan Uprising Day ↗
The Tokyo Metropolitan Memorial Hall in Yokoamichō Park, Sumida, where the victims of the raids are remembered.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Memorial Hall in Yokoamichō Park, Sumida, where the victims of the raids are remembered.
Image creditLcsschiller · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
1945

Fire bombs destroy much of Tokyo

Late on 9 March 1945 more than 300 American B-29 bombers took off from the Mariana Islands for Tokyo. Flying low, just after midnight on 10 March they began dropping incendiary bombs on the crowded, largely wooden districts east of the city centre, and strong winds spread the fires into a firestorm.

About 16 square miles of the city burned. Around 100,000 people were killed and more than a million were left homeless, making it the deadliest single air raid in history. Japan remembers the victims every year on 10 March.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: National WWII Museum: Hellfire on Earth, Operation Meetinghouse ↗
Fulgencio Batista at a press conference at Camp Columbia, Havana, on the day of the coup, 10 March 1952.
Fulgencio Batista at a press conference at Camp Columbia, Havana, on the day of the coup, 10 March 1952.
Image creditUnknown photographer · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1952

Batista seizes power in Cuba

In the early hours of 10 March 1952 General Fulgencio Batista, a former president who was trailing in the race for elections due that June, took control of the Camp Columbia army base in Havana. President Carlos Prío Socarrás fled, and the coup was almost bloodless.

Batista’s rule grew harsher and more corrupt. His seizure of power drove a young lawyer, Fidel Castro, to armed revolt, and Batista fled Cuba on 1 January 1959.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Office of the Historian: Foreign Relations of the United States 1952-54, vol. IV, document 325 ↗
A Santa Cruz giant tortoise in Galápagos National Park, Ecuador.
A Santa Cruz giant tortoise in Galápagos National Park, Ecuador.
Image creditBernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
1535

A lost bishop comes upon the Galápagos

In February 1535 Tomás de Berlanga, Bishop of Panama, sailed for Peru on the orders of the Spanish king. Becalmed near the Equator and carried west by strong currents, his ship drifted for days until, on 10 March by the calendar then in use, the crew sighted unknown islands.

Desperate for water, they went ashore. Berlanga’s report to the king gave the first description of the islands and their giant tortoises, or galápagos, which later gave the islands their name.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Galápagos Conservancy: History of Galápagos ↗
♙
PEOPLE

Born Today

Marcello Malpighi
Image creditCarlo Cignani · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1628

Marcello Malpighi

Italian physician who first saw capillaries through a microscope.

Louise of Prussia
Image creditJosef Grassi · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1776

Louise of Prussia

Queen of Prussia who famously pleaded with Napoleon for her country in 1807.

Samuel Eto'o
Image creditBACHELOR45 · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1981

Samuel Eto’o

Cameroonian striker, four times African Footballer of the Year.

◉
IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

Alexander Graham Bell in 1895.
Alexander Graham Bell in 1895.
Image creditUnknown authorUnknown author · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
1876

‘Mr Watson, come here’

On 10 March 1876, three days after his telephone patent was granted, Alexander Graham Bell spoke into his instrument in his Boston workshop to his assistant Thomas Watson in the next room: ‘Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you.’ Watson heard the words and came. Bell recorded the moment in his notebook that day.

He wrote to his father the same evening that the day might come when wires would bring speech into houses just as they brought water and gas.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Library of Congress: Alexander Graham Bell papers, collection highlights ↗
The epsilon ring of Uranus, photographed by Voyager 2 in January 1986.
The epsilon ring of Uranus, photographed by Voyager 2 in January 1986.
Image creditNASA/JPL · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1977

Astronomers discover the rings of Uranus

On 10 March 1977 James Elliot, Edward Dunham and Douglas Mink were watching Uranus pass in front of a star from NASA’s Kuiper Airborne Observatory, a telescope carried in a converted cargo plane. To their surprise the starlight dimmed several times before and after the planet crossed it.

The dips revealed narrow rings around Uranus, only the second ring system then known after Saturn’s. Five were found at first and nine soon after, and Voyager 2 photographed them in 1986.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: MIT News: James Elliot, discoverer of the rings of Uranus ↗
An artist's impression of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter skimming the Martian atmosphere.
An artist’s impression of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter skimming the Martian atmosphere.
Image creditNASA/JPL/Corby Waste · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
2006

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reaches Mars

On 10 March 2006 the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its six main engines for about 27 minutes to slow down enough to be captured by the planet’s gravity. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory cheered when its signal returned from behind Mars.

Over the next six months the craft dipped repeatedly into the thin upper atmosphere to shrink its orbit. Its powerful camera has since mapped the planet in fine detail and scouted landing sites for later missions.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Robotic NASA craft begins orbiting Mars ↗
♫
MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

The Rokeby Venus (The Toilet of Venus) by Diego Velázquez, about 1647-51, in the National Gallery, London.
The Rokeby Venus (The Toilet of Venus) by Diego Velázquez, about 1647-51, in the National Gallery, London.
Image creditDiego Velázquez · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1914

A suffragette slashes the Rokeby Venus

On 10 March 1914 the suffragette Mary Richardson walked into the National Gallery in London and attacked Velázquez’s painting of Venus with a meat cleaver, cutting the canvas several times. It was a protest against the arrest of the suffrage leader Emmeline Pankhurst the day before.

Richardson said she had tried to destroy the most beautiful woman in mythology because the government was destroying Mrs Pankhurst. She was jailed for six months, and the painting was skilfully restored.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: History Today: Deeds not words, the slashing of the Rokeby Venus ↗
✦
LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Yevgeny Zamyatin
Image creditBoris Kustodiev · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1937

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Russian writer whose novel We foreshadowed Brave New World and 1984.

Konstantin Chernenko
Image creditAssociated Press · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1985

Konstantin Chernenko

Soviet leader for thirteen months, succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev.

HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 10 March chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 13 verified events and the sources behind them.

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