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March 20.
1602. The Dutch East India Company is established. It was the first true corporation in the world -- the first to issue stock, and the first to be a multinational corporation. It was also arguably the world's first megacorporation, establishing colonies, coining money and entering into treaties. It was also immensely profitable for its owners, and paid an 18% dividend for nearly 200 years.
1616. Sir Walter Raleigh, having been imprisoned almost immediately after the death of Queen Elizabeth I on charges of treason, is released from prison after 13 years.
1848. The revolutions of 1848 in GErmany gain steam with the abdication of King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
1852. Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among the Lowly. An abolitionist, the book is an instant sensation, selling over 300,000 copies in the first year. It becomes the best-selling novel, and second best-selling book (after the Bible of course) of the entire 1800s. The book depicts the story of a slave, and profoundly affected attitudes regarding slavery in the United States and abroad, and increases sectional tensions. When he met her years later, President Lincoln is famously reported as having said "so this is the little lady that started this big war."
In one of those inexplicable perversities of history, the hero of the book is later transmogrified by popular culture, especially African-Americans, into some kind of boot licking, fawning slave, which was not the case, as exemplified by the fact that Tom is killed by his sadistic owner, Simon Legree, for refusing to help him recapture some escaped slaves.
The impact of the book was immediate. The South vilified Stowe, sending her threatening letters (including a package with a slave's ear enclosed). Comically and predictably, Southern writers began writing novels in response -- "Anti-Tom's Cabin Novels". In response to these criticisms, Stowe wrote "A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin", which was an even more direct assault upon slavery, and also an instant best seller.
The impact of the book in England was also profound, and credit must be given to Stowe for helping to keep England out of the Civil War. The book has been translated into pretty much every language known to man.
1916. Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.
1942. General MacArthur, in Terowie, South Australia, makes a famous speech about his retreat, stating "I came out of Bataan, and I shall return." A request from the Department of Defense to change his statement to "we shall return" goes ignored.
2003. In the early hours of the morning, the forces of the United States and three allied countries enter Iraq and begin the 2003 invasion of htat country.
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