| 1653 | | Three day Naval Battle of Portland begins: Tromp's Dutch defeat Blake's English |
| 1667 | | The Dutch capture Surinam from the English |
| 1710 | | Battle of Helsingborg: The Swedes defeat a Danish invasion |
| 1778 | | The Rhode Island General Assembly authorizes enlistment of black troops |
| 1799 | | Jean-Etienne Championnet, commander of French troops in Naples, sacked as a looter |
| 1836 | | San Patricio: Mexicans defeat Texians in a surprise cavalry attack |
| 1844 | | USS 'Princeton': 12-inch gun "Peacemaker" explodes with heavy casualties -- Learn More |
| 1847 | | Battle of Sacramento: US defeats Mexico |
| 1864 | | Kilpatrick's Raid on Richmond begins (to 10 March) |
| 1893 | | USS 'Indiana' (BB-1) launched, the first American first class battleship |
| 1900 | | Relief of Ladysmith: British troops break Boer siege |
| 1933 | | Hitler bans the German Communist Party |
| 1942 | | Dutch East Indies: Japanese land on Java, last Allied bastion in the East Indies |
| 1942 | | Sunda Strait: Japanese cruiser squadron engages Allied cruisers USS 'Houston' & HMAS 'Perth' c. 2350. |
| 1943 | | 8 Japanese transports with c. 7000 troops sail from Rabaul for Lae |
| 1943 | | Burma: Japanese operations against Kachin guerrillas. |
| 1944 | | Alamo Scouts are withdrawn from Los Negros, as Allied air strikes continue |
| 1944 | | Mounted 2nd Cav Div (Colored) ships out for North Africa. |
| 1944 | | Marshal of the Soviet Union Nicholai Fyodorovich Vatutin, mortally wounded in an ambush by Ukrainian partisans, dies Apr 15th |
| 1945 | | Philippines: U.S. forces land on Palawan |
| 1976 | | Spain withdraws from Western Sahara |
| 1990 | | 65th American manned space mission, Atlantis 6, begins |
| 2013 | | Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger) resigns at 85 (r. 2005-2013) -- first papal resignation since 1415 |
| 1712 | | Louis Joseph de Montcalm de Saint-Véran, m/w, Quebec, 1759 |
| 1797 | | Prince Frederick of Netherlands, token corps commander at Waterloo, d. 1881 |
| 1817 | | James Craig, Brig Gen, U.S., d. 1888 |
| 1822 | | Matthew Duncan Ector, Brig Gen, C.S.A., d. 1879 |
| 1824 | | John Creed Moore, Brig Gen, C.S.A., d. 1910 |
| 1825 | | Quincy Adams Gillmore, Maj Gen, U.S., d. 1888 |
| 1833 | | Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, Chief of the German General Staff (1891-1896), alleged military genius, d. 1913 -- Learn More |
| 1893 | | Col. John W. Thomason, USMC, "The Kipling of the Corps", d. 1944 |
| 1907 | | Milton Caniff, cartoonist ("Terry & the Pirates", "Steve Canyon"), d. 1988 |
| 1912 | | Clara Petacci, lover of Mussolini, k. 1945 |
| 1926 | | Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's daughter, American, d. 2011 |
| 468 | | Pope St. Hilary I (461-468) |
| 628 | | Recently deposed Shah Khosrau II (590-628), murdered in his palace |
| 1447 | | Humphrey, 56, Duke of Gloucester (1414-1447), brother to Henry V, possibly murdered |
| 1525 | | Cuauhtemoc, c. 30, the last Aztec Emperor (1520-1521), hanged by Cortez |
| 1616 | | Vincent Fettmilch & six other anti-Semitic fanatics, beheaded for leading an attack on the Jews of Frankfurt |
| 1621 | | Grand Duke Cosimo II de'Medici of Tuscany (1609-1621), 30 |
| 1648 | | King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway (1588-1648), 70 |
| 1781 | | Richard Stockton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, at 50 |
| 1844 | | SecState Abel P Upshur, SecNav Thomas W Gilmer, Rep Virgil Maxey of Maryland, Capt Beverly Kennon, Chief, Bureau of Construction, Equipment, & Repair, David Gardiner of New York, the father of Julia Gardiner, fiancée to Pres John Tyler, presidential slave-valet Armistead Tyler, and two others, explosion, USS 'Princeton' |
| 1925 | | Friedrich Ebert, first President of the German Republic (1918-1925), in office at 54 |
| 1966 | | Charles A Bassett II (34) and Elliot McKay See Jr (34), astronauts, in a T-38 crash |
| 1986 | | Sven Olof Palme (59), PM of Sweden (1969-1976, 1982-1986), assassinated in Stockholm |
| 2007 | | Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., 89, OSS veteran, historian ("The Age of Jackson") |