19 Historical Instances Of Real March Madness

March is nicknamed for an annual college basketball frenzy, but guess what: buzzer-beaters aren’t the only crazy ish that goes down in the third month of the year.

1. March 1, 1260: Hulagu Khan (grandson of Genghis) and his Mongol army conquer Aleppo and Damascus using typical Mongol punishments, like rolling people up in rugs and having horses stampede over them.

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2. March 1, 1692: Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are the first three women arrested for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.

Source: chacha.com

3. March 3, 1913: Onlookers attack a women’s suffrage parade in Washington D.C. as police remain indifferent.

Source: theatlantic.com

4. March 5, 1770: British Army soldiers kill five civilian men and injure six others in the Boston Massacre.

Source: teenjury.com

5. March 5, 1982: John Belushi is cruelly taken from us forever.

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6. March 9, 1074: Pope Gregory VII excommunicates all married priests.

Source: onlipix.com

7. March 11, 1969: Levi’s adds bell bottoms to their famous jeans collection.

Source: etsy.com

8. March 15, 44 B.C. Julius Caesar is assassinated.

Source: tvtropes.org

9. March 15, 1971: CBS cancels the “Ed Sullivan Show” after 23 years.

Source: crankycritic.com

10. March 15, 1848: The San Francisco “Californian” publishes an article confirming the presence of gold in the American River, sparking the beginning of the California Gold Rush.

Source: newscenter.lbl.gov

11. March 15, 1965: the first ever T.G.I. Friday’s opens.

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12. March 18, 1992: Microsoft ships Windows 3.1.

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13. March 21, 1980: J.R. Ewing gets shot on the TV show “Dallas.”

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14. March 23, 1933: Adolf Hitler becomes dictator of Germany.

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15. March 24, 1989: The Exxon-Valdez oil spill, the largest in U.S. history, happens in Alaska.

Source: wired.com

16. March 28, 845: Vikings sack Paris.

Source: historywallcharts.eu

17. March 28, 1979: The partial nuclear meltdown on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania is the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history

Image by Jeff Fusco / Getty Images

18. March 29, 1848: An ice jam stops nearly the entire flow of water over Niagara Falls.

The Falls’ flow was halted for 30-40 hours, to the point where people could walk the dry riverbed. Some found muskets, arrowheads and tomahawks from the War of 1812.

Source: photosfan.com

19. March 30, 1867: Russia sells Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million.

Source: diylol.com