March 27
1975: Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System began.
1998: The Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
2009: The dam forming Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, fails.
March 28
1910: Henri Fabre (1882-1984) became the first person to fly a seaplane, the Fabre Hydravion, after taking off from a water runway near Martigues, France.
1969: Dwight David Eisenhower (34th U.S. president, 1953-1961) died in Washington, D.C., age 78.
1990: President George H. W. Bush posthumously awarded Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal.
March 29
1919: The first Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus was held.
1945: The last World War II V-1 flying bomb attacks in England occurred.
1993: Catherine Callbeck became premier of Prince Edward Island, as well as the first woman elected in a general election as premier of a Canadian province.
2004: The Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to ban smoking in all work places, including bars and restaurants.
March 30
1909: The Queensboro Bridge in New York City opened, linking Manhattan and Queens.
1939: Detective Comics #27 was released, introducing Batman.
1964: The TV game show Jeopardy! premiered with host Art Fleming and announcer Don Pardo.
1981: President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) was shot in the chest and seriously wounded outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley Jr. Another two people were also wounded.
2017: SpaceX conducts the worlds first re-flight of an orbital class rocket.
March 31
1903: Richard Pearse allegedly made a powered flight in an early aircraft in New Zealand.
1909: Construction of the ill-fated RMS Titanic began in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
1916: Daylight saving time went into effect in the United States for the first time.
1930: The Motion Picture Production Code was instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film, in the United States, for the next 38 years.
1933: The Civilian Conservation Corps was established to relieve widespread unemployment in the United States.
1959: The 14th Dalai Lama crossed the border from Tibet into India and was granted political asylum.
1966: The Soviet Union launched Luna 10, which later became the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.
1985: The first WrestleMania, the biggest wrestling event from the WWF (now the WWE), took place in Madison Square Garden in New York.
1992: The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, was decommissioned in Long Beach, Calif.
April 1
1960: The U.S.-launched TIROS-1 satellite transmitted the first television picture from space.
1975: Producer Lorne Michaels signed a deal with NBC to produce what would become Saturday Night Live.
1976: Apple Inc. was formed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in Cupertino, Calif. Conrail took over operations from six bankrupt railroads in the Northeastern U.S.
1982: Ronald Reagan became the first president to address both houses of Congress wearing fuzzy bunny slippers.
1997: Comet Hale-Bopp is seen passing at its closest point to the Sun.
2001: Same-sex marriage became legal in the Netherlands, the first contemporary country to allow it.
2004: Google unveiled Gmail to the public.
April 2
1956: As the World Turns and The Edge of Night premiered on CBS-TV as the first daytime dramas in the 30-minute format.
1972: Actor Charlie Chaplin returned to the United States for the first time since being labeled a communist during the Red Scare in the early 1950s.
1991: Rita Johnston became the first female premier of a Canadian province when she succeeded William Vander Zalm (who had resigned) as premier of British Columbia.