◆ On this day

March 1

6 sourced moments from March 1 in history: Rio de Janeiro Was Founded (1565); Composer Frédéric Chopin Was Born (1810); Yellowstone became the world's first national park (1872), plus 3 more.

‹

›

F 27 S 28 S 29 S 1 M 2 T 3 W 4

6 things happened on March 1

newest first ↓

1966 Space · Space Exploration

Venera 3 was the first spacecraft to hit another planet

Venera 3 crashed into Venus on 1 March 1966 — not the first probe to reach Venus, but the first to touch another planet.

Read →

1954 History · Modern

Castle Bravo hit 15 megatons because of one wrong assumption

America's biggest nuclear test, on March 1, 1954, ran nearly triple its forecast, and nobody living downwind had been moved out of the way.

Read →

1896 Science · Physics

Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity on March 1, 1896

A cloudy week in Paris put uranium salts in a drawer. Becquerel found the rays, but a photographer had seen them 40 years earlier.

Read →

1872 Geography · Landmarks & Wonders

Yellowstone became the world's first national park

On this day in 1872, a single signature turned a remote tangle of geysers and canyons into the planet's first national park.

Read →

1810 Culture & Arts · Music

Composer Frédéric Chopin Was Born

A French-Polish prodigy born in a Mazovian manor would reshape how the world plays and hears the piano.

Read →

1565 Geography · Cities

Rio de Janeiro Was Founded

Sent to break a French foothold on Guanabara Bay, a Portuguese captain planted a city between two famous hills.

Read →