March 10 in History

The First Punic War was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and greatest naval war of antiquity, the two powers struggled for supremacy. The war was fought primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. After immense losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated and Rome gained territory from Carthage.

Maximian (Latin: Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus; c. 250 – c. July 310), nicknamed Herculius, was Roman emperor from 286 to 305. He was Caesar from 285 to 286, then Augustus from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocletian, whose political brain complemented Maximian's military brawn. Maximian established his residence at Trier but spent most of his time on campaign. In late 285, he suppressed rebels in Gaul known as the Bagaudae. From 285 to 288, he fought against Germanic tribes along the Rhine frontier. Together with Diocletian, he launched a scorched earth campaign deep into Alamannic territory in 288, refortifying the frontier. The man he appointed to police the Channel shores, Carausius, rebelled in 286, causing the secession of Britain and northwestern Gaul. Maximian failed to oust Carausius, and his invasion fleet was destroyed by storms in 289 or 290. Maximian's subordinate Constantius campaigned against Carausius' successor, Allectus, while Maximian held the Rhine frontier. The rebel leader was ousted in 296, and Maximian moved south to combat piracy near Hispania and Berber incursions in Mauretania. When these campaigns concluded in 298, he departed for Italy, where he lived in comfort until 305. At Diocletian's behest, Maximian abdicated on 1 May 305, gave the Augustan office to Constantius, and retired to southern Italy. In late 306, Maximian took the title of Augustus again and aided his son, Maxentius, and his rebellion in Italy. In April 307, he attempted to depose his son, but failed and fled to the court of Constantius' successor, Constantine (Maximian's step-grandson and son-in-law), in Trier. At the Conference of Carnuntum in November 308, Diocletian and his successor, Galerius, forced Maximian to renounce his imperial claim again. In early 310, Maximian attempted to seize Constantine's title while the emperor was on campaign on the Rhine. Few supported him, and he was captured by Constantine in Marseille. Maximian killed himself in mid-310 on Constantine's orders. During Constantine's war with Maxentius, Maximian's image was purged from all public places. However, after Constantine ousted and killed Maxentius, Maximian's image was rehabilitated, and he was deified.

Han, known as the Later Han in historiography, was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that existed from 947 to 951. It was the fourth of the Five Dynasties during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in Chinese history, and the third consecutive Shatuo-led Chinese dynasty, although other sources indicate that the Later Han emperors claimed patrilineal Han ancestry. It was among the shortest-lived of all Chinese regimes, lasting for slightly under four years before it was overthrown by a rebellion that resulted in the founding of the Later Zhou dynasty. Remnants of the Later Han then founded the Northern Han dynasty.

Santo Domingo, officially known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. As of 2022, the city center had a population of 1,029,110 while its metropolitan area, Greater Santo Domingo, had a population of 4,274,651. The city is coterminous with the boundaries of the Distrito Nacional (D.N.), itself bordered on three sides by Santo Domingo Province.

Fray Tomás de Berlanga, O.P., (1487 – 8 August 1551) was the fourth Bishop of Panamá.

Susenyos I (Ge'ez: ሱስንዮስ Sūsinyōs; c. 1571–1575 – 17 September 1632), also known as Susenyos the Catholic, was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1607 to 1632, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. His throne names were Seltan Sagad and Malak Sagad III. He was the son of Abeto Fasil, as well as the grandson of Abeto Yakob and the great-grandson of Dawit II. As a result, while some authorities list Susenyos as a member of the Solomonic dynasty, others consider him—rather than his son, Fasilides—as the founder of the Gondar line of the dynasty (which is, however, ultimately a subset of the Solomonic dynasty). The life of Susenyos is known through his chronicle, written by several official writers (sehafe te’ezaz). The Jesuits, who were closely associated with Susenyos’s reign, also left numerous documents on their mission in Ethiopia. Manuel de Almeida, a Portuguese Jesuit who lived in Ethiopia during Susenyos reign, described the emperor as "tall with the features of a man of quality, large handsome eyes, and an ample and well groomed beard. He wore a tunic of crimson velvet down to the knee, breeches of the Moorish style, a sash or girdle of many large pieces of fine gold, and an outer coat of damask of the same colour, like a capelhar." The Spanish Jesuit, Pedro Paez described him as "tall and well-proportioned, with large eyes, a straight nose and thin lips, a joyful expression and dark complexion. He is very good-natured and has excellent qualities; he is very prudent, a great and courageous captain, cunning and experienced in matters of war, because he has spent most of his life in it, and he has made it his office to govern an army. He is very generous, affable and a man who has the word of a king, because no fault can ever be found in what he says or promises, which is something rare in Ethiopia."

Charles I was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.

Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), known as the "Sun King", was King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. He is the longest-reigning monarch in history, reigning for 72 years and 110 days. His reign brought about a golden age in French history, marked by a great expansion of the French colonial empire and a flourishing of French culture throughout Europe. As an absolute monarch, Louis expanded monarchical rule and diminished the power of the nobility, developing a strong centralised state ruled from the Palace of Versailles that persisted until the French Revolution. Louis became king upon his father Louis XIII's death in 1643. Since he was too young to rule independently, he required a chief minister to rule in his place. His mother and regent, Anne of Austria, thus picked Cardinal Mazarin, who trained him in diplomacy and statecraft. Upon Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis had grown up and decided not to appoint a new chief minister. A believer in the divine right of kings, he sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France by compelling many members of the nobility to reside at his lavish Palace of Versailles. In doing so, he succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many of whom had participated in the Fronde rebellions during his minority. Louis enforced uniformity of religion under the Catholic Church. His revocation of the Edict of Nantes abolished the rights of the Huguenot Protestant minority and subjected them to a wave of dragonnades, effectively forcing Huguenots to emigrate or convert, virtually destroying the French Protestant community. During Louis' long reign, France emerged as the leading European power and regularly declared war. A conflict with Spain marked his entire childhood, while during his personal rule, Louis fought three major continental conflicts, each against powerful foreign alliances: the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War, and the War of the Spanish Succession. In addition, France contested shorter wars such as the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions. Warfare defined Louis's foreign policy, impelled by his personal ambition for glory and power: "a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique". His wars strained France's resources to the utmost, while in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military. Upon his death in 1715, Louis XIV left his great-grandson and successor, Louis XV, a powerful but war-weary kingdom, in major debt after the War of the Spanish Succession that had raged on since 1701. Some of his other notable achievements include the construction of the 240 km (150 mi) Canal du Midi in Southern France, the patronage of artists (the playwrights Molière, Racine, the man of letters Boileau, the composer and dancer Lully, the painter Le Brun and the landscape architect Le Nôtre, all contributed to the apogee of French classicism, described during his lifetime as the "Grand Siècle", or even "the century of Louis XIV"), and the founding of the French Academy of Sciences.

Nader Shah Afshar was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian history, ruling as the emperor of Iran (Persia) from 1736 to 1747, when he was assassinated during a rebellion. He fought numerous campaigns throughout West Asia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia, emerging victorious from the battles of Herat, Mihmandust, Murche-Khort, Kirkuk, Yeghevārd, Khyber Pass, Karnal, and Kars. Nader belonged to the Turkoman Afshars, one of the seven Qizilbash tribes that helped the Safavid dynasty establish their power in Iran.

The Huguenots are a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term was in common use by around 1550 and may be derived from the name of burgomaster Besançon Hugues, who defended Geneva from Catholic Savoy but then let it fall to Protestantism. Huguenot was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle, and Montbéliard, were mainly Lutherans.

Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and the Middle East during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe. Born on the island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France in 1779 and was commissioned as an officer in the French Royal Army in 1785. He supported the French Revolution in 1789 and promoted its cause in Corsica. He rose rapidly through the ranks after winning the siege of Toulon in 1793 and defeating royalist insurgents in Paris on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. In 1796 he commanded a military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies in the War of the First Coalition, scoring decisive victories and becoming a national hero. He led an invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798, which served as a springboard for his rise to political power. In November 1799 Napoleon engineered the Coup of 18 Brumaire against the French Directory and became First Consul of the Republic. He won the Battle of Marengo in 1800, which secured France's victory in the War of the Second Coalition, and in 1803 he sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States. In December 1804 Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, further consolidating his power. The breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens led to the War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered the coalition with a decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. In the War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon defeated Prussia at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, marched his Grande Armée into Eastern Europe, and defeated the Russians in 1807 at the Battle of Friedland. Seeking to extend his trade embargo against Britain, Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and installed his brother Joseph as King of Spain in 1808, provoking the Peninsular War. In 1809 the Austrians again challenged France in the War of the Fifth Coalition, during which Napoleon consolidated his dominance over Europe after winning the Battle of Wagram. In the summer of 1812 he launched an invasion of Russia. After forcing the Russians to abandon Moscow following the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon briefly occupied the city before conducting a catastrophic retreat of his army that winter. In 1813 Prussia and Austria joined Russia in the War of the Sixth Coalition, in which Napoleon was decisively defeated at the Battle of Leipzig. The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. He was exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba and the Bourbons were restored to power. Ten months later Napoleon escaped from Elba with around a thousand men and marched on Paris, reclaiming control of the country. His opponents responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died of stomach cancer in 1821, aged 51. Since his death, Napoleon has maintained a prominent place in historical research and popular culture. He is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history, and Napoleonic tactics are still studied at military schools worldwide. His legacy endures through the legal and administrative reforms he enacted in France and Western Europe, most notably the Napoleonic Code. He established a system of public education, abolished the vestiges of feudalism, emancipated Jews and other religious minorities, abolished the Spanish Inquisition, enacted the principle of equality before the law for an emerging middle class, and centralized state power at the expense of religious authorities. His conquests also acted as a catalyst for political change and the development of nation-states. However, he remains controversial because of his role in wars that devastated Europe, his looting of conquered territories, and his mixed record on civil rights. He abolished the free press, ended directly elected representative government, exiled and imprisoned critics of his regime, reinstated slavery in French colonies, banned the entry of black people and mulattos into France, reduced the civil rights of women and children, reintroduced a hereditary monarchy and nobility, and violently repressed popular uprisings against his rule.

The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (Dutch: Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger; KNIL, pronounced [knɪl]; Indonesian: Tentara Kerajaan Hindia Belanda) was the military force maintained by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in its colony of the Dutch East Indies, in areas that are now part of Indonesia. The KNIL's air arm was the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force. Elements of the Royal Netherlands Navy and Government Navy were also stationed in the Netherlands East Indies.

The French Foreign Legion (French: Légion étrangère, also known simply as la Légion, 'the Legion') is a corps of the French Army created to allow foreign nationals into French service. The Legion was founded in 1831 and today consists of several specialities, namely infantry, cavalry, engineers, and airborne troops. It formed part of the Armée d'Afrique, French Army units associated with France's colonial project in North Africa, until the end of the Algerian War in 1962. Legionnaires are today renowned as highly trained soldiers whose training focuses on traditional military skills and on the Legion's strong esprit de corps, as its men come from different countries with different cultures. Consequently, training is often described as not only physically challenging, but also very stressful psychologically. Legionnaires may apply for French citizenship after three years' service, or immediately after being wounded in the line of duty; this latter provision is known as "Français par le sang versé" ("French by spilled blood").

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). It was signed on the 2nd of February 1848 in the town of Guadalupe Hidalgo. After the defeat of its army and the fall of the capital in September 1847, Mexico entered into peace negotiations with the U.S. envoy, Nicholas Trist. The resulting treaty required Mexico to cede 55 percent of its territory including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. Mexico also relinquished all claims for Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas. In turn, the U.S. government paid Mexico $15 million "in consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States" and agreed to pay debts owed to U.S. citizens by the Mexican government. Mexicans in areas annexed by the U.S. could relocate within Mexico's new boundaries or receive U.S. citizenship and full civil rights. The United States ratified the treaty on 10 March and Mexico on 19 May. The ratifications were exchanged on 30 May, and the treaty was proclaimed on 4 July 1848. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty by a vote of 38–16. The opponents of this treaty were led by the Whigs, who had opposed the war and rejected manifest destiny in general, and rejected this expansion in particular. The amount of land gained by the United States from Mexico was further increased due to the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, which ceded parts of present-day southern Arizona and New Mexico to the United States.

Mirza Fatali Akhundov, also known as Mirza Fatali Akhundzade, or Mirza Fath-Ali Akhundzadeh, was a celebrated Iranian Azerbaijani author, playwright, atheist, philosopher, and literary critic who lived most of his life in the Russian Empire. He became famous mainly for his European-inspired plays written in Azerbaijani.

The invention of the telephone was the culmination of work done by many different people, and led to an array of lawsuits relating to the conflicting patent claims made by several individuals and numerous companies. Notable people included in this process were Antonio Meucci, Philipp Reis, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell.

Almon Brown Strowger (; February 11, 1839 – May 26, 1902) was an American inventor for whom the Strowger switch, an electromechanical telephone exchange technology, is named.

The Courrières mine disaster, Europe's worst mining accident, caused the death of 1,099 miners in Northern France on 10 March 1906. This disaster was surpassed only by the Benxihu Colliery accident in China on 26 April 1942, which killed 1,549 miners. A coal-dust explosion, the cause of which is not known with certainty, devastated a coal mine operated by the Compagnie des mines de houille de Courrières. Victims lived nearby in the villages of Méricourt (404 people killed), Sallaumines (304 killed), Billy-Montigny (114 people killed), and Noyelles-sous-Lens (102 people killed). The mine was 2 km (1 mi) to the east of Lens, in the Pas-de-Calais département (about 220 km, or 140 miles, north of Paris). A large explosion was heard shortly after 06:30 on the morning of Saturday 10 March 1906. An elevator cage at Shaft 3 was thrown to the surface, damaging the pit-head; windows and roofs were blown out on the surface at Shaft 4; an elevator cage raised at Shaft 2 contained only dead or unconscious miners.

The Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909, also known as the Bangkok Treaty of 1909, was an agreement between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand). It was signed on 10 March 1909 in Bangkok, with ratifications exchanged in London on 9 July 1909. The treaty established the modern border between Malaysia and Thailand. Areas around modern Pattani, Narathiwat, southern Songkhla, Satun and Yala remained under Thai control, later becoming the site of the South Thailand insurgency. Under the treaty, Thailand relinquished claims to Kedah (Thai: ไทรบุรี, romanized: Saiburi), Kelantan (กลันตัน, Kalantan), Perlis (ปะลิส, Palit) and Terengganu (ตรังกานู, Trangkanu), which entered the British sphere of influence as protectorates. During World War II, Thailand briefly reclaimed these territories with Japanese permission, but they were returned to British control after the defeat of the Axis powers. These four states, together with Johor, later became known as the Unfederated Malay States, eventually joining the Federation of Malaya and forming part of present-day Malaysia.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and whose legacy would later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā, first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.

The 1933 Long Beach earthquake took place on March 10 at 5:54 P.M. PST south of downtown Los Angeles. The epicenter was offshore, southeast of Long Beach, California, on the Newport–Inglewood Fault. The earthquake had a magnitude estimated at 6.4 Mw, and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). Damage to buildings was widespread throughout Southern California. It resulted in 115 to 120 fatalities and an estimated $40 million worth of property damage, equivalent to $995 million in 2025. The majority of the fatalities resulted from people running out of buildings, exposing themselves to the falling debris.

The Greek Civil War took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the end of World War II, consisted of a Communist-led uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece. The rebels declared a people's republic, the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece, which was governed by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and its military branch, the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). The rebels were supported by Albania and Yugoslavia. With the support of the United Kingdom and the United States, the Greek royal government forces ultimately prevailed.

World War II, or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945), was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes. The causes of World War II included unresolved tensions in the aftermath of World War I and the rise of fascism in Europe and militarism in Japan. Key events preceding the war included Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Spanish Civil War, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and Germany's annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland, after which the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany. Poland was also invaded by the Soviet Union in mid-September, and was partitioned between the two states under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In 1940, the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania, while Germany conquered Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. After the fall of France in June 1940, the war continued, mainly between Germany, now assisted by Fascist Italy, and the British Empire and British Commonwealth, with fighting in the Balkans, Mediterranean, Middle East, East Africa, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, and the naval Battle of the Atlantic. By mid-1941, Yugoslavia and Greece had also been defeated by Axis countries. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front. In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories in Asia and the Pacific, including Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, leading the United States to enter the war against the Axis. Japan conquered much of coastal China and Southeast Asia, but its advances in the Pacific were halted in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway. In early 1943, Axis forces were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. An Allied invasion of Italy in July resulted in the fall of its fascist regime, and Allied offensives in the Pacific and the Soviet Union forced the Axis to retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France at Normandy, opening a new front, and the Soviet Union advanced into Central Europe. Japan also suffered major setbacks, including the crippling of its navy by the United States, the loss of key Western Pacific islands, and defeats in Burma. The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories and an invasion of Germany itself, which culminated in the fall of Berlin and Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. On 6 and 9 August, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, followed by a Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria. Japan announced its unconditional surrender on 15 August and signed a surrender document on 2 September 1945. World War II transformed the political, economic, and social structures of the world and established the foundation of international relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The United Nations was created to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts, with the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—becoming the permanent members of its Security Council. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War. In the wake of Europe's devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and of Asia. Many countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion.

Mildred Elizabeth Gillars (née Sisk; November 29, 1900 – June 25, 1988) was an American broadcaster employed by Nazi Germany to disseminate Axis propaganda during World War II. Following her capture in post-war Berlin, Gillars became the first woman to be convicted of treason against the United States. In March 1949, she was sentenced to ten to thirty years' imprisonment. Gillars was paroled in 1961. Along with Rita Zucca she was nicknamed "Axis Sally".

Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (born Rubén Zaldívar; 16 January 1901 – 6 August 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, and again from 1952 to his resignation in 1959, when he was overthrown in the Cuban Revolution. From 1936 till 1940 he was the de facto leader of Cuba. Batista first came to prominence in the Revolt of the Sergeants, which overthrew the provisional government of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada. Batista then appointed himself chief of the armed forces, with the rank of colonel, and effectively controlled the five-member "pentarchy" that functioned as the collective head of state. He maintained control through a series of puppet presidents until 1940, when he was elected president on a populist platform. He then instated the 1940 Constitution of Cuba and presided over Cuban support for the Allies during World War II. After finishing his term in 1944, Batista moved to Florida, returning to Cuba to run for president in 1952. Facing certain electoral defeat, he led a military coup against President Carlos Prío Socarrás that pre-empted the election. Back in power and receiving financial, military and logistical support from the United States government, Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans. Eventually, it reached the point where most of the sugar industry was in U.S. hands, and foreigners owned 70% of the arable land. Batista's repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships both with the American Mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large U.S.-based multinational companies who were awarded lucrative contracts. To quell the growing discontent amongst the populace—which was subsequently displayed through frequent student riots and demonstrations—Batista established tighter censorship of the media, while also utilizing his Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities secret police to carry out wide-scale violence, torture and public executions. These murders mounted in 1957, as socialist ideas became more influential. While exact numbers are unclear, estimates of the death toll attributed to Batista range from hundreds to up to 20,000 victims. Batista's efforts to quell the unrest proved not only ineffective, but his tactics were the catalyst to even wider resistance against his regime. During this time, revolutionary leaders Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, founders of the 26th of July Movement, began a revolution that saw a combination of peaceful protests and guerrilla warfare in both rural and urban areas of Cuba between 1956 and 1958. After almost two years of fighting, rebel forces led by Guevara defeated Batista's forces at the Battle of Santa Clara on New Year's Eve, 1958, effectively collapsing the regime. On 1 January 1959, Batista announced his resignation, fleeing the country to the Dominican Republic under the protection of Rafael Trujillo, before settling in Portugal, spending the rest of his life in exile until his death in 1973.

The 1959 Tibetan uprising or Lhasa uprising began on 10 March 1959 as a series of protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, fueled by fears that the government of the People's Republic of China planned to arrest the Dalai Lama. Over the next ten days, the demonstrations evolved from expressions of support for the 14th Dalai Lama to demands for independence and the reversal of the 1951 Chinese annexation of Tibet. After protesters acquired weapons, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) shelled protesters in the Dalai Lama's summer palace and deployed tanks to suppress the demonstrations. Bloody fighting continued for the next three days while the Dalai Lama escaped to India. Thousands of Tibetans were killed during the 1959 uprising, but the exact number is disputed. The 10 March anniversary of the uprising is observed by exiled Tibetans as Tibetan Uprising Day and Women's Uprising Day.

The Republic of Vietnam, commonly known as South Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered recognition in 1949 as the associated State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon. Since 1950, it was a member of the Western Bloc during the Cold War. Following the 1954 partition of Vietnam, it became known as South Vietnam and was established as a republic in 1955. Although South Vietnam failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957, its sovereignty was recognized by 95 countries as of January 1975. It was succeeded by the communist-controlled Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, North Vietnam and the Republic of South Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 census, making it the second-most populous city in Tennessee, the fifth-most populous in the Southeast, and the 29th-most populous in the US. While being the most populous single municipality on the Mississippi River, Memphis anchors the third largest metropolitan area by population behind only the Twin Cities and St. Louis. Metropolitan Memphis includes parts of Arkansas and Mississippi, the 45th-most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. with 1.34 million residents.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

Sir John Grey Gorton was the 19th prime minister of Australia, serving from 1968 to 1971. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, having previously served as a senator for Victoria. He was the first and only member of the upper house of the Parliament to assume the office of prime minister.

General elections were held in Belgium on 10 March 1974. The Belgian Socialist Party emerged as the largest faction in the Chamber of Representatives with 59 of the 212 seats. Voter turnout was 90.3%. Elections were also held for the nine provincial councils, as well as for the Council of the German Cultural Community for the first time.

The 1975 spring offensive, officially known as the general offensive and uprising of spring 1975, was the final North Vietnamese campaign of the Vietnam War that led to the capitulation of South Vietnam. In December 1974, People's Army of Vietnam's (PAVN) forces crossed from their bases in Cambodia and captured Phước Long Province by January 1975. After this success, the North Vietnamese leadership increased the scope of the PAVN offensive and attacked the Central Highlands from Cambodia in March, capturing the city of Buôn Ma Thuột on 18 March. These operations were intended to be preparatory to launching a general offensive in 1976.

The rings of Uranus consist of 13 planetary rings. They are intermediate in complexity between the more extensive set around Saturn and the simpler systems around Jupiter and Neptune. The rings of Uranus were discovered on March 10, 1977, by James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham, and Jessica Mink. William Herschel had also reported observing rings in 1789; modern astronomers are divided on whether he could have seen them, as they are very dark and faint.

On International Women's Day on 8 March 1979, a women's march took place in Tehran, Iran. The march was originally intended to celebrate the International Women's Day, but transformed into massive protests against the changes taking place in women's rights during the Iranian Revolution, specifically the introduction of mandatory hijab (veiling), which had been announced the day before. The protests lasted for six days, from 8 March to 14 March 1979, with thousands of women participating. The protests were met with violence and intimidation by pro-Khomeini Islamist forces.

In astronomy, a syzygy is a roughly straight-line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system.

Air Ontario Flight 1363 was a scheduled Air Ontario passenger flight which crashed near Dryden, Ontario, Canada, on 10 March 1989 shortly after takeoff from Dryden Regional Airport. The aircraft was a Fokker F28-1000 Fellowship twin jet. It crashed after only 49 seconds because it was not able to attain sufficient altitude to clear the trees beyond the end of the runway, due to a buildup of ice and snow on the wings.

Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country in the Caribbean on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas. It occupies the western side of the island, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Haiti is the third largest country in the Caribbean by area, and with an estimated population of 11.4 million, it is the most populous Caribbean country. The capital and largest city is Port-au-Prince.

Legislative elections were held in El Salvador on 10 March 1991. The result was a victory for the Nationalist Republican Alliance, which won 39 of the 84 seats. Voter turnout was 44.7%.

The dot-com bubble was a stock market bubble that developed during the late 1990s and peaked on March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Internet, resulting in a dispensation of available venture capital and the rapid growth of valuations in new dot-com startups. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, investments in the Nasdaq Composite stock market index rose by 600%, only to fall 78% from its peak by October 2002, giving up all its gains during the bubble.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to search for the existence of water on Mars and provide support for missions to Mars, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 12, 2005, at 11:43 UTC and reached Mars on March 10, 2006, at 21:24 UTC. In November 2006, after six months of aerobraking, it entered its final science orbit and began its primary science phase.

On 9 December 2016, Park Geun Hye, the president of South Korea, was impeached as the culmination of a political scandal involving interventions to the presidency from her aide, Choi Soon-sil. 234 members of the 300-member National Assembly voted to impeach and temporarily suspend Park's presidential powers and duties. This exceeded the required two-thirds threshold in the National Assembly and, although the vote was by secret ballot, the results indicated that more than half of the 128 lawmakers in Park's party Saenuri had supported her impeachment. Thus, Hwang Kyo-ahn, then Prime Minister of South Korea, became acting president while the Constitutional Court of Korea was due to determine whether to accept the impeachment. The court upheld the impeachment in a unanimous 8–0 decision on 10 March 2017, removing Park from office. The regularly scheduled presidential election was advanced to 9 May 2017, and Moon Jae-in, former leader of the Democratic Party, who Park had narrowly defeated in the 2012 presidential election, was elected as Park's permanent successor.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. On 10 March 2019, the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft which operated the flight crashed near the town of Bishoftu six minutes after takeoff. All 149 passengers and 8 crew members on board died.

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was an independent commercial bank that now operates as a division of First Citizens BancShares. In Q4 of 2026, First Citizens will fully integrate SVB and phase out the name entirely. The bank was previously the primary subsidiary of SVB Financial Group, a publicly traded bank holding company that had offices in 15 U.S. states and over a dozen international jurisdictions.

A snap legislative election was held on 10 March 2024 to elect members of the Assembly of the Republic to the 16th Legislature of Portugal. All 230 seats to the Assembly of the Republic were up for election. The elections were called in November 2023 after Prime Minister António Costa's resignation following an investigation around alleged corruption involving the award of contracts for lithium and hydrogen businesses.

Edrice Femi "Bam" Adebayo is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats before being selected by the Heat with the 14th overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. He is a three-time NBA All-Star, a six-time NBA All-Defensive Team honoree, and he helped the Heat reach the NBA Finals in 2020 and 2023. He also won a gold medal with the 2020 and 2024 U.S. Olympic teams. He has achieved the second-highest scoring game by a player in NBA history with 83 points, achieved in a 150–129 win on March 10, 2026, against the Washington Wizards.