AP Highlight in History: On March 11, 2004, 10 bombs hidden in backpacks exploded in quick succession across the commuter rail network in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 people and wounding about 1,800. Muslim militants who said they were avenging the presence of Spanish peacekeepers in Iraq and Afghanistan claimed responsibility.
AP Photo/Paul White
On this date in:
1810
Emperor Napoleon of France was married by proxy to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.
1888
A blizzard struck the northeastern United States, resulting in some 400 deaths.
1941
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis.
1942
As Japanese forces continued to advance in the Pacific during World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia. He subsequently vowed: "I shall return."
AP Photo
1970
The album "Deja Vu" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was released.
1977
More than 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims were freed.
1978
Palestinian guerrillas went on a rampage on the Tel Aviv-Haifa highway, killing 34 Israelis.
1985
Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko. Read the original AP story
1990
The Lithuanian parliament voted to break away from the Soviet Union and restore its independence. Read the original AP story
1993
Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be the nation's first female attorney general.
1993
North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
1997
Rock musician Paul McCartney of the Beatles was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
2002
Two columns of light soared skyward from ground zero in New York as a temporary memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
AP Photo/Mike Derer
2005
A man being escorted to court for trial in Atlanta took a gun from a sheriff's deputy and went on a deadly rampage, killing four people, including a judge. (Brian Nichols was later found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole).
2006
Former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead of a heart attack in his cell during his war crimes trial in The Hague.
