Today in History: March 24

2002: Film stars Denzel Washington and Halle Berry became the second and third African Americans to win Academy Awards for performances in leading roles.

1999: NATO planes, including stealth aircraft, attack Serbian forces in Kosovo.

1989: On this day in 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground, spilling some 11 million gallons (41 million litres) of oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska and creating the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

1985: Thousands demonstrate in Madrid against the NATO presence in Spain.

1972: Great Britain imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland.

1967: Viet Cong ambush a truck convoy in South Vietnam damaging 82 of the 121 trucks.

1965: The Freedom Marchers, citizens for civil rights, reach Montgomery, Alabama.

1958: Elvis Presley trades in his guitar for a rifle and Army fatigues.

1955: Tennessee Williams' play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens at the Morosco Theatre in New York City.

1954: Great Britain opens trade talks with Hungary.

1951: General Douglas MacArthur threatens the Chinese with an extension of the Korean War if the proposed truce is not accepted.

1947: Congress proposes limiting the presidency to two terms.

1945: With the debut of the Billboard magazine pop album chart, American pianist and singer Nat King Cole's King Cole Trio became the first record album to appear at No. 1.

1944: The Gestapo rounds up innocent Italians in Rome and shoot them to death in reprisal for a bomb attack that killed 33 German policemen.

1938: The United States asks that all powers help refugees fleeing from the Nazis.

1927: Chinese Communists seize Nanking and break with Chiang Kai-shek over the Nationalist goals.

1905: Pioneering French science-fiction author Jules Verne died in Amiens, France.

1904: Vice Admiral Togo sinks seven Russian ships as the Japanese strengthen their blockade of Port Arthur.

1900: Mayor Van Wyck of New York breaks ground for the New York subway tunnel that will link Manhattan and Brooklyn.

1882: Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had isolated and grown the tubercle bacillus, which he believed to be the cause of all forms of tuberculosis.

1862: Abolitionist Wendell Phillips speaks to a crowd about emancipation in Cincinnati, Ohio and is pelted by eggs.

1765: Britain passes the Quartering Act, requiring the colonies to house 10,000 British troops in public and private buildings.

1721: In Germany, the supremely talented Johann Sebastian Bach publishes the Six Brandenburg Concertos.

1720: The banking houses of Paris close in the wake of financial crisis.

1664: In London, Roger Williams is granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island.

1663: Charles II of England awards lands known as Carolina in North America to eight members of the nobility who assisted in his restoration.

1603: Queen Elizabeth I dies which will bring into power James VI of Scotland.

1208: King John of England opposes Innocent III on his nomination for archbishop of Canterbury.