March 19 in History

1563 — The Edict of Amboise is signed, ending the first phase of the French Wars of Religion and guaranteeing the Huguenots religious privileges and freedoms. However, it is gradually undermined by continuing religious violence at a regional level and hostilities renew in 1567.

1649 — The House of Commons of England passes an act abolishing the House of Lords, declaring it “useless and dangerous to the people of England”.

1863 — American Civil War: The SS Georgiana, reputedly intended to become the most powerful Confederate cruiser once her guns are mounted, is destroyed on her maiden voyage with a cargo of munitions, medicines and merchandise then valued at over $1m. On her way from Scotland, where she was built, she encounters Union Navy ships engaged in a blockade of Charleston, South Carolina. She is heavily damaged before being scuttled by her captain.

1965 — The wreck of the SS Georgiana, valued at over $50m, is discovered by 17-year-old diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E Lee Spence in the shallow waters of Charleston’s harbour.

1895 — Auguste and Louis Lumière, French manufacturers of photography equipment, record their first footage using their newly patented cinematograph, a motion-picture film camera which also serves as a film projector and developer. Unlike Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope, which had to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole, the cinematograph could be projected onto a screen. Their screening of the 46-second “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon” on March 22 for around 200 members of the Society for the Development of the National Industry in Paris is probably the first presentation of projected film. Their first commercial public screening on December 28 for around 40 paying visitors and invitees is traditionally regarded as the birth of cinema.

1909 — Louis Hayward, South Africa-born British-American actor (“The Saint in New York”, “The Man in the Iron Mask”, “The Return of Monte Cristo”), is born in Johannesburg.

1932 — Australia’s 1,149m Sydney Harbour Bridge is opened. Construction started on July 28 1923 and ended on January 19 1932.

1945 — Adolf Hitler issues his Nero Decree, ordering the destruction of German infrastructure to prevent its use by Allied forces as they penetrate deep within Germany. The responsibility for carrying it out falls to Albert Speer, Hitler’s minister of armaments and war production. Appalled by the order, Speer persuades generals and Gauleiters to evade the decree and avoid needless sacrifice of personnel and destruction of industry that would be needed after World War 2.

1945 — Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 807 and wounding more than 487 of her crew. Despite suffering the most severe damage and highest casualties experienced by any US fleet carrier that survives World War 2, Franklin is able to return to the US under her own power.

1969 — The 385m-tall TV mast at Emley Moor transmitting station, United Kingdom, collapses due to strong winds and ice build-up.

1989 — The Egyptian flag is raised at Taba, gaining back from Israel the tiny strip of beach near the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba that was captured during the Six Days War in 1967 and completing another article of the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries.

2008 — GRB 080319B, a gamma-ray burst, is detected by the Swift satellite. It sets a new record for the farthest object that is observable with the naked eye — for about 30 seconds.