March 23, 1775 – Patrick Henry helps ignite the American Revolution with a speech in Richmond, Virginia. He delivers these now famous words to those assembled, “…I know not what course others will take; but for me, give me liberty or give me death.”
March 24, 1989 – One of the largest oil spills in U.S. history occurs when the oil tanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska. More than 11 million gallons of oil leak into the water stretching along 45 miles of shoreline.
March 25, 1911 – A raging fire erupted inside the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City leading to the deaths of 123 women and 23 men. The tragedy spurred national attention to labor working conditions and resulted in legislation improving factory fire safety rules.
March 28, 1979 – At 4 AM, one of the worst accidents in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry began when a pressure valve in the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania failed to close. Cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings and the unit’s fuel core began to overheat. Fears of a core meltdown that could release radiation and sicken area residents led to more than 100,000 people fleeing nearby towns. Slowly the reactor core cooled and no one outside the plant had exposure to adverse levels of radiation, but the incident greatly eroded the public’s faith in nuclear power.