History of the Day for:
March 10
- 1785: Thomas Jefferson was appointed minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.
- 1862: The first paper money of the U.S. government was issued.
- 1876: Thomas Watson, assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, heard Bell say over the telephone, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you."
- 1915: The Battle of Neuve-Chapelle, an unsuccessful British offensive on the Western Front, began during World War I.
- 1922: Mahatma Gandhi was arrested by the British governors of India, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years imprisonment.
- 1941: The Brooklyn Dodgers announced that their players would wear batting helmets during the baseball season.
- 1945: Three hundred U.S. B-29 bombers devastated Japan's capital in what became known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in World War II. The firestorm the bombs created killed 100,000 people.
- 1952: The government of Cuba was overthrown by former president Fulgencio Batista, who ruled as a dictator until 1959.
- 1969: James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tenn., to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
- 1985: Russian leader Konstantin Chernenko died after only 13 months in office.
- 1990: American Jennifer Capriati, at 13 years, 11 months, became the youngest player ever to reach the final of a professional tennis tournament, an event in Florida.
- 2000: The NASDAQ Composite stock market index peaks at 5132.52, signaling the beginning of the end of the dot-com boom.
- 2006: The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrives at Mars.