Some of the important historical events that took place in "Today in History" (March 3) are as follows:

TODAY IN HISTORY ( MARCH 3)

1791    
Congress passes a resolution authorizing the U.S. Mint; legislation creating the mint will be passed on Apr. 2, 1792.
1803    
The first impeachment trial of a U.S. Judge, John Pickering, begins.
1817    
The first commercial steamboat route from Louisville to New Orleans is opened.
1845    
Florida becomes the 27th U.S. state.
1857    
Under pretexts, Britain and France declare war on China.
1861    
The serfs of Russia are emancipated by Alexander II as part of a program of westernization.
1863    
President Abraham Lincoln signs the conscription act compelling U.S. citizens to report for duty in the Civil War or pay $300.00.
1877    
Rutherford B. Hayes, the republican governor of Ohio is elected president, his election confirmed by an electoral commission after disputed election the previous November.
1878    
Russia and the Ottomans sign the Treaty of San Stefano, granting independence to Serbia.
1905    
The Russian Czar agrees to create an elected assembly.
1918    
The Soviets and Germany sign a peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk depriving the Soviets of White Russia.
1919    
Boeing flies the first U.S. international airmail from Vancouver, British Columbia to Seattle, Washington.
1923    
The first issue of Time magazine is published. It's editor, Henry R. Luce, is just out of Yale.
1931    
President Herbert Hoover signs a bill that makes Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner," the national anthem.
1939    
In Bombay, Gandhi begins a fast to protest the state's autocratic rule.
1940    
A Nazi air raid kills 108 on a British liner in the English Channel.
1941    
Moscow denounces the Axis rule in Bulgaria.
1942    
The RAF raids the industrial suburbs of Paris.
1945    
Finland declares war on the Axis.
1952    
The U.S. Supreme Court upholds New York's Feinberg Law banning Communist teachers in the United States.
1969    
Sirhan Sirhan testifies in a court in Los Angeles that he killed Robert Kennedy.
1973    
Japan discloses its first defense plan since World War II.
1999    
Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky appears on national television to explain her affair with President Bill Clinton.