On March 4

Construction began on a 69-metre (226 ft) statue of the Buddha at Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen in Bangkok.

A series of blasts occurred at an arms dump in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, killing at least 300 people and injuring 2,500 others.

President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the War in Darfur.

Fourteen-year-old English schoolgirl Charlotte Shaw drowned on Dartmoor, becoming the first person to die in connection with the annual Ten Tors challenge.

Playstation 2 was released in Japan.

College basketball player Hank Gathers died after collapsing during a West Coast Conference tournament semifinal game in Los Angeles.

U.S. president Ronald Reagan made a nationally televised address in which he accepted full responsibility for illegal actions in the Iran–Contra affair.

The space probe Voyager 1 discovered the rings of Jupiter, the third ring system to be discovered in the Solar System, after those of Saturn and Uranus.

During an interview, John Lennon of the Beatles argued that the band had become "more popular than Jesus".

Murder, Inc. leader Lepke Buchalter was executed, becoming the only American mob boss to receive the death penalty after being convicted of murder.

The Holocaust: Almost all Jews in Bulgarian-occupied Western Thrace were deported to Treblinka extermination camp to be killed.

Second World War: British Commandos successfully executed a raid on the Lofoten Islands in German-occupied Norway.

Frances Perkins was appointed United States Secretary of Labor, making her the first female member of the Cabinet.

A case of influenza was recorded at Camp Funston, Kansas, United States, conventionally marking the beginning of the Spanish flu pandemic.

The United States Navy suffered its largest non-combat loss of life when the collier USS Cyclops set sail from Barbados to Baltimore and was never seen again, presumably disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle.

Cyclone Mahina struck Bathurst Bay, Queensland, killing more than 300 people in one of the deadliest natural disasters in Australian history.

The Forth Bridge, a railway bridge connecting Edinburgh to Fife over the Firth of Forth, opened, eventually becoming an internationally recognised Scottish landmark.

King Charles Albert of Sardinia signs the Statuto Albertino, which would later serve as the constitution for the Kingdom of Italy.

Chicago was incorporated as a city.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of the British Isles, was founded as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck by author and philanthropist William Hillary.