Moments in time

MOMENTS IN TIME

* On March 24, 1603, after 44 years of rule, Queen Elizabeth I of England dies, and King James VI of Scotland ascends to the throne, uniting England and Scotland under a single British monarch. Queen Elizabeth I passed into history as one of England’s greatest monarchs.

* On March 23, 1839, the initials “O.K.” are first published in The Boston Morning Post. Meant as an abbreviation for “oll correct,” a popular slang misspelling of “all correct” at the time, OK steadily made its way into the everyday speech of Americans.

*On March 22, 1908, Louis L’Amour, the author of scores of bestselling Western novels, is born in Jamestown, N.D. After returning from World War II, L’Amour began writing short stories and novels. His big break came when a novel he wrote at the age of 46 became the basis for the popular John Wayne movie “Hondo.”

* On March 19, 1916, the First Aero Squadron flies a support mission for the 7,000 U.S. troops who had invaded Mexico on President Woodrow Wilson’s orders to capture Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa dead or alive.

* On March 18, 1937, nearly 300 students in Texas are killed by an explosion of natural gas at their school. Eleven oil and natural-gas derricks stood in the schoolyard as a means of saving the school money. The blast killed most victims instantly and was felt 40 miles away.

* On March 20, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson sends a telegram to Gov. George Wallace of Alabama in which he agrees to send federal troops to supervise a planned civil-rights march in Wallace’s home state. Earlier that month, civil-rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. had led two attempts to march to Montgomery.

* On March 21, 1980, President Jimmy Carter informs a group of U.S. athletes that, in response to the December 1979 Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, the United States would boycott the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. It marked the first and only time that the United States has boycotted the Olympics.