March 3 in History

March 3 is the 62nd day of the year. There are 304 days remaining until the end of the year.

• 1820 – The US Congress passed the Missouri Compromise.
• 1845 – Florida was admitted as the 27th US state.
• 1849 – The US Department of the Interior was established. 
• 1849 – The U.S. Congress passed the Gold Coinage Act allowing the minting of gold coins.
• 1857 – France and the United Kingdom declared war on China (Second Opium War).
• 1865 – The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the founding member of the HSBC Group, opened its doors.
• 1873 – U.S. Congress enacted the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.
• 1875 – Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen premièred at the Opera Comique in Paris.
• 1875 – The first organized indoor ice hockey game was played in Montreal.
• 1879 – The United States Geological Survey was created.
• 1913 - 5,000 march to support women's voting rights the day President-elect Woodrow Wilson arrived in DC for his swearing in.
• 1915 – NACA, the predecessor of NASA, WAs founded.
• 1923 – TIME magazine was published for the first time.
• 1931 – The United States officially adopted The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.
• 1938 – Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia.
• 1939 – In Mumbai, Mohandas Gandhi  began his fast in protest the autocratic British rule in India.
• 1967 – Go Mi-Young, South Korean mountaineer who climbed Makalu, Kangchenjunga, and Dhaulagiri in six weeks, was born. She died in a fall in 2009.