From Historynet: 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, Nikolai II  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          Bill Boeing  and 

Eddie Hubbard  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 .