From Historynet: Today in History March 28

1774          Britain passes the Coercive Act against rebellious Massachusetts.

1854          Britain and France declare war on Russia.

1864          A group of Copperheads attack Federal soldiers in Charleston, Illinois. Five are killed and twenty wounded.

1885          The Salvation Army is officially organized in the United States.

1908          Automobile owners lobby Congress in support of a bill that calls for vehicle licensing and federal registration.

1910          The first seaplane takes off from water at Martiniques, France.

1917          The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is founded, Great Britain's first official service women.

1921          President Warren Harding  names 

William Howard Taft  as chief justice of the United States.

1930          Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara respectively.

1933          Nazis order a ban on all Jews in businesses, professions and schools.

1939          The Spanish Civil War ends as Madrid falls to 

Francisco Franco .

1941          English novelist Virginia Woolf  throws herself into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex. Her body will not be found until April 18.

1941          The Italian fleet is routed by the British at the Battle of Battle of Cape Matapan

1942          A British ship, the HMS Campbeltown, a Lend-Lease American destroyer, which was specifically rammed into a German occupied dry-dock in France, explodes, knocking the area out of action for the German battleship Tirpitz.

1945          Germany launches the last of its V-2 rockets against England.

1946          Juan Peron  is elected President of Argentina. He will hold the office for six years.

1962          The U.S. Air Force announces research into the use of lasers to intercept missiles and satellites.

1969          Dwight D. Eisenhower  dies at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C.

1979          A major accident occurs at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant

1986          The U.S. Senate passes $100 million aid package for the Nicaraguan contras.

1990          Jesse Owens  receives the Congressional Gold Medal from President George Bush .

1999          An American Stealth F117 Nighthawk is shot down over northern Yugoslavia during NATO air strikes.