TODAY IN HISTORY - MARCH 20TH

1616 – Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment.

1760 – The Great Boston Fire of 1760 destroys 349 buildings.

1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is published.

1854 – The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.

1915 – Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.

1922 – The USS Langley is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.

1923 – The Arts Club of Chicago hosts the opening of Pablo Picasso's first United States showing, entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso, becoming an early proponent of modern art in the United States.

1933 – Giuseppe Zangara is executed in Florida's electric chair for fatally shooting Anton Cermak in an assassination attempt against President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1943 – Douglas Tompkins, American businessman, co-founded The North Face and Esprit Holdings (d. 2015) is born.

1945 – Pat Riley, American basketball player and coach is born.

1948 – Bobby Orr, Canadian ice hockey player and coach is born.

1948 – With a Musicians Union ban lifted, the first telecasts of classical music in the United States, under Eugene Ormandy and Arturo Toscanini, are given on CBS and NBC.

1952 – The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.

1957 – Spike Lee, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter is born.

1963 – Kathy Ireland, American model, actress, and furniture designer is born.

1985 – Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

1985 – Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.

1987 – The Food and Drug Administration approves the anti-AIDS drug, AZT.

1999 – Legoland California, the first Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California.

2000 – Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown, is captured after murdering Georgia sheriff's deputy Ricky Kinchen and critically wounding Deputy Aldranon English.

2015 – A Solar eclipse, equinox, and a Supermoon all occur on the same day.