March 1: World heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis retires. - Indonesia seizes Yogyakarta from the Dutch.

March 2: The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II under Captain James Gallagher lands in Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight (it was refueled in flight 4 times).

March 17: The Shamrock Hotel in Houston, Texas, owned by oil tycoon Glenn McCarthy, has its grand opening.

March 20: The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Denver & Rio Grande Western, and Western Pacific railroads inaugurate the California Zephyr passenger train between Chicago and Oakland, California, as the first long distance train to feature Vista Dome cars as regular equipment.

March 25: An extensive deportation campaign is conducted in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Soviet authorities deport more than 92,000 people from the Baltics to remote areas of the Soviet Union.

March 26: The first half of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida, conducted by legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini, and performed in concert (i.e. no scenery or costumes), is telecast by NBC, live from Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center. The second half is telecast a week later. This is the only complete opera that Toscanini ever conducts on television.

March 28: United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal resigns suddenly. - English astronomer Fred Hoyle coins the term Big Bang during a BBC Third Programme radio broadcast.

March 29: The 21st Academy Awards ceremony is held. The movie Hamlet wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.

March 31: The former British colony of Newfoundland joins Canada as its 10th province. (source: Wikipedia)