Today in History: March 1, Peace Corps established

Today is Sunday, March 1, the 60th day of 2026. There are 305 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps; since its establishment, over 240,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps volunteers.

Also on this date:

In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act, making Yellowstone the nation’s first national park.

In 1932, Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, was kidnapped from the family home in New Jersey. (Remains identified as those of the child were found two months later; Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of murder in the case in 1935 and executed in 1936.)

In 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the spectators gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives, wounding five members of Congress.

In 1966, the Soviet space probe Venera 3 crash-landed on the surface of Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to reach another planet. However, Venera was unable to transmit any data back to Earth because its communications system had failed.

In 1971, a bomb went off inside a men’s room at the U.S. Capitol. The radical group Weather Underground claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn blast, which damaged the building but caused no injuries.

In 1974, seven people, including former Nixon White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman; former Attorney General John Mitchell; and former assistant Attorney General Robert Mardian, were indicted by a grand jury on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with the Watergate break-in. (These four defendants were convicted in January 1975, though Mardian’s...