March 22

Pope Clement V formally dissolves the Knights Templar under pressure from the French crown.

Under pressure from King Philip IV of France, who coveted the order's wealth, Pope Clement V formally dissolved the Knights Templar at the Council of Vienne, ending the once-mighty medieval military and banking order that had operated for nearly two centuries.

The Plymouth Colony Pilgrims sign a peace treaty with the Wampanoag leader Massasoit.

Pilgrim leaders from the Plymouth Colony signed a peace and mutual defense treaty with Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag Confederacy, establishing decades of relative peace between the two groups following the harsh first winter that had killed nearly half the colonists.

The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act, imposing direct taxation on the American colonies and fueling revolutionary sentiment.

The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, requiring colonists to pay a tax on printed materials including newspapers, legal documents, and playing cards, to help fund British military presence in North America. Colonial outrage over "taxation without representation" sparked boycotts and protests that foreshadowed the American Revolution.

The Lumiere brothers publicly demonstrate their film projection technology for the first time in Paris.

Auguste and Louis Lumiere held one of the first public demonstrations of their cinematographe device in Paris, screening short films to an audience of scientists and industrialists. Their subsequent public film screenings later that year are widely regarded as the birth of cinema as a public entertainment medium.

Nazi Germany opens the Dachau concentration camp, its first, near Munich.

The SS opened Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, near Munich, initially intended to hold political prisoners including communists and socialists. The camp later became a model for the broader Nazi concentration camp system and a site of medical experimentation and mass death.

The Arab League is founded in Cairo, uniting several Arab states in a regional political organization.

Representatives of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen met in Cairo to sign the founding charter of the Arab League, establishing a regional organization aimed at strengthening ties, coordinating policy, and safeguarding the independence and sovereignty of its member states. The League has since expanded to include most Arab nations across the Middle East and North Africa.

Physicists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes receive the first patent for the laser.

Physicists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes received the first patent for the laser, based on their theoretical work on stimulated light emission. The technology they helped pioneer went on to revolutionize fields ranging from medicine and telecommunications to manufacturing and consumer electronics.

The Beatles release their debut studio album, "Please Please Me."

The Beatles released their debut studio album "Please Please Me" in the United Kingdom, recorded in a single marathon session and featuring the title track alongside cover songs. The album's success launched the band toward the global phenomenon of Beatlemania.

Coordinated suicide bombings at the Brussels airport and a metro station kill 32 people.

Coordinated suicide bombings struck Brussels Airport's departure hall and a city metro station, killing 32 victims and three attackers and wounding hundreds more. The Islamic State claimed responsibility, and the attack was linked to the same network behind the previous year's Paris attacks.

Gunmen kill at least 145 people in an attack on a Moscow concert hall, one of Russia's deadliest terrorist attacks.

Gunmen attacked the Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow, opening fire on concertgoers and setting the building ablaze, killing at least 145 people in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern Russian history. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the assault.