March 24

Ieyasu kept the title only two years, then passed it to his son to show that it was now hereditary. As retired shōgun at Sunpu he went on ruling until his death.

She died at Richmond in the early hours of 24 March, the last day of 1602 by English reckoning: the new year began the next morning, on Lady Day. James VI of Scotland was proclaimed that day.

Bach, then Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold at Köthen, sent six concertos in a fair copy to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, with a dedication in French. There is no record that the margrave ever had them played.

In falling snow, eighteen samurai, seventeen of them from Mito, attacked Ii Naosuke’s procession outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle and killed him. The murder of the most powerful man in the shogunate at its own gate showed how weak it had become. Japanese calendar: Ansei 7, 3rd month, 3rd day

Found dead in his hotel room in Estoril, Alekhine became the only champion to die with the title. FIDE filled the vacancy with a tournament of the world’s best.

The first gravity assist: it swung past Venus on 5 February 1974 to fall inward to Mercury. Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo worked out that the orbit could bring it back to Mercury again and again, and it met the planet three times before its gas ran out.

Japan’s JAMSTEC sent the remotely operated vehicle down on a cable and measured 10,911 m: the first vehicle on the bottom since Trieste. It was lost in 2003 when its tether snapped in a typhoon.

A hurried merger agreement had let JPMorgan guarantee Bear’s trading for a year even if shareholders voted no. To win the vote it raised its offer to 10 dollars and took the first 1 billion dollars of any loss; the Fed’s loan became 29 billion dollars, repaid in full by 2012.

With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading, the IOC and Japan’s prime minister agreed to move the Games to 2021, the first postponement in Olympic history. They kept the name Tokyo 2020.