Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March 29
March 29: Earth Hour (20:00 local time in various areas, 2008).
- 1461 – Yorkist troops defeated Lancastrian forces at the Battle of Towton in Yorkshire, England, the largest battle in the Wars of the Roses up until that time with approximately 20,000 casualties.
- 1638 – Swedish settlers founded New Sweden near Delaware Bay, the first Swedish colony in America.
- 1807 – German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers (pictured) discovered 4 Vesta, the brightest asteroid and the second-most massive body in the asteroid belt.
- 1831 – Bosniak general Husein Gradaščević began an uprising against Sultan Mahmud II and the Ottoman Empire.
- 1911 – The M1911 single-action, semi-automatic pistol developed by American firearms designer John Browning became the standard-issue side arm in the United States Army.