Today in History: March 19, Bush announces Iraq invasion

Today is Thursday, March 19, the 78th day of 2026. There are 287 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush announced in a televised address that coalition forces had begun an invasion of Iraq. (Bush would declare victory just over five weeks later in his “Mission Accomplished” speech, though the main U.S. troop withdrawal would not be completed until 2011.)

Also on this date:

In 1931, Nevada Gov. Fred B. Balzar signed a measure that made the state the first to legalize gambling.

In 1945, during World War II, more than 800 service members were killed when a Japanese dive bomber attacked the carrier USS Franklin near Japan.

In 1953, the 25th Academy Awards ceremony was the first to be televised; “The Greatest Show on Earth” would win the Oscar for Best Picture.

In 1965, archaeologist E. Lee Spence discovered the wreckage of the SS Georgiana, a Confederate ship that had sunk near Charleston, South Carolina, exactly 102 years earlier.

In 1966, Texas Western (now the University of Texas at El Paso) became the first team to start five Black players in the NCAA basketball tournament’s championship game; they defeated top-ranked Kentucky in the final, 72-65.

In 1987, televangelist Jim Bakker resigned as chairman of his PTL ministry organization amid a sex and money scandal involving Jessica Hahn, a former church secretary.

In 1995, 17 months after announcing his retirement from basketball, Michael Jordan returned to play in the NBA with his former team, the Chicago Bulls. (He would go on to win three more NBA championships alongside the three he and the Bulls had already won.)

In 2013, Pope Francis officially began his stewardship of the Catholic Church, greeting tens of thousands of people thronging a celebration outside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The Argentine native and first pope from Latin America vowed to care for the poor and most disadvantaged, days after his election to the papacy.