3 Nisan

Circa 1310 BCE- Moses first sprinkled the ashes of the Red Heifer (which was prepared the day before) on the Levitical priests to consecrate them.

1492- The decree expelling Jews from Spain and Sicily was issued, after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella signed it.

1848- The Jews of Prussia were granted equality with other citizens.

1891- Ritual charges resulted in pogroms on the island of Corfu.

1937- American Jews held a massive anti-Nazi rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden.

1944- The Nazis perpetrated the Children's Action in the Kovno Ghetto. That day and the next, German soldiers conducted house-to-house searches to round up all children under age 12 (and adults over 55) - and sent them to their deaths at Fort IX.

Eventually, the Germans blew up every house with grenades and dynamite, on suspicion that Jews might be in hiding in underground bunkers. They then poured gasoline over much of the former ghetto and incinerated it. Of the 37,000 Jews in Kovno before the Holocaust, less than 10 percent survived.

One of the survivors was Rabbi Ephraim Oshri, who later published a collection of rabbinical responsa, detailing his life-and-death decisions during the Holocaust.

2004- The United States vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution by Algeria and Libya condemning Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin and six civilians.