March 24th: This Day in History

 

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

The Gelderse war ended. was on this day in 1379. On this day in 1545, the German Parliament opened in Worms. France & England signed the Peace of Boulogne on this day in 1550. In 1603 on this day, Scottish king James VI became King James I of England. On this day in 1765, the British Parliament passed the Quartering Act, outlining the locations and conditions in which British soldiers were to find room and board in the American colonies. This was an unpopular measure which ultimately helped to lead the colonists to rebel against British rule some years later. In 1837 on this day, blacks were extended the right to vote in Canada. On this day in 1918 during the Great War (more commonly known these days as World War I), German forces crossed the Somme River. On this day in 1945 during World War II, American General Eisenhower and British Generals Montgomery & Bradley discussed the advance into Germany. On this day in 1952, the Jan van Riebeeck tercentenary festival took place in Cape Town, South Africa, which was intended to be a celebration of the 300th anniversary of the first Dutch settlement in the region. However, the African National Congress and other resistance groups used this as an opportunity to launch massive protests against apartheid. The first teach-in was conducted on this day in 1965 at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, as two hundred faculty members participated by holding special anti-war seminars. On this day in 1975, the North Vietnamese launched the "Ho Chi Minh Campaign." In 1976 on this day, Argentine President Isabel Peron was deposed by the country's military. In 1989 on this day, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground, causing the worst oil spill in American history to that point. Indian troops left Sri Lanka on this day in 1990. There was a school shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas, on this day in 1998, with five people ultimately killed. What was particularly shocking about this shooting at the time was that two kids worked together to wreak havoc, which foreshadowed the Columbine school shooting a little over one year later. In 1998 on this day, a former FBI agent declared that papers which were found in James Earl Ray's car supported a conspiracy theory in the assassination of the Reverend and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. On this day in 2003, the Arab League voted 21-1 in favor of a resolution which demanded the immediate and unconditional removal of U.S. and British troops from Iraq.

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:

• The Gelderse war ended. was on this day in 1379.

• On this day in 1545, the German Parliament opened in Worms

 • France & England signed the Peace of Boulogne on this day in 1550.

• In 1603 on this day, Scottish king James VI became King James I of England

1629 - 1st game law passed in American colonies, by Virginia

1645 - Battle at Jankov Bohemia: Sweden beatS RC emperor Ferdinand III

1664 - Roger Williams is granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island

1721 - Johann Sebastian Bach opens his Brandenburgse Concerts

1731 - Naturalization of Hieronimus de Salis Parliamentary Act is passed.

• On this day in 1765, the British Parliament passed the Quartering Act, outlining the locations and conditions in which British soldiers were to find room and board in the American colonies. This was an unpopular measure which ultimately helped to lead the colonists to rebel against British rule some years later.    The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses, and the houses of sellers of wine. Should there still be soldiers without accommodation after all such publick houses were filled, the colonies were then required to take, hire and make fit for the reception of his Majesty's forces, such and so many uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings as shall be necessary.    As the language of the act makes clear, the popular image of Redcoats tossing colonists from their bedchambers in order to move in themselves was not the intent of the law; neither was it the practice. However, the New York colonial assembly disliked being commanded to provide quarter for British troops--they preferred to be asked and then to give their consent, if they were going to have soldiers in their midst at all. Thus, they refused to comply with the law, and in 1767, Parliament passed the New York Restraining Act. The Restraining Act prohibited the royal governor of New York from signing any further legislation until the assembly complied with the Quartering Act.    In New York, the governor managed to convince Parliament that the assembly had complied. In Massachusetts, where barracks already existed on an island from which soldiers had no hope of keeping the peace in a city riled by the Townshend Revenue Acts, British officers followed the Quartering Act's injunction to quarter their soldiers in public places, not in private homes. Within these constraints, their only option was to pitch tents on Boston Common. The soldiers, living cheek by jowl with riled Patriots, were soon involved in street brawls and then the Boston Massacre of 1770, during which not only five rock-throwing colonial rioters were killed but any residual trust between Bostonians and the resident Redcoats. That breach would never be healed in the New England port city, and the British soldiers stayed in Boston until George Washington drove them out with the Continental Army in 1776. 

1792 - Benjamin West (US) becomes president of Royal Academy of London

1801 - Aleksandr P Romanov becomes emperor of Russia

1828 - Philadelphia & Columbia Railway (1st state owned) authorized

1832 - Mormon Joseph Smith beaten, tarred & feathered in Ohio

 

• In 1837 on this day, blacks were extended the right to vote in Canada.

1848 - State of siege proclaimed in Amsterdam

1855 - Manhattan Kansas founded as New Boston Kansas

1860 - Clipper Andrew Jackson arrives in SF, 89 days out of NY

1868 - Metropolitan Life Insurance Co forms

Religious Leader Joseph Smith JrReligious Leader Joseph Smith Jr 1877 - University boat race between Oxford & Cambridge ends in a dead heat

1878 - British frigate Eurydice sunk; 300 lost

1880 - Tobacco Growers' Mutual Insurance Company incorporates in CT

1882 - German scientist Robert Koch discovers bacillus cause of TB

1883 - 1st telephone call between NY & Chicago

1887 - Oscar Straus appointed 1st Jewish ambassador from US (to Turkey)

1890 - Start of Sherlock Holmes "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" (BG)

1894 - 37 miners killed at Franklin, WA

1898 - 1st automobile sold

1900 - New York City Mayor Robert Anderson Van Wyck breaks ground for a new underground "Rapid Transit Railroad" that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.

1906 - "Census of the British Empire" shows Britain rules 1/5 of the world

1907 - The first issue of the Georgian Bolshevik newspaper Dro is published.

1910 - 83°F highest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in March

1913 - Netherlands soccer team's 1st victory over England

1913 - Palace Theater opens at 1564 Broadway NYC

• On this day in 1918 during the Great War (more commonly known these days as World War I), German forces crossed the Somme River.   On March 24, 1918, German forces cross the Somme River, achieving their first goal of the major spring offensive begun three days earlier on the Western Front.    Operation Michael, engineered by the German chief of the general staff, Erich von Ludendorff, aimed to decisively break through the Allied lines on the Western Front and destroy the British and French forces. The offensive began on the morning of March 21, 1918, with an aggressive bombardment.    The brunt of the attack that followed was directed at the British 5th Army, commanded by General Sir Hubert Gough, stationed along the Somme River in northwestern France. This section was the most poorly defended of any spot on the British lines, due to the fact that it had been held by the French until only a few weeks before and its defensive positions were not yet fully fortified. Panic spread up and down the British lines of command, intensified by communications failures between Gough and his subordinates in the field, and German gains increased over the subsequent days of battle. On March 23, Crown Prince Rupprecht, on the German side of the line, remarked that The progress of our offensive is so quick, that one cannot follow it with a pen.    The next day, German troops stormed across the Somme, having previously captured its bridges before French troops could destroy them. Despite having resolved to concentrate on weaker points of the enemy lines, Ludendorff continued to throw his armies against the crucial villages of Amiens (a railway junction) and Arras—which the British and French were instructed to hold at all costs—hoping to break through and push on towards Paris. By that time, German troops were exhausted, and transportation and supply lines had begun to break down in the cold and bad weather. Meanwhile, Allied forces had recovered from the initial disadvantage and had begun to gain the upper hand, halting the Germans at Moreuil Wood on March 30.    On April 5, Ludendorff called off Operation Michael. It had yielded nearly 40 miles of territory, the greatest gains for either side on the Western Front since 1914. He would launch four more offensive pushes over the course of the spring and summer, throwing all of the German army's resources into this last, desperate attempt to win the war.

1920 - 1st US coast guard air station established (Morehead City NC)

1922 - Grand National at Aintree sees only 3 horses out of 32 starters finish

1924 - Greece becomes a republic

1925 - KSL-AM in Salt Lake City UT begins radio transmissions

1926 - The Beehive in the Hague opens 1st escalator in Netherlands

1927 - Cuban chess champ, Jose Capablanca wins 33-day Grand Chess Tournie

1927 - Dutch 1st Chamber condemns Belgian & Neth's Wielingen Treaty

1930 - 1st religious services telecast in US (W2XBS NYC)

1930 - Planet Pluto named

1932 - 1st US radio broadcast from a moving train (Belle Baker WABC from MD)

1933 - Peter I Island incorporated as a Norwegian dependency

1934 - U.S. Congress passes the Tydings-McDuffie Act, declaring the Philippines after a period of 10 years

1935 - Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour goes national on NBC Radio Network

1936 - Red Wings beat Montreal Maroons in 16 mins & 30 seconds of 6th period Stanley Cup game lasts 9 periods (176 mins), ends 1-0

1937 - Bus blew a tire, going out of control, killing 18 (Salem Illinois)

1937 - National Gallery of Art established by Congress

1941 - British troops defeat British Somalia

1941 - German troops occupy El Agheila Libya

1941 - Glenn Miller begins work on his 1st movie for 20th Century Fox

1941 - LIU beats Ohio U 56-42 for NIT basketball championship

1941 - Richard Wright & Paul Green's "Native Son" premieres in NYC

1944 - 76 Allied officers escape Stalag Luft 3 (Great Escape)

1944 - 811 British bombers attack Berlin

1944 - In occupied Rome, Nazis execute more than 300 civilians

• On this day in 1945 during World War II, American General Eisenhower and British Generals Montgomery & Bradley discussed the advance into Germany.

1945 - Largest one-day airborne drop, 600 transports & 1300 gliders

1945 - Operation Varsity: British, US & Canadian airborne landings E of Rhine

1945 - US minesweepers reach Kerama Retto, South coast of Okinawa

1947 - Congress proposes 2-term limitation on the presidency

1947 - John D Rockefeller Jr donates NYC East River site to the UN

1949 - 21st Academy Awards - "Hamlet", Laurence Olivier & Jane Wyman win

1949 - Walter & John Huston become 1st father-and-son team to win

1950 - Gracie de Moss wins LPGA Pro-Ladies Golf Championship

1950 - US Ladies Figure Skating championship won by Yvonne C Sherman

1950 - US Mens Figure Skating championship won by Richard Button

• On this day in 1952, the Jan van Riebeeck tercentenary festival took place in Cape Town, South Africa, which was intended to be a celebration of the 300th anniversary of the first Dutch settlement in the region. However, the African National Congress and other resistance groups used this as an opportunity to launch massive protests against apartheid. 

1953 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1955 - 1st seagoing oil drill rig placed in service

1955 - British Army patrols withdraw from Belfast after 20 years

Playwright Tennessee WilliamsPlaywright Tennessee Williams 1955 - Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" opens for 694 performances

1958 - Elvis Presley joins the army (serial number 53310761)

1959 - Iraq withdraws from the Baghdad Pact

1959 - The Party of the African Federation (PFA) is launched by Léopold Sédar Senghor and Modibo Keita.

1960 - US appeals court rules novel "Lady Chatterly's Lover" not obscene

1961 - NY Senate approves $55M for a baseball stadium at Flushing Meadows

1962 - 24th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Cin beats Ohio State 71-59

1962 - Benny Paret, KOed in a welterweight title, he dies 10 days later

1962 - Mick Jagger & Keith Richards perform as Little Boy Blue & Blue Boys

1964 - Kennedy half-dollar issued

1965 - US Ranger 9 strikes Moon, 10 miles (16 km) NE of crater Alphonsus

• The first teach-in was conducted on this day in 1965 at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, as two hundred faculty members participated by holding special anti-war seminars. Regular classes were canceled, and rallies and speeches dominated for 12 hours. On March 26, there was a similar teach-in at Columbia University in New York City; this form of protest eventually spread to many colleges and universities.

1966 - Selective Service announces college deferments based on performance

1967 - U of Mich holds 1st "Teach-in" after bombing of North Vietnam

1968 - Mickey Wright wins Port Malabar Golf Invitational

1970 - Dutch cartoonist Frans Piet ends "Sjors & Sjimmie" strip

Singer & Cultural Icon Elvis PresleySinger & Cultural Icon Elvis Presley 1972 - Great Britain imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland

1973 - Harley Race beats Dory Funk Jr in Kansas City, to become NWA champ

1973 - Immaculata beats Queens College, 59-52 to win AIAW Basketball title

1973 - Professional track debut of Kip Keino defeating Jim Ryun in the mile

• On this day in 1975, the North Vietnamese launched the "Ho Chi Minh Campaign."  Despite the 1973 Paris Peace Accords cease fire, the fighting had continued between South Vietnamese forces and the North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam. In December 1974, the North Vietnamese launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located north of Saigon along the Cambodian border. They successfully overran the provincial capital at Phuoc Binh on January 6, 1975.    President Richard Nixon had repeatedly promised South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu that the United States would come to the aid of South Vietnam if the North Vietnamese committed a major violation of the Peace Accords. However, by the time the communists had taken Phuoc Long, Nixon had resigned from office and his successor, Gerald Ford, was unable to convince a hostile Congress to make good on Nixon's promises to Saigon.    The North Vietnamese, emboldened by the situation, launched Campaign 275 in March 1975 to take the provincial capital of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands. The South Vietnamese defenders fought very poorly and were quickly overwhelmed by the North Vietnamese attackers. Once again, the United States did nothing. President Thieu, however, ordered his forces in the Highlands to withdraw to more defensible positions to the south. What started out as a reasonably orderly withdrawal degenerated into a panic that spread throughout the South Vietnamese armed forces. They abandoned Pleiku and Kontum in the Highlands with very little fighting and the North Vietnamese pressed the attack from the west and north. In quick succession, Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang in the north fell to the communist onslaught. The North Vietnamese continued to attack south along the coast, defeating the South Vietnamese forces one at a time.    As the North Vietnamese forces closed on the approaches to Saigon, the Politburo in Hanoi issued an order to Gen. Van Tien Dung to launch the "Ho Chi Minh Campaign," the final assault on Saigon itself. By April 27, the North Vietnamese had completely encircled Saigon and by April 30, the North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon and the Vietnam War came to an end.

1973 - SF 49er pres Lou Spadia proposes NFL expand to 30 teams

1974 - 36th NCAA Mens Basketball Championship: NC State beats Marquette 76-64

1975 - Muhammad Ali TKOs Chuck Wepner in 15 for heavyweight boxing title

• In 1976 on this day, Argentine President Isabel Peron was deposed by the country's military.

1978 - Wings release "With a Little Luck"

1979 - "Ballroom" closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 116 performances

1979 - 1st appearance as Australian cricket captain for Kim Hughes

1979 - Columbia flown on carrier aircraft lands at Kennedy Space Center

1979 - 10 rebounds & 10 assists, as the Spartans cruise to a 101-67 by Penn Mich State's Earvin "Magic" Johnson registers triple-double 29 pts

1980 - 42nd NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Louisville beats UCLA 59-54

1980 - ABC's nightly Iran Hostage crisis program renamed "Nightline"

1980 - Capitol Records releases some rare Beatles tracks

1981 - "Nightline with Ted Koppel" premieres on ABC

1981 - Bombay beat Delhi by innings & 46 to win Ranji Cricket Trophy

1981 - Colombia drops diplomatic relations with Cuba

1982 - US sub Jacksonville collides with a Turkish freighter near Virginia

1984 - Andrea Schone skates ladies world record 5 km (7:34.52)

1984 - IOC agrees to 6-team exhibition baseball tournament in Olympics

1984 - Igor Malkov skates world record 10 km (14:21.51)

1985 - 5th Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Awards: Bolero wins

1985 - Jan Stephenson wins LPGA GNA Golf Classic

1985 - Norman Gifford makes cricket ODI debuts at age 44 (v Aust, Sharjah)

1985 - 5th Golden Raspberry Awards: Bolero wins

1986 - 58th Academy Awards - "Out of Africa", William Hurt & G Page win

1986 - Suriname army capt Etienne Boerenveen arrested for cocaine smuggling

1986 - US & Libya clash in Gulf of Sidra

1986 - NASA publishes "Strategy for Safely Returning the Space Shuttle to Flight Status"

Singer Janet JacksonSinger Janet Jackson 1987 - 1st Soul Train Music Awards: Janet Jackson, Luther Vandross win

1987 - WA win the Sheffield Shield by drawing cricket final vs Victoria

1988 - "Gospel at Colonus" opens at Lunt Fontanne Theater NYC for 61 perfs

1988 - Quarterback Dan Fouts retires

1989 - Mary Martin in "Peter Pan" 1st seen on TV since 1973

1989 - Worst US oil spill, Exxon's Valdez spills 11.3 mil gallons off Alaska

• In 1989 on this day, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground, causing the worst oil spill in American history to that point. The Exxon Valdez, owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, runs aground on a reef in Prince William Sound in southern Alaska. An estimated 11 million gallons of oil eventually spilled into the water. Attempts to contain the massive spill were unsuccessful, and wind and currents spread the oil more than 100 miles from its source, eventually polluting more than 700 miles of coastline. Hundreds of thousands of birds and animals were adversely affected by the environmental disaster.    It was later revealed that Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Valdez, was drinking at the time of the accident and allowed an uncertified officer to steer the massive vessel. In March 1990, Hazelwood was convicted of misdemeanor negligence, fined $50,000, and ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service. In July 1992, an Alaska court overturned Hazelwood's conviction, citing a federal statute that grants freedom from prosecution to those who report an oil spill.    Exxon itself was condemned by the National Transportation Safety Board and in early 1991 agreed under pressure from environmental groups to pay a penalty of $100 million and provide $1 billion over a 10-year period for the cost of the cleanup. However, later in the year, both Alaska and Exxon rejected the agreement, and in October 1991 the oil giant settled the matter by paying $25 million, less than 4 percent of the cleanup aid promised by Exxon earlier that year.  

• Indian troops left Sri Lanka on this day in 1990.

1990 - Tom Hunter swims world record 50m freestyle (21.81 sec)

1991 - "Les Miserables," opens at Auditorium Theatre, Chicago

1991 - 11th Golden Raspberry Awards: Ford Fairlane & Ghosts Can't Do It wins

1991 - Barcelona Dragons beat NY/NJ Knights 19-7 in their 1st WLAF game

1991 - Danielle Ammaccapane wins LPGA Standard Register Ping Golf Tournament

1991 - In liberated Kuwait, banks reopen

1991 - NY Yankees beat NY Mets, 9-3

1991 - Wrestlemania VII in LA, Hulk Hogan pins Sgt Slaughter

WWF Wrestler Hulk HoganWWF Wrestler Hulk Hogan 1992 - "Jake's Women" opens at Neil Simon Theater NYC for 245 performances

1992 - Space Shuttle STS-45 (Atlantis 11) launches into space

1992 - Sudanese Boeing 707 crashes on mountain Hymettos at Athens: 5-6 die

1992 - 1st Belgium in the space, Dirk Frimout on Atlantis Space Shuttle STS-45 (Atlantis 11) launches into space

1993 - Ezer Weizman elected president of Israel

1994 - "Carousel" opens at Beaumont Theater NYC for 322 performances

1994 - "Song of Jacob Zulu" opens at Plymouth Theater NYC for 53 performances

1994 - F-16 collides with C-130 Hercules above AFB in NC, 120 die

1996 - 16th Golden Raspberry Awards: Showgirls wins

1996 - Eastenders star Michael French is reported to be a homosexual

1996 - Laura Davies wins LPGA Standard Register Ping Golf Tournament

1996 - MTA raises NYC bridge tolls to $3.50 each way

1997 - 69th Academy Awards - "English Patient", Tom Cruise & Brenda Blythen win

1997 - Australian parliament overturns world's 1st & only euthanasia law

1998 - Jonesboro massacre: Two students, ages 11 and 13, fire upon teachers and students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas; five people are dead and ten are wounded.

• There was a school shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas, on this day in 1998, with five people ultimately killed. What was particularly shocking about this shooting at the time was that two kids worked together to wreak havoc, which foreshadowed the Columbine school shooting a little over one year later. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shoot their classmates and teachers in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Golden, the younger of the two boys, asked to be excused from his class, pulled a fire alarm and then ran to join Johnson in a wooded area 100 yards away from the school's gym. As the students streamed out of the building, Johnson and Golden opened fire and killed four students and a teacher. Ten other children were wounded.    The two boys were caught soon afterward. In their possession were thirteen fully loaded firearms, including three semi-automatic rifles, and 200 rounds of ammunition. Their stolen van had a stockpile of supplies as well as a crossbow and several hunting knives. All of the weapons were taken from the Golden family's personal arsenal. Both of the boys had been raised around guns. They belonged to gun clubs and even participated in practical shooting competitions, which involve firing at simulated moving human targets. Golden reportedly shot several dogs in preparation for the actual shooting.    Because Johnson and Golden were thirteen and eleven, they could not be charged as adults in Arkansas. They were both adjudicated as delinquent and sent to reform institutes. They were to be released when they turned eighteen, as they could legally no longer be housed with minors, but Arkansas bought a facility in 1999 that enabled the state to keep the boys in custody until their twenty-first birthdays. Johnson was freed in 2005; Golden was released in 2007. Neither has any criminal record. Arkansas changed its laws following the Jonesboro tragedy so that child murderers can be imprisoned past twenty-one.  School shootings were highly publicized in the media during the late 1990s who ascribed the supposed epidemic to violent movies, television and video games. However, violence against students in school actually went down significantly in the late 1990s, throwing into the question the entire theory.

Statue of Martin Luther King Jr in Denver, Colorado

• In 1998 on this day, a former FBI agent declared that papers which were found in James Earl Ray's car supported a conspiracy theory in the assassination of the Reverend and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.   

1998 - A tornado sweeps through Dantan in India killing 250 people and injuring 3000 others.

1999 - Kosovo War: NATO commences air bombardment against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.

1999 - Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire: 39 people die when a Belgian transport truck carrying flour and margarine caught fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

2001 - 21st Golden Raspberry Awards: Battlefield Earth wins

Actor Denzel WashingtonActor Denzel Washington 2002 - 74th Academy Awards - "A Beautiful Mind", Denzel Washington & Halle Berry win

• On this day in 2003, the Arab League voted 21-1 in favor of a resolution which demanded the immediate and unconditional removal of U.S. and British troops from Iraq.

2006 - Long-term protests in Belarus are broken by police.

2006 - Pope Benedict XVI adds 15 men to the College of Cardinals, in the first consistory of his Pontificate.

2007 - The Australian Labor Party is reinstated after the New South Wales state elections.

2008 - Bhutan officially becomes a democracy, with its first ever general election.

2010 - Lee Kun-hee returns to Samsung Electronics chief executive officer (CEO) position after his resignation in April 21, 2008

2012 - African Union deploys 5,000 strong force with the aim of catching or killing warlord Joseph Kony

2013 - 17 soldiers are killed by a suicide bomber at a military checkpoint in North Waziristan, Pakistan

2013 - 25 people are killed by gunmen in a coordinated attack in Adamawa State, Nigeria

2013 - A series of emergency meetings in Brussels are undertaken to resolve Cyprus’ financial situation

2013 - Scotland defeats Sweden to win the 2013 World Women's Curling Championship

1379 - The Gelderse war ended.   1545 - German Parliament opened in Worms.   1550 - France and England signed the Peace of Boulogne.   1629 - The first game law was passed in the American colonies, by Virginia.   1664 - A charter to colonize Rhode Island was granted to Roger Williams in London.   1720 - In Paris, banking houses closed due to financial crisis.   1765 - Britain passed the Quartering Act that required the American colonies to house 10,000 British troops in public and private buildings.   1792 - Benjamin West became the first American artist to be selected president of the Royal Academy of London.   1828 - The Philadelphia & Columbia Railway was authorized as the first state owned railway.   1832 - Mormon Joseph Smith was beaten, tarred and feathered in Ohio.   1837 - Canada gave blacks the right to vote   1848 - A state of siege was proclaimed in Amsterdam.   1868 - Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was formed.   1878 - The British frigate Eurydice sank killing 300.   1880 - The first "hail insurance company" was incorporated in Connecticut. It was known as Tobacco Growers’ Mutual Insurance Company.   1882 - In Berlin, German scientist Robert Koch announced the discovery of the tuberculosis germ (bacillus).   1883 - The first telephone call between New York and Chicago took place.   1900 - Mayor Van Wyck of New York broke the ground for the New York subway tunnel that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.   1900 - In New Jersey, the Carnegie Steel Corporation was formed.   1904 - Vice Adm. Tojo sank seven Russian ships as the Japanese strengthened their blockade of Port Arthur.   1905 - In Crete, a group led by Eleutherios Venizelos claimed independence from Turkey.   1906 - In Mexico, the Tehuantepec Istmian Railroad opened as a rival to the Panama Canal.   1906 - The "Census of the British Empire" revealed that England ruled 1/5 of the world.   1911 - In Denmark, penal code reform abolished corporal punishment.   1920 - The first U.S. coast guard air station was established at Morehead City, NC.   1924 - Greece became a republic.   1927 - Chinese Communists seized Nanking and break with Chiang Kai-shek over the Nationalist goals.   1932 - Belle Baker hosted a radio variety show from a moving train. It was the first radio broadcast from a train.   1934 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill granting future independence to the Philippines.   1938 - The U.S. asked that all powers help refugees fleeing from the Nazis.   1944 - In Rome, The Gestapo rounded up innocent Italians and shot them to death in response to a bomb attack that killed 32 German policemen. Over 300 civilians were executed.   1946 - The Soviet Union announced that it was withdrawing its troops from Iran.   1947 - The U.S. Congress proposed the limitation of the presidency to two terms.   1954 - Britain opened trade talks with Hungary.   1955 - Tennessee Williams' play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" debuted on Broadway.   1955 - The first oil drill seagoing rig was put into service.   1960 - A U.S. appeals court ruled that the novel, "Lady Chatterly’s Lover", was not obscene and could be sent through the mail.   1972 - Great Britain imposed direct rule over Northern Ireland.   1976 - The president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by her country's military.   1980 - In San Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was shot to death by gunmen as he celebrated Mass.   1981 - "Nightline" with Ted Koppel premiered.   1982 - Soviet leader Leonid L. Brezhnev stated that Russia was willing to resume border talks with China.   1985 - Thousands demonstrated in Madrid against the NATO presence in Spain.   1988 - Former national security aides Oliver L. North and John M. Poindexter and businessmen Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim pled innocent to Iran-Contra charges.   1989 - The Exxon Valdez spilled 240,000 barrels (11 million gallons) of oil in Alaska's Prince William Sound after it ran aground.   1989 - The U.S. decided to send humanitarian aid to the Contras.   1990 - Indian troops left Sri Lanka.   1991 - The African nation of Benin held its first presidential elections in about 30 years.   1993 - In Israel, Ezer Weizman, an advocate of peace with neighboring Arab nations, was elected President.   1995 - Russian forces surrounded Achkoi-Martan. It was one of the few remaining strongholds of rebels in Chechenia.   1995 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a welfare reform package that made the most changes in social programs since the New Deal.   1997 - The Australian parliament overturned the world's first and only euthanasia law.   1998 - In Jonesboro, AR, two young boys open fire at students from woods near a school. Four students and a teacher were killed and 10 others were injured. The two boys were 11 and 13 years old cousins.   1998 - A former FBI agent said papers found in James Earl Ray's car supports a conspiracy theory in the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.   

1999 - In Kenya, at least 31 people were killed when a passenger train derailed. Hundreds were injured.   1999 - NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia (Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Vojvodina). The attacks marked the first time in its 50-year history that NATO attacked a sovereign country. The bombings were in response to Serbia's refusal to sign a peace treaty with ethnic Albanians who were seeking independence for the province of Kosovo.   1999 - The 7-mile tunnel under Mont Blanc in France was an inferno after a truck carrying flour and margarine caught on fire. At least 30 people were killed.   2001 - Apple Computer Inc's operating system MAC OS X went on sale.   2002 - Thieves stole five 17th century paintings from the Frans Hals Museum in the Dutch city of Haarlem. The paintings were worth about $2.6 million. The paintings were works by Jan Steen, Cornelis Bega, Adriaan van Ostade and Cornelis Dusart.   2005 - The government of Kyrgyzstan collapsed after opposition protesters took over President Askar Akayev's presidential compound and government offices.   2005 - Sandra Bullock received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.   2006 - In Spain, the Basque separatist group ETA announced a permanent cease-fire.







1603 Queen Elizabeth I died at age 69 after ruling England for more than 40 years. 1882 Robert Koch announced the discovery of the tuberculosis bacillus. 1949 Laurence Olivier's Hamlet became the first British film to win an Oscar. 1958 Rock 'n' roll star Elvis Presley joined the U.S. army for two years. 1989 In one of worst oil spills in recent history, the tanker, Exxon Valdez, ran aground and released 240,000 barrels of oil into Prince William Sound. 1999 NATO begins launching air strikes in an attempt to force Serbia to cease hostilities against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. 2002 Halle Berry became the first African-American actress to win a best actress Oscar and Denzel Washington became the second African-American actor to get the best actor award. 2004 The notorious Bird family's more than half-century stronghold on the nation of Antigua and Barbuda came to an end when Baldwin Spencer won the post of prime minister in the general election.

The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/mar24.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

Some Thoughts By Niels Bohr on Quantum Physics

Ran into these quotes about Quantum Mechanics earlier today in Facebook. While I cannot pretend to really understand Quantum Mechanics, these still seemed fascinating.

Again, admittedly, I am not much of a scientist. It fascinates me, particularly astronomy, geography, geology, and technology, as well as evolution and life in general. That said, I just do not appear to have the capacity to really comprehend the stuff.

Nevertheless, some of these quotes really got me thinking. It was really quite fascinating. Also seemed worth sharing here.

Take a look (a picture of Niels Bohr, as well as the link to the Facebook post which got me on this topic to begin with, is listed down below). 

“If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.” 

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be directly observed.” 

"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." 

“Quantum theory forces us to abandon the classical ideal of determinism.” 

"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may well be another profound truth."

 “A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself.” 

“Observations are not independent of the observer.” 

"We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry." 

“Understanding quantum mechanics is not about understanding but about accepting.” 

"How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress." 

“Quantum mechanics does not describe reality—it describes our knowledge of reality.”

ScienceExplained post, March 23, 2025 :  

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=578275525260140&set=a.338451959242499

Robert Reich Easily & Quickly Describes Distraction Tactics of Trump Regime

Robert Reich had a post yesterday which, I feel, pretty much summarizes the approach taken by the Trump administration. These are classic "divide and conquer" tactics. Manipulate enough of the masses to keep them distracted with their divisions and hatred, scapegoating the "others." Meanwhile, the big boys in charge steal pretty much all of the resources that they can.

It really is not difficult to understand.

Below is Robert Reich's sentiments on Facebook, as well as a picture of the post, and a link to the specific page on Reich's Facebook account.

Take a look:

The Trump regime's repeated attacks on "DEI, immigrants, and the trans community have one clear purpose: If we are angry at each other, we won't look up to see how big corporations and billionaires have rigged markets and siphoned off most of the economy's gains.

Robert Reich Faceook Post from March 23, 2025:   ·  

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/pfbid0sXe7DZHgkYx28BqWiVM4sE8pinbdzhxnPWMkmQw4AoenHCjCDoLxTfcfD159ezKfl?rdid=mHFmJK2w9i09TdaC#

Sunday Funny: Working on an Impression of Donald Trump?

Admittedly, I do not have much in the way of a good impression of Donald Trump. Never seriously worked on it. Frankly, I'm not even entirely certain that it is of interest. Figure that we hear enough of the real thing, which often sounds like parody, although it is, sadly, real life. In fact, it feels like there is precious little to laugh about these days.

However, I do believe in trying to have a sense of humor through as much of life as we can. It can serve as an outlet, and I even believe that it can help to keep us sane. In that spirit, it felt like a good idea to post this particular blog entry.

I ran into this particular video, which helps anyone who wants to work on their Trump impersonation to do it a little better. This guy is good, too. He actually sounds like Trump. Plus, his commentary is actually quite amusing.

So if you like, go ahead and open this video and take a look. Some pretty good stuff. It put a smile on my face, and it might just do the same for you.

Enjoy.

How to do a Donald Trump Impression

March 23rd: This Day in History

 

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

On this day in 1026, Koenraad II crowned himself King of Italy. In 1066 on this day was the 18th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet. France & England formed an alliance against Spain on this day in 1657; England received Dunkirk. On this day in 1775, Patrick Henry famously proclaimed "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" The speech loudly voiced American opposition to British policy during a speech before the second Virginia Convention. Henry was quite paradoxical, as he expressed opposition to slavery while simultaneously being a slaveowner himself. Lieutenant-General Tadeusz Kosciuszko returned to Poland on this day in 1794. On this day in 1808, Napoleon's brother Joseph took the throne of Spain. In 1821 on this day, the Battle and fall of city of Kalamata took place during the Greek War of Independence. Charles Darwin reached Los Arenales, in the Andes, on this day in 1835. On this day in 1867 shortly after the end of the American Civil War, Congress passed the second Reconstruction Act over a veto by President Andrew Johnson. In 1879 on this day, the War of the Pacific was fought between Chile and the joints forces of Bolivia and Peru. Chile successfully took over Arica and Tarapacá, leaving Bolivia as a landlocked country. The Boer Republics & Great Britain signed a peace accord on this day in 1881, which ended the first Boer War. On this day in 1889, American President Harrison opened the Oklahoma Territory for white colonization, although it had previously been promised by treaty to Native Americans. The Wright brothers obtained a patent for the airplane on this day in 1903. Lithuania proclaimed its independence on this day in 1918. In 1919 on this day, Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist movement in Milan, Italy. On this day in 1934, the US Congress accepted the independence of the Philippines, which would be set for 1945. In 1936 on this day, Italy, Austria & Hungary signed the Pact of Rome. On this day in 1944, German occupiers shot more than 300 Italian civilians as a reprisal for an Italian partisan attack on an SS unit. In 1962 on this day, American President John F. Kennedy visited San Francisco. On this day in 1969, there was a "Rally for Decency" in Miami, Florida, as a response to actions deemed outrageous and immoral by Jim Morrison, frontman of the rock band The Doors. The International Bill of Rights went into effect on this day in 1976, with 35 nations ratifying. In 1990 on this day, former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Hazelwood was ordered to help the cleanup efforts at Prince William Sound in Alaska & to pay $50,000 in restitution for his role in the massive 1989 oil spill there, which was the largest oil spill in history at that time. On this day in 1999, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana gave formal approval for air strikes against Serbian targets. In 2001 on this day, the Russian Mir space station was disposed of after 15 years, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:



• On this day in 1026, Koenraad II crowned himself King of Italy

• In 1066 on this day was the 18th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet

1153 - Treaty of Konstanz between Frederik I "Barbarossa" & Pope Eugene III

1174 - Jocelin, abbot of Melrose, is elected bishop of Glasgow.

1490 - 1st dated edition of Maimonides "Mishneh Torah" published

1534 - Aragonese legal code formally recognised

1568 - Treaty of Longjumeau: French huguenots go on strike

1579 - Friesland joins Union of Utrecht

1593 - English Congressionalist Henry Barrow accused of slander

1630 - French troops occupy Pinerolo Piedmont

 •  France & England formed an alliance against Spain on this day in 1657; England received Dunkirk.

1708 - English pretender to the throne James III lands at Firth of Forth

1743 - George Frideric Handel's oratorio "Messiah" premieres in London

1752 - Pope Stephen II elected to succeed Zacharias, died 2 days later

• On this day in 1775, Patrick Henry famously proclaimed "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" The speech loudly voiced American opposition to British policy during a speech before the second Virginia Convention. Henry was quite paradoxical, as he expressed opposition to slavery while simultaneously being a slaveowner himself. Following the signing of the American Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, Patrick Henry was appointed governor of Virginia by the Continental Congress.    The first major American opposition to British policy came in 1765 after Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. Under the banner of "no taxation without representation," colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the tax. With its enactment on November 1, 1765, most colonists called for a boycott of British goods and some organized attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors. After months of protest, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1765.    Most colonists quietly accepted British rule until Parliament's enactment of the Tea Act in 1773, which granted the East India Company a monopoly on the American tea trade. Viewed as another example of taxation without representation, militant Patriots in Massachusetts organized the "Boston Tea Party," which saw British tea valued at some 10,000 pounds dumped into Boston harbor. Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in the following year. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.    With the other colonies watching intently, Massachusetts led the resistance to the British, forming a shadow revolutionary government and establishing militias to resist the increasing British military presence across the colony. In April 1775, Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, ordered British troops to march to Concord, Massachusetts, where a Patriot arsenal was known to be located. On April 19, 1775, the British regulars encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington, and the first volleys of the American Revolutionary War were fired. 

1794 - Josiah Pierson patents a "cold-header" (rivet) machine

•  Lieutenant-General Tadeusz Kosciuszko returned to Poland on this day in 1794.

• On this day in 1808, Napoleon's brother Joseph took the throne of Spain

• In 1821 on this day, the Battle and fall of city of Kalamata took place during the Greek War of Independence.

Composer George Friedrich HandelComposer George Friedrich Handel 1832 - British Parliament passes reform bill

British Botanist Charles Darwin

•  Charles Darwin reached Los Arenales, in the Andes, on this day in 1835.

1836 - Coin Press invented by Franklin Beale

1839 - 1st recorded use of "OK" [oll korrect] (Boston's Morning Post)

1840 - Draper takes 1st successful photo of the Moon (daguerrotype)

1848 - The ship John Wickliffe arrives at Port Chalmers carrying the first Scottish settlers for Dunedin, New Zealand. Otago province is founded.

1849 - Battle of Novara (King Charles Albert vs Italian republic)

1857 - Elisha Otis' 1st elevator installed (488 Broadway, NYC)

1858 - Streetcar patented (E A Gardner of Phila)

1861 - London's 1st tramcars, designed by Mr Train of NY, begins operating

1862 - Battle of Kernstown VA-Jackson begins his Valley Campaign

1864 - Encounter at Camden AR

1865 - General Sherman/Cox' troops reach Goldsboro NC

• On this day in 1867 shortly after the end of the American Civil War, Congress passed the second Reconstruction Act over a veto by President Andrew Johnson.

1868 - University of California founded (Oakland California)

• In 1879 on this day, the War of the Pacific was fought between Chile and the joints forces of Bolivia and Peru. Chile successfully took over Arica and Tarapacá, leaving Bolivia as a landlocked country.

1880 - Flour rolling mill patented (John Stevens of Wisc)

The Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, South Africa.

• The Boer Republics & Great Britain signed a peace accord on this day in 1881, which ended the first Boer war.

1881 - Gas lamp sets fire to Nice France opera house; 70 die

• On this day in 1889, American President Harrison opened the Oklahoma Territory for white colonization, although it had previously been promised by treaty to Native Americans.

1889 - The free Woolwich Ferry officially opens in east London.

1889 - The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was established by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Qadian India.

1896 - Umberto Giordano's opera "Andrea Chénier," premieres in Milan

1896 - The Raines Law is passed by the New York State Legislature, restricting Sunday sale of alcohol to hotels.

1901 - Dame Nellie Melba, reveals secret of her now famous toast

• The Wright brothers obtained a patent for the airplane on this day in 1903.

1908 - American diplomat Durham Stevens is attacked by Korean assassins Jeon Myeong-un and Jang In-hwan, leading to his death in a hospital two days later.

1910 - 1st race at Los Angeles Motordrome (1st US auto speedway)

1912 - Dixie Cup invented

1915 - Zion Mule Corp forms

1917 - Tornadoes kills 211 over 4 days in Midwest US

1918 - Alick Wickham dives 200' into Australia's Yarra River

• 1918 - Crépy-en-Laonnoise: German artillery shells Paris, 256 killed

The flag of Lithuania.

• Lithuania proclaimed its independence on this day in 1918.

1918 - Paris bombs "Thick Bertha's Dike" (nickname for the widow Krupp)

1919 - Bashkir ASSR, in RSFSR, constituted

• In 1919 on this day, Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist movement in Milan, Italy.  Benito Mussolini, an Italian World War I veteran and publisher of Socialist newspapers, breaks with the Italian Socialists and establishes the nationalist Fasci di Combattimento, named after the Italian peasant revolutionaries, or "Fighting Bands," from the 19th century. Commonly known as the Fascist Party, Mussolini's new right-wing organization advocated Italian nationalism, had black shirts for uniforms, and launched a program of terrorism and intimidation against its leftist opponents.    In October 1922, Mussolini led the Fascists on a march on Rome, and King Emmanuel III, who had little faith in Italy's parliamentary government, asked Mussolini to form a new government. Initially, Mussolini, who was appointed prime minister at the head of a three-member Fascist cabinet, cooperated with the Italian parliament, but aided by his brutal police organization he soon became the effective dictator of Italy. In 1924, a Socialist backlash was suppressed, and in January 1925 a Fascist state was officially proclaimed, with Mussolini as Il Duce, or "The Leader."    Mussolini appealed to Italy's former Western allies for new treaties, but his brutal 1935 invasion of Ethiopia ended all hope of alliance with the Western democracies. In 1936, Mussolini joined Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in his support of Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, prompting the signing of a treaty of cooperation in foreign policy between Italy and Nazi Germany in 1937. Although Adolf Hitler's Nazi revolution was modeled after the rise of Mussolini and the Italian Fascist Party, Fascist Italy and Il Duce proved overwhelmingly the weaker partner in the Berlin-Rome Axis during World War II.    In July 1943, the failure of the Italian war effort and the imminent invasion of the Italian mainland by the Allies led to a rebellion within the Fascist Party. Two days after the fall of Palermo on July 24, the Fascist Grand Council rejected the policy dictated by Hitler through Mussolini, and on July 25 Il Duce was arrested. Fascist Marshal Pietro Badoglio took over the reins of the Italian government, and in September Italy surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. Eight days later, German commandos freed Mussolini from his prison in the Abruzzi Mountains, and he was later made the puppet leader of German-controlled northern Italy. With the collapse of Nazi Germany in April 1945, Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans and on April 29 was executed by firing squad with his mistress, Clara Petacci, after a brief court-martial. Their bodies, brought to Milan, were hanged by the feet in a public square for all the world to see.

1919 - Moscow's Politburo/Central Committee forms

1920 - Perserikatan Communist of India (PKI) political party forms

1922 - 1st airplane lands at the US Capitol in Washington, DC

1922 - KMJ-AM in Fresno CA begins radio transmissions

1922 - WEW-AM in Saint Louis MO begins radio transmissions

1923 - Frank Silver & Irving Conn release "Yes, We Have No Bananas"

1925 - Tennessee becomes 1st state to outlaw teaching theory of evolution

1926 - NHL Championship: Mont Canadiens outscore Pitt Pirates, 6-4 in 2 games

1929 - 1st telephone installed in White House

1930 - US Ladies Figure Skating championship won by Maribel Vinson

1930 - US Mens Figure Skating championship won by Roger Turner

1931 - Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev embrace the gallows during the Indian struggle for independence. Their request to be shot by a firing squad is refused.

1933 - Enabling Act: German Reichstag grants Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers

1933 - Kroll Opera in Berlin opens

Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler 

• On this day in 1934, the US Congress accepted the independence of the Philippines, which would be set for 1945.

• In 1936 on this day, Italy, Austria & Hungary signed the Pact of Rome.

1937 - LA Railway Co starts using PCC streetcars

1938 - Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis frees 74 St L Cardinals minor leaguers

1940 - 1st radio broadcast of "Truth or Consequences" on CBS

1940 - All-India-Moslem League calls for a Moslem homeland

1940 - The Lahore Resolution (Qarardad-e-Pakistan or the then Qarardad-e-Lahore) is put forward at the Annual General Convention of the All India Muslim League.

1942 - 2,500 Jews of Lublin massacred or deported

1942 - Japanese forces occupy Andaman Islands in Indian Ocean

1942 - US move native-born of Japanese ancestry into detention centers

1943 - German counter attack on US lines in Tunisia

• On this day in 1944, German occupiers shot more than 300 Italian civilians as a reprisal for an Italian partisan attack on an SS unit.    Since the Italian surrender in the summer of 1943, German troops had occupied wider swaths of the peninsula to prevent the Allies from using Italy as a base of operations against German strongholds elsewhere, such as the Balkans. An Allied occupation of Italy would also put into their hands Italian airbases, further threatening German air power.    Italian partisans (antifascist guerrilla fighters) aided the Allied battle against the Germans. The Italian Resistance had been fighting underground against the fascist government of Mussolini long before its surrender, and now it fought against German fascism. The main weapon of a guerrilla, defined roughly as a member of a small-scale "irregular" fighting force that relies on limited and quick engagements of a conventional fighting force, is sabotage. Aside from killing enemy soldiers, the destruction of communication lines, transportation centers, and supply lines are essential guerrilla tactics.    On March 23, 1944, Italian partisans operating in Rome threw a bomb at an SS unit, killing 33 soldiers. The very next day, the Germans rounded up 335 Italian civilians and took them to the Adeatine caves. They were all shot dead as revenge for the SS soldiers. Of the civilian victims, 253 were Catholic, 70 were Jewish and the remaining 12 were unidentified.    Despite such setbacks, the partisans proved extremely effective in aiding the Allies; by the summer of 1944, resistance fighters had immobilized eight of the 26 German divisions in northern Italy. By war's end, Italian guerrillas controlled Venice, Milan, and Genoa, but at considerable cost. All told, the Resistance lost some 50,000 fighters-but won its republic.

1944 - Bomb assassination against Southern Tirol congregation in Rome, 33 die

1944 - Nicholas Alkemade falls 5,500 m without a parachute & lives

1945 - British 7th Black Watch crosses the Rhine

1945 - Largest operation in Pacific war, 1,500 US Navy ships bomb Okinawa

1945 - Premier Churchill visits Montgomery's headquarter in Straelen

1946 - 8th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Oklahoma State beats NC 43-40

1948 - John Cunningham sets world altitude record (54,492' (18,133 m))

1949 - Sidney Kingsley's "Detective Story," premieres in NYC

1950 - "Great to Be Alive" opens at Winter Garden Theater NYC for 52 perfs

1950 - 22rd Academy Awards - "All King's Men," Crawford & De Havilland win

1950 - Sophocles Venizelos forms liberal Greeks government

1950 - UN World Meteorological Org established

1951 - Wages in France increase 11%

1952 - Rangers with less than 14 minutes to go blow a 6-2 lead, losing 7-6 to Chicago Black Hawks. Mosienko scores 3 times in 21 seconds

1956 - 18th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: SF beats Iowa 83-71

1956 - Pakistan proclaimed an Islamic republic in Commonwealth (Natl Day)

1956 - Sudan becomes independent

1957 - 19th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: NC beats Kansas 54-53 (3 OTs)

1957 - US army sells last homing pigeons

1960 - Explorer (8) fails to reach Earth orbit

• In 1962 on this day, American President John F. Kennedy visited San Francisco.

1962 - Nawab of Pataudi captains India cricket v WI age 21 years 77 days

1962 - Wake Forest coach "Bones" McKinney becomes 2nd person to play & coach

1962 - William DeWitt buys Cin Reds for $4,625,000

1963 - 25th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: Loyola beats Cin 60-58 (OT)

1963 - Rolf Hochhuth's "Der Stellvertreter," premieres in Berlin

1964 - UNCTAD 1 world conference opens in Geneva

1965 - Gemini 3 launched, 1st US 2-man space flight (Grissom & Young)

1965 - Moroccan army shoots on demonstrators, about 100 killed

1966 - 1st official meeting after 400 years of Catholic & Anglican Church

1968 - 30th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: UCLA beats NC 78-55

1968 - Rev Walter Fauntroy, is 1st non-voting congressional delegate from DC

1969 - Kathy Whitworth wins LPGA Port Charlotte Golf Invitational

1969 - Rally for Decency (Miami)

• On this day in 1969, there was a "Rally for Decency" in Miami, Florida, as a response to actions deemed outrageous and immoral by Jim Morrison, frontman of the rock band The Doors.   "Dear Mike," wrote the recently inaugurated President Nixon to Miami-area teenager Mike Levesque in a letter dated March 26, 1969, "I was extremely interested to learn about the admirable initiative undertaken by you and 30,000 other young people at the Miami Teen-age Rally for Decency held last Sunday." The event of which Nixon spoke was organized in response to an incident at a Doors concert some three weeks earlier, when a drunk, combative and sometimes barely coherent Jim Morrison allegedly exposed himself to the crowd at Miami's Dinner Key Auditorium. The alleged exposure, whether it took place or not, created serious legal problems for Morrison. It also created an opportunity for socially conservative Floridians and their celebrity supporters to speak out against the counterculture at the massive "Rally for Decency" held at Miami's Orange Bowl on March 23, 1969.    The Associated Press described the event as being part of "a teen-age crusade for decency in entertainment." On hand to support that crusade was a handful of celebrities not normally associated with the youth market: Kate Smith, Jackie Gleason, The Lettermen and Anita Bryant, spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission. Ms. Bryant, who would later become an outspoken opponent of gay rights, was not the only grownup to make political hay out of what began as a sincere event organized by the teenage members of a Roman Catholic youth group. On March 24, the day after the rally, President Nixon's daily news summary included a mention of the event along with a handwritten note from a young aide named Pat Buchanan: "The pollution of young minds...an extremely popular issue; one on which we can probably get a tremendous majority of Americans." Eight months later, Nixon would give his famous "Silent Majority" speech, and 23 years later, Buchanan would make a serious bid for the Republican presidential nomination running as a veteran of the so-called "Culture Wars."    As for Jim Morrison, the incident that sparked the Rally for Decency led to his conviction seven months later on charges of profanity and indecent exposure. Sentenced to six months' hard labor in a Florida prison, Morrison left the United States for France while his conviction was under appeal. He died in Paris in July 1971.

1970 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1971 - USSR performs underground nuclear test

Motorcycle Daredevil Evel KnievelMotorcycle Daredevil Evel Knievel 1972 - Evel Knievel breaks 93 bones after successfully clearing 35 cars

1972 - NY Yanks agree to continue playing ball in the Bronx

1973 - After a 5½ year run soap "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" ends

1973 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1973 - Yoko Ono is granted permanent residence in US

1975 - Sue Roberts wins LPGA Bing Crosby International Golf Classic

• The International Bill of Rights went into effect on this day in 1976, with 35 nations ratifying.

1978 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1979 - Larry Holmes TKOs Osvaldo Ocasio in 7 for heavyweight boxing title

1979 - Wings release "Goodnight Tonight"

1980 - Border completes 150 in each inning of Test Cricket v Pakistan

1980 - Donna Caponi Young Pro-Am wins LPGA National Golf Tournament

1980 - France performs nuclear test

1980 - Shah of Iran arrives in Egypt

1981 - Supreme Court upholds law making statutory rape a crime only for men

Artist & Musician Yoko OnoArtist & Musician Yoko Ono 1981 - Supreme Court rules states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teen-age girls sought abortions

1982 - Guatemala military coup under gen Rios Montt, pres Romeo Lucas flees

1982 - Isle's Mike Bossy's 20th career hat trick-4 goals

1983 - US President Ronald Reagan introduces "Star Wars"-plan (SDI)

1984 - Andrea Schone skates ladies world record 3 km (4:20.91)

1984 - Ice Dance Championship at Ottawa won by J Torvill & Chris Dean (GRB)

1984 - Ice Pairs Championship at Ottawa won by Underhill & Paul Martini (CAN)

1984 - Ladies Fig Skating Championship in Ottawa won by Katarina Witt (GDR)

1984 - Men's Fig Skating Championship in Ottawa won by Scott Hamilton (USA)

1985 - Discovery moves to Vandenberg AFB for mating of STS 51-D mission

1985 - Julian Lennon's 1st concert (San Antonio Texas)

1985 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1986 - 6th Golden Raspberry Awards: Rambo: First Blood Part II wins

1986 - Heavyweight Trevor Berbick KOs Pinklon Thomas

1986 - Penny Pulz wins LPGA Circle K Tucson Golf Open

US President & Actor Ronald ReaganUS President & Actor Ronald Reagan 1987 - Soap "Bold & Beautiful" premieres

1987 - US offers military protection to Kuwaiti ships in the Persian Gulf

1987 - West Germany SPD chairman Willy Brandt resigns

1989 - 2 Utah scientists claim they have produced fusion at room temperature

1989 - Joel Steinberg sentenced to 25 yrs for killing his adopted daughter

• 

• In 1990 on this day, former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Hazelwood was ordered to help the cleanup efforts at Prince William Sound in Alaska & to pay $50,000 in restitution for his role in the massive 1989 oil spill there, which was the largest oil spill in history at that time. 

1991 - 20 Tornadoes kill 5 in Tennessee

1991 - Sergei Bubka pole vaults world record indoor (6.12m)

1991 - 1st World League of American Football games, London beats Frankfurt 24-11, Sacramento beats Raleigh-Dur 9-3 & Mont beats Birmingham 20-5

1992 - Florida Marlins begin selling tickets

1993 - Belgian government of Dehaene, resigns

1993 - NY Knicks & Phoenix Suns get into a major brawl

1994 - Amy Fisher's lover Joey Buttafuoco is released from jail

1994 - Graeme Obree bicycles world record 10 km (11:28)

1994 - Howard Stern formally announces his Libertarian run for NY governor

Radio shock jock Howard SternRadio shock jock Howard Stern 1994 - Joey Buttafuoco, released from jail after 4 months & 9 days

1994 - Last day of Test cricket for Kapil Dev

1994 - Russian Airbus A-310 crashes in Siberia (74-75 killed)

1994 - Wayne Gretzky sets NHL record with 802 goals scored

1994 - Richard Jacobs buys naming rights to Indians new ball park at Gateway for $13.8 million (renamed Jacobs Field)

1995 - "How To Succeed in Business..." opens at R Rodgers NYC for 548 perfs

1995 - Dollar equals 88.41 yen (record)

1996 - Taiwan holds its first direct elections and chooses Lee Teng-hui as President.

1997 - "Mandy Patinkin in Concert," closes at Lyceum Theater NYC

1997 - 17th Golden Raspberry Awards: Striptease wins

1997 - Betsy King wins LPGA Standard Register PING

1997 - Liberty Legends of Senior Golf

1997 - Phil Mickelson wins Bay Hill Golf Invitiational

1997 - Wrestlemania XIII in Chicago, Undertaker beats Psycho Sid for title

1997 - wins Standard Register PING

Actor Jack NicholsonActor Jack Nicholson 1998 - 70th Academy Awards - "Titanic," Jack Nicholson & Helen Hunt win

1999 - Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña.

• On this day in 1999, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana gave formal approval for air strikes against Serbian targets.   

• In 2001 on this day, the Russian Mir space station was disposed of after 15 years, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

2002 - 22nd Golden Raspberry Awards: Freddy Got Fingered wins

2003 - In Nasiriyah, Iraq, 11 soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company as well as 18 U.S. Marines are killed during the first major conflict of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

2003 - 75th Academy Awards - "Chicago," Adrien Brody & Nicole Kidman win

2004 - Andhra Pradesh Federation of Trade Unions holds its first conference in Hyderabad, India.

2005 - The United States 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, refuses to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.

2005 - A major explosion at the Texas City Refinery kills 15 workers.

2006 - The Federal Reserve discontinues publishing M3 money supply.

2007 - Burnley Tunnel catastrophe occurs in Melbourne, Australia.

2007 - Iranian Navy seize Royal Navy personnel in Iraqi waters.

2012 - African Union suspends Mali's membership following a coup

2013 - 20 people are killed and 200 are injured by a tornado in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh

2013 - The US Senate approves its first budget in four years by a margin of 50–49

1026 - Koenraad II crowned himself king of Italy.   1066 - The 18th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet took place.   1490 - The first dated edition of Maimonides "Mishna Torah" was published.   1657 - France and England formed an alliance against Spain.   1775 - American revolutionary Patrick Henry declared, "give me liberty, or give me death!"   1794 - Josiah G. Pierson patented a rivet machine.   1806 - Explorers Lewis and Clark, reached the Pacific coast, and began their return journey to the east.   1808 - Napoleon's brother Joseph took the throne of Spain.   1835 - Charles Darwin reached Los Arenales, in the Andes.   1836 - The coin press was invented by Franklin Beale.   1839 - The first recorded use of "OK" [oll korrect] was used in Boston's Morning Post.   1840 - The first successful photo of the Moon was taken.   1848 - Hungary proclaimed its independence of Austria.   1857 - Elisha Otis installed the first modern passenger elevator in a public building. It was at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City.   1858 - Eleazer A. Gardner patented the cable streetcar.   1861 - John D. Defrees became the first Superintendent of the United States Government Printing Office.   1861 - London's first tramcars began operations.   1868 - The University of California was founded in Oakland, CA.   1880 - John Stevens patented the grain crushing mill. The mill increased flour production by 70 percent.   1881 - The Boers and Britain signed a peace accord ending the first Boer war.   1881 - A gas lamp caused a fire in an opera house in Nice, France. 70 people were killed.   1889 - U.S. President Harrison opened Oklahoma for white colonization.   1901 - Dame Nellie Melba, revealed the secret of her now famous toast.   1901 - It was learned that Boers were starving in British concentration camps in South Africa.   1901 - Shots were fired at Privy Councilor Pobyedonostzev, who was considered to be Russia's most hated man.   1902 - In Italy, the minimum legal working age was raised from 9 to 12 for boys and from 11 to 15 for girls.   1903 - The Wright brothers obtained an airplane patent.   1903 - U.S. troops were sent to Honduras to protect the American consulate during revolutionary activity.   1909 - British Lt. Shackleton found the magnetic South Pole.   1909 - Theodore Roosevelt began an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.   1910 - In the Canary Islands, women offered candidates for legislative elections.   1912 - The Dixie Cup was invented.   1917 - Austrian Emperor Charles I made a peace proposal to French President Poincare.   1917 - In the Midwest U.S., four tornadoes kill 211 people over a four day period.   1918 - Lithuania proclaimed independence.   1919 - Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.   1920 - Britain denounced the U.S. because of their delay in joining the League of Nations.   1920 - The Perserikatan Communist of India (PKI) political party was formed.   1921 - Arthur G. Hamilton set a new parachute record when he safely jumped from 24,400 feet.   1922 - The first airplane landed at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.   1925 - The state of Tennessee enacted a law that made it a crime for a teacher in any state-supported public school to teach any theory that was in contradiction to the Bible's account of man's creation.   1932 - In the U.S., the Norris-LaGuardia Act established workers' right to strike.   1933 - The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act. The act effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers.   1934 - The U.S. Congress accepted the independence of the Philippines in 1945.   1936 - Italy, Austria & Hungary signed the Pact of Rome.   1937 - The L.A. Railway Co. started using PCC streetcars.   1940 - "Truth or Consequences" was heard on radio for the first time.   1942 - The Japanese occupy the Andaman Islands.   1942 - During World War II, the U.S. government began evacuating Japanese-Americans from West Coast homes to detention centers.   1950 - "Beat the Clock" premiered on CBS-TV.   1951 - U.S. paratroopers descended from flying boxcars in a surprise attack in Korea.   1956 - Pakistan became the first Islamic republic. It was still within the British Commonwealth.   1956 - Sudan became independent.   1957 - The U.S. Army sold the last of its homing pigeons.   1965 - America's first two-person space flight took off from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young aboard. The craft was the Gemini 3.   1965 - The Moroccan Army shot at demonstrators. About 100 people were killed.   1967 - Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. called the Vietnam War the biggest obstacle to the civil rights movement.   1970 - Mafia "Boss" Carlo Gambino was arrested for plotting to steal $3 million.   1972 - The U.S. called a halt to the peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris.   1972 - Evel Knievel broke 93 bones after successfully jumping 35 cars.   1973 - The last airing of "Concentration" took place. The show had been on NBC for 15 years.   1980 - The deposed shah of Iran, Muhammad Riza Pahlavi, left Panama for Egypt.   1981 - U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law making statutory rape a crime for men but not women.   1981 - CBS Television announced plans to reduce "Captain Kangaroo" to a 30-minute show each weekday morning.   1983 - U.S. President Reagan first proposed development of technology to intercept enemy missiles. The proposal became known as the Strategic Defense Initiative and "Star Wars."   1983 - Dr. Barney Clark died after 112 days with a permanent artificial heart.   1989 - A 1,000-foot diameter asteroid missed Earth by 500,000 miles.   1989 - Joel Steinberg was sentenced to 25 years for killing his adopted daughter.   1989 - Two electrochemists, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman, announced that they had created nuclear fusion in a test tube at room temperature.   1990 - Former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Hazelwood was ordered to help clean up Prince William Sound and pay $50,000 in restitution for the 1989 oil spill.   1993 - U.N. experts announced that record ozone lows had been registered over a large area of the Western Hemisphere.   1994 - Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexico's leading presidential candidate, was assassinated in Tijuana. Mario Aburto Martinez was arrested at the scene and confessed to the killing.   1994 - Wayne Gretzky broke Gordie Howe's National Hockey League (NHL) career record with his 802nd goal.   1994 - Howard Stern formally announced his Libertarian run for New York governor.   1996 - Taiwan held its first democratic presidential elections.   1998 - Germany's largest bank pledged $3.1 million to Jewish foundations as restitution for Nazi looting.   1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that term limits for state lawmakers were constitutional.   1998 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin fired his Cabinet.   1998 - The movie "Titanic" won 11 Oscars at the Academy Awards.   1998 - The German company Bertelsmann AG agreed to purchase the American publisher Random House for $1.4 billion. The merger created the largest English-language book-publishing company in the world.   1999 - Paraguay's Vice President Luis Maria Argana was shot to death by two gunmen.   1999 - NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana gave formal approval for air strikes against Serbian targets.   1999 - Near Mandi Bahauddin, Pakistan, a bus fell into a fast-moving canal. Nine were confirmed dead, 31 were missing and presumed dead, and 20 were injured.   2001 - Russia's orbiting Mir space station plunged into the South Pacific after its 15-years of use.




1775 Patrick Henry declared "Give me liberty, or give me death." 1806 Lewis and Clark began their return journey east. 1919 Benito Mussolini founded his own party in Italy, the Fasci di Combattimento. 1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan proposed a space-based missile defense system called the Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars.” 1998 The motion picture epic “Titanic” won 11 Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards, tying it with “Ben-Hur” for the most ever. 2001 Russia's Mir space station ended its 15-year orbit of the Earth, splashing down in the South Pacific. 2003 A U.S. Army convoy was ambushed in Iraq with 11 killed and seven captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch. 2010 President Barack Obama signed a health-care overhaul bill, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, into law.


The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/mar23.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory