Today
in History ~ March 23
Republic Day in Pakistan
Events
1490 - 1st dated edition of
Maimonides "Mishna Torah" published
1568 - Treaty of Longjumeau: French Huguenots go on strike
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, dies 2 days later
1775 - Patrick Henry made his famous call for America's independence from
Britain, telling the Virginia Provincial Convention, "Give me liberty, or
give me death!" [H]
1792 - Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 94 in G Major (the
"Surprise" symphony) was performed publicly for the first time, in
London.
1794 - 1st US patent (Joseph G Pierson for a riveting machine)
1794 - Lt-general Tadeusz Kosciuszko returns to Poland
1806 - After passing a wet and tedious winter near the Pacific
Coast, Lewis and Clark happily leave behind Fort Clatsop and head east for home.
[H]
1808 - Napoleon's brother Joseph takes the throne of Spain
1832 - British Parliament passes reform bill
1835 - Charles Darwin reaches Los Arenales, in the Andes
1836 - Coin Press invented by Franklin Beale
1840 - Draper takes 1st successful photo of the Moon (daguerrotype)
1857 - Elisha Otis' 1st elevator installed (488 Broadway, NYC)
1858 - Streetcar patented (E A Gardner of Phila)
1861 - London's 1st tramcars begin operating
1862 - Battle of Kernstown, VA -- Jackson begins his Valley Campaign
1865 - General Sherman/Cox' troops reach Goldsboro, NC
1867 - Congress passes 2nd Reconstruction Act over Pres Johnson's veto
1880 - Flour rolling mill patented (John Stevens of Wisc)
1881 - Boers & Britain sign peace accord; end 1st Boer war
1881 - Gas lamp sets fire to Nice France opera house; 70 die
1889 - Pres Harrison opens Oklahoma for white colonization
1896 - Umberto Giordano's opera "Andrea Chenier," premieres in Milan
1901 - Dame Nellie Melba, reveals secret of her now famous toast
1903 - Wright brothers obtain airplane patent
1912 - Dixie Cup invented
1917 - Tornadoes kills 211 over 4 days in Midwest US
1918 - Paris bombs "Thick Bertha's Dike" (nickname for the widow Krupp)
1919 - Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.
1919 - Moscow's Politburo/Central Committee forms
1923 - Frank Silver & Irving Conn release "Yes, We Have No
Bananas"
1925 - The great State of Tennessee, made it a crime for a teacher in any
state-supported public school or college to teach any theory that contradicted
the Bible’s account of man’s creation.
1929 - 1st telephone installed in White House; first unsolicited call arrives
1933 - German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted
Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers.
1933 - Kroll Opera in Berlin opens
1934 - US Congress accepts Philippines independence in 1945
1940 - 1st radio broadcast of "Truth or Consequences" on CBS
1940 - All-India-Moslem League calls for a Moslem homeland
1942 - 2,500 Jews of Lublin massacred or deported
1942 - During World War Two, the US government began evacuating
Japanese-Americans from their West Coast homes to detention centers.
1943 - German counter attack on US lines in Tunisia
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
1949 - Sidney Kingsley's "Detective Story," premieres in NYC
1956 - Pakistan proclaimed an Islamic republic in Commonwealth (Natl Day)
1957 - US army sells last homing pigeons
1963 - Rolf Hochhuth's "Der Stellvertreter" (The Deputy), premieres in
Berlin, Catholic Church outraged at portrayal of Pius XII as war criminal
1965 - America's first two-person space flight began as "Gemini Three"
blasted off from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W.
Young aboard.
1965 - Moroccan army shoots on demonstrators, about 100 killed
1966 - 1st official meeting after 400 years of Catholic & Anglican Church
1972 - Evil Knievel breaks 93 bones after successfully clearing 35 cars
1980 - Shah of Iran arrives in Egypt
1981 - Supreme Court upholds law making statutory rape a crime only for men
1981 - Supreme Court rules states could require, with some exceptions, parental
notification when teen-age girls sought abortions
1983 - US president Ronald Reagan introduces "Star Wars"-plan (SDI)
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)
1986 - 6th Golden Raspberry Awards: Rambo: First Blood Part II wins
1987 - US offers military protection to Kuwaiti ships in the Persian Gulf
1987 - West Germany SPD chairman Willy Brandt resigns
1990 - Former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Hazelwood ordered to help clean up
Prince William Sound & pay $50,000 in restitution for 1989 oil spill
1991 - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein shuffled his Cabinet, but kept in place
his hard-line ministers of interior and defense to direct a crackdown on
rebellion against his rule.
1994 - Amy Fisher's lover Joey Buttafuoco is released from jail
1994 - Wayne Gretzky sets NHL record with 802 goals scored
1994 - Suicide jumper is killed on his way down by a shotgun blast
passing through a window. [H]
1996 - Taiwan held its first direct presidential elections; incumbent Lee
Teng-hui was the landslide victor
1997 - 17th Golden Raspberry Awards: Striptease wins
2000 - Pope John Paul the Second paid his respects at Yad Vashem, Israel's
Holocaust memorial.
2000 - President Clinton visited the western Indian village of Nayla.
2000 - In a first, Speaker Dennis Hastert named a Catholic priest, the Reverend
Daniel Coughlin, as the new House chaplain.
Birthdays
Today
1749 - Pierre-Simon Laplace, mathematician/astronomer/physicist
1750 - Johannes Matthias Sperger, composer
1818 - Don Carlos Buell, Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1898
1823 - Schuyler Colfax (17th U.S. Vice President [1869-1873) under Ulysses S. Grant)
1837 - Joseph Wieniawski, composer
1857 - Fannie Farmer, actress (namesake of a candy company)
1887 - Anthony van Hoboken, Dutch musicologist (Haydn catalog)
1887 - Felix F Yussupov, Russian count who murdered Rasputin
1898 - Georgios Grivas, Greek general/opposition leader on Cyprus
1900 - Erich Fromm, Frankfurt Germany, psychologist (Sane Society)
1908 - Joan Crawford (Lucille LeSueur) (Academy Award-winning actress: Mildred Pierce [1945]; A Woman's Face, Night Gallery, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Above Suspicion, Grand Hotel)
1910 - Akira Kurosawa (film director: Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, Ran, Rhapsody in August, The Idiot, The Bad Sleep Well)
1912 - Wernher Von Braun (scientist: developer of WWII German V-2 rocket, head of U.S. Army missile team; technological leader of American space program)
"Vunce the rockets are up, who cares vere zey come down?"
1917 - Johnny Guarnieri (musician: piano: played with Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw; played at the Tail O' The Cock in LA for a decade)
1922 - Ugo Tognazzi, Cremona Italy, actor/director (La Cage Aux Folles)
1926 - Martha Wright (Wiederrecht) (singer: The Martha Wright Show)
1928 - Jim Lemon (baseball)
1929 - Roger Bannister, England, 1st to run a 4 minute mile (May 6, 1954)
1933 - Monique Van Vooren (actress: Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, Ash Wednesday, Sugar Cookies)
1933 - Norman Bailey, British bass-baritone (Flying Dutchman)
1938 - Craig Breedlove (rocket car speedster: the first person to travel more than 400mph, more than 500mph and more than 600 mph on land)
1940 - Ted Green (hockey)
1943 - Lee May (baseball)
1944 - George Scott (baseball)
1946 - Vic Washington (football)
1950 - Bill Cloakley (hockey)
1951 - Ron Jaworski (football: Philadelphia Eagles quarterback: Super Bowl XV)
1953 - Chaka Khan (Yvette Marie Stevens) (singer: Tell Me Something Good [with Rufus], You Got the Love; solo: I Feel for You)
1953 - J.K. McKay (football)
1954 - Moses Malone (basketball: NBA Individual Record for free throws [8,509] for Buffalo Braves, Houston Rockets, Philadelphia 76ers, Washington Bullets, Atlanta Hawks, Milwaukee Bucks [1976-1995]; NBA MVP [1979, 1982, 1983])
1957 - Amanda Plummer (Tony Award-winning actress [1982]: Agnes of God; The Fisher King, Joe Versus the Volcano, The World According to Garp, Pulp Fiction; Christopher Plummer's daughter)
Famous
deaths
1169 - Shirkuh, Kurd
general/vizier of Cairo/Saladin's uncle, dies
1237 - Jan of Brienne, King of Jerusalem/Emperor of Constantinople, dies
1369 - Pedro, the Cruel, King/tyrant of Castile & Leon, murdered
1669 - Philipp Buchner, composer, dies at 54
1748 - Johann Gottfried Walther, German composer/musicologist, dies at 63
1801 - Paul I, tsar of Russia (1796-1801), strangled at 46
1842 - Stendhal, [Marie-Henri Beyle], French author (Lamiel), dies at 59
1881 - Nikolai Rubinstein, composer, dies at 45
1944 - O C Wingate, British general-major (Burma), dies in air crash
1953 - Raoul Dufy, painter, Forcalquier, France
1964 - Peter Lorre, actor (Casino Royale), dies at 59
1983 - Barney Clark, 1st artifical heart recipient, dies after 112 days at 62 [H]
1985 - Singing Nun, commits suicide in Belgium at 52
1994 - Giulietta Masina, wife of Federico Felini/(La Strada), dies at 74
If
you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please
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