March 23: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – March 23 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
23rd March 1490: “Mishna Torah”, the first dated edition of Maimonides was published on this day.
23rd March 1657: France and England today allied against Spain.
18th Century – What Happened on March 23 – The 1700s
23rd March 1775: Patrick Henry, the American revolutionary declared today, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”.
23rd March 1791: The rivet machine was patented by Josiah G. Pierson today.
19th Century – March 23 This Day That Year – The 1800s
23rd March: 1806: Explorers Lewis and Clark, reached the Pacific coast, and began their return journey to the east.
23rd March 1808: Today Napoleon’s brother Joseph took the throne of Spain.
23rd March 1835: Charles Darwin today reached Los Arenales, in the Andes.
23rd March 1836: Franklin Bale invented the coin press.
23rd March 1839: The first recorded printed use of “OK” (oll Korrect) occurred in Boston’s Morning Post today.
23rd March 1840: Today the first photo of the moon was taken successfully.
23rd March 1848: Hungary today proclaimed its independence from Austria.
23rd March 1857: The first modern passenger elevator was today installed in a public building at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City by Elisha Otis.
23rd March 1858: The cable streetcar was today patented by Eleazer A. Gardner.
23rd March 1861: The first tramcars of London, began operations in London today.
23rd March 1868: Today in Oakland, The University of California was founded.
23rd March 1880: The grain crushing mill was today patented by John Stevens. The mill increased the flour production by an estimated 70%.
23rd March 1881: Today 70 people were killed in a fire caused by a gas lamp in an opera house in Nice.
23rd March 1881: The Boers and Britain signed a peace accord which brought an end to the Boer war.
23rd March 1889: U.S. President Harrison today opened Oklahoma for white colonization.
23rd March 1889: The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was established today by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Qadian, India.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day March 23rd – The 1900s
23rd March 1901: Shots were today fired at Privy Councilor Pobyedonostzev. He was considered as Russia’s most hated man.
23rd March 1901: It was learned that Boers were starving in British concentration camps in South Africa.
23rd March 1902: The minimum legal working age for boys was raised from 9 to 12 and for girls, it was raised from 11 to 15 in Italy.
23rd March 1903: The U.S. today sent its troops to Honduras to protect the American consulate during revolutionary activity.
23rd March 1903: The Wright brothers today obtained an airplane patent.
23rd March 1909: Theodore Roosevelt began an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
23rd March 1909: The British Lt. Shackleton today found the magnetic South Pole.
23rd March 1910: Women offered candidates for legislative elections in the Canary Islands.
23rd March 1910: The first race at Los Angeles Motordrome, the first US auto speedway.
23rd March 1917: A series of tornado kills 211 over 4 days in the Midwest US.
Lithuania proclaimed independence.
23rd March 1918: During World War I the German forces advance 14 miles to the Somme River.
23rd March 1919: In Italy, Benito Mussolini established the Fascist Party. The party came to power in 1922 and ruled Italy till 1943.
23rd March 1919: Today the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party re-established the five-member Politburo with Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev, and Nikolai Krestinsky as its members, in the Soviet Union.
23rd March 1920: Perserikatan Communist of India (PKI) a political party was formed today.
23rd March 1921: Today Germany announced that it will be unable to meet its Great War reparation payments.
23rd March 1921: Arthur G. Hamilton safely jumped from 24,400 feet, creating a new parachute record.
23rd March 1922: The first airplane landed at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC.
23rd March 1925: Tennessee today became the first state to outlaw the teaching of the theory of evolution.
23rd March 1929: The first telephone was today installed in the White House.
23rd March 1931: During the Indian struggle for independence, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev embrace the gallows. Their request to the shot by the firing squad was refused.
23rd March 1932: The Norris-LaGuardia Act established the worker’s right to strike in the U.S. today.
23rd March 1933: The German Reichstag today adopted the Enabling Act granting Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers.
23rd March 1934: The U.S. Congress today accepted the independence of the Philippines in 1945.
23rd March 1936: The pact of Rome was today signed by Italy, Austria and Hungary.
23rd March 1937: The L. A. Railway Co. started using PCC street cars.
23rd March 1940: Germany had requested help from Romania and this assistance was initially delivered in the form of oil. The allies however opposed it and placed an oil embargo on Germany.
23rd March 1940: The Indian Union Muslim League demanded a homeland.
23rd March 1942: The Andaman Islands were occupied by the Japanese.
23rd March 1942: The U.S. Government started evacuating Japanese-Americans from West Coast homes to detention centers, during World War II.
23rd March 1951: In a surprise attack in Korea, U.S. paratroopers descended from flying boxcars
23rd March 1955: Aneurin Bevan almost lost his position and faced expulsion from the British Labor Party after defying Atlee’s leadership. Atlee however saved him from losing his position and put the expulsion on the back burner.
23rd March 1956: Sudan became independent today.
23rd March 1956: Pakistan today became the first Islamic republic while it was still within the British Commonwealth.
23rd March 1957: The last of its homing pigeons was sold by the U.S. Army.
23rd March 1963: Minister Won Woo made an offer to schedule peace talks in Seoul Korea. The military government had invited representatives from 14 different political parties and leaders of other organizations as well.
23rd March 1965: About 100 people were killed when the Moroccan Army shot at demonstrators.
23rd March 1965: The spacecraft Gemini 3, America’s first two-person space flight, took off from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Yong on board today.
23rd March 1966: The heads of Roman Catholic and Anglican churches met in Vatican City. This was the first such meeting in more than four centuries.
23rd March 1967: Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. today termed the Vietnam War as the biggest obstacle to the Civil Rights movement.
23rd March 1970: Carl Gambino, the mafia boss, was today arrested for plotting to steal $ 3 million.
23rd March 1972: The peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris were called to a halt on this day the United
23rd March 1972: King Hussein of Jordan made plans to visit the U.S. to discuss plans for the Middle East with President Richard Nixon. He had plans of forming the United Arab Kingdom from the plots of land on both sides of the Jordan River.
23rd March 1972: Evel Knievel broke 93 bones after successfully jumping 35 cars.
23rd March 1978: US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
23rd March 1980: The Shah of Iran, Muhammad Riza Pahlavi, left for Egypt from Panama.
23rd March 1981: The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the law which made rape a crime for men but not for women.
23rd March 1981: The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that states could require parental notification when teenage girls seek abortions barring some exceptional cases.
23rd March 1983: President Ronald Reagan in the United States proposed the development of technology to intercept enemy missiles. This proposal came to be known as the Strategic Defense Initiative and “Star Wars”.
23rd March 1987: A British Army base in Rheindahlen in West Germany was targeted by a car bomb as part of the ongoing war of terrorism by the IRA on British Troops. Thirty people were injured in the attack.
23rd March 1987: A group of Muslim kidnappers held sick Americans as hostages to trade them for the release of 100 Arab prisoners held in Israel. Israel refused to negotiate with the terrorists.
23rd March 1989: Joel Steinberg was sentenced to 25 years for killing his adopted daughter.
23rd March 1989: An asteroid about 1000 feet in diameter missed Earth by 500,000 miles today.
23rd March 1989: It was today announced by two electrochemists Stanley Pons and Marin Fleischman, that they had created nuclear fusion in a test tube at room temperature.
23rd March 1990: Captain Joseph Hazelwood of former Exxon Valdez was today ordered to help clean up Prince William Sound and pay $ 50,000 in restitution for the 1989 oil spill.
23rd March 1991: The Allies defeated Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War. He announced that he was stepping down as prime minister of Iraq. He had however created a new government and enjoyed the support of his close associates. It was rumored that he would still retain the presidential position within the country.
23rd March 1993: It was announced by experts from the United Nations that record ozone lows had been registered over a large area of the Western Hemisphere.
23rd March 1994: Howard Stern, today formally announced his Libertarian run for New York governor.
23rd March 1994: Mexico’s leading presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio was today assassinated in Tijuana. Mario Aburto Martinez who was arrested from the scene, confessed to the killing.
23rd March 1996: The democratic presidential elections were today held in Taiwan.
23rd March 1998: The Russian President Boris Yeltsin today fired his Cabinet.
23rd March 1998: The German Company Bertelsmann AG today agreed to purchase the American publisher “Random House” for a consideration of $ 1.4 billion. The merger resulted in the creation of the largest English-language book-publishing company in the world.
23rd March 1998: The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that term limits for state lawmakers were constitutional.
23rd March 1998: The movie “The Titanic” won eleven Oscars at the Academy Awards.
23rd March 1998: The largest bank in Germany pledged $ 3.1 million to Jewish foundations as restitution for Nazi looting.
23rd March 1999: A bus fell into the swift waters of a canal near Mandi Bahauddin in Pakistan. Nine were confirmed dead, 31 people were missing and they were presumed to be dead. Twenty people were injured in the mishap.
23rd March 1999: Secretary General Javier Solana of NATO gave formal approval for air strikes against Serbian targets.
23rd March 1999: Vice President Luis Maria Argana of Paraguay was today shot dead by two gunmen.
21st Century – March 23 This Day In History – The 2000s
23rd March 2001: After 15 years of its use, Russia’s orbiting space station “Mir” plunged into the South Pacific today.
23rd March 2002: It was reported that President George Bush requested an extra $ 27 million from Congress for use in the war against terrorism. He said the price of freedom is never too high as far as he was concerned.
23rd March 2006: The French parliament today increased the age at which a woman can get married from 15 to 18. The new legislation brings France in line with other European Union members.
23rd March 2007: British navy personnel fifteen in all were today captured at gunpoint by Iranian forces for suspected involvement in smuggling. Iranians claimed that they had illegally entered Iranian waters.
23rd March 2007: Three trucks and four cars crashed deep in the Burnley Tunnel in Melbourne resulting in an explosion and subsequent fire. Three people died. Drivers and passengers of 200 vehicles had to be evacuated.
23rd March 2008: It is reported that the loss of life in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has crossed the 4000 mark, with the death of four soldiers whose vehicle was blown up by a bomb in southern Baghdad today.
23rd March 2009: The Mount Redoubt volcano in Alaska has erupted again today sending a cloud of ash to around 50,000 feet. The volcano had erupted on the evening of 22nd March and four more explosions had taken place today.
23rd March 2010: Today reporters from around the world were shown the “VSS Enterprise”, Virgin Galactic’s Space Ship Two on its maiden flight from the Mojave Air and Spaceport in Mojave, California. The spaceship is designed to carry “space tourists”. The tickets would cost $ 200,000 each. Already 65,000 would-be space tourists have applied for the first batch of 100 tickets.
23rd March 2010: The health care bill, which has been hailed as the most expensive social legislation in decades, which enshrines “the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care” was signed by President Obama today.
23rd March 2011: Jose Socrates, the Prime Minister of Portugal resigned today after his austerity budget failed to pass in the parliament.
23rd March 2013: The popular band “My Chemical Romance” from New Jersey in the US announced that they were splitting after performing together for 12 years. They became popular all over the world in the mid-2000s.
23rd March 2014: A deadly outbreak of Ebola virus reached Conakry the capital of Guinea. The virus had already taken a toll of fifty-nine. Eight people were reported to be infected in the outbreak.
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