History of 23 March
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.
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 the 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.
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 the 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 about 430,000 miles.
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 – NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana gave formal approval for air strikes against Serbian targets.
2001 – Russia’s orbiting Mir space station plunged into the South Pacific after its 15-years of use.
2003 – Battle of Nasiriyah, first major conflict during the invasion of Iraq.
2008 – Official opening of Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, India
2009 – FedEx Express Flight 80: A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 flying from Guangzhou, China crashes at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, killing both the captain and the co-pilot.
2019 – The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces declared military victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant after four years of fighting, although the group maintains a scattered presence and sleeper cells across Syria and Iraq.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Erin Crocker, American race car driver
- 1981 – Tony Peña, Jr., Dominican baseball player
- 1981 – Shelley Rudman, English bobsledder
- 1981 – Giuseppe Sculli, Italian footballer
- 1981 – Brett Young, American country music singer
- 1982 – José Contreras Arrau, Chilean footballer
- 1982 – Andrea Musacco, Italian footballer
- 1982 – Evgeni Striganov, Estonian ice dancer
- 1983 – Hakan Balta, Turkish footballer
- 1983 – Mo Farah, Somali-English runner
- 1983 – Sascha Riether, German footballer
- 1983 – Jerome Thomas, English footballer
- 1984 – Ryan Araña, Filipino basketball player
- 1984 – Brandon Marshall, American football player
- 1985 – Maurice Jones-Drew, American football player
- 1985 – Bethanie Mattek-Sands, an American tennis player
- 1986 – Patrick Bordeleau, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1986 – Andrea Dovizioso, Italian motorcycle racer
- 1986 – Brett Eldredge, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1986 – Kangana Ranaut, Indian actress
- 1987 – Alan Toovey, Australian footballer
- 1988 – Dellin Betances, American baseball player
- 1988 – Jason Kenny, English cyclist
- 1988 – Michal Neuvirth, Czech ice hockey player
- 1989 – Nikola Gulan, Serbian footballer
- 1989 – Luis Fernando Silva, Mexican footballer
- 1989 – Ayesha Curry, Canadian-American chef, author and television personality
- 1990 – Jaime Alguersuari, Spanish race car driver
- 1990 – Robert Zickert, German footballer
- 1991 – Gregg Wylde, Scottish footballer
- 1992 – Tolga Cigerci, German-Turkish footballer
- 1992 – Morgan Evans, Welsh rugby league player
- 1992 – Kyrie Irving, Australian-American basketball player
- 1993 – Kyle Lovett, Australian rugby league player
- 1993 – Aytaç Kara, Turkish footballer
- 1994 – Nick Powell, English footballer
- 1995 – Kevin Kauber, Estonian footballer
- 1995 – Jan Lisiecki, Canadian pianist
- 1995 – Ozan Tufan, Turkish footballer
- 1996 – Alexander Albon, Thai-British racing driver