23 March: This Date in History

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Events, deaths, births, of MAR 23
[For Mar 23 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Apr 02 — 1700s: Apr 03 — 1800s: Apr 04 — 1900~2099: Apr 05]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 20040323 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” MAR 23 wikipedia

• Inflationary budget slightly trimmed... • Pope mourns Holocaust... • “Give me liberty or give me death”... • Fascist Party is founded... • Star Wars defense... • Mexican President~to~be assassinated... • Mormon who massacred wagon train is executed... • Studebaker~Packard seeks merger... • Zeppelin factory formed… • Chilean government murderers sentenced... • Thomas Harris's novel Hannibal... • Lewis and Clark head home... • WordStar wants to buy Delrina... • IBM underestimates System/360 demand... • US domain name proposal criticized... • Deposed Cambodian Red Prince tries for come~back... • US plane shot down over Laos... • Défaite piémontaise à Novare... • SS soldiers killed by Italian partisans... • The slaughter of the lambs...

On a 23 March:

2003 Referendum in Chechnya, rigged by the Russian occupiers, purports to show that the majority of Chechens does not want to by free and independent, but prefers to be subjects of the Russian Federation.

2002 Hundreds of thousands demonstrate in Rome to protest Premier Silvio Berlusconi's efforts to make it easier to fire workers, and to denounce the 19 Mar 2002 assassination of Marco Biagi, government adviser who advocated Berlusconi's labor reform.

2001 As planned, the Russian orbiting space station Mir returns to Earth, breaks up in the atmosphere, and the debris fall into the South Pacific. The first element of Mir was launched on 20 February 1986. [photo >] — Con una demora de algunos días sobre los primeros cálculos, se produce la caída controlada de la estación orbital Mir sobre el Pacífico.

2001 Death penalty for innocent lambs. ^top^
US Federal officials seize a flock of sheep feared infected with a version of mad cow disease.
The 126 East Friesian milking sheep, are owned by Larry and Linda Faillace of East Warren, Vermont. Heartbhroken, the three Faillace children — Jackie, Francis and Heather — each held young lambs marked with red dye for removal. Neigbors and their children gathered to protest.
The sheep, imported from Belgium and the Netherlands in 1996, were placed under certain federal restrictions when they entered the country as part of USDA's scrapie control efforts. In 1998, USDA learned that it was likely that sheep from Europe were exposed to feed contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy. At that time, the state of Vermont, at the request of USDA, imposed a quarantine on these flocks, which prohibited slaughter or sale for breeding purposes.
mad cow sheep?

[< photo: Weeping, Mary Jo Cahilly-Bretzin, 8, carries out the last lamb to a waiting federal stock truck at the Faillace farm in East Warren, Vermont]

     Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) is a class of degenerative neurological diseases that is characterized by a very long incubation period and a 100% mortality rate. Two of the better known varieties of TSE are BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease) in cattle and scrapie in sheep. Unlike BSE, there is no evidence that scrapie poses a risk to human health. Based on current testing methodology, there is no way to determine whether the sheep have BSE or scrapie.
     On 14 July 2000, USDA issued a declaration of extraordinary emergency to acquire the sheep. This action was contested by the flock owners. A federal district court judge ruled in favor of USDA based on the merits of the case. The flock owners appealed to the Second Circuit Court requesting a stay, which was denied. The sheep will be transported to USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, where they will be humanely euthanized. Tissue samples will be collected from the sheep for diagnostic testing. The owners will be compensated for the fair market value of the sheep.
     The first such seizure of any US farm animals took place two days earlier in Montpelier, Vermont, when Houghton Freeman's flock of 233 sheep was taken away. On July 10, 2000, four sheep from this flock tested positive for TSE.
      Another flock of 21 sheep from the same family of sheep was voluntarily turned over to government officials in the summer of 2000 by their Lyndonville owner. The sheep were destroyed.
      The human version of BSE, which like the animal version has a lengthy incubation period, has killed almost 100 people in Great Britain since 1995, when it nearly wiped out the British beef industry (as it was recovering, it was devastated again in 2001 by foot-and-mouth disease). Scrapie has been in the United States since at least 1947, but there are no known domestic cases of mad cow disease. Destroying the sheep would eliminate them as a possible source of BSE. BSE has been transmitted to sheep experimentally through the feeding of small amounts of infected cattle brain. Testing to determine whether the Vermont sheep have scrapie or BSE wirr take two to three years to complete.
More on this “Silence the Lambs” operation.
Backgrounder on Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (PDF)

2000 The Pope mourns the Holocaust ^top^
     In March of 2000, Pope John Paul II conducted an historic week-long pilgrimage to the Holy Land, visiting several sites in Israel for the first time including the location in Bethlehem believed to be the birth place of Jesus.
      In Jerusalem, the Pope visited Yad Vashem, Israel's main Holocaust memorial, to pay tribute to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis from 1938-45. During the Nazi era, the Pope had been a seminary student in his native country of Poland, which was also the location of the largest Nazi death camps including Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek. Jewish friends and neighbors of the Pope had been killed by the Nazis.
      At Yad Vashem, the frail Pope first laid a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance at a massive granite slab that covers the cremated remains of some of the unidentified Jews killed in death camps. He then ceremoniously lit the eternal flame. Among those present during the ceremony was Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, whose mother's parents had been killed at Treblinka. Also in attendance were 50 Holocaust survivors, including 13 originally from the Pope's hometown of Wadowice, Poland, several of whom remembered the Pope as a child. The entire event was broadcast live on Israel's two major TV networks.
      The Pope's visit was not without controversy, however, as debate continues in Israel and elsewhere over whether or not the Catholic Church owes an apology to Jews for failing to sufficiently come to their aid during the Holocaust. During the Nazi era, Pope Pius XII never spoke out publicly against the ongoing extermination of Europe's Jews, despite his awareness of the death camps.
      At Yad Vashem, Pope John Paul II stopped short of making the apology some had hoped for, but also moved several of the Jews at the ceremony to tears.

     The words of the ancient Psalm, rise from our hearts: "I have become like a broken vessel. I hear the whispering of many -- terror on every side -- as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O Lord: I say, 'you are my God."' (Psalms 31:13-15)
      In this place of memories, the mind and heart and soul feel an extreme need for silence. Silence in which to remember. Silence in which to try to make some sense of the memories which come flooding back. Silence because there are no words strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Shoah.
      My own personal memories are of all that happened when the Nazis occupied Poland during the war. I remember my Jewish friends and neighbors, some of whom perished, while others survived. I have come to Yad Vashem to pay homage to the millions of Jewish people who, stripped of everything, especially of human dignity, were murdered in the Holocaust. More than half a century has passed, but the memories remain.
      Here, as at Auschwitz and many other places in Europe, we are overcome by the echo of the heart-rending laments of so many. Men, women and children, cry out to us from the depths of the horror that they knew. How can we fail to heed their cry? No one can forget or ignore what happened. No one can diminish its scale.
      We wish to remember. But we wish to remember for a purpose, namely to ensure that never again will evil prevail, as it did for the millions of innocent victims of Nazism.
      How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God. Only a godless ideology could plan and carry out the extermination of a whole people.
      The honor given to the 'Just Gentiles' by the state of Israel at Yad Vashem for having acted heroically to save Jews, sometimes to the point of giving their own lives, is a recognition that not even in the darkest hour is every light extinguished. That is why the Psalms and the entire Bible, though well aware of the human capacity for evil, also proclaims that evil will not have the last word.
      Out of the depths of pain and sorrow, the believer's heart cries out: "I trust in you, O Lord: 'I say, you are my God."' (Psalms 31:14)
      Jews and Christians share an immense spiritual patrimony, flowing from God's self-revelation. Our religious teachings and our spiritual experience demand that we overcome evil with good. We remember, but not with any desire for vengeance or as an incentive to hatred. For us, to remember is to pray for peace and justice, and to commit ourselves to their cause. Only a world at peace, with justice for all, can avoid repeating the mistakes and terrible crimes of the past.
      As bishop of Rome and successor of the Apostle Peter, I assure the Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of truth and love, and by no political considerations, is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place.
      The church rejects racism in any form as a denial of the image of the Creator inherent in every human being.
      In this place of solemn remembrance, I fervently pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people suffered in the 20th century will lead to a new relationship between Christians and Jews. Let us build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Jewish feeling among Christians or anti-Christian feeling among Jews, but rather the mutual respect required of those who adore the one Creator and Lord, and look to Abraham as our common father in faith.
      The world must heed the warning that comes to us from the victims of the Holocaust, and from the testimony of the survivors. Here at Yad Vashem the memory lives on, and burns itself onto our souls. It makes us cry out: "I hear the whispering of many -- terror on every side -- but I trust in you, O Lord: I say, 'You are my God."' (Psalms 31:13-15)

1999 La Organización de Países Exportadores de Petróleo ratifica en Viena el nuevo recorte mundial de producción de 2,1 millones de barriles de crudo diarios para forzar un aumento de su precio.
1998 El presidente de Rusia, Boris Nikolaievich Yeltsin, destituye de manera inesperada al primer ministro, Viktor Chernomirdin, y a todo su gabinete, y abre la carrera por su sucesión al frente del Kremlin.

1998 US Web domain name proposal criticized. ^top^
The Geneva-based Internet Council of Registrars (CORE) issued a statement to the US Commerce Department challenging a US proposal to change the registration of Web addresses. In 1997, the White House announced that the US government would turn over control of the Internet address system to a not-for-profit corporation to oversee domain names and would create five new top-level domain names in addition to existing suffixes like ".com," ".org," and ".edu." CORE said the US government had no authority in the matter of domain names and should simply step aside instead of instituting a plan for the transition to the private sector.

1998 The US Supreme Court ruled that term limits for state lawmakers are constitutional.
1997 Miles de manifestantes, convocados por la organización Coordinadora Gesto por la Paz de Euskal Herria, piden en San Sebastián (España) el final de la violencia de ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) y la liberación del funcionario de prisiones José Antonio Ortega Lara (431 días secuestrado) y del empresario Cosme Delclaux (132 días).

1992 WordStar says it will buy Delrina. ^top^
WordStar announced it would buy Delrina Corporation, makers of a fax program called WinFax. WordStar, introduced in 1979 by MicroPro, was the first full WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processing system. It quickly became the market leader, holding a two-thirds market share. But after the introduction of WordPerfect and Microsoft Word during the 1980s, WordStar's fortunes declined, and it faced years of dismal results. The Delrina purchase, hailed by industry observers as a boon to both companies, fell through in April 1992. In 1994, WordStar merged with Spinnaker Software and SoftKey Software Products to create SoftKey International.

1992 Presentación a los medios de comunicación del nuevo tren de Alta Velocidad Español (AVE), que recorrió 317 Km., desde Madrid a Ademuz (Córdoba), y alcanzó una velocidad de 300 Km/h.
1990 Lothar de Maiziere, presidente de la CDU de la RDA, acepta el encargo de formar el primer Gobierno democrático del país tras su victoria en las elecciones del 18 marzo.
1990 Former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Hazelwood was sentenced by a judge in Anchorage, Alaska, to help clean up Prince William Sound and pay $50'000 in restitution for his role in the 1989 oil spill.
1989 Se legaliza el derecho a la huelga en Hungría, segundo país de la Europa del Este, tras Polonia.
1989 2 Utah scientists claim (falsely) that they have produced nuclear fusion at room temperature.
1987 Willy Brandt dimite como presidente del Partido Socialdemócrata Alemán. Le sucede Hans Jochen Vogel.

1983 Reagan proposes Star Wars program ^top^
      On national television, US President Ronald Reagan, citing the recent Soviet military buildup, calls for the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Specifically, President Reagan calls for the creation of a space-based protective shield that would employ high-tech lasers or other weapons to destroy nuclear missiles launched against the United States. Reagan’s SDI program, involving expensive technology not yet invented, is sharply criticized by some members of Congress, who dub the proposal "Star Wars," in reference to the popular 1977 science fiction film by George Lucas. Nevertheless, Congress eventually approves billions of dollars to the Star Wars program, leading to the development of new space and laser technology, but never the space-shield that Reagan proposed.
      However, rather than any practical results, SDI’s greatest impact is in how it affects US-Soviet relations. Shortly after Reagan’s March announcement, the Soviet Union declares SDI to be in violation of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the two superpowers, although Reagan publicly disagrees. Three years later, in October 1986, Reagan’s second conference with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev collapses following angry exchanges over Star Wars, and the US abandonment of the program remains a key point in future US-Soviet talks. Star Wars is the most dramatic example of the US government’s ability to outspend the Soviet Union in military expenditures during the 1980s, ultimately contributing to the USSR.’s economic collapse in the late 1980s, which in turn led to its 1991 political collapse.
      In an address to the nation, President Ronald Reagan proposes that the United States embark on a program to develop antimissile technology that would make the country nearly impervious to attack by nuclear missiles. Reagan's speech marked the beginning of what came to be known as the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Despite his vigorous anticommunist rhetoric, Reagan made nuclear arms control one of the keynotes of his administration. By 1983, however, talks with the Soviets were stalled over issues of what kinds of weapons should be controlled, what kind of control would be instituted, and how compliance with the controls would be assured.
      It was at this point that Reagan became enamored with an idea proposed by some of his military and scientific advisors, including Dr. Edward Teller, the "father of the hydrogen bomb." What they proposed was a massive program involving the use of antimissile satellites utilizing laser beams or other means to knock Soviet nuclear missiles out of the sky before they had a chance to impact the United States. Reagan therefore called upon the nation's scientists to "turn their great talents" to this "vision of the future which offers hope." He admitted that such a highly sophisticated program might "not be accomplished before the end of this century."
      Reagan's speech formed the basis for what came to be known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, though pundits immediately dubbed it the "Star Wars Initiative." Some scientists indicated that even if the SDI were able to destroy 95 percent of Soviet missiles, the remaining five percent would be enough to destroy the entire planet. Nevertheless, Congress began funding the program, which ran up a bill of over $30 billion by 1993 (with little to show for the effort). The Soviets were adamantly opposed to SDI, and a 1986 summit meeting between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ended acrimoniously when Gorbachev demanded that talks on arms control were contingent on the United States dropping the SDI program. By December 1987, Gorbachev-desperately in need of a foreign policy achievement and eager to reduce his nation's burdensome defense budget-dropped his resistance to the SDI program and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed. The Strategic Defense Initiative never really got off the ground--by the mid-1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and with costs skyrocketing, it was quietly shelved.

1983 Reagan's irresponsible budget slightly trimmed by US Congress. ^top^
Congressional Democrats won a fight in their battle against Republican President Ronald Reagan by passing a budget which promised to put a crimp on the White House's spending plans for the coming fiscal year. Where Reagan's budget would have increased the already bloated budget deficit to $189 billion, the Democrat's proposal called for the debt to grow to only $174.45 billion. The Democrats piled up the savings by curbing Reagan's hefty defense spending, including $9.9 billion that had been earmarked for the Pentagon. In turn, the House-sanctioned budget also aimed to shovel money back into domestic initiatives that the President had hoped to wean from Federal spending. The passage of the budget stirred up the inevitable round of partisan squabbling. Republicans took aim at Democratic policies, most notably the drive to increase revenues, which imperiled a planned tax rate cut. But, Democratic leaders remained firm in the face of harsh criticism. "The people believe that Reagan's policies are unfair and have gone too far," stalwart Democrat and House Speaker Tip O'Neill declared. "This evening, the House voted to restore fairness and balance to our national policies."

1981 Golpe de Estado en Bangladesh, que derriba al Gobierno.

1979 Chilean government murderers sentenced in US. ^top^
At the sentencing of the murderers of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier, US Federal Judge Barrington Parker declares, "In the 10 years I have served on the bench, I’ve never presided over a trial of a murder as monstrous as this" at the sentencing of Guillermo Novo and Alvin Ross for the murder of Orlando Letelier. On 21 September 1976, a car bomb exploded while victims Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador, and his friends Michael and Ronni Moffitt, were driving on Washington, D.C.’s Embassy Row. Letelier was the intended target because of his political work against Chile’s dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Letelier was the ambassador to the United States for Chile’s leftist government led by Salvador Allende in the early 1970s.
However, after a CIA-supported coup by Pinochet in 1973, he was sent to a concentration camp on Dawson’s Island in the Straits of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. He survived and was exiled to the United States, where he spent his time lobbying against the new military dictatorship. Michael Townley was contacted by key figures in Pinochet’s regime to assassinate Letelier and used Cuban exiles Novo and Ross to help carry out the hit. Townley was later caught and turned into a prosecution witness. For his cooperation, Townley was given a new identity and only a 10-year sentence. He never expressed any remorse and is thought to have returned to Chile after his release. Novo and Ross were sentenced to consecutive terms of life imprisonment, but were eligible for parole in 1999. The incident remains one of the few instances of foreign terrorism on American soil. General Pinochet was granted amnesty for his crimes when he stepped down from power in Chile. However, while traveling in England in 1998, he was arrested based on charges of human rights abuses by a Spanish prosecutor.

1976 International Bill of Rights goes into effect, 35 nations ratify

1970 Deposed Red Prince calls for Cambodian uprising. ^top^
From Peking, Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia [31 Oct 1922~] issues a public call for arms to be used against the Lon Nol government in Phnom Penh and requests the establishment of the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK) to unite all opposition factions against Lon Nol [13 Nov 1913 – 17 Nov 1985]. North Vietnam, the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong), and the communist Pathet Lao immediately pledged their support to the new organization. Earlier in March, Sihanouk had been overthrown in a bloodless coup led by Cambodian Gen. Lon Nol. Between 1970 and 1975, Lon Nol and his army, the Forces Armées Nationales Khmer (FANK), with US support and military aid, fought the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk's supporters for control of Cambodia. During the five years of bitter fighting, approximately 10% of Cambodia's 7 million people died. When the US forces departed South Vietnam in 1973, both the Cambodians and South Vietnamese found themselves fighting the communists alone. Without US support, Lon Nol's forces succumbed to the Communists in April 1975. The victorious Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh and began reordering Cambodian society, which resulted in a killing spree and the notorious "killing fields." Eventually, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were murdered or died from exhaustion, hunger, and disease.

1968 Rev Walter Fauntroy, is first non-voting congressional delegate from DC.
1966 Archbishop of Canterbury Arthur Michael Ramsey met and exchanged public greetings with Pope Paul VI in Rome. It was the first official meeting between heads of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in over 400 years.

1964 IBM vastly underestimates System/360 demand ^top^
IBM told reporters that the company expected to install 5000 units of its new computer line, System/360, in the next five years. The company vastly overshot its goals, installing 25,000 by 1969. During the first two years of the new product line's production, the company could fill only about half of the nine thousand orders it received. The System/360 line was the first series of compatible computers: Previous computers were custom-built for each customer and required individual programming. The product line, which cost $5 billion to develop, fostered IBM's dominant position in the computer industry.

^ 1961 US spy plane shot down over Laos
One of the first US casualties in Southeast Asia, an intelligence-gathering plane en route from Laos to Saigon is shot down over the Plain of Jars in central Laos. The mission was flown in an attempt to determine the extent of the Soviet support being provided to the communist Pathet Lao guerrillas in Laos. The guerrillas had been waging a war against the Royal Lao government since 1959. In a television news conference, President John F. Kennedy warned of Communist expansion in Laos and said that a cease-fire must precede the start of negotiations to establish a neutral and independent nation.

1956 Pakistan proclaimed an Islamic republic in Commonwealth (Natl Day)
1956 Sudan becomes independent.

1956 Studebaker-Packard seeks further merger. ^top^
The Studebaker-Packard Corporation halted merger talks with the Ford Motor Company to pursue talks with the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Studebaker-Packard itself was the result of a merger in which the large Studebaker firm purchased the small and successful Packard line. After World War II the independent car manufacturers had a difficult time keeping pace with the production capabilities of the Big Three, who were able to produce more cars at lower prices to meet the demands of a population starved for cars. Independents began to merge with one another to remain competitive. Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson Motors merged successfully to become American Motors (AMC). Paul Hoffman, the manager of Studebaker, realized his company would have to merge or perish. He negotiated an arduous merger between his company and Detroit-based Packard Motors. The merger took over five months to come through, as unionized labor on both sides balked at the proposal. Finally in October of 1954 Studebaker and Packard merged to become the country’s fourth largest car company. Hoffman chose Packard president James Nance to lead the new operation. Nance, spiteful of the inefficiency that Studebaker brought to his company, generally ignored the input of his colleagues, instituting his own policies in an attempt to turn around the fortune of his new company. His policies failed, and renewed labor problems brought Studebaker-Packard to it knees. In 1956 Curtiss-Wright purchased Studebaker-Packard. The failed merger between Studebaker, which had been in operation since the 1890s, and Packard was emblematic of the post-war independent manufacturers’ scramble to consolidate. While Studebaker-Packard failed, AMC was able to stay alive into the 1970s when it was bought by French giant Renault.

1948 John Cunningham sets world altitude record (18'133 m)

^ 1944 The Red Army briefly liberates Buchach.
      Buchach (or Buczacz) is a city in Ternopol (or Tarnopol) oblast, Ukraine (until 1939 in Poland). A Jewish settlement there is mentioned in 1572; the earliest Jewish tombstone dates from 1633. In 1672 the town was burned down by the Turks, who killed most of the inhabitants. In 1699 the overlord of the town, Stephan Potocki, renewed privileges previously granted to Buchach Jewry, according to which Jews were not subject to the jurisdiction of the Christian courts; disputes between Jews and Christians were heard by an official appointed by the lord of the town, and inter - Jewish suits by the bet din. In 1765 there were 1055 Jews living in Buchach and a further 300 in neighboring settlements within the bounds of the Jewish community of Buchach. In the period preceding 1914, most of the large estates in the neighborhood of Buchach were Jewish owned or leased from the Polish nobility. Distilling and commerce remained major Jewish occupation. Between 1867 and 1906 Buchach, Kolomyya, and Sniatyn were combined to form a single constituency and a Jewish deputy was elected to the Austrian imperial parliament. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were approximately 7000 Jews living in Buchach. During World War I most of the Jewish inhabitants left but many returned later.
      On the eve of the Nazi invasion about 10'000 Jews lived in Buchach (1941) . Under Soviet rule (1939-1941), Jewish community life suffered and its institutions ceased functioning. All independent political activity was forbidden. Private enterprise was suppressed and the few privately owned stores that remained were subjected to heavy taxes in order to bring about their liquidation. Officially, religious life was not repressed, but synagogues were obliged to pay heavy taxes. The Hebrew education system was disbanded and in its place a Yiddish language school was set up. When war broke out between Germany and the USSR (22 Jun 1941), Jews were drafted into the Soviet Army. Groups of young Jews also fled to the Russian interior.
      The Germans invaded Buchach on 05 July 1941. The Ukrainians immediately began murdering and looting the local Jews. On 25 August, 350 Jews were killed on Fedor Hill, about 2 km from the town. A Judenrat was set up, headed by Mendel Reich, the head of the former Jewish community organization until its dissolution in September 1939, Jewish refugees began arriving from Hungary and were extended aid by the Judenrat and local community. Young able bodied Jews were taken off for forced labor in camps at Velikiye Borki. On 17 October 1942, the Germans carried out a massive Aktion in which over 1500 Jews were rounded up and sent to Belzec death camp. Over 300 Jews were murdered during the Aktion. On 27 November 1942, a second transport with 2500 Jews was dispatched to Belzec, while about 250 persons were shot in the roundup. On 01 and 02 February 1943, close to 2000 Jews were murdered at Fedor Hill on the contention that they were infected with typhus. A labor camp was then set up in a suburb, Podkajecka, for skilled craftsmen. In March - April, over 3000 Jews were also murdered at Fedor Hill, while other groups were shipped to Chortkov, Kopiczynce, and Tlusta.
      A Jewish resistance movement was organized in Buchach at the end of 1942. Arms were obtained and training was given in preparation for a break for the forests. In mid - June 1943 the Germans liquidated the ghetto and labor camp, but met with resistance. Some Jews managed to escape to the forests while others were murdered near the Jewish cemetery. Armed Jewish bands were active in the vicinity, notably attacking Nazi collaborators. On 23 March 1944, when the city was captured by Soviet forces, about 800 Jews came out of hiding and returned from the forests. However, the German Army again took over, and additional Jews fell victim.
      On 21 July 1944, when Soviet forces definitively entered the city, there were less than 100 Jewish survivors. About 400 Jews returned from the USSR After the war most of them emigrated from Buchach to settle in the West or in Israel. The community was not reestablished after the war. .

1944 Nicholas Alkemade falls 5500 m without a parachute and lives. [Don't try this at home!]
1942 Japanese forces occupy Andaman Islands in Indian Ocean
1942 During World War II, the abusive US government begins moving Japanese-Americans, innocent of any crime, from their West Coast homes to detention centers.
1933 The German Reichstag adopts the Enabling Act, which effectively grants Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers.
1929 First telephone installed in White House.
1925 Tennessee becomes first state to outlaw teaching theory of evolution

1919 Mussolini founds the Fascist Party ^top^
      Benito Mussolini [29 Jul 1883 – 28 Apr 1945], 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 nineteenth century.
      Commonly known as the Fascist Party, Mussolini’s new, right-wing organization advocates Italian nationalism, has black shirts for uniforms, and launches a program of terrorism and intimidation against its leftist opponents. On 28 October 1922, Mussolini leads the Fascists on a march on Rome, and Italian King Victor Emmanuel III [11 Nov 1869 – 28 Dec 1947], who has little faith in Italy’s parliamentary government, asks Mussolini to form a new government. Initially, Mussolini, who is appointed prime minister at the head of three-member Fascist cabinet, cooperates with the Italian parliament, but, with the assistance of his brutal police organization, he soon becomes the effective dictator of Italy.
      In 1924, a socialist backlash is suppressed, and, on 03 January 1925, the Fascist State is officially proclaimed with Mussolini as Il Duce, or the "Leader." Although Mussolini appeals to Italy’s former Western allies for new treaties, his brutal 1935 invasion of Ethiopia ends all hope of alliance with the Western democracies. In 1936, Mussolini joins Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler [20 Apr 1889 – 30 Apr 1945] in his support of the Nationalist forces Francisco Franco [04 Dec 1892 – 20 Nov 1975] in the Spanish Civil War, prompting the signing of a treaty of cooperation in foreign policy between Fascist 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 its Il Duce prove overwhelmingly the weaker partner in the Berlin-Rome Axis during World War II.

1919 Bashkir ASSR, in RSFSR, constituted.
1918 Lithuania proclaims independence.— Proclamación de la independencia de Letonia.
1903 Wright brothers obtain airplane patent.
1901 Estados Unidos entrega a España el precio de la venta de las islas de Joló (Filipinas).
1873 Slavery is abolish in Puerto Rico.
1862 Battle of First Kernstown, Virginia —Jackson begins his Valley Campaign.

1849 Défaite piémontaise à Novare. ^top^
Le feld-maréchal Josef Radetsky (83 ans) met en déroute une armée piémontaise à Novare, entre Turin et Milan. Cette défaite fait l'effet d'un séisme chez les patriotes italiens qui rêvaient de libérer Milan et Venise de la tutelle autrichienne. Ils voulaient faire dans la foulée l'unité politiques de la péninsule, divisée en plusieurs Etats depuis... la fin de l'empire romain. Ces patriotes avaient cru atteindre leur objectif l'année précédente, quand toute l'Europe se révoltait contre l'absolutisme. Le petit roi de Piémont, Charles-Albert, avait repris à son compte la devise des patriotes: «L'Italia fara da sè»
Allié aux autres princes de la péninsule, Charles-Albert avait déclaré la guerre aux Autrichiens. Et dès 1848, le vieux feld-maréchal l'avait contraint à un armistice. En son honneur, le compositeur autrichien Johann Strauss père avait alors écrit la célèbre «Marche de Radetzky». Au soir de Novare, le roi Charles-Albert perd tout espoir d'unifier l'Italie. Il abdique en faveur de son fils, Victor-Emmanuel II. Comme il faut une victime expiatoire, un général est fusillé quelques semaines plus tard à Turin, capitale du Piémont, sous l'inculpation d'avoir fui devant l'ennemi. Le nouveau roi du Piémont se rend compte que l’unité de l’Italie ne pourra se faire sans un concours extérieur. Pour chasser l'Autriche de la péninsule, il attendra l’intervention à ses côtés de Napoléon III.

1848 Proclamación de la República de San Marcos, en Venecia, que se libera de Austria.
1832 British Parliament passes reform bill
1808 Napoléon's brother Joseph takes the throne of Spain

1806 Lewis and Clark head home from winter quarters. ^top^
      After passing a wet and tedious winter near the Pacific Coast, Meriwether Lewis [18 Aug 1774 – 11 Oct 1809] and William Clark [01 Aug 1770 – 01 Sep 1838] happily leave behind Fort Clatsop and head east for home. The Corps of Discovery arrived at the Pacific the previous November, having made a difficult crossing over the rugged Rocky Mountains. Their winter stay on the south side of the Columbia River-dubbed Fort Clatsop in honor of the local Indians-had been plagued by rainy weather, thieving Indians, and a scarcity of fresh meat. No one in the Corps of Discovery regretted leaving Fort Clatsop behind.
      In the days before their departure, Captains Lewis and Clark prepared for the final stage of their journey. Lewis recognized the possibility that some disaster might still prevent them from making it back east and he prudently left a list of the names of all the expedition's men with Chief Coboway of the Clatsops. Lewis asked the chief to give the list to the crew of the next trading vessel that arrived so the world would learn that the expedition did reach the Pacific. The previous few days had been stormy, but on 22 March, the rain began to ease. The captains agreed to depart the next day, and they made a parting gift of Fort Clatsop and its furniture to Chief Coboway.
      At 13:00 on 23 March, the Corps of Discovery sets off up the Columbia River in canoes. After nearly a year in the wilderness, they had severely depleted the sizeable cache of supplies with which the expedition had begun--they set off on their return trip with only canisters of gunpowder, some tools, a small cache of dried fish and roots, and their rifles. The expedition had expended almost all of its supplies. Ahead loomed the high, rugged slopes of the Rocky Mountains that had proved so difficult to cross in the other direction the previous year. This time, however, Lewis and Clark had the advantage of knowing the route they would take. Still, they knew the passage would be difficult, and they were anxious to find the Nez Percé Indians, whose help they would need to cross the mountains. The months to come would witness some of the most dangerous moments of the journey, including Lewis' violent confrontation with Blackfeet Indians near the Marias River of Montana in July. Nonetheless, seven months later to the day, on 23 September 1806, the Corps of Discovery arrived at the docks of St. Louis, where their long journey had begun nearly two and a half years before.
— See History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the Sources of the Missouri, Thence Across the Rocky Mountains and Down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Nicholas Biddle.

1775 Patrick Henry voices American opposition to British policy ^top^
During a speech before the second Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry [29 May 1736 – 06 Jun 1799] responds to the increasingly oppressive British rule over the American colonies by declaring, "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Following the signing of the American Declaration of Independence on 04 July 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 01 November 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, and 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 ten thousand 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 colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance against 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 exist. On 19 April 1775, the British regulars encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington and the first volleys of the American Revolutionary War were fired.

Note: In March of 1770, the English, had, in fact, abolished all the duties it had imposed, except that on tea. Quite aside from the rumblings coming from the colonies, these duties were being felt at home. The Townsend duties had an impact on the British commercial classes, for, there was a decline in exports. Even the tax on tea was reduced so as to cure the smuggling problem. At these lower rates, this tea tax would likely have been tolerable in the colonies, except for this: in May of 1773 the East India Company had been given authority to sell its tea free of duty except that which was to be sold in North America. In December of 1773, there then occurred the Boston Tea Party. In response, England, in 1774, passed a number of acts including The Boston Port Act, The Quartering Act and The Massachusetts Government Act. The effect of these acts was to close Boston to foreign traffic, change the government and the courts of justice of Massachusetts and to legalized the quartering of British troops in colonial homes. The aim of these measures was to curb rebellion. In return the civilian leaders of the colonies met at Philadelphia, on 05 September 1774: The first Continental Congress. It passed five measures affecting the relations of the colonies with the mother-country. It forbade the import of English wares and ordered the cessation of all exports to Great Britain, unless they were to be given redress of the colonial grievances prior. Further, it approved of the opposition offered to the late acts of Parliament by the people of Massachusetts Bay. It then issued proclamations to the colonies, both north and south, which called for their support.
Thus, it was, that on 23 March 1775, at Virginia, the largest British colony in America, and with the greatest ties and more English-like then any of the other colonies, a meeting of its delegates took place in St. John's church in Richmond. A number of the delegates were abhorred by the notion that they should take steps which might lead to war with the mother-country. The resolution was presented by Patrick Henry. Before the vote was taken, he delivered a speech in support. He stood; silent at first, then spoke quietly and proceeded gradually to increase his speech in force and in loudness reaching at the end a crescendo that still echoes and will likely always echo in the hearts of men.

     "No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.
      This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.
      Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?

      For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth — to know the worst and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House?
      Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation — the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motives for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies?
      No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer on the subject? Nothing.
      We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.
      Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament.
      Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.
      If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
      They tell us, sir, that we are weak -- unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?
      Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.
      The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!
      It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, “Peace! Peace!” — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

The vote of the Virginia delegates barely passed, but it passed; and the movement we have come to know as the American Revolution was to receive the support which it needed. Fighting erupted on 19 April 1775, at Lexington and Concord, and was followed that year by the capture of Fort Ticonderoga from the British, the battle of Bunker Hill (June), and the unsuccessful colonial assault on Quebec.
— 1851 painting by Peter Frederick Rothermel:: Patrick Henry in the House of Burgesses of Virginia, Delivering his Celebrated Speech Against the Stamp Act

1766 Empieza en Madrid el Motín de Esquilache, revuelta popular en Madrid en protesta por la política del ministro de Carlos III, el marqués de Esquilache.
1752 Pope Stephen II elected to succeed Zacharias, died 2 days later.
1657 France and England form alliance against Spain; England gets Dunkirk.
1568 Se produce la batalla de Lonjumeau, por la que se puso fin a la segunda guerra de religión entre los hugonotes y los católicos franceses.
1540 In a show of growing support for Henry VIII, Waltham Abbey in Essex became the last monastery in England to transfer its allegiance from the Catholic Church to the newly established Church of England.
1534 El papa Clemente VII declara excomulgado a Enrique VIII de Inglaterra si persiste en divorciarse de Catalina de Aragón.
1508 Capitulaciones de Fernando el Católico con Juan Díaz de Solís y Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, por las que éstos se comprometen a tratar de buscar un estrecho entre el Atlántico y el Pacífico.
1066 18th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.
0752 Stephen II is unanimously elected Pope. His pontificate will end with his death on 27 March 752, after he suffers “apoplexy” (a stroke) on 26 March 752.

TO THE TOP

William Wright Deaths which occurred on a March 23:
2004 Two policemen, twin brothers, shot as they park a car near a mosque in Kirkuk, Iraq.
2004 Nine policemen, shot by assaault rifle bullets fired from a car that swerves in front of the minibus driving them to work near Hilla, Iraq.
2003 Former Master Sgt. William Wright, 36 [photo >], at 01:45, hangs himself in prison, where he was awaiting trial for strangling his wife, Jennifer Watson Wright, on 29 June 2002. Sgt. Wright, of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, had been from mid-March to mid-May 2002 in Afghanistan, where his unit was administered the anti-malaria drug mefloquine (“Lariam”), known to produce psychotic side effects. Similar wife murders were committed at Fort Bragg by Sgt. 1st Class Rigoberto Nieves (with suicide, 11 June 2002); Sgt. Cedric Griffin (09 July 2002); and Sgt 1st Class Brandon Floyd (with suicide, 19 July 2002).
2003 US Marines Sgt. Michael E. Bitz, 31; Lance Cpl. Brian Rory Buesing, 20; Lance Cpl. David K. Fribley, 26; Cpl. Jose A. Garibay, 21; Cpl. Jorge A. Gonzalez, 20; Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Jordan, 42; 2nd Lt. Frederick E. Pokorney Jr., 31; Cpl. Randal Kent Rosacker, 21; and Lance Cpl. Thomas J. Slocum, 22; are killed in combat in near Nasiriyah, Iraq, by Iraqi troops who had feigned a surrender. US Marines Cpl. Kemaphoom Chanawongse, 22; and Gunnery Sgt. Philip A. Jordan, 42, are also killed during fighting near Nasiriyah.
2003 Britons Sapper Luke Allsopp, and Staff Sgt. Simon Cullingworth, in combat in Iraq.
2003 Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, of the 101st Airborne, by a fellow soldier, Muslim sergeant Hasan Karim Akbar (name changed by his mother from Mark Fidel Kools) from the 326th Engineering Battalion, who, with gunfire and three grenades, attacks the three tents, including the command tent of the 1st Brigade of the 101st in Kuwait, at 01:21 (22 March 22:21 UT). The 1st Brigade's commander, Col. Frederick Hodges, is wounded, along with 14 other US soldiers, of which Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, who was there as liaison officer, would die on 25 March 2003.
2003 British Flight Lieutenants Kevin Barry Main and David Rhys Williams, in a Tornado GR4 plane returning from a bombing raid in Iraq and descending toward Ali al-Salem airbase in Kuwait, which is shot down at 02:00 (22 March 23:00 UT) by a US Patriot anti-missile missile.
2003 Abdul Majid Dar, at 10:30, at the home of his brother Fayaz Ahmed Dar, in the Baramulla district of Sopore, Indian-occupied Kashmir, by two gunmen, probably of the Hezb-ul mujahedeen independence fighters, of which Dar was the in-country leader until expelled in 2001, after declaring a cease-fire and opening talks with the Indian occupiers in August 2000. The cease-fire was cancelled a few days later by Syed Salahuddin, the Pakistan-based supreme commander of the Hezb. Currently Dar was suspected of being in contact with the Indian secret police and of considering the formation of a collaborationist political party. Dar's mother, Shah Begum, and sister, Rehana, are wounded.

2003
Addison
Spc. Jamaal R. Addison, 22, of Roswell, Ga.,
microwave systems operator maintainer.

Master Sgt. Robert J. Dowdy, 38, of Cleveland, the 507th's first sergeant,
mechanical maintenance supervisor.

Pfc. Ruben Estrella-Soto, 18, of El Paso, automated logistics specialist,
was a graduate of Mountain View High, where he played football.

Pfc. Howard Johnson II, 21, of Mobile, Ala.,
automated logistics specialist.

Pfc. James Kiehl, 22, of Comfort, Texas, computer repair technician.
Kiehl's wife, Jill, who lives with her parents in Des Moines, Iowa,
is expecting the couple's first child, a boy due the last week of April 2003.

Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, 22, of Tuba City, Ariz., automated logistics specialist.
She was a Hopi, the youngest of four children. She was one of very few Amerindian women
in the US armed forces and is believed to be the first to die as a result of combat.

Pvt. Brandon U. Sloan, 19, of Bedford Heights, Ohio, automated logistics specialist.

Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata, 35,
of Pecos, Texas, maintenance officer.

Sgt. Donald R. Walters, 33, of Salem, Ore.. cook and mechanic.
He was an aspiring writer of children's books, served in the first Persian Gulf war,
then left the military in 2001. He re-enlisted in the Army in the summer of 2002,
to give his family a better life.
The nine, who are among 18 soldiers of the vehicle repair 507th Maintenance Company from Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas; and Sgt. George E. Buggs, 31, and Spc. Edward John Anguiano, 24, both of the 3rd Infantry Division Support Battalion; all in a US Army convoy of six vehicles which is traveling north on Iraqi Highway 1 on its way to supply an antiaircraft battery. At 01:00, at Souq al-Shuyuk, the convoy takes a wrong turn off Highway 1, into Nassiriya. As they approach the town, they realize their mistake and make a U-turn and are attacked by rockets and small-arms fire from by two Iraqi T-55 tanks and an infantry company. The eight are killed either fighting or murdered after being taken prisoner. The US convoy's first two vehicles — a Humvee and a tool truck — get separated from the four other vehicles. An Army captain drives the Humvee carrying three wounded soldiers through the gunfire. 6 km further the bullet-riddled tires go flat. As the captain begins changing the tires, a US Marine patrol sees it and calls in a medevac helicopter, which evacuates the captain and his wounded soldiers. A few hours later, four of the dead Marines are shown on Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television, together with the 5 taken prisoner [photos below, Sgt. James Riley, 31, is first at left; Specialist Joseph Hudson 585650287, 23, from El Paso is 3rd; Pfc. Patrick Miller, 23, is 4th; Edgar Hernandez, 21, wounded, is 5th], of which some are wounded and one is a woman [Shosawna Johnson, 30, cook, wounded in the foot, second from left] (These 5 would be freed on 13 April 2003, near Samarra, when Iraqi guards, their officers having fled, would bring them to US troops advancing towards Tikrit).The US makes the dubious claim that the TV broadcast violates the 12 August 1949 3rd Geneva Convention, the one relative to the treatment of prisoners of war (particularly Articles 13 and 14). One US soldier, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19, a supply clerk, suffers fractures of both legs and of her right forearm, and spine injuries, and is taken prisoner but not shown on TV. She would be freed from a hospital (equipped with ammunition, mortars, military maps) in Nasiriya, Iraq, on 01 April 2003 by a US special forces helicopter raid acting on a tip from Muhammad, a humane Iraqi lawyer. The bodies of the eight dead US soldiers are found, some in the hospital's morgue and most in a nearby shallow grave.

2001 David McTaggart, 68, founder of Greenpeace, in a head-on car crash. ^top^
      McTaggart was alone in his car. The driver of the other car also died and his wife was injured. The accident happened on a country road in Umbria, about 30 km from Perugia. McTaggart had lived in Italy for many years.
      He galvanized the international environmental movement in 1972 when he sailed his small boat into a French nuclear-testing site at Mururoa atoll in the South Pacific. He went on to stir up support throughout Europe for Greenpeace, forging an alliance in 1979 among separate factions of the organization and uniting them under his chairmanship as Greenpeace International. He was chairman until 1991.
      McTaggart, sometimes nicknamed "the shadow warrior," was a very difficult person because he was extremely stubborn, extremely tough. He was also extremely unfair towards France, as if only the US and the USSR had a right to nuclear weapons. His efforts would have been better directed at the disarmament of these two major world powers.
     Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, McTaggart worked in the construction business for 20 years, then moved to the United States in the 1960s where he became a successful contractor and developer. He retired after an explosion destroyed a resort his firm had built and sailed the Pacific for pleasure. In 1971 he became outraged with the French government's decision to cordon off a vast swath of international waters in the Pacific for nuclear tests.
      McTaggart was also a driving force behind Greenpeace campaigns to save the whales, to stop the dumping of nuclear waste in the ocean, to block the production of toxic wastes, to end nuclear testing, and to protect the Antarctic continent from oil and mineral exploitation. But the confrontational methods of Greenpeace alienate many people who think it would be better named Greenwar.

1999 Luis María Argaña Ferraro, vicepresidente paraguayo, principal adversario político del presidente Raúl Alberto Cubas Grau, es matado a tiros por tres individuos con traje militar. Al día siguiente, la Cámara de Diputados de Paraguay acusa al presidente Cubas del asesinato de Argaña y vota que sea juzgado y destituido por el Senado.
1999 Marist Brother Raymond Foster is found dead by suicide, hanging from a sheet at a Marist Brothers retirement home in Mittagong, Australia, at about 07:00. He was to face extradition proceedings the next day on five charges of indecent assault on a child at Chanel College, Gladstone, Queensland, Australia, in the early 1970s.

1994 Luis Donaldo Colosio, leading Mexican Presidential candidate, assassinated ^top^
Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexico’s ruling party’s presidential candidate, is gunned down during a campaign rally in the northern border town of Tijuana. As a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the political party that has held power in Mexico for over five decades, Colosio was elected to the Mexican Congress and Senate before becoming the protege of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who was elected Mexican president in 1988. In the same year, Colosio became PRI party head, and in 1992, was named social development secretary by President Salinas. He became increasingly reform-minded in this capacity, although his promises to reduce Mexico’s widespread poverty failed to stop anti-government guerilla activity in the state of Chiapas. Salinas designated Colosio his successor in late 1993, making him the PRI candidate and thus the favorite to win the presidential election scheduled for August 1994.
However, on 23 March 1994, Colosio is assassinated at a campaign rally in Tijuana, and Ernesto Zedillo subsequently became the PRI candidate, and, in 1995, the next Mexican president. Colosio’s assassination has remain largely unsolved, although some have accused Carlos Salinas of ordering his death, especially after Salinas’s brother, Raul, was convicted of the 1994 assassination of Ruiz Massieu, the secretary general of the PRI and a political rival of President Salinas.

1994 Álvaro del Portillo y Diez de Sollano, obispo español, sucesor de Escrivá de Balaguer al frente del Opus Dei.
1993 Hans Werner Richter, escritor alemán.
1993 Mousa Sulaiman Abu Sabiha, 21, murdered in the Sweisa neighborhood of Hebron, West Bank, by Jewish enclave settler Yoram Shkolinik, who would be sentenced to life in prison, but released in March 2000 by Israeli President Ezer Weizman [15 Jun 1924~].
1992 Friedrich von Hayek, británico de origen austriaco, padre del neoliberalismo económico, Premio Nobel de Economía 1974.

1983 Barney Clark, first to receive an artificial heart. ^top^
      Dentist Barney Clark, 61, dies 112 days after becoming the world's first recipient of a permanent artificial heart. He spent the last four months of his life in a hospital bed at the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake City, attached to a 350-pound console that pumped air in and out of the aluminum-and-plastic implant through a system of hoses. In the late 19th century, scientists began developing a pump to temporarily supplant heart action. In 1953, an artificial heart-lung machine was employed successfully for the first time during an operation on a human patient. In this procedure, which is still used today, the machine temporarily takes over heart and lung function, allowing doctors to operate extensively on these organs. After a few hours, however, blood becomes damaged by the pumping and oxygenation. In the late 1960s, hope was given to patients with irreparably damaged hearts when heart-transplant operations began. However, the demand for donor hearts always exceeded availability, and thousands died every year while waiting for healthy hearts to become available. On April 4, 1969, a historic operation was performed by surgeon Denton Cooley of the Texas Heart Institute on Haskell Karp, a patient whose heart was on the brink of total collapse and to whom no donor heart had become available. Karp was the first person in history to have his diseased heart replaced by an artificial heart. The temporary plastic-and-Dacron heart extended Karp's life for the three days it took doctors to find him a donor heart. However, soon after the human heart was transplanted into his chest, he died from infection.
      Seven more failed attempts were made, and many doctors lost faith in the possibility of replacing the human heart with a prosthetic substitute. In the early 1980s, however, a pioneering new scientist resumed efforts to develop a viable artificial heart. Robert K. Jarvik had decided to study medicine and engineering after his father died of heart disease. By 1982, he was conducting animal trials at the University of Utah with his Jarvik-7 artificial heart. On 02 December 1982, a team led by Dr. William C. DeVries implanted the Jarvik-7 into Barney Clark. Because Jarvik's artificial heart was intended to be permanent, the Clark case drew worldwide attention. Clark spent his last 112 days in the hospital and suffered considerably from complications and the discomfort of having compressed air pumped in and out of his body.
      He dies on 23 March 1983, from various complications. Clark's experience left many feeling that the time of the permanent artificial heart had not yet come. During the next decade, Jarvik and others concentrated their efforts on developing mechanical pumps to assist a diseased heart rather than replace it. These devices allow many patients to live the months or even years it takes for them to find a donor heart. Battery powered, these implants give heart-disease patients mobility and allow them to live relatively normal lives. Meanwhile, in the 1990s, the Jarvik-7 was used on more than 150 patients whose hearts were too damaged to be aided by the mechanical pump implant. More than half of these patients survived until they got a transplant.
      Jarvik and others went on to work to develop smaller and more efficient mechanical pump implants. A company called AbioMed developed the AbioCor, a new permanent artificial heart. This "total replacement" device, is powered by an internal battery and does not require air pumps, thus promising unprecedented mobility to recipients.

1963 Skolem, mathematician.
1961 Mason, mathematician.
1953 Raoul Dufy, French Fauvist painter born on 03 June 1877. — MORE ON DUFY AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.
1946 Francisco Largo Caballero, político socialista español que llegó a ser presidente del Gobierno
1946 Alberto Ghiraldo, escritor argentino.
1945 Los japoneses realizan una matanza de españoles en Manila.

1944: 33 SS soldiers, by a bomb of Italian partisans. ^top^
     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.
      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.
      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.

Il 23 marzo 1944 in un’azione di guerra a Roma in via Rasella, un gruppo di partigiani dei Gap uccideva 33 soldati del battaglione Bozen e ne feriva 38 facendo scoppiare una carica esplosiva e attaccando la colonna nemica con armi automatiche e il lancio di bombe da mortaioleggere. Accuratamente preparata, l’azione colpiva uno dei battaglioni specializzati in azioni di rappresaglia e faceva seguito a una serie di massacri perpetrati nei mesi precedenti dai tedeschi nelle zone intorno alla capitale ai danni di persone innocenti, spesso donne, vecchi e bambini: 18 vittime a Canale Monterano, 32 a Saturnia, 14 a Blera, 40 a San Martino, 14 a Velletri ecc.
In seguito all’azione partigiana Hitler comunicò che Roma doveva essere interamente distrutta e tutta la popolazione deportata, ma subito dopo rettificò che per la vendetta sarebbe stato sufficiente radere al suolo l’intero quartiere nel quale si era svolta l’azione. Infine Kesselring e il comandante della piazza di Roma, Kurt Maeltzer, stabilirono le modalità della rappresaglia: dieci italiani per ogni soldato tedesco ucciso. Leccidio avvenne immediatamente e fu affidato al colonnello Herbert Kappler, coadiuvato dal capitano Priebke: il giorno dopo l’azione partigiana, 335 uomini furono uccisi alle fosse Ardeatine, ciascuno con un colpo alla nuca. La maggior parte delle vittime venne prelevata dal carcere di Regina Coeli e dal comando di via Tasso, cinquanta furono scelte e consegnate dal questore fascista Caruso.

1942 Some 2500 Jews in Lublin, massacred.
1932 Boris Schatz, Russian Israeli artist born on 23 December 1867. — more

1877 Mormon fanatic John Doyle Lee, by firing squad for masterminding the Mountain Meadows Massacre. ^top^
      Between 07 and 11 September 1857, a wagon train of 137 Arkansas Methodist emigrants, bound for California, were massacred at Mountain Meadows, Crooked Creek in Utah by frenzied Mormons taking revenge for persecution of Mormons by mobs in Arkansas and other states, and by the federal government..
     Angered by the US government's decision to send troops into the Utah territory, Mormons there were further incensed in 1857 when a band of emigrants, led by John I. Baker and Alexander Fancher, set up camp 64 km from Cedar City. On 07 or 08 September, the travelers were attacked by a Mormon militia (some of them disguised as Paiute Indians), including John Doyle Lee, an adopted son of Brigham Young. The attackers, promising safe conduct, persuaded the emigrants to lay down their arms. Then, as the band of 137 proceeded southward toward Cedar City, they were ambushed, and all except 18 children below the age of 6 (whom the murderers thought too young to remember and be witnesses in court) were massacred. Two years later, 17 of the children would be returned to family members in northwestern Arkansas
      When details of the atrocity started leaking out, there was an attempt to blame Paiute Indians. Lee agreed to be a scapegoat to save the Mormon church from the wrath of the nation. He was brought to trial in Beaver in 1875, resulting in a hung jury. Retried the following year, he was convicted of first degree murder and on 23 March 1877, was shot at the site of the massacre. In September 1990, the Mormon church erected a monument to the massacred, but has yet to offer any apology.

1874 Diodore Charles Rahoult, French artist born on 02 December 1919.
1801 Pablo Petrovich I, zar de Rusia.
1770 Martin Mytens (or Meytens) II, Swedish artist born on 24 July 1695.
1678 Cornelis Gerritszoon Decker (or Dekker), Dutch artist born in 1625.
1661 (burial) Pieter de Molyn, Dutch landscape painter born on 06 April 1595. — MORE ON DE MOLYN AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.
1640 Symon Jordaens, Flemish artist born in 1690.
1555 Julio III, Papa.

Births which occurred on a March 23:

1999 Hannibal, by Thomas Harris, goes to publisher. ^top^
Bestselling author Thomas Harris delivers his 600-page manuscript for his new novel, Hannibal, to Delacorte Press. He had promised the book more than 10 years earlier as part of a two-book contract that paid him a $5.2 million advance. The book was the third novel featuring serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, who first appeared in Harris' 1981 book Red Dragon as a minor character. He played a larger role in The Silence of the Lambs (1988), which sold some 10 million copies and was made into an Academy Award-winning movie in 1991. Hannibal would appear in bookstores less than three months after Harris delivers the manuscript and quickly top the bestseller charts, despite-or perhaps because of-an intensely gruesome plot.
Harris was born in 1940 in Richmond, Mississippi, the son of a biology teacher and an electrical engineer. In 1968, he took a job with the Associated Press in New York. While working for the news agency, Harris and two friends had an idea for a novel about hijackers seizing the Goodyear blimp during the Super Bowl. Harris turned the idea into the bestselling Black Sunday (1975). Like his antihero, Hannibal Lecter, Harris is a gourmet chef with a taste for fine wines. He divides his time among Sag Harbour, Miami, and Paris.

1959 El tambor de hojalata, novela de Günther Grass, se publica.
1937 Robert Gallo, médico estadounidense, codescubridor del virus del SIDA.
1936 Jannis Kounellis, Greek artist. — LINKS
1919 Los Fasci di combattimento se fundan en Milán, siguiendo una iniciativa de Benito Mussolini.
1912 Werner von Braun Wirsitz Germany, (scientist: developer of WWII German V-2 rocket, head of US Army missile team; technological leader of American space program)

^ 1909 Luftfahrzeug-Motoren is formed.
Wilhelm and Karl Maybach form Luftfahrzeug-Motoren GmbH in Bissingen, Germany, to produce engines for the Zeppelin airships. The Maybach Motoren-Werke, a subsidiary of the aviation company, would produce the luxurious Maybach automobile between 1921and 1941. Wilhelm Maybach designed the internal expanding brake in 1901. The internal brake operated by pressing shoes against the interior of the wheel or drive shaft. Maybach’s design remained the model for most braking systems until the disk brake emerged as an alternative in the 1970s.

1907 Whitney, mathematician.
1903 Alejandro Casona, dramaturgo español.
1900 Erich Fromm Frankfurt, Germany, US psychoanalyst and social philosopher (Sane Society). He died on 18 March 1980.
1897 Synge, mathematician.
1893 Lydia Newton, in Illinois, who would live (in Arizona) past her 2004 birthday.
1889 Yukichi Chuganji, in Fukuoka prefecture, Kyushu island, Japan. He would become a silkworm breeder, a bank employee, and, later, a community welfare officer. At the 03 January 2002 death of Italian shepherd Antonio Todde (born 22 January 1889), Chuganji became the oldest living man in the world, and would live (at least) past his 114th birthday, at which time the oldest living woman in the world was Kyushu woman Kamato Hongo, born on 16 September 1887.
1887 Sidney Hillman, US labor leader and one of the founders of the C.I.O. He died on 10 July 1946.
1887 Juan José Victoriano González “Gris”, Spanish Cubist painter and sculptor who died on 11 May 1927. — MORE ON GRIS AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.
1887 Josef Capek, Czech painter, printmaker, illustrator of children's book, and writer, who died in early April 1945 in the Nazis' Bergen-Belsen death camp. — more with links to images.
1882 Emmy Noether, mathematician.
1881 Roger Martin du Guard, France, novelist (Les Thibault — Nobel 1937). He died on 22 August 1839.
1878 Waka Shirahama, Japan, who would die on 16 June 1992.
1874 Joseph Christian Leyendecker, US illustrator who died in 1951. — links to images.
1874 Henri-Charles Manguin, French Fauvist painter who died on 25 September 1949. — MORE ON MANGUIN AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.

^ 1869 Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy, near Cavite, Luzon, Philippines, Filipino leader who fought first against Spain and later against the United States for the independence of the Philippines. He died on 06 February 1964 in Manila.

      Born of Chinese and Tagalog parentage, he completed his education at the University of Santo Tomás, Manila. In August 1896 he was mayor of Cavite Viejo and was the local leader of the Katipunan, a revolutionary society that fought bitterly and successfully against the Spanish. In December 1897 he signed an agreement called the Pact of Biac-na-Bató with the Spanish governor general. He agreed to leave the Philippines and to remain permanently in exile on condition of a substantial financial reward from Spain coupled with the promise of liberal reforms. While in Hong Kong and Singapore he made arrangements with representatives of the US consulates and of Commodore George Dewey to return to the Philippines to assist the United States in the war against Spain.
      Aguinaldo returned to the Philippines on 19 May 1898, and announced renewal of the struggle against Spain. The Filipinos, who declared their independence of Spain on 12 June 1898, proclaimed a provisional republic, of which Aguinaldo was to become president; and in September a revolutionary assembly met and ratified Filipino independence. However, the Philippines, along with Puerto Rico and Guam, were ceded by Spain to the United States by the Treaty of Paris, on 10 December 1898.
      Relations between the US and the Filipinos were unfriendly and grew steadily worse. On 23 January 1899, the Malolos Constitution, by virtue of which the Philippines was declared a republic and which had been approved by the assembly and by Aguinaldo, was proclaimed. Aguinaldo, who had been president of the provisional government, was elected president.
      On the night of 04 February 1899 the inevitable conflict between the US and Filipino forces surrounding Manila was precipitated. Morning found the Filipinos, who had fought bravely, even recklessly, defeated at all points. While the fighting was in progress, Aguinaldo issued a proclamation of war against the United States, which immediately sent reinforcements to the Philippines. The Filipino government fled northward. In November 1899 the Filipinos resorted to guerrilla warfare.
      After three years of costly fighting the insurrection was finally brought to an end when, in a daring operation led by General Frederick Funston, General Aguinaldo was captured in his secret headquarters at Palanan in northern Luzon on 23 March 1901. Aguinaldo took an oath of allegiance to the United States, was granted a pension from the US government, and retired to private life.
      In 1935 when the commonwealth government of the Philippines was established in preparation for independence, Aguinaldo ran for president but was decisively beaten. He returned to private life until the Japanese invaded the Philippines in 1941. The Japanese used Aguinaldo as an anti-US tool. They caused him to make speeches, to sign articles, and to address a radio appeal to General Douglas MacArthur on Corregidor to surrender in order to spare the flower of Filipino youth.
      When the US troops returned, Aguinaldo was arrested and, together with others accused of collaboration with the Japanese, was held for some months in Bilibid Prison until released by presidential amnesty. As a token vindication of his honor, he was appointed by President Elpidio Quirino [16 Nov 1890 – 28 Feb 1956] as a member of the Council of State in 1950. In the later years of his life, he devoted his major attention to veterans' affairs, the promotion of nationalism and democracy in the Philippines, and the improvement of relations between the Philippines and the United States.

1862 Study, mathematician.
1857 Alphonse Osbert, French Symbolist painter who died in 1939. — MORE ON OSBERT AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.
1839 Otto Eerelman, Dutch artist who died in 1926.
1816 John Frederick Kensett, US Hudson River School painter, specialized in landscapes, who died on 16 December 1872. — more with links to images.
1814 Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, poetisa española.
1809 Hippolyte-Jean Flandrin, French artist who died on 21 March 1864. — MORE ON FLANDRIN AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.
1795 Holmboe, mathematician.
1763 Andries Meulen (or Vermeulen), Dutch artist who died on 05 July 1814.
1754 Jurik Vega, mathematician.
1749 Pierre-Simon Laplace, mathematician, astronomer, physicist. He died on 05 March 1827 saying: “Ce que nous savons est peu. Ce que nous ne savons pas est immense.” [sans compter que ce que nos savons peuvent est peu.]
1746 Gérard van Spaendonck, French artist who died on 18 May 1822. — more
1651 Jean-Baptiste Santerre, French painter who died on 21 November 1717. — MORE ON SANTERRE AT ART “4” MARCH with links to images.
1584 La ciudad de Rey don Felipe, junto al río San Juan, en el Estrecho de Magallanes es fundada por Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa.
1490 Mishna Torah of Maimonides, first dated edition.

Holidays Bolivia : Memorial Day / Laos : Armed Forces Day / Lithuana : Independence Day (1918) / Pakistan : Republic Day (1956) / Sudan : Independence Day (1956) / UN : World Meteorological Day, a UN observance (1950) / World : World Meteorological Day

Religious Observances Ang : Gregory the Illuminator, bishop/missionary to Armenia / RC : St Turibius of Mogrovejo, archbp of Lima (opt) / Santos Toribio de Mogrovejo, Fidel, Victoriano, Félix, Nicón y Rebeca. / Saint Victorien fut gouverneur de Carthage, capitale de la province romaine d'Afrique, au temps où Clovis régnait en Gaule. L'Afrique était alors occupée par les Vandales. Ces Barbares étaient chrétiens mais de l'hérésie arienne (ils ne croyaient pas que le Christ fut Dieu). Ils firent mourir le malheureux Victorien.
Easter in 1913, 2008.

Thoughts for the day: “Give me liberty, or give me freedom!”
“Give me liberty, or I'll take it by force!”
“Give me liberty, or... never mind, just give me liberty.”
“Give me liberty, or I'll give you death!”
“Give me liberty, or I'll give you hell!”
“Give me liberty, or I'll give you no rest!”
“Give me liberty, or give me slaves.”
“Give me liberty, or you'll be the slave of a peculiar institution.”
“Give me liberty, or I'll take liberties.”
“Give me liberty, or I'll become a freedom fighter!”
“Give me liberty, or give me money!”
“Give me liberty, or I'll become a libertine!”
“Give me liberty, or I'll become a libertarian!”
“Give me liberty, or I'll become a librarian!”
“Give me liberty, or give me shore leave!”
“Give me liberty, or give me cerulean blue!”
“C'est vain ce que nous savons des savons des savants souvent (ça va!).”

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