March 23 - Events

Events

• 1400 – The Tran Dynasty of Vietnam is deposed after one hundred and seventy-five years of rule by Ho Quy Ly, a court official.
• 1708 – James Francis Edward Stuart lands at the Firth of Forth.
• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivers his speech – "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" – at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia.
• 1801 – Tsar Paul I of Russia is struck with a sword, then strangled, and finally trampled to death in his bedroom at St. Michael's Castle.
• 1806 – After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" begin their arduous journey home.
• 1821 – Greek War of Independence: Battle and fall of city of Kalamata.
• 1848 – The ship John Wickliffe arrives at Port Chalmers carrying the first Scottish settlers for Dunedin, New Zealand. Otago province is founded.
• 1857 – Elisha Otis's first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway New York City.
• 1862 – The First Battle of Kernstown, Virginia, marks the start of Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. Though a Confederate defeat, the engagement distracts Federal efforts to capture Richmond.
• 1868 – The University of California is founded in Oakland, California when the Organic Act is signed into law.
• 1879 – War of the Pacific: The Battle of Topáter, the first battle of the war is fought between Chile and the joint forces of Bolivia and Peru.
• 1889 – The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is established by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in Qadian India.
• 1905 – Eleftherios Venizelos calls for Crete's union with Greece, and begins what is to be known as the Theriso revolt.
• 1908 – American diplomat Durham Stevens is attacked by Korean assassins Jeon Myeong-un and Jang In-hwan, leading to his death in a hospital two days later.
• 1909 – Theodore Roosevelt leaves New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa. The trip is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
• 1919 – In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement.
• 1931 – Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar are hanged for murder during the Indian struggle for independence.
• 1933 – The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.
• 1935 – Signing of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.
• 1939 – The Hungarian air force attacks the headquarters of Slovak air force in the city of Spišská Nová Ves, kills 13 people and began the Slovak–Hungarian War.
• 1940 – The Lahore Resolution (Qarardad-e-Pakistan or the then Qarardad-e-Lahore) is put forward at the Annual General Convention of the All India Muslim League.
• 1942 – World War II: In the Indian Ocean, Japanese forces capture the Andaman Islands.
• 1956 – Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. (Republic Day in Pakistan)
• 1962 – NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace initiative.
• 1965 – NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States' first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).
• 1978 – The first UNIFIL troops arrived in Lebanon for peacekeeping mission along the Blue Line.
• 1980 – Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador gives his famous speech appealing to men of the El Salvadoran armed forces to stop killing the Salvadorans.
• 1982 – Guatemala's government, headed by Fernando Romeo Lucas García is overthrown in a military coup by right-wing General Efraín Ríos Montt.
• 1983 – Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.
• 1989 – Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce their discovery of cold fusion at the University of Utah.
• 1991 – The Revolutionary United Front, with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia, invades Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow Joseph Saidu Momoh, sparking a gruesome 11-year Sierra Leone Civil War.
• 1994 – At an election rally in Tijuana, Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is assassinated by Mario Aburto Martínez.
• 1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593 crashes in Siberia when the pilot's fifteen-year old son accidentally disengages the autopilot, killing all 75 people on board.
• 1994 – A United States Air Force (USAF) F-16 aircraft collides with a USAF C-130 at Pope Air Force Base and then crashes, killing 24 United States Army soldiers on the ground. This later became known as the Green Ramp disaster.
• 1996 – Taiwan holds its first direct elections and chooses Lee Teng-hui as President.
• 1999 – Gunmen assassinate Paraguay's Vice President Luis María Argaña.
• 2001 – The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.
• 2003 – In Nasiriyah, Iraq, 11 soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company as well as 18 U.S. Marines are killed during the first major conflict of Operation Iraqi Freedom. 654 Iraqi combatants are also killed.
• 2005 – Texas City Refinery explosion: During a test on a distillation tower liquid waste builds up and flows out of a blowout tower. Waste fumes ignite and explode killing 15 workers.
• 2009 – FedEx Express Flight 80: A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 flying from Guangzhou, China crashes at Tokyo Narita International Airport, Japan, killing both the captain and the co-pilot.