Today in History - March 19
Return to home
Swallows' Day. The swallows return to
Capistrano California.
(HFA, '96, p.26)(HT, 3/97, p.58)
1524 Mar 19,
Giovanni de Verrazano of France sighted land around area of
Carolinas.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1563 Mar 19, The Peace of
Amboise granted Rights for Huguenots.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1571 Mar 19, Spanish troops
occupied Manila. [see May 19]
(MC, 3/19/02)
1589 Mar 19, William Bradford,
governor of Plymouth colony for 30 years, was born (baptized).
(HN, 3/19/98)(MC, 3/19/02)
1593 Mar 19, Georges de la Tour
(d.1652), French painter, was born. His night painting "The Penitent
Magdelene" features a seated woman contemplating a flame with one
hand resting on a skull.
(NH, 10/96, p.39)(MC, 3/19/02)
1601 Mar 19, Alonzo Cano,
Spanish painter, sculptor (Cathedral Granada), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1628 Mar 19, Massachusetts
colony was founded by Englishmen.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1629 Mar 19, Aleksei M.
Romanov, 1st Romanov tsar of Russia, was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1661 Mar 19, English occupied
St. Andrew Island and other Courlander possessions in Gambia. They
renamed the island James Island with administration by the Royal
Adventurers in Africa Company.
(http://www.vdiest.nl/gambia.htm)
1687 Mar 19, French explorer
Robert Cavelier (b.1643), Sieur de La Salle, the first European to
navigate the length of the Mississippi River, was murdered by
mutineers while searching for the mouth of the Mississippi, along
the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in present-day Texas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9-Robert_Cavelier,_Sieur_de_La_Salle)(AP,
3/19/97)
1711 Mar 19, War was declared
between Russia and Turkey.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1721 Mar 19, Tobias George
Smollett, Scottish satirical author and physician (Roderick Random,
Humphrey Clinker), was born (baptized).
(HN, 3/19/01)(MC, 3/19/02)
1748 Mar 19, English
Naturalization Act was passed granting Jews right to colonize US.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1775 Mar 19, In Italy 4 people
were buried by avalanche for 37 days and 3 survived. [not clear if
this was the date of the avalanche or the recovery date.]
(MC, 3/19/02)
1775 Mar 19, Portuguese fleet
was repulsed in attack on Montevideo, Uruguay.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1785 Mar 19,
Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, composer, was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1796 Mar 19, Stephen Storace
(33), composer, died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1799 Mar 19, Joseph Haydn’s
"Die Schopfung," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1799 Mar 19, Napoleon Bonaparte
began the siege of Acre ( later Akko, Israel), which was defended by
Turks.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1803 Mar 19, Johann von
Schiller's "Die Braut von Messina," premiered in Weimar.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1808 Mar 19, Spain's King
Charles IV abdicated.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1812 Mar 19, Spanish Cortes
passed a liberal constitution under a hereditary monarch.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1813 Mar 19, David Livingston,
explorer found by Stanley in Africa, was born in Scotland.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1821 Mar 19, Sir Richard Burton
(d.1890), English explorer, was born.
(HN, 3/19/01)
1822 Mar 19, Boston was
incorporated as a city.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1831 Mar 19, The first recorded
US bank robbery occurred at the City Bank, in New York. Some
$245,000 is stolen.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1848 Mar 19, Wyatt Earp (Wyatt
Berry Stapp Earp), later U.S. Marshal, was born the son of a Sheriff
in Illinois. He fought at the Gunfight at the OK Corral and Paula
Mitchell Marks later wrote "And Die in the West," an account of the
incident.
(HN, 3/19/98)(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.7)(CHA, 1/2001)
1849 Mar 19, Alfred von
Tirpitz, Prussian admiral, was born. He commanded the German fleet
in early World War I.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1859 Mar 19, The opera "Faust"
by Charles Gounod premiered in Paris.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1860 Mar 19, William Jennings
Bryan, orator, statesman, known as "The Great Communicator," was
born.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1861 Mar 19, Maori War in New
Zealand ended.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1862 Mar 19, F. Wilhelm von
Schadow (73), German painter (Modern Vasari), died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1864 Mar 19, Montana vigilantes
lynched Jack Slade (33), a hell-raising freight hauler. Mark Twain
had encountered Slade in 1861 and included him in his book “Roughing
It” (1872). In 2008 Dan Rottenberg authored “Death of a Gunfighter:
The Quest for Jack Slade, the West’s Most Elusive Legend.”
(WSJ, 11/11/08,
p.A15)(www.twainquotes.com/Slade.html)
1864 Mar 19, Charles Gounod's
opera "Mireille" premiered in Paris.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1864 Mar 19, Alexandre Calame
(b.1810), Swiss painter, died in Menton, France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Calame)
1865 Mar 19, Battle of
Bentonville: Confederates retreated from Greenville, NC. [see Mar
20-21]
(MC, 3/19/02)
1866 Mar 19, The immigrant ship
Monarch of the Seas sank in Liverpool; 738 died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1870 Mar 19, The opera
"Guarany," premiered in Milan.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1872 Mar 19, Sergei Diaghilev,
ballet director, was born in Gruzino Novgorod, Russia. [see Mar 31]
(MC, 3/19/02)
1873 Mar 19, Max Reger,
composer, pianist, prof. (Leipzig Univ), was born in Brand, Bavaria.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1875 Mar 19, Tiburcio Vasquez
(b.1835), a cultured robber, was hanged in San Jose, Ca., after
being found guilty of robbery and murder In 2010 John Boessenecker
authored “Bandido,” an account of Vasquez’ life.
(SSFC, 11/21/10, p.A2)
1879 Mar 19, Jim Currie opened
fire on the actors Maurice Barrymore and Ben Porter near Marshall,
Texas. His shots wounded Barrymore and killed Porter.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1882 Mar 19, Gaston Lachaise
(d.1935), Franco-American sculptor (Standing Woman), was born.
(SFC, 2/2/02, p.D1)(MC, 3/19/02)
1883 Mar 19, Joseph W.
Stilwell, US general (China), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1883 Mar 19, Jan Matzeliger
invented the 1st machine to manufacture entire shoes.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1884 Mar 19, Alfonse Charles
Renaud de Vilback (54), composer, died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1889 Mar 19, Sarah Gertrude
Millina, South African writer (The Dark River, God's Stepchildren),
was born.
(HN, 3/19/01)
1891 Mar 19, Earl Warren,
governor of California, was born. He was appointed 14th Supreme
Court Chief Justice (1953-1969) and led the commission that
investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
"I always turn to the sports page first. The sports page records
people’s accomplishments; the front page nothing but man’s failure."
(HN, 3/19/99)(AP, 7/19/00)
1894 Mar 19, Jackie "Moms"
Mabley, comedienne (Merv Griffin Show), was born in Brevard, SC.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1895 Mar 19, Los Angeles
Railway was established to provide streetcar service.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1900 Mar 19, [Jean] Frederic
Joliot-Curie, French physicist (Nobel 1935), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1900 Mar 19, President McKinley
asserted the need for free trade with Puerto Rico.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1901 Mar 19, Jo Mielziner, set
designer (Carousel, Death of a Salesman), was born in Paris.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1903 Mar 19, The U.S. Senate
ratified the Cuban treaty, gaining naval bases in Guantanamo and
Bahia Honda.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1904 Mar 19, John J. Sirica,
U.S. Federal Judge, ruled on Watergate issues, was born.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1905 Mar 19, Albert Speer,
German architect, minister of Armament (NSDAP), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1906 Mar 19, Adolf Eichman,
Nazi Gestapo officer, was born. He was captured in Argentina and put
on trial in Israel.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1906 Mar 19, Ermanno
Wolf-Ferrari's "Quattro Rusteghi," premiered in Munich.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1908 Mar 19, Maryland banned
Christian Scientists from practicing medicine unless they had a
medical diploma.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1912 Mar 19, Adolf Galland,
German Luftwaffe pilot and youngest German General at the age of 33,
was born.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1916 Mar 19, Irving Wallace,
author (People's Almanac, The Man), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1916 Mar 19, The First
Aerosquadron took off from Columbus, NM, to join Gen. John J.
Pershing and his Punitive Expedition for Pancho Villa in Mexico.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1917 Mar 19, Dino Lipatti,
composer, pianist, was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1917 Mar 19, The U.S. Supreme
Court, in Wilson v. New, upheld the Adamson Act, the eight hour work
day for railroad workers.
(HN, 3/19/98)(AP, 3/19/08)
1917 Mar 19, A German submarine
in the Mediterranean Sea sunk the French battleship Danton. In 2009
the Danton was discovered on the seabed southwest of Sardinia.
(SFC, 2/21/09,
p.A2)(www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?16848)
1918 Mar 19, US Congress
authorized time zones and approved Daylight Saving Time.
(AP,
3/19/97)(www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/usstat.html)(SSFC,
3/27/05, Par p.15)
1919 Mar 19, A typhoid epidemic
raged in Petrograd, Russia, killing 200 daily.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1920 Mar 19, The U.S. Senate
rejected for the second time the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of
49-35, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.
(AP, 3/19/97)(HN, 3/19/98)
1924 Mar 19, U.S. troops were
rushed to Tegucigalpa as the Honduran capital was taken by rebel
forces.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1924 Mar 19, Charles Villiers
Stanford (71), Irish composer, author, died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1925 Mar 19, Brent Scrowcroft,
Lt. Gen. (USAF), National Security Advisor to President George Bush,
was born.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1925 Mar 19, Angelo G. Roncalli
(Pope John XXIII) became a bishop.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1927 Mar 19, Bloody battles
between Communists & Nazis took place in Berlin.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1928 Mar 19, Patrick McGoohan,
actor (#6-Prisoner, Secret Agent), was born in Astoria, NY.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1928 Mar 19, "Amos & Andy"
debuted on radio with the NBC Blue Network, WMAQ Chicago.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1930 Mar 19, Ornette Coleman
was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and was an early proponent of ‘free
form jazz.‘ Having taught himself to play the saxophone and read
music by age 14, Coleman moved to Los Angeles and met like-minded
musicians in the early ‘50s. His debut album in 1959, Something
Else! introduced his atonal interpretation of jazz, one free of
traditional tonal structure, which he terms ‘harmolodic.‘ Many
listeners and critics have termed it ‘anarchy.‘ Coleman has
continued to be an influential if controversial figure in jazz, now
producing albums under his own label (Harmolodic, Inc.) as well as
soundtracks for films. [see Mar 9]
(HNQ, 10/19/00)
1930 Mar 19, Arthur J. Balfour
(81), British theologist, premier (1902-05), died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1931 Mar 19, Nevada legalized
gambling a 2nd time to raise tax revenues and stabilize the state’s
economy. Gov. Fred B. Balzar signed a measure legalizing casino
gambling. The Northern Club on 15 E. Fremont was soon issued the 1st
gaming license.
(HN, 3/19/98)(SFEC, 5/10/98, DB p.64)(SFEC,
7/9/00, DB p.67)(AP, 3/19/07)
1932 Mar 19, Sydney Harbor
Bridge, Australia, officially opened.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1933 Mar 19, Phillip Roth,
American novelist and short-story writer (Portnoy's Complaint), was
born.
(HN, 3/19/01)
1933 Mar 19, Italy's dictator
Benito Mussolini proposed a pact with Britain, France and Germany.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1935 Mar 19, Renee Taylor,
actress (Jack Paar Show, Mary Hartman, Nanny), was born in NYC.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1935 Mar 19, The British fired
on 20,000 Muslims in India, killing 27.
(http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1935/mar/20/india-disturbances-karachi-casualties)
1936 Mar 19, The USSR signed a
pact of assistance with Mongolia against Japan.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1938 Mar 19, Lithuania
accepted a Polish peace ultimatum and established diplomatic ties.
(HN, 3/19/98)(LHC, 3/19/03)
1941 Mar 19, Jimmy Dorsey and
Orchestra recorded "Green Eyes" and "Maria Elena" for Decca Records.
(AP, 3/19/01)
1942 Mar 19, FDR ordered men
between 45 and 64 to register for non military duty.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1943 Mar 19, Airship Canadian
Star was torpedoed and sank.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1944 Mar 19, The German 352nd
Infantry Division deployed along the coast of France.
(HN, 3/19/01)
1944 Mar 19, Nazi German
soldiers occupied Hungary.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1944 Mar 19, At Cisterna,
Italy, Germans, increasingly worried about resistance, rounded up
the entire town and marched them north. Many ended in labor camps
and farms as far north as Tuscany.
(AP, 3/20/10)
1945 Mar 19, US Task Force 58
attacked ships near Kobe and Kure.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1945 Mar 19, Kamikaze planes
attacked the US carrier Franklin off Japan killing 724 people; the
ship, however, was saved.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1945 Mar 19, Adolf Hitler
issued his so-called "Nero Decree," ordering the destruction of
German facilities that could fall into Allied hands. Hitler ordered
a scorched-earth policy. Hitler had decreed that Paris should be
left a smoking ruin, but Dietrich von Choltitz thought better of his
Fuhrer's order.
(AP, 3/19/97)(HN, 3/19/98)
1947 Mar 19, Glenn Close,
actress (The Big Chill, Fatal Attraction), was born in Greenwich,
Ct.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1947 Mar 19, Chiang Kai-shek's
government forces took control of Yenan, the former headquarters of
the Chinese Communist Party.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1949 Mar 19, The 1st museum
devoted exclusively to atomic energy opened at Oak Ridge, Ten.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1949 Mar 19, The Soviet
People's Council signed the constitution of the German Democratic
Republic, and declared that the North Atlantic Treaty was merely a
war weapon.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1950 Mar 19, Edgar Rice
Burroughs (74), sci-fi author and the creator of Tarzan, died. He
wrote 24 Tarzan novels and 50 other thrillers. In 1999 John
Taliaferro authored the biography "Tarzan Forever."
(SFEC, 5/9/99, Par
p.8)(http://deadpool.rotten.com/occupations/author.html)
1951 Mar 19, Herman Wouk’s war
novel "The Caine Mutiny" was first published.
(AP, 3/19/01)
1953 Mar 19, Tennessee
Williams' "Camino Real," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1953 Mar 19, The Academy Awards
ceremony was televised for the first time; "The Greatest Show on
Earth" was named best picture of 1952. Gary Cooper & Shirley
Booth won for best actor and actress.
(AP, 3/19/99)
1954 Mar 19, The 1st
rocket-driven sled on rails was tested in Alamogordo, NM.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1957 Mar 19, Pete Seibert
(1924-2002) climbed to a summit in the Colorado Rockies with Earl
Eaton, a uranium prospector, and beheld the area that he later
turned into the Vail ski resort.
(SFC, 7/29/02, p.B5)
1958 Mar 19, The film "South
Pacific," adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical,
was released.
(AP, 3/19/08)
1959 Mar 19, The Broadway show
“First Impressions,” a musical version of Jane Austen’s Pride and
Prejudice, premiered at the Alvin Theater. It featured the theater
debut of film star Farley Granger. The show continued for 84
performances.
(www.janeausten.co.uk/magazine/page.ihtml?pid=426&step=4)(SFC,
3/30/11, p.C4)
1960 Mar 19, "Redhead" closed
at 46th St Theater in NYC after 455 performances.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1962 Mar 19, Relative calm
returned to Algeria after cease-fire, ending 7 years of warfare
between French and Algerian Nationalists.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1963 Mar 19, In Costa Rica,
President John F. Kennedy and six Latin American presidents pledged
to fight Communism.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1963 Mar 19, Algeria demanded
that France negotiate on ending nuclear testing in Algerian Sahara.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1965 Mar 19, Indonesia
nationalized all foreign oil companies.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1965 Mar 19, In Romania State
Council Pres. Gheorghiu-Dej (b.1901) died. Gheorghe Apostol was
defeated in a contest for Communist Party leader by Ceausescu, who
ended up ruling Romania with an iron fist for 25 years.
(AP, 8/25/10)(http://tinyurl.com/37bdv5x)
1966 Mar 19, Texas Western
College under coach Don Haskins won the NCAA basketball tournament
becoming the 1st team to win with an all African American team. In
2006 the film “Glory Road” depicted the story of the winning team.
(SFC, 1/24/06, p.B1)
1968 Mar 19, Howard University
students in Washington DC staged rallies, protests and a 5-day
sit-in, laying siege to the administration building, shutting down
the university in protest over its ROTC program, and demanding a
more Afrocentric curriculum.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968)
1968 Mar 19, In southern
California Elizabeth Ernstein (14) disappeared while walking home
from school in Mentone, San Bernadino County. Her remains were found
in 1969 in a shallow grave near Wrightwood, but were not identified
until 2012 through DNA testing.
(SFC, 9/7/12, p.C8)
1970 Mar 19, Willy Brandt and
Willi Stoph met for the first East-West Germany summit in Berlin.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1971 Mar 19, At least 160
people perished in landslides north of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1972 Mar 19, India and
Bangladesh signed a friendship treaty.
(http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/I_0040.htm)
1972 Mar 19, The illegal
Soviet-era journal "Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church" was
1st published. 5 issues were published up to 1987.
(LHC, 3/19/03)
1976 Mar 19, Buckingham Palace
announced the separation of Princess Margaret and her husband, the
Earl of Snowdon, after 16 years of marriage.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1978 Mar 19, Israeli army took
control of almost all of Lebanon south of Litani River.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1978 Mar 19, The UN Security
Council adopted Resolution 425 demanding that Israel withdraw from
Lebanon.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.A15)
1979 Mar 19, The U.S. House of
Representatives began televising its day-to-day business. Brian Lamb
launched C-Span, a TV public service broadcasting medium that
focused on public affairs without comment or analysis. He came up
with the idea while working the Washington bureau chief for
Cablevision magazine.
(AP, 3/19/97)(SSFC, 3/27/05, Par p.14)(Econ,
3/24/12, p.34)
1980 Mar 19, The US appealed to
the International Court of Justice on hostages in Iran.
(http://tinyurl.com/3xp87b)
1981 Mar 19, One technician was
killed and two others were injured during a routine test on space
shuttle Columbia.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1984 Mar 19, The TV show "Kate
& Allie" premiered.
(http://imdb.com/title/tt0086742/)
1984 Mar 19, The SS Mobil Oil
spilled 200,000 gallons of oil into the Columbia River near
Longview.
(http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/96596_timeline21.shtml)
1985 Mar 19, In a legislative
victory for President Reagan, the Senate voted, 55-45, to authorize
production of the MX missile.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1985 Mar 19, "Spin Magazine"
began publishing.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1987 Mar 19, President
Reagan, in a news conference, repudiated his policy of selling arms
to Iran, saying, "I would not go down that road again."
(AP, 3/19/97)
1987 Mar 19, Televangelist Jim
Bakker resigned as chairman of his PTL ministry organization amid a
sex and money scandal involving Jessica Hahn, a former church
secretary from Oklahoma. Some $265,000 in ministry funds had been
used to keep Hahn quiet about a one-time sexual encounter in 1980.
(AP, 3/19/97)(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.B7)
1988 Mar 19, Two British
soldiers were shot to death after they were dragged from a car and
beaten by mourners attending an Irish Republican Army funeral in
Belfast, Northern Ireland.
(AP, 3/19/98)
1989 Mar 19, Alfredo Cristiani
of the right-wing ARENA party was elected president of El Salvador,
defeating Fidel Chavez Mena of the Christian Democratic Party.
(AP, 3/19/99)
1989 Mar 19, Muslim gunners
fire rockets into Christian areas of Lebanon.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1990 Mar 19, Latvia's political
opposition claimed victory in the republic's first free elections in
50 years, and reformers also claimed victories in crucial runoffs
held in Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine.
(AP, 3/19/00)
1990 Mar 19, Kremlin warned
Lithuania against taking over factories, putting up border posts.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1991 Mar 19, The US Labor
Department reported that consumer prices, benefiting from a big
monthly decline in gasoline prices, had edged upward only two-tenths
of a percentage point the previous month.
(AP, 3/19/01)
1991 Mar 19, Ending several
days of ominous silence, the Yugoslav army declares it will not
permit Yugoslavia to dissolve into civil war.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1992 Mar 19, Democrat Paul
Tsongas pulled out of the presidential race, leaving Arkansas Gov.
Bill Clinton the favorite to capture their party's nomination.
Tsongas had won the New Hampshire Democratic presidential
primary.
(AP, 3/19/97)(SFEM,11/2/97, p.12)
1992 Mar 19, British Prince
Andrew and Princess Sarah Ferguson announced separation.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/19/newsid_2543000/2543667.stm)
1992 Mar 19, Soviet
Commonwealth leaders open their 4th summit with hopes of solving
military disputes and stopping ethnic fighting.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1993 Mar 19, US Supreme Court
Justice Byron R. White announced plans to retire. His departure
paved the way for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to become the court's second
female justice.
(AP, 3/19/98)
1993 Mar 19, Georgia shot down
a Russian warplane over the separatist Abkhazia region, killing its
pilot and heightening tensions.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1994 Mar 19, In his weekly
radio address, President Clinton promised to tell people "all across
America about our health reform plan and what it really means."
(AP, 3/19/99)
1994 Mar 19, Cambodian
government seizes control of Pailin, the Khmer Rouge main
stronghold.
(AP, 3/19/02)
1994 Mar 19, Giuseppe Diana,
Italian anti-mafia priest, was murdered.
(http://tinyurl.com/7plc8)
1994 Mar 19, Talks between
North Korea and South Korea collapsed, imperiling a U.S.-brokered
deal to resolve the North Korean nuclear dispute.
(AP, 3/19/99)
1995 Mar 19, After giving up an
attempt to become a major league baseball player, Michael Jordan
returned to pro basketball with his former team, the Chicago Bulls.
(AP, 3/19/02)
1995 Mar 19, Finnish voters
throw out the center-right coalition government and give the
opposition Social Democratic Party its biggest election victory
since World War II.
(AP, 3/19/02)
1995 Mar 19, Palestinian gunmen
opened fire on a bus carrying Jewish settlers, killing two people.
(AP, 3/19/00)
1996 Mar 19, President Clinton
rolled out a $1.64 trillion election-year budget, promising it would
invigorate the economy, erase federal deficits and cut taxes.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1996 Mar 19, Senate Majority
Leader Bob Dole wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination
with solid primary victories in four Midwestern states.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1996 Mar 19, William Hutchinson
Murray (83), mountaineer, author, died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1996 Mar 19, A fire at a Quezon
City nightclub in the Philippines killed at least 149 young people
celebrating the end of their school year.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 19, In El Salvador an
Emergency Anti-Crime Law was approved by President Armando Calderon.
Its language called for all Salvadorans charged with crimes abroad
to be locked up and re-educated.
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-18)
1996 Mar 19, Nelson Mandela
divorced Winnie Mandela after 38 years of marriage.
(http://africanhistory.about.com/od/march/a/td0319.htm)
1996 Mar 19, Riots in Indonesia
killed five people during demonstrations protesting the death of a
jailed rebel leader.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-1)
1997 Mar 19, Following the
withdrawal of Anthony Lake, President Clinton nominated acting CIA
Director George Tenet to head the nation's spy agency. President
Clinton departed Washington for a summit in Helsinki, Finland, with
Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
(AP, 3/19/98)
1997 Mar 19, The US Supreme
Court heard arguments on Internet indecency.
(www.ciec.org/SC_appeal/970319_pr.html)
1997 Mar 19, Willem de Kooning
(b.1904), Dutch-born abstract painter, considered to be one of the
20th century's greatest painters, died in East Hampton, N.Y. He had
arrived in America as a stowaway in 1926. In 2004 Mark Stevens and
Annalyn Swan authored “de Kooning: An American Master.”
(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A1,6,E1)(AP, 3/19/98)(WSJ,
11/23/04, p.D11)
1997 Mar 19, "Utopia Parkway:
The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell" by Deborah Solomon was
reviewed. The artist was known for his surreal boxes and as a
forerunner of the junk-into-art aesthetic.
(WSJ, 3/19/97, p.A16)
1997 Mar 19, It was reported
that purple grape juice slows the activity of blood platelets by
about 75% and thus reduces the risk of heart attacks. Red wine and
aspirin slowed platelet activity by about 45%.
(SFC, 3/19/97, p.A10)
1997 Mar 19, Bre-X geologist
Michael de Guzman, husband to four wives, was reported to have
jumped to his death from a helicopter enroute to Busang, Indonesia,
the site of a major gold discovery. Bre-X held a 45% stake in the
Busang site.
(WSJ, 4/9/97, p.A10)
1997 Mar 19, In Port Moresby,
Papua New Guinea, police fired tear gas and warning shots at more
than 2,000 civilians protesting the government’s $27 million
contract with Sandline Int’l. to quell rebels on Bougainville.
(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A12)(AP, 3/29/03)
1998 Mar 19, Pres. Clinton
eased US restrictions on humanitarian aid and travel to Cuba.
Cuban-American households would be allowed to send back $1,200 a
year.
(WSJ, 3/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 19, Completing
baseball's transformation from family ownership to corporate
control, Rupert Murdoch's Fox Group won approval to buy the Los
Angeles Dodgers for a record $350 million. News Corporation later
sold the Dodgers to Boston real estate developer Frank McCourt.
(AP, 3/19/08)
1998 Mar 19, A new product was
approved by the FDA to reduce salmonella in chickens. Preempt or
CF-3 was a mixture of beneficial microbes that would be sprayed onto
newly hatched chicks, and then ingested by the chicks to prevent
salmonella growth.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A4)
1998 Mar 19, In Vermont a bomb
exploded in a teenager’s bedroom. Christopher Marquis (17) was
killed and his mother was injured. A package bomb was suspected.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 19, Two small planes
collided over Riverside Ct. in California and 3 people were killed.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 19, In Afghanistan a
Boeing 727 operated by Ariana state airline crashed 12 miles south
of Kabul and killed all 22 people on board.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A16)
1998 Mar 19, In Italy suspected
mafia member Giuseppe Magaddino was shot and killed. Sicilian Mafia
member Claudio Adriano Giusto was later charged with killing
Magaddino using a 7.65 mm firearm and then taking his wallet. Giusto
was arrested in Spain in 2011 after 13 years on the run.
(AFP, 4/20/11)(http://tinyurl.com/3za9prm)
1998 Mar 19, Russian security
officials reported that 2 young US Mormon missionaries were
kidnapped in the Volga region of Saratov. The missionaries were
released after 3 days with no ransom paid.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A12)(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 19, In Serbia Pres.
Milosevic agreed to pull back special police in Kosovo under a
deadline by world powers.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 19, In South Africa
hundreds of black demonstrators clashed with police as they marched
on the Vryburg High School. Some 2,500 residents of Huhudi township
marched in support of the students who said they no longer feel safe
at school. A later investigation revealed that the 140 black
students were isolated from the 750 white students in classrooms and
facilities.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A18)(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1999 Mar 19, At a White House
news conference, President Clinton prepared the nation for
airstrikes against Serbian targets following the collapse of Kosovo
peace talks in Paris.
(AP, 3/19/00)
1999 Mar 19, Balloonists
Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones were expected to complete their
circumnavigation of the globe and planned to land in Egypt.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A3)
1999 Mar 19, In Colombia
Marxist rebels were reported to have abducted over 90 people in 3
provinces. 25 people were taken in Hormiga, over 50 were taken in
northern Cesar province, and 19 were seized in Cauca.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A11)
1999 Mar 19, In Russia at least
56 people were killed in an explosion in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia,
at an outdoor bazaar. This was 2 days following a blast in
neighboring Ingushetia that destroyed 2 homes. The Federal Security
Service put the death toll at 63 with 104 injured.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A3)(SFEC, 3/21/99, p.A20)(AP,
3/19/02)
1999 Mar 19, Saudi Arabia
permitted some 18,000 destitute Iraqis to cross the border for the
annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A8)
2000 Mar 19, President Clinton
arrived near New Delhi on the first presidential visit to India in
22 years as he opened a six-day trip through troubled South Asia.
(WSJ, 3/20/00, p.A1)(AP, 3/19/01)
2000 Mar 19, In Nevada 5 youths
on a juvenile offenders cleanup crew were killed by a speeding
minivan on I-15 in Las Vegas.
(SFC, 3/20/00, p.A11)
2000 Mar 19, A mob stormed
Nationalist Party's headquarters in Taiwan, forcing Taiwanese
President Lee Teng-hui to quit as party leader.
(AP, 3/19/03)
2001 Mar 19, Pres. Bush met
with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori. They did not come up with
any specific measures to revive economic growth.
(SFC, 3/20/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 18, An accident that
injured 17 shut down several heavily traveled highways around
Washington DC for several hours. The Virginia crash involved a
Quebec tour bus, a truck and two cars.
(AP, 3/19/02)
2001 Mar 19, California
officials declared a power alert, ordering the first of two days of
rolling blackouts, alternative power generators shut down due to
nonpayment by PG&E and Southern California Edison.
(SFC, 3/20/01, p.A1)(AP, 3/19/02)
2001 Mar 19, In Guyana
elections were held for the presidency and 65-seat National
Assembly. Bharrat Jagdeo (37) and the People’s Progressive Party won
a 3rd consecutive term against Desmond Hoyte (72) of the People’s
National Congress. Some black voters raised accusation of fraud.
(SFC, 3/19/01, p.A8)(SFC, 3/20/01, p.A11)(SFC,
3/24/01, p.A12)
2001 Mar 19, In Japan Masaru
Hayami, the Gov. of the Bank of Japan, said that a key interest rate
will fall virtually to zero and stay there until consumer prices
stop falling.
(WSJ, 3/20/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 19, Nato asked for
additional troops in Kosovo to help stop Albanian guerrillas from
crossing into Macedonia. Macedonia moved tanks and troops into
Tetovo.
(SFC, 3/20/01, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/20/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 19, In Turkey the
Cabinet approved a detailed program of political, economic and legal
reforms to secure entry to the EU.
(SFC, 3/20/01, p.A12)
2001 Mar 19, A Zimbabwe
delegation wrapped up 2 days of meetings with South Africa to find
ways to restore the economy. South Africa feared a flood of
Zimbabweans due to fuel and food shortages there.
(WSJ, 3/21/00, p.A1)
2002 Mar 19, US intelligence
analyst Ana Belen Montes pleaded guilty in federal court to spying
for Cuba; she was later sentenced to 25 years in prison.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2002 Mar 19, Former
Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega's appeal for parole was turned
down, despite his attorney's argument that he should be released
because of his longtime service to the U.S. government while in
power and as a paid CIA source.
(AP, 3/19/03)
2002 Mar 19, Carly Fiorina,
head of Hewlett-Packard, claimed victory by a slim margin in a proxy
battle to buy Compaq Computer. Some $180 million was
reportedly spent in the effort to win votes.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A1,21)
2002 Mar 19, Scientists
reported that the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica, covering some
1,250 square miles, had collapsed into small icebergs over the last
35 days.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 19, A 5th body was
found in New Melones Lake near Sonora, Ca. Meyer Muscatel (58), a
Sherman Oaks contractor, was found last October. A Russian crime
gang was suspected. Alexander Umansky (35) and George Safiev (37),
found Mar 17, were suspected to be among the 4 dead. The body of
Nick Kharabadze (29), was found Mar 18. 4 men were already indicted
in connection with their disappearance: Iouri Mikhel, Jurijus
Kadamovas, Petro Krylov and Ainar Altmanis. Altmanis, a Latvian
citizen, later admitted orchestrating the plot to kidnap wealthy
businessmen. In 2004 Aleksejus Markovskis pleaded guilty to
conspiracy and was later sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 2007
Jurijus Kadamovas and Iouri Mikhel were convicted of orchestrating
the kidnapping-for-ransom scheme and sentenced to death. Petro
Krylov was convicted April 26 and sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 3/21/02, p.A3)(SFC, 3/22/02, p.A3)(SFC,
6/7/02, p.A9)(SFC, 1/18/07, p.B10)(SFC, 4/27/07, p.B5)(SFC, 1/18/08,
p.B4)
2002 Mar 19, In Britain the
House of Lords voted for restrictions on hunting with hounds
(366-59).
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A10)
2002 Mar 19, In Burundi
fighting between the Tutsi dominated army and Hutu rebels forced
over 16,000 people from their homes over the last 2 days.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A10)
2002 Mar 19, Marco Biagi
(b.1950), Italian jurist, was assassinated due to his role as an
economic advisor to Roberto Maroni, a minister in Silvio
Berlusconi's government. Biagi had devised legislation for a
temporary labor contract.
(Econ, 6/11/11, SR
p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Biagi_%28jurist%29)
2002 Mar 19, Zimbabwe was
suspended by the 54-nation Commonwealth for one year as punishment
for Pres. Mugabe’s conduct during the elections.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A11)
2003 Mar 19, President Bush
ordered the start of war against Iraq. Because of the time
difference, it was early March 20 in Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom
began with a few US targeted strikes in Baghdad against Saddam
Hussein, targeting him personally with a barrage of cruise missiles
and bombs as a prelude to invasion. Iraq responded hours later,
firing missiles toward American troops positioned just across its
border with Kuwait. The codename for the invasion of Iraq was Cobra
II. In 2006 Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor authored “Cobra II:
The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.
(SSFC, 3/30/03, p.W12)(AP, 3/19/04)(Econ, 4/8/06,
p.82)
2003 Mar 19, Tobacco farmer
Dwight Ware Watson, who'd claimed to be carrying bombs in a tractor
and trailer that he'd driven into a pond on Washington's National
Mall, surrendered after disrupting traffic for two days; there were
no explosives.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2003 Mar 19, Holmes Rolston III
(70), philosopher, clergyman and scientist, was awarded the
Templeton Prize for his work on faith-based environmental ethics.
(SFC, 3/20/03, p.A11)
2003 Mar 19, The SEC filed a
civil suit claiming that HealthSouth Corp. and its chairman Richard
M. Scrushy had committed massive accounting fraud to overstate
earnings by some $1.4 billion since 1999. Weston Smith, the former
finance chief, later pleaded guilty to 4 charges. HealthSouth
fired Scrushy as chairman and CEO. He was indicted in November.
(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R8)(WSJ,
6/29/05, p.A8)
2003 Mar 19, A Cuban airliner
was hijacked to Key West. 6 hijackers took control of the plane
without telling the 25 passengers and six crew members about their
asylum plans. The six were later convicted of federal hijacking
charges.
(SFC, 3/20/03, p.A15)(AP, 3/19/04)
2003 Mar 19, Mudslides in a
city in Colombia's mountainous coffee-growing region left at least
11 people dead and destroyed dozens of houses.
(AP, 3/20/03)
2003 Mar 19, In northeastern
Congo 22 people were hacked to death.
(AP, 3/21/03)
2003 Mar 19, Doctors in Hong
Kong reportedly identified the deadly pneumonia virus as belonging
to the paramyxoviridae family. The severe acute respiratory illness
(SARS) had killed at least 11 people and left hundreds ill. The
outbreak is believed to have began in southern China in November.
Later reports held that it could be a coronavirus, part of a group
that cause the common cold. Many people treated with corticosteroids
later developed an irreversible bone disease called avascular
necrosis. By July 12, 2003, SARS killed 812 people worldwide.
(SFC, 3/15/03, p.A8)(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A4)(WSJ,
4/3/03, p.B1)(WSJ, 12/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 19, It was reported
that Iraq had some 10 million land mines.
(WSJ, 3/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 19, Boatloads of
Nigerian troops headed into the oil-rich Niger Delta on to put down
days of ethnic violence that has left dozens dead and disrupted
multinational oil operations.
(AP, 3/20/03)(SFC, 3/21/03, p.A9)
2003 Mar 19, EU officials found
electronic bugs in a building in Brussels where a summit was set to
open the next day. Belgian police suspected the US.
(WSJ, 3/20/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 19, In Palestine
Mahmoud Abbas accepted the new post of prime minister.
(SFC, 3/20/03, p.A13)
2003 Mar 19, Serbian lawmakers
forced 35 judges into retirement for failing to prosecute underworld
bosses.
(SFC, 3/20/03, p.A15)
2003 Mar 19, PM Tayyip Erdogan
said Turkey was preparing to open its airspace to US warplanes but
would not allow them access to airbases.
(AP, 3/19/03)
2004 Mar 19, President Bush, on
the first anniversary of the Iraq war, urged unity in the war
against terrorism.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2004 Mar 19, The US Justice
Dept. issued a draft opinion that authorized the agency to transfer
detainees out of Iraq for interrogation.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 19, The Army dropped
all charges against Capt. James Yee, a military chaplain at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who had been accused of mishandling classified
information.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2004 Mar 19, Scientists
reported that Earth may be in the middle its 6th big extinction
event, which began some 50,000 years ago. A recent survey indicated
population extinctions in all the main ecosystems of Britain.
(SFC, 3/19/04, p.A5)
2004 Mar 19, Harrison McCain
(76), a New Brunswick farm boy who became a world-scale
industrialist and the king of the frozen french fry, died in a
Boston hospital after a long period of failing health. McCain Foods
(f.1956) is the world's undisputed french fry king. The company,
which is still based in Florenceville, NB, produces one-third of the
planet's frozen french fries.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Mar 19, Edward G. Zubler
(79), GE research chemist and developer of the halogen lamp (1959),
died in Cleveland.
(SFC, 3/24/04, p.B7)
2004 Mar 19, In central
Afghanistan U.S. warplanes and ground forces killed five suspected
Taliban fighters at a compound in Uruzgan province.
(AP, 3/21/04)
2004 Mar 19, An Argentine
federal judge declared unconstitutional a presidential decree that
pardoned several high-ranking military officers accused of human
rights abuses during Argentina's Dirty War.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Mar 19, In southwest
Colombia soldiers searching for rebels accidentally ambushed a
police unit, killing seven police officers and four civilian
prisoners. Investigators looked into all possibilities, including
whether the platoon, the police unit, or both, were involved in
criminal activities
(AP, 3/21/04)(AP, 4/9/04)
2004 Mar 19, In southern
Finland a bus crashed into a truck in icy conditions, killing 24
people and injuring 15.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Mar 19, Georgia's
authorities lifted sanctions against the defiant Adzharia region,
carrying out a new agreement aimed to avert tensions.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Mar 19, In Iraq a reporter
for Arab satellite television station Al-Arabiya died from his
wounds after U.S. soldiers shot him hours earlier along with a
cameraman, who died at the scene.
(AP, 3/19/04)(SFC, 3/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 19, A Mexican police
raid led to the arrests of 42 immigration agents and other
government employees accused of running a network that smuggled
migrants into the US.
(AP, 3/23/04)(SFC, 3/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 19, In Nicaragua
police officers kicked down the door and led convicted former Pres.
Arnoldo Aleman (58) from house arrest at his ranch to a special cell
at a federal prison. Aleman was sentenced to 20 years in prison and
fined $10 million for illegally diverting some $100 million in
government funds to his party's election campaigns during his tenure
in office, which ended in January 2002.
(AP, 3/20/04)
2004 Mar 19, Thousands of
Pakistani army reinforcements joined a major offensive in tribal
border villages where al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri and
hundreds of other militants are believed surrounded.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Mar 19, A senior U.N.
official said that fighting in western Sudan has intensified in
recent weeks, accusing Arab militia of systematically attacking
villages and raping women.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Mar 19, Taiwan President
Chen Shui-bian and his vice president were shot and slightly wounded
in an assassination attempt as they rode in an open vehicle while
campaigning a day before an election.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Mar 19, Yemen security
forces captured the nation's most wanted man and another militant
who escaped from prison last year after being detained for the 2000
bombing of the USS Cole. Jamal Badawi and Fahd al-Quso were arrested
in the mountains of southern Abyan province.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2005 Mar 19, In Florida the
body of missing Jessica Lunsford (9) was found, a day after
officials said John Evander Couey (46), a registered sex offender,
confessed to kidnapping and killing the girl. [see Feb 23] On June
30, 2006, a judge ruled that John Couey's taped confession is
inadmissible in court and will not be heard by members of the jury.
The decision was based on the fact that, at the time the confession
was recorded, police had not granted Couey's repeated requests for
access to a lawyer. It was ruled that all evidence collected after
Couey's confession, including the recovery of Lunsford's body, will
be allowed in court, as will incriminating statements made by Couey
to investigators and a jail guard. The Jessica Lunsford Act was
named after her. It requires tighter restrictions on sex offenders
(such as wearing electronic tracking devices) and increases prison
sentences for some convicted sex offenders. Jessica's Law refers to
similar reform acts initiated by the states. In 2007 a jury decided
that Couey should get the death penalty. On Aug 24 a judge sentenced
Couey to death.
(AP,
3/19/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lunsford)(SFC,
8/25/07, p.A3)
2005 Mar 19, The 42-room
Redstone Castle in the mountains near Aspen was auctioned for $4
million, two years after the IRS seized the century-old mansion in a
fraud investigation. It was completed in 1902 by coal baron John
Cleveland Osgood, who died in the castle he named Cleveholm Manor.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, In Colorado an
explosion at the Electric Mountain Lodge, 230 miles SW of Denver,
left 3 children dead. Propane gas was suspected.
(SFC, 3/21/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 19, It was reported
that Agence France-Presse has sued Google Inc. for copyright
infringement, alleging that the Internet search engine included AFP
headlines, news summaries and photographs published without
permission.
(AFP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, John Z. DeLorean
(80), developer of the gull-winged sports car, died in Michigan. He
quit GM in 1973 to launch the DeLorean Motor Car Co. in Northern
Ireland. Eight years later, the DeLorean DMC-12 hit the streets.
8,900 cars were built.
(AP, 3/21/05)(SFC, 3/21/05, p.A2)
2005 Mar 19, A blast at the
Xishui Colliery in Shuozhou, in a major coal-mining area in Shanxi
province, left at least 60 miners dead.
(AP, 3/20/05)
2005 Mar 19, Congo soldiers
arrested Thomas Lubanga, a warlord accused of years of atrocities in
eastern Congo, where UN officials say rival militias have created
the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis.
(AP, 3/22/05)
2005 Mar 19, Tens of thousands
of anti-war protesters demonstrated across Europe to mark the second
anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, with 45,000 marching
from London's Hyde Park past the American Embassy.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, Hindu nationalists
set fire to a PepsiCo warehouse in western India to protest the US
denial of a visa for a top state official due to his role in
religious riots in 2002.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, In Iraq attackers
gunned down a police officer in Kirkuk, then bombed a funeral
procession carrying his corpse, killing three other policemen and
wounding two.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, In Iraq a
previously unknown militant group posted a video on the Internet on
purporting to show 2 Egyptian engineers kidnapped for allegedly
supporting US forces.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, Jordan, under
pressure from other Arab countries, accepted amendments to its
contentious proposal that was designed to revise Arab demands on
Israel in return for normal relations.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, In Pakistan’s
Baluchistan province a bomb exploded as minority Shiite Muslims
congregated at a shrine in a remote town, killing at least 39 people
and wounding 16.
(AFP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, In Qatar a suicide
car bomb attack on a Doha theater killed one Briton. The next day
Qatar blamed an Egyptian for the attack.
(AP, 3/20/05)
2005 Mar 19, Irina Slutskaya
won the gold medal for the second time at the World Figure Skating
Championships, held in Moscow; Sasha Cohen of the United States won
the silver medal for the second straight year.
(AP, 3/19/06)
2006 Mar 19, President Bush
marked the anniversary of the Iraq war by touting efforts to build
democracy there, without ever mentioning the word "war." Thousands
of anti-war protesters around the world demanded coalition troops
leave Iraq, but demonstrations in many countries were far smaller
than anticipated on the third anniversary of the US-led invasion.
(AP, 3/19/06)(AP, 3/19/07)
2006 Mar 19, Tennessee's
Candace Parker became the first woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament
game, jamming one-handed on a breakaway just 6:12 into the Lady
Vols' 102-54 victory against Army.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2006 Mar 19, Boxer Kevin Payne,
34, died one day after winning an eight-round welterweight bout in
Evansville, Ind.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2006 Mar 19, Australian Prime
Minister John Howard's Liberal Party was defeated at the weekend in
two state elections where Labor governments held on to power.
(AP, 3/19/06)
2006 Mar 19, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide car bomber was killed when he rammed his
vehicle into a coalition convoy.
(AP, 3/19/06)
2006 Mar 19, In Belarus exit
poll results gave hard-line incumbent Alexander Lukashenko an
overwhelming lead in the presidential vote. The opposition candidate
said he would not recognize the results. In 2009 Lukashenko said in
an interview that he took 93% of the vote in the polls, but had the
number reduced for "psychological" reasons.
(AP, 3/19/06)(AFP, 8/27/09)
2006 Mar 19, Newmont Mining
suspended exploration on Indonesia's Sumbawa Island after
unidentified people torched a camp for its workers. A local
subsidiary said the "unlawful and violent action" by around 50
people had forced it close the Elang camp and suspend exploration
activities in the area.
(AP, 3/20/06)
2006 Mar 19, In northwestern
Pakistan suspected Islamic militants detonated a roadside bomb near
a police van, killing seven people and wounding four others.
(AP, 3/19/06)
2006 Mar 19, In Seville, Spain,
Muslim and Jewish leaders met in a rare face-to-face forum and
appealed to their faithful not to view each other as enemies and
keep religion from being hijacked by extremists. The 4-day meeting,
called the Second World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace, was
sponsored by Hommes de Parole, a peace foundation based in Paris.
(AP, 3/19/06)
2007 Mar 19, President Bush
marked the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war with a
plea for patience to let his revised battle plan work; Congress' new
Democratic leaders retorted that no patience remained.
(AP, 3/19/08)
2007 Mar 19, US officials said
that the United States and North Korea have resolved a dispute over
$25 million in frozen North Korean funds, clearing the way for
progress in dismantling the North's nuclear programs.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 19, The Airbus A380
made its first flight to North America to show off the superjumbo to
potential US buyers and to the airports they hope will be flight
bases for the double-decker jet. As a test a day earlier, Frankfurt
air show organizers boarded more than 500 people onto the aircraft
using two jetways with an impressive time of less than 20 minutes.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 19, Calvert DeForest
(85), American TV character actor, died. He played Larry “Bud”
Melman on the “Late Night With David Letterman” in the 1980s.
(SFC, 3/21/07, p.B6)
2007 Mar 19, Luther Ingram
(69), rhythm-and-blues singer-songwriter, died.
(AP, 3/19/08)
2007 Mar 19, In Afghanistan
Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo (52), kidnapped on March 5,
was freed by the Taliban. His translator also was kidnapped and
officials hope he will be released. However, their driver, Sayed
Agha, was beheaded by the captors. The next day the Afghan
government admitted to exchanging 5 Taliban prisoners for the
Italian hostage as the UN and US led criticism of any negotiations
with "terrorists." A suicide car bomber attacked a three-vehicle US
Embassy convoy on a dangerous road in Kabul, killing an Afghan
teenager and wounding 5 security personnel.
(AP, 3/19/07)(AP, 3/20/07)(AFP, 3/22/07)
2007 Mar 19, In Azerbaijan 2
journalists accused of inciting religious hatred with an article
that criticized Islam went on trial, both accusing authorities of
waging a politically motivated prosecution.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 19, Brazil's airlines
were trying to make up for lengthy flight delays after its troubled
air traffic control system failed over the weekend.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 19, A Cambodian court
official said that Prince Norodom Ranariddh has been charged with
adultery for having a mistress while still being legally married to
his wife.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 19, Jim Flaherty,
Canada’s finance minister, announced the 10th successive annual
fiscal surplus.
(Econ, 3/24/07, p.44)
2007 Mar 19, Egypt's parliament
approved a controversial set of amendments to the constitution that
the opposition has denounced as a blow to democracy. Critics said
the amendments are meant to ease the succession of Pres. Mubarak’s
son.
(AP, 3/19/07)(WSJ, 3/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 19, In Guinea a bridge
collapsed under the weight of a lorry overloaded with passengers and
goods leaving 65 people dead.
(Reuters, 3/20/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 19, In Indonesia an
official announced that bird flu has killed a 21-year-old man,
taking the death toll in the nation worst hit by the disease to 66.
In Bali the Hindu majority marked the start of the Muslim year 1386
with the new year holiday called Nyepi, a day of silence, rest and
reflection.
(AP, 3/19/07)(Econ, 3/24/07, p.49)
2007 Mar 19, An explosion at a
Shiite mosque in Baghdad killed at least eight worshippers, the
fourth anniversary of the start of the war. About an hour later,
four blasts occurred in a 35-minute period in different areas of
Kirkuk killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 30. Khalaf
Ghargan, the mayor of the small Shiite village of Dijelah was
kidnapped on his way to work, and his bullet-riddled body was later
found along a highway. Gunmen also attacked a police checkpoint
northwest of Samarra killing one policeman and wounding three
others. Iraqi and US troops engaged in a major operation as part of
a security crackdown in the volatile Hurriyah neighborhood in
northern Baghdad. The state-run Iraqiya network said six civilians
were killed.
(AP, 3/19/07)(AP, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 19, The Macau Monetary
Authority said it would release 25 million dollars in North Korean
funds frozen at a bank under US financial sanctions.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 19, In northwestern
Pakistan pro-government tribesman and Uzbek militants clashed,
leaving about 30 dead in fighting that began after an Arab was found
shot to death in the area.
(AP, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 19, In northern
Lebanon rival Palestinian factions clashed in a refugee camp,
shaking the camp with explosions and wounding at least two gunmen.
(AP, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 19, Hamas militants
claimed responsibility for a shooting that wounded an Israeli
civilian near the border with the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 19, A methane gas
explosion ripped through a Siberian coal mine, killing 110 miners in
the country's worst mining disaster in more than a decade.
(WSJ, 3/21/07, p.A1)(AP, 3/19/08)
2007 Mar 19, In South Africa
waves reaching up to eight meters (26 feet) high pounded Durban,
smashing windows and flooding businesses.
(AFP, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 19, Sudan's Pres.
Bashir denied his government was involved in widespread human rights
abuses in Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed
in what the US says is the first genocide of this century. Amnesty
International said 2 Sudanese women have been sentenced to death by
stoning for adultery after a trial in which they had no lawyer and
which used Arabic, not their first language. Sadia Idriss Fadul was
sentenced on Feb 13 and Amouna Abdallah Daldoum on March 6 and their
sentences could be carried out at any time.
(Reuters, 3/19/07)(Reuters, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 19, In Thailand
suspected Muslim separatists shot and killed three Buddhist women
involved with a project for victims of the insurgency.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 19, A Yemen military
official said government forces seized a number of bases belonging
to Shiite rebels in northern Yemen following fighting that drove
some 2,500 civilians from their homes. Military officials said that
144 Yemeni troops have been killed since January.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2008 Mar 19, Antiwar protests
were held in cities across the US on the 5th anniversary of the war
in Iraq. In SF some 150 people were arrested.
(SFC, 3/20/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 19, In Oakland, Ca.,
police shot and killed Jose Luis Buenrostro (15) who allegedly aimed
a sawed-off shotgun at them.
(SFC, 3/20/08, p.B2)
2008 Mar 19, VISA opened for
trading on the NYSE after setting an IPO price of $44 per share, the
largest public offering in US history. Visa shares closed at $56.60.
(SFC, 3/19/08, p.C1)(SFC, 3/20/08, p.C1)
2008 Mar 19, Flooding forced
hundreds of people to flee their homes and closed scores of roads
across a wide swath of the US midsection as a huge storm system
poured as much as 10 inches of rain on the region. Flooding was
reported in parts of Arkansas, southern Illinois, southern Indiana,
Missouri and Kentucky with over a dozen deaths.
(AP, 3/19/08)(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 19, Colorado health
officials told residents of Alamosa to stop drinking and cooking
with tap water, after tap water samples tested positive for
salmonella contamination. By March 22 over 200 cases were reported.
(AP, 3/24/08)
2008 Mar 19, Osama bin Laden
accused Pope Benedict XVI of helping in a "new Crusade" against
Islam and warned of a "severe" reaction to European publications of
cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that insulted many Muslims.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 19, US forces
searching for bomb makers raided Afghan homes near the border with
Pakistan, exchanging gunfire with militants. Six people were killed,
including two children and a woman.
(AP, 3/19/08)
2008 Mar 19, Philip Jones
Griffiths (72), Welsh-born photojournalist, died. He spent years
traveling across Vietnam to capture the effects of the war on its
people.
(AP, 3/19/08)
2008 Mar 19, Paul Scofield
(b.1922), towering British stage actor, died. He won international
fame and an Academy Award for the film "A Man for All Seasons," in
which he played Sir Thomas More.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 19, Arthur C. Clarke
(b.1917), English-born science fiction writer, died in Sri Lanka.
Clarke wrote or collaborated on close to 100 books and had moved to
Sri Lanka in 1956. He had just finished his last novel, co-authored
with Frederik Pohl, titled “The Last Theorem.”
(AP, 3/19/08)(SFC, 3/19/08, p.A2)(SSFC, 8/10/08,
Books p.7)
2008 Mar 19, China called the
Dalai Lama a "wolf in monk's robes" and said it was locked in a
"life-and-death battle" with his supporters after protests marking
the biggest challenge to Chinese rule in Tibet in almost two
decades. Lhasa prosecutors announced the arrest of 24 suspects on
charges of endangering state security.
(AP, 3/19/08)(WSJ, 3/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 19, Conservationists
said Honore Mashagiro, a ranger in Congo's Virunga National Park,
has been arrested for allegedly masterminding the massacre last
summer of 10 endangered mountain gorillas.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 19, Chantal Sebire
(52), who suffered from a painful facial tumor and had drawn
headlines across France with her quest for doctor-assisted suicide,
was found dead. On Mar 17 a court in the city of Dijon rejected her
request to be allowed to receive a lethal dose of barbiturates under
a doctor's supervision.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 19, In Iraq a female
suicide bomber detonated an explosives vest packed with ball
bearings near a bus terminal northeast of Baghdad, killing at least
three people. US troops accidentally killed three Iraqi policemen
and wounded another, the latest in a series of friendly fire
incidents.
(AP, 3/19/08)
2008 Mar 19, In Japan Masaaki
Takahashi (61) of Tokyo was found fatally stabbed in his cab in
Yokosuka, about a half-mile from a US naval base. US and Japanese
authorities soon began searching for a US sailor for questioning in
the killing of the Japanese taxi driver. On April 2 US sailor
Olatunbosun Ugbogu (22), a Nigerian national, admitted during police
questioning that he had killed the man. On July 30, 2009, Ugbogu was
sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 3/21/08)(AFP, 4/2/08)(AP, 7/30/09)
2008 Mar 19, Kosovo
independence was recognized by Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary.
(WSJ, 3/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 19, Kuwait’s ruled
dissolved Parliament and set elections for May 17 after a political
standoff delayed reforms.
(WSJ, 3/20/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 19, In southern Nepal
masked gunmen shot and killed Kamal Prasad Adhikari, a candidate
from a small communist party contesting upcoming elections.
(AP, 3/19/08)
2008 Mar 19, Legislators
elected Pakistan's first female speaker of parliament, seating
Fehmida Mirza, a follower and lookalike of assassinated former PM
Benazir Bhutto.
(AP, 3/19/08)
2008 Mar 19, In the Russian
region of Chechnya 9 people were been killed in an hour-long clash
between police and unidentified gunmen.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 19, Uganda said that
Lord's Resistance Army rebel leader Joseph Kony has left his base in
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and moved to the Central
African Republic.
(AP, 3/19/08)
2009 Mar 19, Pres. Obama
appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and captured some 11.2%
of TV households in 56 US markets.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.A4)
2009 Mar 19, A report issued by
the US Interior Department said one-third of the nation's endangered
birds are in Hawaii. 31 Hawaiian bird species were listed as
endangered, more than anywhere else in the country. The native birds
were threatened by the destruction of their habitats by invasive
plant species and feral animals like pigs, goats and sheep, habitat
loss and insect born diseases. The report also said energy
production of all types — wind, ethanol and mountaintop coal mining
— was contributing to steep drops in bird populations.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 19, In New York Hank
Morris, a political advisor, and David J. Loglisci were indicted on
allegations of extracting improper fees in exchange for investments
from New York state’s pension fund.
(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.C1)(http://tinyurl.com/crt5kx)
2009 Mar 19, In NYC Henry
Morris (55), political adviser to former New York comptroller Alan
Hevesi, and David J. Loglisci (38), former New York Deputy
Comptroller, were arrested on charged in a 123-count indictment that
included money laundering, corruption and bribery charges. Some $30
million was allegedly paid to Mr. Morris in a pay-to-play scheme.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.C1)
2009 Mar 19, Josias Kumpf (83),
a former Nazi concentration-camp guard, was deported from Wisconsin
to Austria, despite objections from his lawyer that the guard was
simply present at the Trawniki Labor Camp in Poland but committed no
acts of persecution [see Nov 3, 1943].
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 19, South Dakota Gov.
Mike rounds signed legislation banning smoking from all indoor
public places.
(SFC, 3/20/09, p.A8)
2009 Mar 19, Howard Feldman
(67), an American psychiatrist, was arrested in the Philippines on
charges of tricking an upstate New York couple into wiring him
$70,000 for a bogus liver transplant, that the husband died waiting
for. Feldman has been on the run since 2001.
(SFC, 3/20/09, p.A8)
2009 Mar 19, Cisco Systems said
it will pay around $590 million to acquire Pure Digital Technology,
a maker of pocket sized camcorders.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.B5)
2009 Mar 19, In Afghanistan
Helmand MP Dad Mohammad Khan, a key anti-Taliban lawmaker, was
killed with four other men when a bomb tore through their vehicle.
Australia’s defense chief said a bomb disposal expert was killed
trying to defuse a device in Afghanistan, announcing the country's
10th combat death there.
(AFP, 3/19/09)(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 19, Al-Qaida's chief
Osama bin Laden urged Somali militants to overthrow the country's
new president in a new Web audiotape, trying to torpedo a new push
for peace in a lawless African nation where many fear al-Qaida is
gaining a foothold.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 19, Brazil's Supreme
Court sided with Amazonian Indians in a land dispute that some have
called critical for determining the future of the rainforest that
sprawls the size of Western Europe. The court ruling upheld the
Raposa Serra do Sol reservation for 18,000 Indians who lay claim to
their ancestral land, despite a handful of large-scale farmers who
also occupy the territory in the northernmost reaches of Amazon
jungle bordering Venezuela.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 19, In Quito, Ecuador,
a small army plane crashed into an apartment building, killing seven
people and sending a fireball into the evening sky. The dead
included 3 soldiers, the pilot’s wife and son and 2 people on the
ground.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 19, In France hundreds
of thousands of people began protests expected to draw at least a
million demonstrators to the streets to denounce President Nicolas
Sarkozy's handling of the economic crisis.
(Reuters, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 19, A US airstrike on
a militant hideout south of Balad Ruz in Diyala province killed at
least 11 insurgents. A US soldier died from non-combat causes.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 19, Former Israeli
President Moshe Katsav was indicted on rape and other sexual offense
charges, after calling off a plea deal that would have allowed him
to escape jail time.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 19, Southern African
nations declared they will not recognize Madagascar's new leader, an
army-backed politician who ousted an elected president. The US said
it would reconsider aid to the island nation.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 19, In Mexico new
tariffs on 89 products took effect in retaliation for a US decision
last week to cancel a cross-border program that gave Mexican
truckers access to their northern neighbor's highways.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 19, In Pakistan
suspected Taliban militants fired a rocket that killed 8 people on a
supply rout to Afghanistan.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.A1)
2009 Mar 19, Pirates off the
coast of Somalia seized the St. Vincent-flagged Titan, with 24 crew
members on board, including a Greek captain and 3 Greek crew
members. A Turkish warship foiled a pirate attack on a Turkish
commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 19, A Thailand army
spokesman said a roadside bomb had killed four paramilitary rangers
on an intelligence-gathering operation in southern Pattani province.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2010 Mar 19, A panel of the US
Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Reserve must
reveal documents identifying financial companies that received Fed
loans to survive the financial crisis.
(SFC, 3/20/10, p.D2)
2010 Mar 19, In Las Vegas a
fire at the private Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary killed over 250
exotic birds and a dog.
(SFC, 3/20/10, p.A5)
2010 Mar 19, Australia's
Hollywood A-listers, prime minister and top tycoons launched a new
campaign for Aboriginal jobs with a spectacular light show at
Sydney's iconic Opera House.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, In London
last-ditch talks aimed at preventing a strike by some 12,000 British
Airways (BA) cabin crew collapsed, leaving thousands of passengers
facing chaos within hours.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, Cambodia’s foreign
ministry said Cambodia has temporarily suspended marriages between
South Koreans and its citizens to curb human trafficking. The latest
ban came after the March 3 conviction of a Cambodian matchmaker who
arranged marriages between Korean men and 25 Cambodian brides.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, In Colombia
Clodomiro Castilla (50), a reporter and announcer at La Voz de
Monteria radio, was gunned down on his front porch. Castilla, a
father of four, had reported on far-right drug-funded militias known
as paramilitaries and their friendly ties to the area's business
elite.
(AP, 3/21/10)
2010 Mar 19, The US condemned
Ethiopia's blocking of Voice of America broadcasts, calling the
country's accusations of the US radio service "baseless and
inflammatory."
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, In Haiti one of
the heaviest rainfalls since the Jan. 12 earthquake swamped homeless
camps, sweeping screaming residents into eddies of water,
overflowing latrines and panicking thousands.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, In Iraq a roadside
bomb and a gun attack killed four people and wounded seven others in
Baghdad.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, Japan said it will
boost its aid to quake-hit Haiti to 100 million dollars as the
country's foreign minister prepared to visit the impoverished
Caribbean nation this weekend.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, In Mexico a
shootout between soldiers and gunmen in the northern city of
Monterrey killed two bystanders, graduate students studying
engineering at Monterrey Tech University. Suspected gang members
also blocked roads in the city for the second day, in a bold attempt
to impede security patrols. The navy announced the capture of
Alberto "Bad Boy" Mendoza, suspected of being a chief cartel
operator linked to the Beltran Leyva gang and others in Monterrey.
(AP, 3/20/10)(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Mar 19, It was reported
that February storms in Michoacan, Mexico, killed some 50-60% of the
wintering monarch butterfly population.
(SFC, 3/19/10, p.A10)
2010 Mar 19, A Nigerian armed
rebel group claimed to have blown up an oil facility in the restive
oil-producing Niger Delta region and threatened to step up attacks
in coming days.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, Palestinians in
east Jerusalem and the West Bank lobbed rocks at Israeli security
forces, set garbage bins and tires ablaze and torched an Israeli
flag in a new outbreak of violence over contested Jerusalem building
plans and unsubstantiated rumors about threats to the city's holiest
shrine. Israeli aircraft fired five missiles at Gaza's defunct
airport and nearby border tunnels, wounding at least 12 people.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, A Krakow court
ruled that allegations in the 2009 biography "Lech Walesa: The Idea
and History" by Pawel Zyzak that Walesa served as a communist
informant were slanderous. A 2000 special court already cleared
Walesa of collaboration allegations.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, Polish authorities
said a herd of some 300 bison in southeastern Poland is at risk from
tuberculosis after one recently died of the disease.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, In Russia the
international Quartet for the Middle East met in Moscow in a bid to
revive the peace process despite tensions after Israel's
announcement of new settler homes and a deadly rocket attack.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, In Somalia at
least three masked men armed with pistols shot Sheikh Daud Ali
Hasan, a senior commander of the insurgent group al-Shabab, several
times in the head and chest as he was coming out of a mosque in
Kismayo.
(AP, 3/20/10)
2010 Mar 19, Spanish ministers
approved a wide-ranging 10-year reform plan designed to wean the
economy off its dependence on construction and create broader, more
sustainable growth as the country fights to climb out of recession.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, Thai
anti-government protesters announced plans to snarl up the capital
with a travelling rally in a bid to win support after rejecting a
conditional offer of talks by PM Abhisit Vejjajiva.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, Turkish
authorities indicted 33 people in an alleged secularist plot to
destabilize Turkey and overthrow the government. The suspects
included three retired or active-duty admirals and dozens of other
military officers.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, Venezuelan
prosecutors charged a government opponent with conspiracy and other
crimes after he said on a television program that the country has
become a haven for drug trafficking.
(AP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 19, Yemen's Pres. Ali
Abdullah Saleh declared the country's six-year war with northern
rebels over, saying the Shiite militants are living up to a
cease-fire agreement signed last month.
(AP, 3/20/10)
2011 Mar 19, President Barack
Obama landed in Brasilia, the highland capital of Brazil, for the
start of a three-country, five-day tour of Latin America to promote
greater economic ties and improved regional security.
(AP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, Pres. Obama
authorized limited military action against Libya. Operation Odyssey
Dawn became the US code name for the international military
operation in Libya enforcing United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1973. The Pentagon said 112 cruise missiles were launched
from US and UK ships and subs, hitting 20 targets.
(AP,
3/19/11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Odyssey_Dawn)
2011 Mar 19, The US ambassador
to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, resigned amid furor over a leaked
diplomatic cable in which he complained about inefficiency and
infighting among Mexican security forces in the campaign against
drug cartels.
(AP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 19, In Sandusky, Ohio,
police officer Andrew Dunn (30) died after exchanging gunshots with
bicyclist Kevin Randleman (50).
(SSFC, 3/20/11, p.A10)
2011 Mar 19, Bahrain's king
pledged to bring reforms and another demonstrator was confirmed to
have died in a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, as
international calls mounted for restraint.
(AFP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, British office
worker Sian O'Callaghan (22) went missing. She has not been seen
since leaving Suju nightclub in Swindon. Her mobile phone was active
in the Savernake Forest, near Malborough, just 34 minutes after she
left the nightclub.
(AP, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 19, Six Danish F-16
fighter jets landed at the US air base in Sigonella, Sicily, and a
half-dozen US aircraft arrived elsewhere as the military buildup
mounted in Italy for possible action against Libya.
(AP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, Egyptians lined up
by the hundreds to vote on constitutional amendments sponsored by
the ruling military. Voters overwhelmingly approved changes in the
constitution, opening the way for parliamentary and presidential
elections within months. Over 14 million voted yes versus some
4 million voting no. The turnout was about 41% of eligible voters.
(AP, 3/19/11)(AP, 3/21/11)(Econ, 3/26/11, p.55)
2011 Mar 19, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy said that French warplanes are already targeting
Gadhafi's forces. 22 participants at a summit in Paris "agreed to
put in place all the means necessary, in particular military" to
make Gadhafi respect a March 17 UN Security Council resolution to
protect civilian areas. Libyan government tanks and troops reached
the edges of Benghazi in fierce fighting that killed more than 120.
Gibreil Hewadi, a member of the rebel health committee, said the
dead included rebel fighters and civilians, among them women and
children.
(AP, 3/19/11)(AP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 19, In Germany Knut, a
four-year-old celebrity bear, died in front of hundreds of visitors,
taking keepers, animal experts and fans by surprise. Experts later
said he drowned after swelling of his brain caused him to collapse
and fall into his enclosure's pool.
(AP, 3/20/11)(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Mar 19, In northeastern
India a fire raged through a refugee camp in Nifingpara camp in
Tripura state, killing 21 people and injuring about 100. The camp
was home to some 5,000 families from the minority Bru ethnic group,
which in 1997 fled alleged persecution in neighboring Mizoram state.
(AP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, An Iranian plane
bound for Syria landed in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir
for a search of its cargo. The plane carried light weapons,
including automatic rifles, rocket launchers and mortars, which were
seized. The plane returned to Iran March 22 without the seized
cargo.
(AP, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 19, One of Japan's six
tsunami-crippled nuclear reactors appeared to stabilize but the
country suffered another blow after discovering traces of radiation
in food and water from near the stricken power plant. Crews fighting
to cool reactors managed to connect a power line. Japan halted sales
of food products near Fukushima because of contamination by a
radioactive element which can pose a short-term health risk. Japan's
police agency said 7,348 are dead and 10,947 are missing after last
week's earthquake and tsunami.
(AP, 3/19/11)(AFP, 3/19/11)(Reuters, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, Libya’s Moammar
Gadhafi took advantage of international indecision to attack the
heart of the 5-week-old uprising, sending troops, tanks and
warplanes to swarm the first city seized by the rebels. Fighting
raged around Benghazi, with air strikes, tank fire and shelling
rocking the Mediterranean city as a rebel warplane went down in
flames.
(AP, 3/19/11)(AFP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, Libyan officials
detained the crew of an Italian ship docked in Tripoli and prevented
the vessel from leaving port. The "Asso 22" tug of the Naples-based
shipping company Augusta Offshore SrL had 8 Italian, 2 Indian and a
Ukrainian crew member aboard. Agence France-Presse journalists Dave
Clark and Roberto Schmidt went missing while working in the eastern
Tobruk region.
(AP, 3/20/11)(AFP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 19, Libyan military
detained journalists Dave Clark (38), photographer Roberto Schmidt
(45), of AFP; and Joe Raedle (45), a photographer for Getty Images.
(AP, 3/22/11)
2011 Mar 19, In Libya Mohammed
Nabbous (b.1983), a information technologist, blogger,
businessperson and civilian journalist, was killed while reporting
on attempts by government forces to fight revolutionaries and attack
civilians in Benghazi. He had set up camera feeds to a video
streaming site.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Nabbous)(Econ, 1/14/12, p.58)
2011 Mar 19, In Mexico gunmen
opened fire in a bar in Acapulco killing 10 people.
(SSFC, 3/20/11, p.A4)
2011 Mar 19, In Mexico Arturo
Jose Iniguez (26), a Texas Cameron County Assistant District
Attorney, was found dead in Matamoros. Autopsy results later showed
he had killed himself by ingesting poison.
(Reuters, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 19, Palestinian
militants in Gaza fired 54 rockets into Israel, the heaviest barrage
in two years. A Hamas official was killed and four civilians were
wounded when Israel hit back with tank fire and air strikes. The
Israeli army opened fire on two men who were spotted moving
suspiciously toward a frontier "no-go" zone. The bodies of Salah Abu
Attwa and Imad Faraj, both 17, were found the next day.
(AP, 3/19/11)(AFP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 19, In the southern
Philippines suspected communist rebels stormed the main police
station in Panabo city, killing an officer and wounding four others
in a daring attack on a government center that was repulsed by
outnumbered police officers.
(AP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 19, In Senegal a
sit-in at Dakar's Place de l'Independance drew between 1,000 and
2,000 demonstrators, primarily young men.
(AP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, In Serbia
thousands of anti-government protesters rallied in the central town
of Cacak to demand the government call early elections over the deep
economic crisis.
(AP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, In Spain six
firefighters died when their helicopter crashed in a remote region
in the northeastern province of Aragon as they flew to try and put
out a wildfire. A seventh crew member survived the accident.
(AP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, In Yemen a brutal
crackdown failed to stop massive protests against the US-backed
president, who attacked a protest camp in the south's main city but
couldn't halt demonstrations there or in the capital.
(AP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, Zimbabwe police
banned a rally planned by PM Tsvangirai. Some of his supporters were
beaten as they approached the event site, plunging the country's
fragile coalition government deeper into crisis.
(AP, 3/19/11)
2012 Mar 19, Apple Corp. said
it will reinstate a dividend, absent since 1995, and begin a $10
billion share buyback program. Shares closed at $601.10.
(SFC, 3/20/12, p.D1)
2012 Mar 19, UPS under Scott
Davis announced that it would buy TNT Express, a Dutch company, for
$6.8 billion.
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.67)
2012 Mar 19, Australia’s
parliament passed a mining tax on profits from coal and iron ore.
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.41)
2012 Mar 19, Cambodia's
UN-backed war crimes court was rocked by the second resignation of
an international judge in recent months. Laurent Kasper-Ansermet of
Switzerland said in a statement his authority to investigate
possible third and fourth cases at the tribunal had been constantly
blocked by his Cambodian counterpart.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, In China Lobsang
Tsultrim (20), a Tibetan Buddhist monk, died in detention. He set
himself on fire on March 16 in Aba town, a flashpoint for such
protests.
(AFP, 3/20/12)
2012 Mar 19, An Egyptian
military court acquitted Mohammed al-Zawahiri, the brother of
Al-Qaeda's leader Ayman, overturning a death sentence in a new
trial. The trial also acquitted several other former militants
including Sayyed Imam Fadl, once the spiritual leader of the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad and mentor of Ayman al-Zawahiri.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, EU nations backed
a complete ban on removing shark’s fins before throwing them into
the sea to die. 75 million sharks were said to be killed annually
for their fins, with the EU being the biggest exporter.
(SFC, 3/20/12, p.A3)
2012 Mar 19, In France a gunman
burst into a Jewish school in Toulouse, shooting dead a teacher, his
two sons and another child in the third such deadly attack in a week
by a man on a motorbike. The next day police identified Mohamed
Merah (b.1988), a French petty criminal of Algerian origin, as the
killer and special forces had him cornered in a building. He had
spent time in Pakistan and Afghanistan and claimed to be an Al-Qaeda
operative.
(AP, 3/19/12)(AFP, 3/21/12)
2012 Mar 19, In southern India
police arrested nearly 200 activists who were protesting the start
of work at a long-stalled nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu's
Koodankulam region. Engineers resumed working the next day on one of
two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors after the local government gave
the green light for the resumption of the Russia-backed project.
(AFP, 3/20/12)
2012 Mar 19, In India G.D.
Agrawal (80), a former professor of environmental engineering who is
also known as Swami Gyan Swaroopanand, was hospitalized in Varanasi
during a hunger strike to protest against pollution and dams in the
holy Ganges river. He has refused food and water since March 8.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, Israeli passed a
new law that bans the showing overly thin models from local
advertising in an attempt to fight the spread of eating disorders.
(AP, 3/20/12)
2012 Mar 19, Myanmar released
the senior leader of the ethnic Karen National Union rebel group,
Mahn Nyein Maung, from Yangon's Insein prison under a presidential
pardon. He was arrested last year by Chinese authorities, who
deported him to Myanmar, where he was sentenced last week to 20
years in jail.
(AP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, In Norway an
avalanche killed 5 people and one person was dug out alive after
Swiss and French skiers were buried on Sorbmegaisa mountain.
(SFC, 3/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 19, Pakistani military
assaulted suspected militant hide outs outside Miranshah, but the
attack left three civilians dead and 15 wounded.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, In Somalia several
mortars hit houses as families slept in Mogadishu. A father, mother
and two children were killed in one house. Another round killed two
other civilians. An additional 12 people were wounded.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, Somalia's national
theatre reopened in the war-ravaged capital Mogadishu for the first
time in 20 years with the president voicing hope it would mark a
watershed in the long quest for peace.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, South African
officials said 135 endangered rhinoceros have been killed by
poachers so far this year, about a third of the number killed during
all of 2011.
(AP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, In Syria rare
gunbattles between security forces and rebels broke out in an
upscale Damascus neighborhood where embassies are located and senior
officials live. It was one of the most serious confrontations in the
tightly controlled capital since the anti-government uprising began
a year ago. At least 4 people were killed.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, A UN report said
Israeli settlers have taken over dozens of natural springs in the
West Bank, limiting or preventing Palestinian access to much-needed
water sources.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 19, Six Zimbabwean
activists, arrested a year ago at a meeting to discuss the Arab
Spring uprisings, were convicted of inciting public violence. They
faced up to 10 years in prison. They were among 45 activists
arrested in February 2011 while watching a video of the protests
that toppled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. On March 21 the court
decided not to imprison the 6 activists, and sentenced them instead
to 420 hours of community service and a fine of $500 each.
(AFP, 3/19/12)(SFC, 3/22/12, p.A2)
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