Today in History - March 25
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The Catholic Feast of the Annunciation.
(HFA, '96, p.26)
Feast of St. Dismas, the patron of undertakers and prisoners. Dismas was the repentant thief crucified with Christ.
(WSJ, 11/2/98, p.B1)
31CE Mar 25, The 1st Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus.
(MC, 3/25/02)
421 Mar 25, Venice was founded on a Friday at 12 PM.
(MC, 3/25/02)
708 Mar 25, Constantine began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1133 Mar 25, Henry II, King of England (1154-1189), was born.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1306 Mar 25, Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) was crowned king of Scotland as the successor to King John.
(HN, 7/11/01)(ON, 2/08, p.6)
1532 Mar 25, Pietro Pontio, composer, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1537 Mar 25, The 5th Lithuanian war with Russia (1534-1537) ended with a peace treaty. It lasted until the start of war with the Livonian Order (1562-1582).
(LHC, 3/25/03)
1584 Mar 25, Sir Walter Raleigh, English explorer, courtier, and writer, renewed Humphrey Gilbert's patent to explore North America. He went on to settle the Virginia colony on Roanoke Island, naming it after the virgin queen.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.23)(MC, 3/25/02)
1609 Mar 25, Henry Hudson embarked on an exploration for Dutch East India Co.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1634 Mar 25, English colonists sent by Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, arrived in present-day Maryland. Maryland was founded as a Catholic colony.
(HN, 3/24/98)(AP, 3/25/08)(AH, 4/07, p.30)
1655 Mar 25, Puritans jailed Governor Stone after a military victory over Catholic forces in the colony of Maryland.
(HN, 3/25/99)
1655 Mar 25, Christiaan Huygens, Dutch inventor and astronomer, discovered Titan, Saturn's largest satellite.
(www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/huyglens.html)
1668 Mar 25, The first horse race in America took place.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1741 Mar 25, The London Foundling Hospital opened in temporary accommodations in Hatton Garden following extensive efforts by former sea captain Thomas Coram (1668-1751).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundling_Hospital)
1752 Mar 25, The first issue of the Halifax Gazette appeared.
(CFA, '96, p.42)
1753 Mar 25, Voltaire left the court of Frederik II of Prussia.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1762 Mar 25, Francesco Giuseppi Pollini, composer, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1767 Mar 25, Joachim Murat (d.1815), Napoleon's brother in law, was born in Labastide-Murat. He was a French marshal and became king of Naples (1808-1815).
(WUD, 1994, p.941)(HN, 3/25/99)(HN, 3/25/99)
1774 Mar 25, English Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1776 Mar 25, The Continental Congress authorized a medal for General George Washington.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1782 Mar 25, Carolina [Maria A] Bonaparte, (countess Lipona), sister of Napoleon), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1797 Mar 25, John Winebrenner, U.S. clergyman who founded the Church of God, was born.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1801 Mar 25, Anthony Ziesenis (69), architect, sculptor (Camper), died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1807 Mar 25, William Wilberforce (1759-1833), evangelical member of Parliament, piloted a slave-trade abolition bill through the British House of Commons. This led to a labor problem in South Africa. In 1833 Britain abolished slavery throughout the British Empire when the Slavery Abolition Bill was read a third time
(HN, 3/24/98)(WSJ, 5/26/04, p.A8)(www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-wilberforce.htm)
1807 Mar 25, 1st railway passenger service began in England.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1811 Mar 25, A comet, dubbed the Great Comet of 1811, was discovered by Honoré Flaugergues at 2.7 AU from the sun in the now-defunct constellation of Argo Navis. In October 1811, at its brightest, it displayed an apparent magnitude of 0, with an easily visible coma.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Comet_of_1811)(http://koolkreations.wix.com/kalopins-legacy)
1812 Mar 25, (OS) Alexander Herzen (d.1870), Russian author, was born. "Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me how to live."
(AP, 8/15/99)(www.bookrags.com/biography/aleksandr-ivanovich-herzen/)
1813 Mar 25, The first U.S. flag flown in battle was on the frigate Essex in the Pacific.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1817 Mar 25, Tsar Alexander I recommended the formation of Society of Israeli Christians.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1821 Mar 25, Greece gained independence from Turkey (National Day). [see Mar 28]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1823 Mar 25, Coelestin Jungbauer (75), composer, died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1825 Mar 25, The first Brazilian Constitution was promulgated by Peter I and solemnly sworn in the Cathedral of the Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Brazil)
1839 Mar 25, William Bell Wait, educator of the blind, was born.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1843 Mar 25, Seventeen Texans, who picked black beans from a jar otherwise filled with white beans, were executed by a Mexican firing squad. After months of raiding, captivity and escapes in Northern Mexico, Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ordered the execution of one tenth of the 176 Texas freebooters of the Mier Expedition. The event was later depicted by artist Theodore Gentilz.
(HNPD, 3/27/00)
1843 Mar 25, England’s Thames Tunnel opened 18 years after construction began. It was completed under engineer Isambard Brunel, the son of Marc Brunel, who began the project in 1824.
(ON, 4/06, p.9)(www.bris.ac.uk/is/services/specialcollections/brunelchronology.html)
1856 Mar 25, A.E. Burnside patented the Burnside carbine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1857 Mar 25, Frederick Laggenheim took the 1st photo of a solar eclipse.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1863 Mar 25, US Sec. of War Edward Stanton awarded Corp. William Pittenger of the 2nd Ohio Regiment and 5 other Union soldiers the first US Medals of Honor. Pittenger had been a member of Andrews Raiders who stole the locomotive General in Georgia on April 12, 1862. Civilian spy James Andrews and 7 other were hanged in 1862 following a Confederate court martial.
(ON, 8/08, p.12)
1863 Mar 25, There was a skirmish at Brentwood, Tennessee.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1864 Mar 25, Battle of Paducah, KY (Forrest's raid).
(MC, 3/25/02)
1865 Mar 25, Battle of Mobile, AL (Spanish Fort, Fort Morgan, Fort Blakely).
(MC, 3/25/02)
1865 Mar 25, Battle of Bluff Spring, FL.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1865 Mar 25, Confederate forces captured Fort Stedman during the siege of Petersburg, Va., but were forced to withdraw by counterattacking Union troops.
(AP, 3/25/97)(HN, 3/24/01)
1867 Mar 25, Gutzon Borglum, sculptor of Mount Rushmore, was born.
(HN, 3/25/01)
1867 Mar 25, Arturo Toscanini (d.1957), Italian-US temperamental conductor (NBC), was born in Parma, Italy.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1872 Mar 25, Vito Pardo, Italian sculptor (Columbus monument in Argentina), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1877 Mar 25, Alphonse de Chateaubriand, French writer (Instantanes aux Pays-Bas), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1879 Mar 25, Japan invaded the kingdom of Liuqiu (Ryukyu) Islands, formerly a vassal of China. The Ruykyuan monarchy was abolished and the islands were annexed to create the Okinawa Prefecture. Prior to this Okinawa had paid tribute to both Japan and China. Okinawa became imperial Japan’s first colony.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, Par p.5)(NH, 9/01, p.56)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.55)
1880 Mar 25, Joseph Rummel (61), composer, died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1882 Mar 25, 1st demonstration of pancake making was in a NYC Dept store.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1894 Mar 25 Jacob S. Coxey began leading an "army" of unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., to demand help from the federal government. Coxey advocated, as a way to provide jobs and increase the amount of money in circulation, a public works program of road construction and local improvements to be financed by the issuance of $500 million in legal tender notes. Coxey's Army of unemployed disbanded when Coxey and two other leaders were arrested for trespassing on the White House lawn in 1894.
(AP, 3/23/97)(HNQ, 8/24/99)
1896 Mar 25, The 1st modern Olympic Games officially opened in Athens. Greece was on the old Julian calendar at this time. The revival was masterminded by Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France. [see Apr 6]
(Econ, 5/29/04, p.81)(www.forthnet.gr/olympics)
1902 Mar 25, Irving W. Colburn patented a sheet glass drawing machine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1905 Mar 25, Rebel battle flags that were captured during the war were returned to the South.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1906 Mar 25, Alan John Percivale Taylor (d.1990), English historian, was born. He pioneered the presentation of the history lecture on British television.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._P._Taylor)
1906 Mar 25, Jean Sablon, French crooner, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1908 Mar 25, Bridget D'Oyly Carte, British theater and hotel director, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1908 Mar 25, David Lean (d.1991), British film director (Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia), was born in Croydon, England.
(HN, 3/25/01)(AP, 3/25/08)
1911 Mar 25, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146 immigrant workers. 13 girls survived the fire that broke out on the top three floors of the 10-story New York’s Asch Building as the workday was ending. No one knows what caused the fire, but it spread quickly, fueled by the fabric scraps and sewing machine oil used in the manufacture women’s blouses. The three avenues of escape were almost immediately clogged with panicked workers, mostly young immigrant women. Then, to the horror of spectators seven stories below, the desperate women began to jump to their deaths. Appalled by the tragedy, the New York State legislature formed a commission whose findings led to the creation of new fire and building codes that were soon adopted in cities throughout America.
(HNPD, 3/25/00)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A8)(SFC, 2/24/99, p.C4)(AP, 3/23/08)
1913 Mar 25, The home of vaudeville, the Palace Theatre, opened in New York City starring Ed Wynn.
(AP, 3/24/98)(MC, 3/25/02)
1913 Mar 25, Great Dayton, Ohio, flood. [see Mar 25]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1914 Mar 25, Norman Borlaug (d.2009), later agricultural scientist and Nobel Prize winner (1970), was born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug)(WSJ, 9/5/06, p.D8)(SFC, 9/14/09, p.A7)
1914 Mar 25, Frederic Mistral, French poet (Nobel-1904), died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1915 Mar 25, The first submarine disaster occurred when a U.S. F-4 sank off the Hawaiian coast. 21 people were killed.
(HN, 3/24/98)(MC, 3/25/02)
1916 Mar 25, Ishi, the last Yahi Indian in California, died of tuberculosis at the Univ. of California Hospital. His body was cremated but his brain was removed and shipped to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. The documentary film "Ishi, the Last Yahi" was made by John Harrison Quinn (d.2000 at 59). In 2004 Orin Starn authored "Ishi's Brain: In search of the Last "Wild" Indian."
(SFC, 1/26/00, p.A24)(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.M1)(SSFC, 3/20/16, DB p.50)
1918 Mar 25, Howard Cosell, sportscaster (Monday Night Football), was born in Winston-Salem, NC.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Cosell)
1918 Mar 25, Claude Debussy (55), French composer, died in Paris. In 1962 Edward Lockspeiser authored “Debussy," a look at how the composer shaped the work of Symbolist writers.
(AP, 3/25/97)(WSJ, 3/1/08, p.W8)
1918 Mar 25, Belarus proclaimed independence from Russia. The Belarusian People's Republic lasted until 1919.
(LHC, 3/25/03)(AP, 3/25/18)
1919 Mar 25, Jeanne Cagney, actress (Lion is in the Streets, Quicksand), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1919 Mar 25, The Paris Peace Commission adopted a plan to protect nations from the influx of foreign labor.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1920 Mar 25, Howard Cosell (Cohen), was born. He came to be the most liked, and the most disliked, sports journalist across America.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1920 Mar 25, Greek Independence Day.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1921 Mar 25, The US Navy tug Conestoga sailed out the Golden Gate bound for Hawaii with a 56 man crew and was never heard from again. Its suspected wreckage was spotted near the Farallon Islands in 2009. In 2016 government scientists confirmed the find.
(SFC, 3/24/16, p.D1)
1921 Mar 25, Simone Signoret, (Casque d'Or, Room at the Top), was born in Wiesbaden, Germany.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1924 Mar 25, Greece was made a republic and King George II (1890-1947) was deposed in favor of a non-royal government. King George was king from 1922-1923 and from 1935-1947.
(HN, 3/24/98)(WUD, 1994, p.593)
1925 Mar 25, Flannery O'Connor (d.1964), novelist and short story writer, was born in Savannah, Georgia.
(www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-498)(WUD, 1994 p.997)
1928 Mar 25, James A. Lovell Jr, USN, astronaut (Gemini 7, 12, Apollo 8, 13), was born in Cleveland, Oh.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1931 Mar 25, In Alabama 9 young black men, arrested at Paint Rock after riding a freight train, were taken to Scottsboro. Victoria Price (21) and Ruby Bates (17), who had worked as prostitutes in Huntsville, were also found on the train dressed as boys. The 9 men were soon charged with raping the 2 white woman, while riding on the freight train.
(WSJ, 6/20/07, p.A17)(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_chron.html)
1931 Mar 25, Ida Wells-Barnett (b.1862), black journalist, died. In 1893 she investigated the Kentucky lynching of a black man accused of murdering 2 white girls. In 2008 Paula J. Giddings authored “Ida: A Sword among Lions."
(WSJ, 3/8/08, p.W8)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWwells.htm)
1931 Mar 25, Fifty people were killed in riots that broke out in India. Gandhi was one of many people assaulted.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1934 Mar 25, Gloria Steinem, political activist, editor, was born.
(HN, 3/25/01)
1935 Mar 25, Hitler declared that the Soviets endangered peace in Europe.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1936 Mar 25, Britain, the U.S. and France signed a naval accord in London.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1939 Mar 25, Billboard Magazine introduced the hillbilly (country) music chart.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1940 Mar 25, Anita Bryant, homophobe, singer (George Gobel Show), was born in Barnsdall, Okla.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1940 Mar 25, The U.S. agreed to give Britain and France access to all American warplanes.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1941 Mar 25, Carolina Paprika Mills in Dillon, SC, was incorporated.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1941 Mar 25, Yugoslavia joined the Axis powers.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1942 Mar 25, Aretha Franklin, American singer, the "Queen of Soul," was born in Memphis, Tenn.
(HN, 3/25/01)(SSFC, 6/30/02, Par p.30)
1942 Mar 25-26, The 1st 700 Jews from Polish Lvov-district reached concentration camp Belzec. The Germans began sending Jews to Auschwitz in Poland.
(HN, 3/25/98)(MC, 3/25/02)(SS, 3/26/02)
1943 Mar 25, Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore premiered on radio.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1944 Mar 25, RAF Sgt. Nickolas Alkemade survived a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet without a parachute. [see Mar 23]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1945 Mar 25, US 1st army broke out bridgehead near Remagen.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1947 Mar 25, Elton John, [Reginald Kenneth Dwight], English singer (Rocketman), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1947 Mar 25, A coal mine explosion in Centralia, Ill., claimed 111 lives.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1948 Mar 25, The Italians banned a compromise with Yugoslavia and demanded the return of Trieste.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1949 Mar 25, UC Pres. Robert Gordon Sproul proposed a faculty loyalty oath. The Univ. of Calif. Board of Regents later voted to require all employees to sign a loyalty oath.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F2)
1949 Mar 25, Hanns A. Rauter (54), German SS-commandant in Netherlands, was executed.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1949 Mar 25, Soviet occupiers of Lithuania began Operation “Priboj," a 2nd major deportation program (Mar 25-28).
(LHC, 3/25/03)
1952 Mar 25, The U.S., Britain, and France rejected the Soviet proposal for an armed, reunified, neutral Germany.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1953 Mar 25, The USS Missouri fired on targets at Kojo, North Korea, the last time her guns fire until the Persian Gulf War of 1992.
(HN, 3/25/99)
1954 Mar 25, RCA manufactured its first color TV set and began mass production. The 1953 RCA design for color TV was adopted as the national standard. The 12" screen TV was priced at $1000. Westinghouse had introduced a color model a few weeks earlier, but only 1 set was sold in the 1st month.
(HN, 3/24/98)(WSJ, 11/4/99, p.B6)(MC, 3/25/02)(SFC, 2/18/04, p.E1)
1954 Mar 25, At the Academy Awards, "From Here to Eternity" won eight Oscars, including best picture, best director (Fred Zinnemann), best supporting actor (Frank Sinatra) and best supporting actress (Donna Reed). Audrey Hepburn won best actress for "Roman Holiday" and William Holden best actor for "Stalag 17."
(AP, 3/25/04)
1955 Mar 25, E. Germany was granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1957 Mar 25, US Police and customs agents seized copies of “Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. In May Ferlinghetti was arrested along with City Lights manager Shigeyoshi Murao (d.1999) on obscenity charges. The defending attorneys were J.W. Ehrlich and Albert Bendich (1929-2015). By the Fall Judge Clayton Horn found the poem of "redeeming social importance." Shig later managed City Lights and authored the occasional "Shig's Review." In 2006 Bill Morgan and Nancy J. Peters edited “Howl On Trial: The Battle for Free Expression."
(SFEC, 11/28/99, BR p.10)(www.citylights.com/His/CLhowlhist.html)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M3)(SFC, 1/14/15, p.D3)
1957 Mar 25, The Treaties establishing the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community were signed in Rome by six member countries. The Treaty of Rome enabled people, goods, services and money to move unchecked throughout the Union. The Council of Ministers represents the governments of the members. Major decisions are made by the Council of Foreign Ministers. A 20-member Commission composed of appointed representatives of each member state serves as the administrative arm and members represent the Union. The Commission proposes and executes laws and policies. A European Parliament is composed of 626 members elected by the electorates of the member states and they sit in party groups. The Commission proposes, the Parliament advises, and the Council decides. The goal was to create a common market for all products but especially coal and steel.
(http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/eec.htm)(AP, 3/25/97)(HN, 3/24/98)
1957 Mar 25, The Euratom Treaty established the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom). The international organization was founded with the purpose of creating a specialist market for nuclear power in Europe, developing nuclear energy and distributing it to its member states while selling the surplus to non-member states.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Atomic_Energy_Community)
1958 Mar 25, Canada’s era of supersonic flight began, when pilot Jan Zurakowski took off from Malton Airport near Toronto in an Avro CF-105 Arrow for a 35-minute maiden flight. Less than a month later, Zurakowski flew the Arrow at Mach 1.5 at an altitude of 50,000 feet. In spite of the aircraft’s early promise, the Canadian government scrapped the project before the Arrow could be put into production.
(HNPD, 8/21/00)
1960 Mar 25, The 1st guided missile was launched from a nuclear powered sub, the Halibut.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1961 Mar 25, "Gypsy" closed at Broadway Theater in NYC after 702 performances.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1961 Mar 25, Elvis Presley (26) performed live on the USS Arizona, a fund raiser for a memorial. Col. Parker, Presley's manager, came up with the brilliant idea to have Elvis Presley give the benefit concert in the 4,000-seat Bloch Arena next to the entrance to Pearl Harbor.
(Internet)(MC, 3/25/02)
1961 Mar 25, Sputnik 10 carried a dog into Earth orbit; later recovered.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1962 Mar 25, French OAS-leader ex-general Jouhaud was arrested.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1962 Mar 25, Auguste Piccard (78), Swiss explorer, balloonist, died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1964 Mar 25, Egypt ended a state of siege (1952-64).
(MC, 3/25/02)
1965 Mar 25, The opera “Lizzie Borden" premiered in NYC. It was composed by Jack Beeson with a libretto by Kenward Elmslie. The initial scenario was written by Richard Plant (d.1997 at 87).
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.A20)
1965 Mar 25, Martin Luther King Jr. led a group of 25,000 to the state capital in Montgomery Ala. to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks. Civil Rights pressures increased in the US and blacks and whites marched in Selma and Montgomery.
(TMC, 1994, p.1965)(AP, 3/25/97)(HN, 3/24/98)
1965 Mar 25, Viola Liuzzo (b.1925), a white civil rights worker from Detroit, was shot and killed by the Ku Klux Klan on a road near Selma, Ala. The later trial of Collie Leroy Jenkins, one of 3 men charged in the killing, ended in a hung jury. Jenkins was also acquitted at a 2nd trial but was later convicted along with Eugene Thomas of civil rights violations in federal court and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Liuzzo)(SSFC, 7/20/08, p.B6)
1965 Mar 25, West German Bondsdag extended war crimes retribution.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1969 Mar 25, John and Yoko Ono staged a bed-in for peace in Amsterdam.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1969 Mar 25, Max Forrester Eastman (b.1883), US critic and essayist, died. His books included “Love and Revolution: My Journey Through an Epoch" (1964).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Eastman)
1970 Mar 25, The Concorde, an Anglo-French airplane, made its first supersonic flight.
(HN, 3/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde)
1971 Mar 25, Sheik Mujibur Rahman was arrested in Dhaka. Pakistani forces started Operation Searchlight, a systematic plan to eliminate any resistance. Thousands of people were killed in student dormitories and police barracks in Dhaka.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)
1972 Mar 25, In El Salvador a group of young army officers, led by Colonel Benjamin Mejia, launched a coup. Their immediate goal was the establishment of a "revolutionary junta." It seemed clear, however, that the officers favored the installation of Jose Duarte as president.
(http://countrystudies.us/el-salvador/11.htm)
1973 Mar 25, Edward Steichen (b.1879), pioneer US photographer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Steichen)
1975 Mar 25, Hue was lost and Da Nang was endangered. The U.S. ordered a refugee airlift to remove those in danger.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1975 Mar 25, In Maryland sisters Sheila (12) and Katharine Lyon (10) vanished from the Wheaton Plaza Mall. On July 15, 2015, authorities announced an indictment on first-degree felony murder charges in the disappearances. Lloyd Michael Welch Jr. (58) said he was with the girls when they were abducted but denied any role in their deaths. Welch told investigators that he left the mall with the two girls and that he saw his uncle sexually assaulting one of them at his home the next day. On Sep 12, 2017, Lloyd Michael Welch Jr. was sentenced to 48 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree felony murder. On September 21 Welch pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two girls in 1996.
(http://tinyurl.com/phqudb7)(SFC, 7/16/15, p.A5)(SFC, 9/13/17 p.A8)(SFC, 9/22/17 p.A5)
1975 Mar 25, King Faisal ibn Abd al-Aziz (68) of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a nephew with a history of mental illness. The nephew was beheaded the following June. In 2008 Joseph A. Kechichian authored “Faisal: Saudi Arabia’s King for All Seasons." In 2013 Alexei Vassiliev authored “King Faisal of Saudi Arabia: Personality, Faith and Times." (AP, 3/25/00)(Econ, 10/04/08, p.92)(Econ, 1/26/12, p.74)
1977 Mar 25, In Argentina political writer Rodolfo Walsh was murdered one day after writing the “Open Letter to the Military Junta" on the first anniversary of the military coup. He had reported on tortures, mass killings, and thousands of disappearances. In 2011 Alfredo Astiz (59), a former navy spy known as "the Angel of Death," was convicted in the kidnapping and disappearing of Rodolfo Walsh.
(http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3170)(AP, 10/26/11)
1977 Mar 25, Philippines’ President Marcos, on March 25, 1977, signed Presidential Proclamation No. 1628 forming an autonomous region in Southern Philippines.
(http://www.armm.gov.ph/armm-history/)
1979 Mar 25, In Northern Ireland Gerard Evans (24) disappeared after leaving a dance. His body was found in 2010. He had been abducted, executed and secretly buried by the IRA for passing information on IRA activities to the police.
(AP, 10/17/10)(www.tribune.ie/article/2009/jan/18/put-that-family-out-of-its-misery/)
1981 Mar 25, The US Embassy in San Salvador was damaged when gunmen attacked, firing rocket propelled grenades and machine guns.
(http://tinyurl.com/2s8s7h)
1982 Mar 25, The TV show “Cagney and Lacey" featured Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly as female police detectives. The show continued to 1988.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.44)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0083395/)
1985 Mar 25, 57th Academy Awards "Amadeus," F. Murray Abraham and Sally Field won.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/57th_Academy_Awards)
1985 Mar 25, British journalist Alec Collett (64) was abducted in Beirut as he covered Lebanon’s civil war. His remains were found in 2009 in the eastern Bekaa Valley. The following year a group belonging to Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Nidal said it killed him in retaliation for US air raids on Libya.
(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-3752719.html)(Reuters, 11/23/09)
1986 Mar 25, President Ronald Reagan ordered emergency aid for the Honduran army. U.S. helicopters took Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1986 Mar 25, US Supreme Court ruled that the Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes.
(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/goldman.html)
1987 Mar 25, The US Supreme Court ruled employers may sometimes favor women and members of minority groups over men and whites in hiring and promoting in order to achieve better balance in the work force.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1988 Mar 25, In New York City's so-called "preppie murder case," Robert E. Chambers Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. Chambers was convicted of the killing after what he described as a session of rough sex. Chambers received a sentence of five to 15 years in prison. He walked out of the Auburn Correctional Facility in Auburn, N.Y, Feb, 2003, after serving a full 15-year maximum sentence for the 1986 Central Park killing.
(AP, 3/24/08)
1988 Mar 25, Robert Joffrey (b.1930), founder of the Joffrey Ballet Company, died. In 1996 Sasha Anawalt wrote: "The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company."
(SFEC, 12/15/96, BR p.4)(www.answers.com/topic/joffrey-robert)
1989 Mar 25, In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska's chief environmental officer, Dennis Kelso, criticized cleanup efforts as too slow.
(AP, 3/25/99)
1990 Mar 25, Star Trek V won as worst picture in the 10th Golden Raspberry Awards.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Golden_Raspberry_Awards)
1990 Mar 25, Eighty-seven people, most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants, were killed when an arson fire raced through the illegal Happy Land Social Club in New York City. Julio Gonzalez, 36, was charged with arson and murder. Gonzalez was convicted in August 1991 and was sentenced to 174 twenty-five-year sentences (a total of 4,350 years), the longest sentence ever handed down in New York. He is eligible for parole in 2015.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Gonz%C3%A1lez_(arsonist))
1991 Mar 25, “Dances With Wolves" won seven Oscars, including best picture, at the 63rd annual Academy Awards. Kathy Bates won best actress for “Misery" and Jeremy Irons won best actor for his role in “Reversal of Fortune."
(AP, 3/25/01)
1991 Mar 25, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a rebellious conservative in the Roman Catholic Church, died in Martigny, Switzerland, at age 85.
(AP, 3/25/01)
1992 Mar 25, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi backed away from an offer to turn over two suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to the Arab League.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1992 Mar 25, Soviet cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who'd spent 10 months aboard the orbiting Mir space station, thereby missing the upheaval in his homeland, finally returned to Earth.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1993 Mar 25, The Senate approved an outline of President Clinton's plan to spark the economy and trim the budget deficit by a vote of 54-45.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1994 Mar 25, The US Senate approved a $1.51 trillion budget.
(AP, 3/25/04)
1994 Mar 25, American troops completed their withdrawal from Somalia following a largely unsuccessful fifteen-month mission. 20,000 U.N. troops were left behind to keep the peace and facilitate "nation building."
(AP, 3/25/99)
1995 Mar 25, Mike Tyson was released from the Indiana Youth Center after serving three years for the 1992 rape of Desiree Washington, a beauty pageant contestant.
(AP, 3/25/00)
1995 Mar 25, Two Americans who had strayed across the Kuwaiti border into Iraq were sentenced to eight years in prison. However, David Daliberti and William Barloon were released by Iraq the following July.
(AP, 3/25/00)
1996 Mar 25, "Braveheart" won Academy Awards for best picture and best director Mel Gibson; Nicolas Cage won best actor for "Leaving Las Vegas," Susan Sarandon best actress for "Dead Man Walking."
(AP, 3/25/97)
1996 Mar 25, The redesigned $100 bill went into circulation.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1996 Mar 25, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, accompanied by her daughter, Chelsea, visited U.S. troops in Bosnia.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1996 Mar 25, A group of 18 people including 3 children, who call themselves the Freeman, shut themselves up on a 960 acre farm near Jordan, Montana. Many of them are wanted on state and federal charges that include writing bad checks and threatening a federal judge. Ongoing negotiations have proved fruitless and the FBI ordered in 3 armored vehicles and a helicopter. The standoff by the anti-government Freemen lasted 81 days.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A3)(AP, 3/25/01)
1996 Mar 25, China halted its 18-day intimidating naval exercises around Taiwan led by the new guided-missile destroyer Harbin.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A3)
1996 Mar 25, France, Britain and the US signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons from the South Pacific.
(WSJ, 3/25/96, p.A-15)
1996 Mar 25, In Germany Jan Philipp Reemtsma was attacked, beaten and abducted as he entered his office in Hamburg. For 33 days he was chained to a cellar wall with a ransom set at 30 million marks ($17.6 million). In 1999 he published "In the Cellar," a chronicle of his captivity.
(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.W11)
1997 Mar 25, The Federal Reserve nudged interest rates higher for the first time in two years, hoping to stifle any threat of rising inflation.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1997 Mar 25, Georgia Gov. Zell Miller signed into law a ban on a controversial form of late-term abortion.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1997 Mar 25, Former President George Bush, 73, parachuted from a plane over the Arizona desert.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1997 Mar 25, In Montenegro Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic was given a vote of no confidence by his party of hard-line supporters of Serbian Pres. Milosevic.
(SFC, 3/26/97, p.C2)
1997 Mar 25, In the Netherlands an arson attack left a Turkish woman and 5 children dead in the Hague.
(SFC, 3/29/97, p.A9)
1998 Mar 25, Pres. Clinton visited Rwanda. Shaken by horror stories from the worst genocide since World War II, President Clinton grimly acknowledged during his Africa tour that "we did not act quickly enough" to stop the slaughter of up to 1 million Rwandans four years earlier.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)(AP, 3/25/99)
1998 Mar 25, The FCC netted $578.6 million at auction for licenses for new wireless technology.
(AP, 3/25/99)
1998 Mar 25, The executive body of the EU endorsed a proposal for 11 nations to be part of the new system. These included Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Finland, Ireland, Austria and Luxembourg.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 25, Russia promised to support a comprehensive arms embargo against Yugoslavia, but did not support new sanctions urged by the US.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 25, In Tajikistan Islamic rebels killed over 60 government troops and held another 60 hostage after a 2-day battle near the capital.
(WSJ, 3/26/98, p.A1)
1999 Mar 25, Alexei Yagudin won the men's title for the second time at the World Figure Skating Championships held in Helsinki, Finland.
(AP, 3/25/00)
1999 Mar 25, NATO forces struck Serbian air defenses and other sites for a second night as Serb forces stepped up their efforts to crush resistance in Kosovo. The village of Goden was burned by Serb forces and 174 residents were forced to leave. 20 men were kept back and presumed killed.
(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/4/99, p.A1,8)(AP, 3/25/00)
1999 Mar 25, Some 70 men were reported massacred at the village Bellacerk in Kosovo. In the village of Velika Krusa 14 ethnic Albanians were killed and burned by Serb police and paramilitaries. Selami Elshani played dead escaped to tell the story. Investigators in Bela Crkva later found the bodies of 12 people including 7 children, all shot in the back of the head, killed during the rampage. Serb paramilitaries along with the Serb army attacked the village of Krushe e Vogel, 90 km (55 miles) southwest of Pristina.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A8)(SFEC, 4/18/99, p.1,4)(AP, 4/26/18)
1999 Mar 25, In Nerodimlje, Kosovo, 8 male members of the Berisha family were executed in front of a wall by a Serb gunman.
(SFC, 6/21/99, p.A8)
1999 Mar 25, In Colombia an arrest warrant was issued for German Briceno, aka Grannobles, for the kidnapping and killing of 3 Americans. Briceno was the brother of Jorge Briceno, No. 2 leader of FARC.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C1)
1999 Mar 25, In Kosovo Serbian police officers took away Bajram Kelmendi, a human rights lawyer, and his 2 sons. Their bodies were found the next day.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.A17)
1999 Mar 25, In Haiti Pres. Preval appointed a new government by decree.
(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 25, In South Africa Wouter Basson, the former head of chemical and biological warfare dubbed "Doctor Death," was indicted on 64 charges that included murder, theft and fraud. Conspiracy charges for offenses in Namibia, Swaziland, Mozambique and Britain were later dismissed. 61 charges remained. Basson was acquitted of 46 counts of murder, fraud and drug dealing in 2002.
(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A16)(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A12)(SFC, 4/12/02, p.A8)
2000 Mar 25, Pres. Clinton arrived in Pakistan under heavy security, where he met with the new military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. Clinton urged the government to restore democracy, reduce its nuclear arsenal, fight terrorism and find a peaceful solution to the Kashmir crises with India.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A1)(AP, 3/25/01)
2000 Mar 25, In Belarus thousands of people demonstrated in Minsk against the rule of Pres. Lukashenko and clashed with police.
(SFC, 3/27/00, p.A13)
2000 Mar 25, In Colombia guerrilla attacks began in Antioquia state and 30 people were killed over the next 2 days.
(SFC, 3/28/00, p.A14)
2000 Mar 25, In Israel Pope John Paul II said Mass at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, where Catholics believe that archangel Gabriel told Mary that she would bear the son of God.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A19)(AP, 3/25/01)
2000 Mar 25, In Mozambique it was reported that the Messalo river burst its banks after a week of rain. The Limpopo was expected to flood again and the city of Chokwe was again threatened.
(SFC, 3/25/00, p.A8)
2000 Mar 25, In Northern Ireland David Trimble defeated Rev. Martin Smyth with 57% of the vote of the ruling Ulster Party Council. Henry MacDonald was the author of a new biography on Trimble.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A21)
2000 Mar 25, In South Africa a flashflood down the Storms River Gorge left 7 dead and 6 missing from a group of 24 whitewater enthusiasts.
(SFC, 3/27/00, p.A12)
2001 Mar 25, In the Academy Awards “Gladiator" won 5 Oscars including best picture and best actor for Russell Crowe. Julia Roberts won best actress for “Erin Brockovich." “Crouching Tiger" won for best foreign film and best music score. Steven Soderbergh won best director for “Traffic," which also featured Benicio Del Toro who won the best supporting actor. Marcia Gay Harden won best supporting actress for her role in “Pollock."
(SFC, 3/26/01, p.E5)
2001 Mar 25, In Macedonia the government sent infantry troops backed by tanks and helicopters into the hills above Tetovo to push back ethnic Albanian insurgents.
(SFC, 3/26/01, p.A8)
2001 Mar 25, In Saudi Arabia the Higher Committee for Scientific Research and Islamic Law claimed that Pokemon games and cards have “possessed the minds" of Saudi children.
(SFC, 3/27/01, p.F2)
2002 Mar 25, The Bush administration released thousands of documents on its energy task force just before a midnight deadline. They showed that Spencer Abraham, Sec. of Energy, had relied almost exclusively on industry representatives with no input from conservation or environmental groups.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A3)(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A3)
2002 Mar 25, The US pushed for Ariel Sharon to allow Yasser Arafat to attend an Arab summit in Beirut.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 25, the National Parks Conservation Association released its annual list of “America’s Ten Most Endangered National Parks."
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 25, A 5.8-6.1 earthquake in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan was centered 105 miles north of Kabul and early reports of deaths reached to 1,800. The city of Nahrin was reported destroyed. Deaths in Baghlan province were reduced to 600-800 with 100,000 left homeless.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A6)(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A9)(SFC, 3/30/02, p.A10)(AP, 6/22/02)(AP, 3/25/03)
2002 Mar 25, The Argentine peso fell to 3.4-3.8 to the dollar. Long lines formed outside banks and exchange houses in Buenos Aires.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.B3)(WSJ, 3/26/02, p.A14)
2002 Mar 25, It was reported that educational changes for younger students in Japan included every Saturday off, a 30% decrease in rote learning, and new integral study classes to foster thinking.
(WSJ, 3/25/02, p.A12)
2002 Mar 25, North and South Korea issued a joint statement with plans to resume dialogue to improve relations.
(SFC, 3/25/02, p.A8)
2002 Mar 25, In Madagascar opposition supporters thwarted an attempt by the military to seize control of Parliament.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A6)
2003 Mar 25, Celine Dion opened a three-year gig in the new $95 million Colosseum theater at Caesars Palace.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, Pres. Bush issued an order to delay the release of millions of historical documents for more than 3 years and to ease reclassification of data deemed of possible harm to national security.
(WSJ, 3/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 25, The Senate voted to slash President Bush's proposed $726 billion tax-cutting package in half, handing the president a defeat on the foundation of his plan to awaken the nation's slumbering economy.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2003 Mar 25, Former Waterbury, Conn., Mayor Philip Giordano was convicted by a federal jury of violating the civil rights of two preteen girls by sexually abusing them. Giordano was later sentenced to 37 years in federal prison.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2003 Mar 25, The US Navy brought in 2 specially trained bottle-nosed Atlantic dolphins to help ferret out mines in the approaches of the port of Umm Qasr.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, In the 7th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US aircraft dropped more than 2,000 precision-guided bombs on Iraq since the war's start. The "smart" bombs were produced for a relatively cheap $20,000 each. Sandstorms slowed coalition movement and air missions. US officials reported 150-200 Iraqi soldiers were killed near Najaf.
(AP, 3/25/03)(SSFC, 3/30/03, p.W12)(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.C2)
2003 Mar 25, Six satellite jamming devices, which Iraq was using to try to thwart American precision guided weapons, were destroyed in the last 2 nights.
(AP, 3/25/03)
2003 Mar 25, Some 150-500 Iraqi fighters were killed in fighting east of Najaf.
(AP, 3/25/03)(SFC, 3/26/03, p.W1)
2003 Mar 25, A light plane carrying 3 Americans crashed in southern Colombia while searching for 3 other Americans captured by rebels last month.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, Muhamed Sacirbegovic (46), former Bosnia ambassador to the US (1992-2000) was arrested in NYC. The Bosnian government has accused him of stealing more than $2.4 million, about $1.8 million from the nation's Investment Fund Ministry and more than $600,000 from the account of Bosnia's representation at the UN.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, Israeli troops killed 2 wanted Hamas militants. Sprayed bullets also killed a girl (10). A West Bank boy (14) throwing stones was shot dead.
(SFC, 3/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 25, Philippine troops killed a senior commander of the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group in a raid on his hideout.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, Saudi Arabia contacted the United States and Iraq with a peace proposal and was still awaiting a response.
(AP, 3/25/03)
2003 Mar 25, In Thailand police said they shot and killed 42 people during a 7-week-old crackdown on drugs that has drawn protest from human rights groups. Nearly 400 drug makers and more than 12,000 dealers were arrested.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, In Uganda a gang of ivory poachers killed six adult elephants and one calf in a "gruesome massacre" in Queen Elizabeth National Park. The poachers used acid to remove the tusks.
(AP, 4/4/03)
2004 Mar 25, The United States used its veto power to quash a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel for killing Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in a missile strike.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, Howard Dean endorsed John Kerry as the Democratic presidential candidate.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)
2004 Mar 25, British PM Tony Blair and Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi greeted each other with smiles and handshakes in a meeting that marked a major step back into the international mainstream for the North African state.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, A military truck drove out of a Russian military base in Chechnya after curfew and hit a mine planted outside to deter a rebel attack, killing 10 soldiers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, arriving home from North Korea, saying his three-day trip yielded an agreement from that country's reclusive leader to "push forward" toward a third round of talks on its nuclear program.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, In Colombia attackers shot and killed three retired police officers, at least two of whom were suspected of having links to drug traffickers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, The Olympic torch was lit in Ilida, Greece, and began its journey to herald the summer Olympiad, Aug 13-29. A 6-continent tour was planned using 2 747s named Zeus and Hera with a bill of $50 million.
(AP, 3/26/04)(WSJ, 7/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 25, An Indian court sentenced four Pakistanis to death for "waging war" against India after they were caught smuggling the deadly explosive RDX into the country in 1999.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, A U.S. soldier died in a bombing north of Baghdad amid warnings that attacks will likely increase with fewer than 100 days left before the coalition hands over sovereignty.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, Rebels and the main opposition party, Rally of Republicans, withdrew from Ivory Coast's power-sharing government after security forces in Abidjan fired on protesters demanding implementation of a peace deal. At least 25 people were killed.
(AP, 3/25/04)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A2)(SFC, 3/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 25, A Norwegian Academy awarded the Abel Prize in Mathematics to Isadore M. Singer of MIT and Sir Michael F. Atiyah of the Univ. of Edinburgh for discovering and proving the mathematical concept called the "index theorem."
(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A15)
2004 Mar 25, Armed Palestinians in wetsuits and flippers emerged from the Mediterranean and fired toward a beachfront Israeli settlement of Tel Katifa in Gaza. Two attackers were killed and a third was wounded and fled.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, In eastern Turkey a 5.1 earthquake centered at Cat left at least 9 people dead.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, US Congress passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, making it a separate offense to harm a fetus during violent federal crime.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2004 Mar 25, The US used its veto power to quash a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel for killing Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in a missile strike.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, Howard Dean endorsed John Kerry as the Democratic presidential candidate.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)
2004 Mar 25, British PM Tony Blair and Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi greeted each other with smiles and handshakes in a meeting that marked a major step back into the international mainstream for the North African state.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, A military truck drove out of a Russian military base in Chechnya after curfew and hit a mine planted outside to deter a rebel attack, killing 10 soldiers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, arriving home from North Korea, saying his three-day trip yielded an agreement from that country's reclusive leader to "push forward" toward a third round of talks on its nuclear program.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, In Colombia attackers shot and killed three retired police officers, at least two of whom were suspected of having links to drug traffickers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, The Olympic torch was lit in Ilida, Greece, and began its journey to herald the summer Olympiad, Aug 13-29. A 6-continent tour was planned using 2 747s named Zeus and Hera with a bill of $50 million.
(AP, 3/26/04)(WSJ, 7/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 25, An Indian court sentenced four Pakistanis to death for "waging war" against India after they were caught smuggling the deadly explosive RDX into the country in 1999.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, A U.S. soldier died in a bombing north of Baghdad amid warnings that attacks will likely increase with fewer than 100 days left before the coalition hands over sovereignty.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, Rebels and the main opposition party, Rally of Republicans, withdrew from Ivory Coast's power-sharing government after security forces in Abidjan fired on protesters demanding implementation of a peace deal. At least 25 people were killed.
(AP, 3/25/04)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A2)(SFC, 3/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 25, A Norwegian Academy awarded the Abel Prize in Mathematics to Isadore M. Singer of MIT and Sir Michael F. Atiyah of the Univ. of Edinburgh for discovering and proving the mathematical concept called the "index theorem."
(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A15)
2004 Mar 25, Armed Palestinians in wetsuits and flippers emerged from the Mediterranean and fired toward a beachfront Israeli settlement of Tel Katifa in Gaza. Two attackers were killed and a third was wounded and fled.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, In eastern Turkey a 5.1 earthquake centered at Cat left at least 9 people dead.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2005 Mar 25, Washington announced it would sell F-16 fighters to Pakistan.
(Reuters, 3/26/05)
2005 Mar 25, Losing still more legal appeals, Terri Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, said his severely brain-damaged daughter was "down to her last hours" as she entered her second week without the feeding tube that had sustained her life for 15 years.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2005 Mar 25, Paul Henning (93), producer of the TV series “The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962-1971) died in Burbank, Ca. Henning also wrote the show’s theme song.
(SFC, 3/26/05, p.B5)
2005 Mar 25, Some 1000 Belarusian demonstrators tried to rally outside the office of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko to demand his ouster, but they were beaten back by riot police swinging truncheons.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 25, Cambodia and Vietnam each confirmed an additional death from bird flu, raising Southeast Asia's death toll to 48.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 25, In Cairo, Egypt, the new $30 million, 74-acre Al-Azhar, was to be inaugurated under the auspices of Aga Khan.
(SFC, 3/12/05, p.F1)
2005 Mar 25, In Ghana sparks from a welder's torch ignited a raging fire on MV Polaris, a Greek tanker moored in Tema, killing three people and leaving 12 others feared dead.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 25, India announced that it has agreed with the United States to a series of steps to boost defense and energy ties.
(Reuters, 3/26/05)
2005 Mar 25, In Iraq Maj. Gen. Salman Muhammad, head of an Iraqi national guard division in Basra, was assassinated on route to a funeral. One of 2 sons was also killed.
(SFC, 3/26/05, p.A11)
2005 Mar 25, Japan’s world fair, Aichi Expo 2005, opened. It ended on Sep 25.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, p.F2)(http://www.expo2005.or.jp/en/)
2005 Mar 25, In Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev (55) was appointed acting president by parliament. The opposition scrambled to restore order in Bishkek, a capital described as "gone mad" with looting and vandalism, after driving President Askar Akayev from power.
(AP, 3/25/05)(SFC, 3/26/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 25, The UN Security Council voted to send 10,700 peacekeepers to Sudan to monitor a peace deal ending a 21-year-civil war.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 25, An ailing, silent Pope John Paul appeared to the faithful via video for Good Friday services at the Vatican.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Some 500,000 people rallied in Los Angeles to protest legislation in Congress that would tighten enforcement against undocumented immigrants and erect more walls along the southern border.
(SSFC, 3/26/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 25, In SF an evangelical Christian concert, dubbed “Battle Cry for a Generation," drew some 25,000 teens to AT&T Park.
(SSFC, 3/26/06, p.B1)
2006 Mar 25, Aderian Gaines (36) was shot and killed while hosting a party for teenagers in Berkeley, Ca. On March 29 SWAT teams arrested James Freeman (29) in Berkeley and Antonio Harris (18) in Oakland for the murder of Gaines. On Nov 27 Harris was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
(SFC, 3/30/06, p.B3)(SFC, 10/26/06, p.B3)(SFC, 11/28/06, p.B3)
2006 Mar 25, In Seattle, Wa., Aaron Kyle Huff (28) fatally shot 6 people at a party and then killed himself.
(SFC, 3/27/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 25, Buck Owens, US country singer, (76) died. The flashy rhinestone cowboy shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw."
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Richard Fleischer (b.1916), film director, died in Woodland Hills, Ca. His films included “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954) and “Conan the Destroyer" (1984). His 1993 memoir was titled "Just Tell Me When to Cry."
(http://tinyurl.com/mdyck)
2006 Mar 25, Afghan and US troops backed by American aircraft fought suspected Taliban in southern Afghanistan, leaving one US service member and seven militants dead.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Researchers said a prototype scramjet engine, that could ultimately lead to two-hour jet flights from Australia to Britain, was launched in the South Australian outback.
(AFP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, In Belarus riot police clashed with protesters in Minsk, forcing demonstrators back and hitting several with truncheons. Four explosions were heard, apparently percussion grenades set off by police.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Kimmie Meissner won the ladies' World Figure Skating Championships title in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2006 Mar 25, Canadian hunters started shooting and clubbing harp seal pups at the start of an annual hunt that is the focus of a tech-savvy protest by animal rights groups.
(Reuters, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, It was reported that Finnish 15-year-olds have the highest level of mathematical skills, scientific knowledge and reading literacy of any rich industrialized country.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.58)
2006 Mar 25, In Haiti 17 human skulls were found in a trash-strewn wooded lot outside Port-au-Prince, including at least some discovered inside a container that had been tossed from a passing car.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, In India PM Manmohan Singh and Iranian Vice-President Rahim Mashaee held talks in New Delhi during which they stressed the need to strengthen bilateral ties, particularly in the energy sector.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, It was reported that Indonesia was losing almost 2m hectares of forest a year, an area the size of Massachusetts or Wales. Timber stock continued to disappear at a rate of 3% a year and over the last 15 years has resulted in a loss of a third of the country’s stock.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.73)
2006 Mar 25, In Iraq more than 50 people were killed in violence, many in a gunbattle between Shiite militia forces and insurgents south of Baghdad. A bomb exploded in a booth for traffic police in north Baghdad, killing four civilians.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Morocco's King Mohammed VI wrapped up a 6-day visit to Western Sahara with talks on a plan to give the territory greater autonomy which will be submitted soon to the UN.
(AFP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Nigeria said it will send back to Liberia exiled ex-president and one-time warlord Charles Taylor, wanted for trial on war crimes by a UN-backed court.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Nigeria announced a two-day extension of a controversial census to allow for everyone in Africa's most populous nation to be counted despite delays caused by poor organization and violence.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, In Pakistan police said they had arrested 57 renegade tribesmen over the last 24 hours in connection with recent bomb and rocket attacks that have killed several people in southwestern Pakistan.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, In Somalia hundreds of heavily armed Islamic militiamen launched an offensive to try to capture a key port and airstrip on the northeastern outskirts of Mogadishu.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Suspected Tamil Tigers blew up their fishing boat to avoid capture by a navy patrol off the west coast of Sri Lanka, leaving six rebels dead and eight sailors missing.
(AP, 3/26/06)
2006 Mar 25, Taiwan’s annual 8-day Matsu festival began. Tradition says she originated in the 11th century in China's southern Fujian province, directly across from Taiwan. Once revered as a protector of mariners and a guarantor of bountiful harvests, she is now seen as an all-purpose purveyor of health, wealth and happiness.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Mar 25, Tens of thousands rallied in Bangkok, begging their king to intervene in a last-ditch effort to force PM Thaksin Shinawatra from office.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, The Vatican's foreign minister said that the "time is ripe" for the Holy See and Beijing to establish diplomatic relations, and confirmed it is ready to move its embassy from Taiwan.
(AP, 3/26/06)
2007 Mar 25, In Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, William Huck Sr. (60) was arrested on child sex charges and has since told authorities he molested 40 children over a 30-year period.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Mar 25, Lynn Merrick (b.1921), leading lady in American Western films, died in Florida. Her over 40 films included “Two Gun Sheriff" (1940) and “I Love Trouble" (1948).
(SFC, 4/3/07, p.D5)
2007 Mar 25, In Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants attacked a district office in Wardak province in a clash that left 15 militants and two officers dead. In Ghazni province Afghan police and soldiers launched a joint operation against militants in Andar district, which left five suspected Taliban dead and seven wounded.
(AP, 3/27/07)
2007 Mar 25, Armenia’s PM Andranik Margarian (55) died of heart failure. Serzh Sarkisian (Sargsyan), defense minister, was appointed prime minister.
(AP, 3/25/07)(www.eurasianet.org/armenia/parties/serzh.html)
2007 Mar 25, In Belarus security forces prevented up to 1,500 opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko from protesting in the same square where unprecedented rallies shook the former Soviet republic a year ago.
(AFP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, British PM Tony Blair said that the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran as they searched for smugglers off the Iraqi coast were not in Iranian waters and warned that Britain viewed their fate as a "fundamental" issue.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, European Union leaders celebrated half a century of unity by hailing the bloc's achievements in bolstering peace, democracy and prosperity, then pledged to end two years of deadlock over plans to radically overhaul the way the EU does business.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, In Germany Brigitte Mohnhaupt (57), a one-time leader Germany's Red Army Faction, was released after a quarter-century in prison for her involvement in some of the radical left-wing group's most notorious murders.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Incumbent Donald Tsang trounced his challenger in Hong Kong's first contested leadership race since it returned to Chinese rule, but the losing candidate said the vote was rigged and demanded greater democracy. Tsang beat pro-democracy lawmaker Alan Leong 649-123 in the vote by an election committee loaded with tycoons and other elites.
(AP, 3/25/07)(AP, 3/26/07)
2007 Mar 25, Iran announced it was partially suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog agency, citing what it called “illegal and bullying" Security Council sanctions imposed on the country for its refusal to stop enriching uranium.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2007 Mar 25, Suspected Shiite militants bombed a Sunni mosque in Haswa in apparent retaliation for a suicide attack the day before against a Shiite shrine in the same city that killed 11 people. Gunmen and Iraqi security forces clashed in a Sunni area in central Baghdad. At least two people were killed in fighting. At least 27 Iraqis were reported killed. 5 US soldiers were killed in roadside bombings.
(AP, 3/25/07)(SFC, 3/26/07, p.A5)
2007 Mar 25, A powerful earthquake struck central Japan, killing at least one person and injuring 170 others as it toppled buildings, triggered landslides and generated a small tsunami along the coast. The quake was followed throughout the day by aftershocks.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Citizens of Mauritania went to the polls for the second time this month, choosing between two men vying to usher Mauritania into civilian rule. Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi won Mauritania’s first free presidential election.
(AP, 3/25/07)(AP, 3/25/08)
2007 Mar 25, In Nigeria a diplomatic source said an Indian and a Lebanese man kidnapped in volatile southern Nigeria last week amid disputes over oil revenues have been released.
(AFP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Fire broke out in a Moscow striptease club in the early hours, killing 10 people.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, European leaders called for new international sanctions on Sudan over its treatment of civilians in Darfur, where the new UN humanitarian chief warned that humanitarian efforts were at risk of collapse.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, declaring the atmosphere "not fully ripe," shunned officials from the Islamic militant Hamas group. Ban Ki-Moon toured a Palestinian refugee camp and a stretch of Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank, and said the visit strengthened his resolve to work for Mideast peace.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, In Somalia one of the elders involved in negotiations said talks between Ethiopian military officials and elders of the dominant Hawiye clan in Mogadishu have reached an impasse, threatening a two-day truce.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, In northern Sri Lanka thousands of Tamil civilians were on the run as troops and Tiger rebels traded artillery fire across a de facto border, with both sides claiming heavy casualties.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said that his administration plans to create "collective property" as part of sweeping reforms toward socialism, and that officials would move to seize control of large ranches and redistribute lands deemed "idle."
(AP, 3/25/07)
2008 Mar 25, The US Supreme Court ruled that US ratification of certain treaties isn’t enforceable unless Congress takes additional steps.
(WSJ, 3/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 25, A widely watched index of US home prices fell 11.4 percent in January, its steepest drop since data for the indicator was first collected in 1987. The decline reported in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index means prices have been growing more slowly or dropping for 19 consecutive months.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, America’s baseball season opened in Japan as the Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics 6-5.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.83)
2008 Mar 25, In Florida part of a construction crane fell 30 floors at the site of a Miami condo tower, killing 2 workers and injuring 5.
(WSJ, 3/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 25, US researchers, who have identified all 1,116 unique proteins found in human saliva glands, said the discovery could usher in a wave of convenient, spit-based diagnostic tests that could be done without the need for a single drop of blood.
(Reuters, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, In Afghanistan gunmen have attacked a group of police along the border with Iran, killing four police and two civilians.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports, facing down angry farmers embroiled in a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-exporting nations. The tax on soybeans had been raised to 40%, up from 27% in 2007.
(AP, 3/26/08)(Econ, 3/29/08, p.49)
2008 Mar 25, In western Austria some 70 vehicles were involved in a pileup on an autobahn killing one person and injuring at least 37 others.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Belarus said it had uncovered a spy ring working for Washington, deepening a diplomatic and human rights row between the countries. Police beat demonstrators with truncheons and hauled them into waiting trucks as thousands of opposition protesters turned out in defiance of a government ban on the anniversary of the 1918 short-lived declaration of independence.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Director Koichiro Matsuura said that Visegrad’s Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic bridge, a 16th century stone bridge over the Drina River that links Bosnia and Serbia, has been added to UNESCO's World Heritage List. A ceremony in Sarajevo marked the event.
(AP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, Auctioneers said the painting "La Surprise" (~1718) by French artist Jean-Antoine Watteau, missing for 200 years, has been found in a British country house and could now sell for up to five million pounds.
(AFP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Troops from the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Comoros seized control of the rebel island of Anjouan after a seaborne assault backed by the African Union.
(Reuters, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, In eastern Guatemala at least nine people were killed and seven wounded in a shootout that is likely tied to drug traffickers. Guatemalan drug boss Juan Jose "Juancho" Leon was summoned by Mexican traffickers for what he was told was business. Instead, dozens of attackers ambushed his entourage with grenades and assault rifles, killing Leon and 10 others in a brazen demonstration of power.
(AP, 3/25/08)(AP, 7/21/09)
2008 Mar 25, In western Honduras a passenger bus plunged off a highway and rolled 500 yards down a hillside, killing 26 people and injuring at least 19.
(AP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, Officials said Indonesia plans to restrict access to pornographic and violent sites on the Internet after the country's parliament passed a new information bill.
(Reuters, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Iraqi forces clashed with Shiite militiamen in the southern oil port of Basra and least 22 people were killed. 5 suspected militants were killed in Basra while attempting to place a roadside bomb. Gunmen patrolled several Baghdad neighborhoods as followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a nationwide civil disobedience campaign to demand an end to the crackdown on their movement. 2 bombs exploded in central Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding eight others. A US-allied Sunni fighter was killed in a drive-by shooting northeast of the capital. In August it was reported that a secret deal with an Iran-backed militia kept British forces out of the battle, leaving US and Iraqi forces to fight alone. The Ministry of Defense denied any deal was struck and said it held back to ensure that the operation was seen as Iraqi-led. The effect was that 4,000 British soldiers were kept out of action for six days until a deal brokered in Iran ended heavy fighting.
(AP, 3/25/08)(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Mar 25, In Nepal police armed with bamboo sticks stopped a protest by Tibetan refugees and monks in front of the Chinese Embassy and arrested about 100 participants.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia made a proposal for dialogue among the world’s monotheistic religions. Abdullah said Saudi Arabia's top clerics gave him a green light.
(AP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, In Sri Lanka fighting across the war-ravaged northern district killed at least one soldier and 19 rebels.
(AFP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, In Sudan a World Food Program (WFP) driver was shot dead and his assistant seriously wounded in South Darfur state.
(Reuters, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, It was reported that Syria is cracking down more on Internet use, imposing tighter monitoring of citizens who link to the Web, as well as jailing bloggers who criticize the government and blocking YouTube and other Web sites deemed harmful to state security.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2009 Mar 25, Australia PM Kevin Rudd visited the US and urged Americans not to view China as an enemy but as a country offering huge economic opportunities, even though its leaders have "done some bad things in the past."
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, The US House voted to set aside over 2 million acres in 9 states as protected wilderness. Legislators also approved a $400 million project to restore a 3-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River in central California.
(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/26/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 25, One of the US Air Force's top-of-the-line F-22 fighter jets crashed in the high desert of Southern California, killing test pilot David Cooley (49), an employee of prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.
(AP, 3/26/09)(WSJ, 3/26/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 25, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe signed 2 bills creating a state lottery, making his state the 43rd plus the district of Columbia to hold such contests.
(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 25, Conservation International, a Washington D.C.-based conservation group, announced the discovery of over 50 new animal species in a remote, mountainous region of Papua New Guinea. The group spent the past several months analyzing more than 600 animal species found during its expedition to the South Pacific island nation in July and August.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, North Dakota officials issued an urgent call for volunteers to help with sandbagging as record amounts of water poured into the Missouri River and evacuations were ordered in riverside areas.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, John Hope Franklin (b.1915), revered Duke Univ. historian and scholar of the African American experience, died in North Carolina. His books included “From Slavery to Freedom" (1947).
(SFC, 3/26/09, p.B5)
2009 Mar 25, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb ripped through a van carrying civilians on a road used by foreign troops, killing 10 and wounding 7 others in Khost province.
(AP, 3/25/09)(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 25, Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb, Canadian theater impresarios from a company called Livent, were convicted of fraud. They had been indicted in the US in 1999 and fled to Canada, where they were charged in 2002. Six former Livent accountants testified in the trial, saying they were ordered to inflate income and profit documentation.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.44)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/playbill/20090325/en_playbill/127701)
2009 Mar 25, China’s state media said forestry officials in far western China have resorted to scattering abortion pills near gerbil burrows in a bid to halt a rodent plague threatening the desert region's fragile ecosystem.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, Czech PM Mirek Topolanek, the current rotating president of the EU, slammed US plans to spend its way out of recession as "a road to hell."
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, An Ecuadorean air force training jet crashed in a jungle area near the Colombian border. The pilot and a member of the air force rescue team were killed when a cable snapped as they were being lifted to a helicopter.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, Egypt, one of the strongest US allies in the Middle East, welcomed Sudan's president despite an international warrant seeking his arrest on charges of war crimes in Darfur. Egypt is not an ICC signatory and both it and the Arab League have backed al-Bashir.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, The EU laid out new labeling rules laid allowing Rose wine customers to know exactly how their grapes were treated to turn their tipple a blushing pink.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, The MT Nipayia, a Greek-owned and Panama registered ship with a crew of 19, was hijacked 450 miles east of Somalia’s south coast.
(AP, 3/27/09)(WSJ, 3/27/09, p.A8)
2009 Mar 25, The Indian army said it had killed 17 militants from Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kashmir. Recent fighting has left at least 25 people dead.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Iraq an American soldier has died of non-combat injuries.
(AP, 3/27/09)
2009 Mar 25, Incoming Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said his government would be a "partner for peace with the Palestinians," softening his rhetoric a day after the centrist Labor Party joined his coalition in exchange for vaguely worded promises to pursue negotiations.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Mexico US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Mexico in its violent struggle against drug cartels, and acknowledged the US shares blame because of its demand for drugs and supply of weapons.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Pakistan a suspected US missile attack killed 8 militants, including 4 foreigners, in the stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's top Taliban commander. The New York Times carried a report on its Web site saying ISI operatives provide money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders, with proof of the ties coming from electronic surveillance and trusted informants. The US State Department announced a $5 million bounty for Baitullah Mehsud.
(AP, 3/25/09)(AP, 3/26/09)(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 25, Romania was given a loan totaling 20 billion euros (27 billion dollars) by the IMF, the EU, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). An austerity program accompanied the loans.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, In northwestern Russia Kirovsk mayor Ilya Kelmanzon was shot dead in his office. A local utilities chief who was in Kelmanzon's office, then shot himself dead.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, Fahad al-Ruwaily, a senior al-Qaida leader, returned to Saudi Arabia voluntarily and turned himself in. He was on a list of the kingdom's 85 most wanted militants living abroad.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Edinburgh, Scotland, vandals attacked the home of former Royal Bank of Scotland head Fred Goodwin, smashing windows at the house of the ex-CEO whose 700,000 pound ($1.2 million) annual pension has prompted public outrage.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, Hundreds of Somalis demonstrated in Baidoa against Islamist fighters after they imposed a ban on leaf qat, a popular narcotic.
(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 25, Sri Lanka's military repulsed a Tamil Tiger counterattack in the north of the island and killed at least 30 of the rebels.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, Sudanese officials said at least 2 people were killed when attackers set fire overnight to a camp for the internally displaced in Darfur, destroying hundreds of shelters. A spokesman for the Darfur rebel group Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) put the toll at three dead and three injured and blamed a pro-government militia for the attack.
(AFP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Turkey a helicopter crashed in the snow-covered mountains of southern Turkey. Muhsin Yazicioglu, leader of the small conservative Great Unity Party, was one of six people on board. Authorities the next day released a recording of an emergency call made after the crash by journalist Ismail Gunes, who said he thought he was the only survivor. Rescue workers found the wreckage on March 27. All 6 people aboard were found dead.
(AP, 3/26/09)(AP, 3/27/09)
2010 Mar 25, The US Dept. of Defense announced stricter guidelines for discharging gay and lesbian service members allowing only generals to approve discharges.
(SFC, 3/26/10, p.A6)
2010 Mar 25, Florida Int’l. Univ. (FIU) running back Kendall Berry was stabbed late at night, after the 22-year-old junior from Haines City, Fla., was involved in an argument with another man outside the front doors of the school's student recreation center in Miami.
(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, Maine Gov. John Baldacci signed into law America’s first blanket “extended producer responsibility" (EPR) framework law. It ordered manufacturers to assume the cost of disposing their products following consumer use. Maine’s EPR law for electronic waste went into effect in 2004.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.67)(http://tinyurl.com/y5ew8vk)
2010 Mar 25, In western Tennessee a medical helicopter crashed ion stormy weather killing its crew of three.
(SFC, 3/26/10, p.A6)
2010 Mar 25, The top UN envoy for Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, met with delegates from Hezb-e-Islami, the country's second-biggest militant group, who are in Kabul for talks on a possible peace deal. Hezb-e-Islami is headed by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is black-listed as a terrorist by the UN and the US.
(AFP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden threatened in a new audio recording released to kill any captured Americans if the US executes the self-professed mastermind of the Sept.11 attacks or any other al-Qaida suspects.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, A top Australian official said about 100 Australian police are being investigated for circulating racist and pornographic e-mails via the internal police e-mail system, and one officer involved in the scandal has committed suicide.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, Bangladesh set up a war crimes tribunal for long-delayed trials of people accused of murder, torture, rape and arson during its 1971 independence war.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Belarus some 2,000 opposition activists held a protest rally despite police blocks that authorities explained were part of security measures against an alleged bomb threat. March 25 has long been a traditional day of opposition demonstration, marking what they call Freedom Day, the anniversary of the 1918 declaration of the first, short-lived independent Belarusian state.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In London a teenager (15) was stabbed in front of commuters during the evening rush hour at Victoria station. Paramedics were unable to resuscitate the boy. 20 detainees (14 to 17) and were being questioned in connection with the incident.
(AFP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, Chinese officials said emergency wells were being drilled and cloud-seeding operations carried out in southern China, where the worst drought in decades has left millions of people without water and caused more than 1,000 schools to close.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, China agreed to share water level data at 2 dams to ease pressure from nations downstream, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A3)
2010 Mar 25, In Colombia a package bomb killed a 12-year-old boy who may have been given it to take to a police station after school in the coca-growing southwest.
(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, Dubai said it would inject 9.5 billion dollars into Dubai World, which announced it was asking creditors to wait for up to eight years to be repaid in full.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, Leaders of the 16 eurozone countries agreed to a plan to rescue Greece if it finds itself unable to borrow.
(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, Former French PM Dominique de Villepin announced the creation of a new center-right party set to challenge bitter rival President Nicolas Sarkozy in elections in two years' time.
(Reuters, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Ireland a judge in Limerick ruled that the city’s 110 pubs can open on April 2 because the city is hosting a major Irish rugby match. This will be the 1st time that pubs anywhere in Ireland will open on Good Friday.
(SFC, 3/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 25, Kenyan police arrested an American of Somali origin who was on a terror watch list as he and two associates attempted to fly to Somalia. American Suleman Essa, Canadian Ahmed Ali Hassan and Kenyan Muhammed Hussein Hash were about to board a plane ferrying aid to Somalia when they were arrested. All 4 were released the next day.
(AP, 3/25/10)(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Mexico police were searching for two prison guards and 40 prisoners who disappeared after a pre-dawn jailbreak in the Mexican city of Matamoros across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Gunmen killed a deputy police chief and his bodyguard in Nogales, Sonora state.
(AP, 3/25/10)(AP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 25, A Netherlands court fined the owner of what was the biggest marijuana-selling "coffee shop" in the country almost euro10 million ($13.34 million) for violating liberal Dutch drug laws, in what is seen as a test for authorities seeking to rein in the growth of such cafes.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, Pirates attacked a Turkish cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria, injuring three crew members. Eight to 10 pirates with automatic weapons boarded the Ozay 5. They robbed the crew of money and cellphones but fled after the ship began making distress calls.
(Reuters, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, It was reported that deaths from starvation in North Korea’s South Pyongan province was in the thousands since January and that the bodies of malnourished elderly people were being found in the streets of Pyongyang.
(SFC, 3/25/10, p.A4)
2010 Mar 25, Pakistani military airstrikes killed 61 suspected militants in an area near the Afghan border, including dozens at a seminary where Taliban commanders were believed to be meeting. Pakistani police said they had arrested two of the men who kidnapped a British boy (5) for 12 days this month, and paraded the hooded and shackled suspects before the media. Taliban fighters seized a security checkpoint in the Orakzai tribal region close to the Afghan border, sparking clashes that killed five soldiers and 32 insurgents in a region where the army is pressing an offensive.
(AP, 3/25/10)(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Qatar the CITES UN wildlife meeting rejected efforts to regulate the trade in overfished porbeagle sharks, reversing an earlier ruling at the conference and leaving none of the proposed shark species with protection. Asia nations managed to reopen the debate on the final day of the conference and voted to kill the proposal.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Switzerland the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council (HRC) voted 20-17 for a text that lists the “defamation of religion" as an infringement of liberty.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.62)
2010 Mar 25, In Venezuela Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of Globovision, was arrested, raising concerns the government is pursuing a widening crackdown to silence opponents. Globovision is the country’s only remaining TV channel that takes a critical line against Pres. Chavez.
(AP, 3/26/10)
2011 Mar 25, The World Trade Organization ruled that some anti-dumping duties imposed by the United States on imports of Brazilian orange juice violated international trade rules.
(AFP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a teacher merit-pay bill. The bill also ended tenure-like job protections.
(SFC, 3/26/11, p.A5)
2011 Mar 25, NY state information technology workers at the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal hit the jackpot. They won $319 million in the multistate Mega Millions game's fifth-largest prize in its history. Each of the 7 winners will collect a check for $19.1 million, after taxes.
(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Mar 25, The Oregon Province of Jesuit priests agreed to pay $166.1 million to over 450 Native Americans who were abused at the order’s schools around the Pacific Northwest.
(SFC, 3/26/11, p.A5)
2011 Mar 25, Africa's highest court on human rights ordered Libya to immediately cease any action that would result in the loss of life. The order also compelled Libya to report to the Tanzania-based court within two weeks. The ruling was not made public until March 30.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 25, A global network of conservationists said Africa's rhinos face their worst poaching crisis in decades with organized crime syndicates killing more than 800 in the past three years alone.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Thousands of Bahrainis turned out for a sermon of a major Shi'ite cleric ahead of "Day of Rage" protests planned across the Gulf Arab country despite a ban imposed under martial law. Security forces fired tear gas and pellets at anti-government protesters after a prominent Shiite cleric vowed that their demands for the Sunni monarchy to loosen its grip on power will not be silenced by "brutal force." Activists said one person died.
(Reuters, 3/25/11)(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Belarus police attacked hundreds of opposition activists who tried to hold an anti-government rally. March 25 has long been a traditional day of opposition rallies marking the anniversary of Belarus' short-lived declaration of independence from Russia in 1918.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, Canadian opposition parties toppled PM Harper on the grounds that his government was tainted by sleaze, had managed the economy poorly and was in contempt of Parliament. Canada's 40th Parliament ended with cheers from opposition legislators as politicians voted along party lines to drive the Conservatives out of office.
(Reuters, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay said that Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard has been designated to lead the NATO alliance's military campaign in Libya. Bouchard will be in charge of both the air campaign and the naval task force implementing the arms embargo.
(AP, 3/25/11)(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, In China Ying Jianguo, general manager of Taizhou Suqi Storage Battery Co. Ltd., was taken into custody in the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang province. The official Xinhua News Agency reported 139 cases of lead poisoning near the plant. More testing soon found at least 168 villagers, including 53 children, had high lead levels.
(AP, 3/27/11)
2011 Mar 25, Croatia arrested Bojan Milkovic, head of the INA, the country’s national oil company, on corruption charges.
(Econ, 4/23/11, p.56)(http://tinyurl.com/3tnzyqm)
2011 Mar 25, El Salvador police arrested Carlos Ernesto Teos Parada, a man accused of running a human smuggling ring that transported some of the victims in the massacre of 72 migrants in northern Mexico last August.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, European leaders agreed a new package of anti-crisis measures at a two-day summit, but were forced to delay increasing their rescue fund and acknowledged they faced new threats from a government collapse in Portugal.
(Reuters, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, European Union leaders called for worldwide stress testing of nuclear plants and committed to putting their 143 reactors through the toughest security checks possible.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, A Honduras supreme court judge dismissed three arrest warrants for former President Manuel Zelaya, allowing him to return without detention to the country where he was deposed in a June 2009 coup. A day later Zelaya said he won't return to Honduras for fear of being killed.
(AP, 3/25/11)(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, In India Pradeep Kumar, a government aviation official, and 3 other people were arrested in a widening investigation of corruption in awarding flying licenses to airline pilots.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Iran two members of the security forces were killed in two armed attacks in Sanandaj, capital of Iran's Kurdistan province bordering Iraq. Two of the rebels who were involved in the attacks were reported killed on April 4.
(AFP, 4/4/11)
2011 Mar 25, Israel deployed its newly developed "Iron Dome" rocket defense system for the first time to defend its southern communities from attacks by Gaza militants after a bloody week of Palestinian strikes and Israeli reprisals.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Ivory Coast about 1,000 people frantically crowded around buses rented by Mali to evacuate its citizens, as the UN said up to 1 million have fled their homes amid fears of civil war.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Japanese officials said a suspected breach in Unit 3 reactor at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant could mean more serious radioactive contamination, as PM Naoto Kan called the country's ongoing fight to stabilize the plant "very grave and serious." The official death toll jumped past 10,000. With the cleanup and recovery operations continuing and more than 17,400 listed as missing, the final number of dead was expected to surpass 18,000.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Jordan pro-government supporters attacked a gathering of protesters in central Amman demanding the dissolution of parliament and the firing of the country's prime minister, pelting them with stones and injuring six people.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In eastern Libya rebel gunners fought artillery duels with Muammar Gaddafi's forces. Western warplanes struck at heavy armor used by the government to crush the revolt. NATO said its no fly zone operation could last three months, and France cautioned the conflict would not end soon.
(Reuters, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, A boat left Tripoli carrying 72 people. It drifted for more than two weeks after it ran out of fuel, water and food. Only 9 people survived. The survivors were arrested by pro-Gadhafi forces after their boat came ashore in Libya, but managed to flee again.
(AFP, 5/13/11)(AP, 5/13/11)
2011 Mar 25, In northwestern Pakistan gunmen attacked a minibus carrying mostly Shiite Muslims and killed eight people in an area that has seen a recent peace deal between rival Sunni and Shiite tribes.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, A Palestinian was shot and wounded by Israeli police after he injured a soldier in the West Bank.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, The Philippine Catholic church led tens of thousands of Filipinos in one of the biggest rallies against a proposed family planning law, saying it will promote artificial contraception and lead to more abortions.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Qatar flew its first sortie after joining the forces of 10 other nations enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, A Saudi news agency says several hundred Shiite Muslims have held protests in eastern Saudi Arabia to demand the release of detainees and show support for fellow Shiites protesting against the Sunni monarchy in nearby Bahrain.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Syria demonstrations took place in Daraa and throughout the country in what organizers called a "Day of Dignity." Thousands took to the streets demanding reforms and mourning dozens of protesters who were killed during a violent, weeklong crackdown that has brought extraordinary pressure on the country's autocratic regime. Presidential adviser Buthaina Shaaban said 34 people have been killed in the weeklong crackdown. 4 people were reported killed when armed forces fired on protesters in Latakia. Troops and soldiers opened fire in at least six places, killing some 15 protesters.
(AP, 3/25/11)(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Thailand a court ordered leaders of the self-styled People' Alliance for Democracy to pay millions of dollars to airport operators in compensation for occupying Bangkok's airports for a week in 2008.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh told tens of thousands of supporters that he's ready to step down but only if he can leave the country in "safe hands," while anti-government protesters massed for a rival rally.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, A Zimbabwean court ordered Energy Minister Elton Mangoma, a top political ally of PM Tsvangirai, to be held in jail after his second arrest this month. The arrests have been criticized by the prime minister's party as being politically motivated.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2012 Mar 25, Pres. Obama met with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of a nuclear security conference in South Korea. Obama other key allies considered providing Syrian rebels with communications help, medical aid and other "non-lethal" assistance.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Michigan the bodies of two women, Abreeya Brown (18) and Ashley Conaway (22), were discovered in shallow graves on Detroit’s west side. 5 men were soon charged in their abduction and slaying.
(SSFC, 4/8/12, p.A10)
2012 Mar 25, "Titanic" director James Cameron (57) made a solo submarine dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific, the deepest point in the world's oceans. On Jan 23, 1960, a two-man crew aboard the US Navy submersible Trieste, then the only humans to have reached Challenger Deep, spent just 20 minutes on the bottom.
(AFP, 3/26/12)(Econ, 3/31/12, p.90)
2012 Mar 25, Afghan officials said the US paid $50,000 in compensation for each villager killed and $11,000 for each person wounded in a shooting rampage allegedly carried out by a rogue American soldier on March 11.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, Gabor Rakonczay arrived in Antigua after canoeing across the Atlantic Ocean in 76 days. He had left Lagos, Portugal, on December 21, 2011.
(SFC, 3/27/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 25, Four people died when their small plane crashed shortly after taking off from a tiny airport in the Bahamas en route to Florida.
(AP, 3/26/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Belarus several thousand people joined an anti-government rally calling for the release of political prisoners and for European-style democracy.
(SFC, 3/26/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 25, British Tory treasurer Peter Cruddas, a senior member of David Cameron's Conservative party, resigned after he apparently offered access to the British premier in return for party donations of £250,000.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck central Chile, the strongest and longest that many people said they had felt since a huge quake devastated the area two years ago. There were no reports of major damage or deaths due to quake-related accidents.
(AP, 3/26/12)
2012 Mar 25, Twenty people from DR Congo drowned when their boats capsized while crossing the river border with Zambia enroute to a soccer game.
(AFP, 3/27/12)
2012 Mar 25, Egypt's newly empowered Islamists have tightened their grip, giving themselves a majority on a 100-member panel tasked with drafting a constitution that will define the shape of the government in the post-Hosni Mubarak era. The panel will have nearly 60 Islamists, including 37 legislators selected the day before by parliament's two chambers.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, Hong Kong held elections for a new chief executive. Only 1,200 people, handpicked from the populations, were eligible to vote. Henry Tang Ying-Yen was favored to win. Self-made millionaire property consultant Leung Chun-ying (57) won the leadership election with 689 votes.
(Econ, 3/3/12, p.58)(AFP, 3/25/12)(SFC, 3/26/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 25, Bertie Ahern (60), former Irish PM (1997-2008), announced he has resigned from the Fianna Fail party rather than be expelled over an investigation into secret payments he received while in office, but vowed to clear his name.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, France handed down preliminary murder and terrorism charges against Abdelkader Merah alleging he helped his brother Mohamed plan recent attacks against Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers.
(SFC, 3/26/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 25, Malian soldiers repelled a fresh attack by Tuareg rebels in the north following a coup as the junta struggled to restore order after ousting the west African nation's president. Mali's foreign minister and 13 others being detained by the junta that took over Mali started a hunger strike.
(AFP, 3/25/12)(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Mexico tens of thousands of people gathered to attend the highlight of Pope Benedict XVI's visit: an open-air Mass in the shadow of the Christ the King monument in Guanajuato state.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Nigeria 3 suspected members of Boko Haram were killed overnight in the northern city of Maiduguri in a shootout with soldiers deployed to crush the Islamist sect. About 20 gunmen had attacked a police station with rifles and explosives.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, The Palestinian Prisoners' Club reported that around 30 Palestinian prisoners have taken up hunger strikes across the Israeli prison system. The club said Israel is holding some 700 members of the Palestinian security services, along with 27 Palestinian lawmakers, 24 of them from Hamas.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, Russian spacecraft controllers intentionally plunged a defunct communications satellite, called Express-AM4, into the ocean. The $265 million satellite was launched into the wrong orbit on Aug 18, 2011, and had been languishing in space ever since. The company Polar Broadband Systems Ltd. tried in vain to save and recycle the Russian satellite.
(SPACE.com, 3/28/12)
2012 Mar 25, Senegalese voted in a run-off election in which incumbent Abdoulaye Wade (85) is fighting off a mass opposition effort to foil his controversial bid for a third term. Opposition candidate Macky Sall won the vote. Wade conceded defeat just hours after results showed his opponent winning.
(AFP, 3/25/12)(AP, 3/26/12)
2012 Mar 25, Six South African rugby players from a local club in Port Elizabeth drowned after a rip-current pulled 21 people out to sea. 7 lifeguards rescued 15 people.
(AFP, 3/26/12)
2012 Mar 25, Syrian forces attacked flashpoint areas, carrying out raids and clashing with rebels as President Bashar Assad's allies in Russia said the country may be facing its last chance for peace. The LCC reported five troops and three mutinous soldiers killed in the southern town of Nawa.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Tunisia at least 8,000 Islamists staged a mass demonstration in central Tunis in the latest show of force to demand the adoption of Islamic law in the north African country.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was in Cuba to begin radiation therapy treatment one month after undergoing surgery that removed a cancerous tumor.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2013 Mar 25, Pres. Obama signed a proclamation using the Antiquities Act to preserve some 1,000 acres of the San Juan Islands, Washington state, as a national monument.
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.P6)
2013 Mar 25, Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo detainee who allegedly revealed valuable information about 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, sued Poland. Lawyers said he was held in a CIA black site in Poland (2002-2003), which they say has withheld critical information needed to investigate his case.
(AP, 3/27/13)
2013 Mar 25, In California people celebrated the opening of the new Devil’s Slide Tunnel. It opened to public traffic on March 26.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A1)
2013 Mar 25, In San Francisco executives of the Palace Hotel changed their minds, amid ringing outcry, and planned to return the Pied Piper painting by Maxfield Parrish to the hotel following restoration work.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A1)
2013 Mar 25, New Jersey lottery officials said Pedro Quezada (44), an immigrant from the Dominican Rep., has won the $338.3 million Powerball jackpot.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A7)
2013 Mar 25, Yahoo acquired Summly, a British startup, for some $30 million. Summly founder Nick d’Aloisio (17) had created an iPhone app to summarize articles in 300-400 characters.
(SFC, 4/18/13, p.66)
2013 Mar 25, In Afghanistan the US military gave control of its last local detention facility to Kabul, a year after the two sides initially agreed on the transfer.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, A fishing boat carrying nearly 100 asylum seekers capsized off Australia's west coast. 2 people died and another 93 were rescued after the boat overturned north of Christmas Island.
(Reuters, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, In Canada waste water from Suncor's oil sands operation north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, escaped when a pipe broke after freezing. An estimated 350 cubic meters of contaminated water was released into the river over a 10-hour period, the company said, adding that it did not contain tar-like bitumen.
(Reuters, 3/27/13)
2013 Mar 25, Central African Republic's President Francois Bozize fled to neighboring Cameroon. Michel Djotodia, one of the leaders of the Seleka rebel coalition, said that he plans to stay in power until 2016, the length of time left in the term of Bozize.
(AP, 3/25/13)(AP, 3/26/13)
2013 Mar 25, Cyprus clinched a last-minute solution to avert imminent financial meltdown early today after it agreed to slash its oversized banking sector and inflict hefty losses on wealthy depositors in troubled banks to secure a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout. Under the terms of the bailout deal, the country' second largest bank, Laiki — which sustained the most damaged from bad Greek debt and loans — is to be split up, with its nonperforming loans and toxic assets going into a "bad bank." The healthy side will be absorbed into the Bank of Cyprus.
(AP, 3/25/13)(AP, 3/30/13)
2013 Mar 25, A Dubai court convicted American businessman Zack Shahin for fraud and sentenced him to 15 years' imprisonment after a nearly five-year legal battle that included a hunger strike and a failed attempt to flee.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Egypt’s top prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 5 rights activists on suspicion of inciting violence against members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Mar 25, Israel's government said it will resume transferring tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Kenya’s Supreme Court ordered the election commission to recount votes in 22 of the country's 291 constituencies to see if any of the tallies exceed the number of registered voters.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Libya's foreign minister said the widow of the late ruler Moammar Gadhafi and other family members have been granted asylum in Oman.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Malaysia’s PM Najib Razak announced the creation of the Eastern Sabah Safety Zone. Authorities said they will resettle people out of the area of Borneo where fighting in Sabah has left 74 people dead.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A4)(SSFC, 3/31/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar 25, Myanmar's government warned that religious violence could threaten democratic reforms after anti-Muslim mobs rampaged through three more towns in the country's predominantly Buddhist heartland.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, TNT Express NV, a Dutch-based package delivery company, said it will restructure operations, taking €150 million ($195 million) in charges and cutting 4,000 jobs, or 6 percent of its work force, by the end of 2015. A takeover by UPS was blocked by European regulators in January.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Peru's government declared an environmental state of emergency in a remote Amazon jungle region it says has been affected by years of contamination at the country's most productive oil fields, which are currently operated by Argentina-based Pluspetrol.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Russian prosecutors and tax police searched the Moscow headquarters of Amnesty International and several other rights groups, continuing a wave of pressure that activists say is part of President Vladimir Putin's attempt to stifle dissent.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, South Africa's president said 13 South African soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in weekend fighting in the Central African Republic.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, In Syria a series of mortar strikes near a downtown traffic circle in Damascus killed two people and wounded several others.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Zimbabwe's High Court ordered the immediate release of prominent rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, detained for eight days for obstructing the course of justice. A free Mtetwa said her arrest was a ploy to intimidate human rights activists and pro-democracy groups ahead of upcoming elections expected in July.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Zambia's former president, Rupiah Banda (76), was arrested by police for alleged abuse of authority and corruption. He was released on bail of Kwacha 500,000 ($100,000) and ordered to turn in his passport.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2014 Mar 25, The US Coast Guard partially reopened the Houston Ship Channel following the March 22 collision between an oil barge and a bulk carrier near Texas City. 170,000 gallons of tar-like coal were spilled.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A6)
2014 Mar 25, Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert signed a law that allows parents of children with severe epilepsy to obtain marijuana extract to help with seizures.
(SFC, 3/25/14, p.A6)
2014 Mar 25, Facebook said it has agreed to purchase Oculus VR, a startup specializing in virtual reality, for $2.3 billion in cash and stock.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A1)
2014 Mar 25, King Digital, ticker KING, raised $500 million from the sale of 22.2 million shares. Established in 2002, King's business has soared in the last two years thanks to the spectacular popularity of Candy Crush Saga, which boasts some 97 million players worldwide.
(AFP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, In Afghanistan suicide bombers and gunmen attacked an election commission office beside the home of presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani, less than two weeks before a crucial election. 10 people were killed including 2 policemen, an election worker and a provincial council candidate. 3 suicide bombers entered a branch of Kabulbank in the eastern province of Kunar, killing at least 3 security guards and injuring two bank workers.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)(Reuters, 3/29/14)
2014 Mar 25, The Arab League held a summit in Kuwait. UN peace mediator for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, called for an end the flow of arms to the combatants in the war.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Royal Mail, Britain's main postal operator, said it plans to axe 1,600 jobs under a fresh cost-cutting program, six months after its controversial part-privatization by the government.
(AFP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, China's eastern city of Hangzhou said will start restricting car sales on March 26, joining major cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, in the fight against snarling traffic and heavy smog in the world's largest automobile market.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Egypt's leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie (70), and 682 others went on trial on charges including murder. Defense lawyers boycotted the court session, attended by 60 of the defendants, after complaining of irregularities. Reporters were barred from the courtroom.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Indian police arrested Tehseen Akhtar (23), the alleged head of militant group the Indian Mujahideen. The group was blamed for a string of deadly attacks including one at a rally in October by election frontrunner Narendra Modi.
(AFP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Ireland's police chief Martin Callinan resigned following months of criticism of his force's handling of allegations of illegal wire-tapping and corrupt enforcement of traffic laws.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Kenya’s wildlife authority said it needs help to curb the killings of elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns. Poachers this year have killed 18 rhinos and 51 elephants.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A2)
2014 Mar 25, Myanmar said it will ban the export of logs starting April 1 to reduce deforestation and boost its wood-based industry by exporting only value-added products. Myanmar's forest cover shrank from 57.9 percent of its total land area in 1990 to 47.6 percent in 2005.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, NATO member Norway suspended all joint activities with the Russian military through May because of Moscow's annexation of Crimea.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In the Netherlands 35 countries pledged to turn international guidelines on nuclear security into national laws, a move aimed at preventing terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear material.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In the Netherlands US President Barack Obama, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye met to discuss North Korea's security threat.
(AP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, Dutch police detained 28 anti-nuclear demonstrators at a reactor ahead of a visit by a delegation of energy sector bosses.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In northeastern Nigeria two explosions in Maiduguri killed 11 people, including 5 policemen who were believed to have been targeted.
(AFP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In central Nigeria police recovered 7 bodies following an attack on Agena village, Benue state, in renewed violence between herdsmen and farmers.
(AFP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, Singapore authorities intercepted about one ton of ivory worth $1.6 million in a shipping container from Africa marked as carrying coffee berries.
(AFP, 4/3/14)
2014 Mar 25, Sudan said a pro-government militia has killed 151 rebels in clashes this week in the country's restive Darfur region.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Syria's opposition fighters seized Samra a Mediterranean coastal village as they pushed to consolidate their presence in a key regime bastion near the Turkish border.
(AFP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Thai police seized 147 kg (323 pounds) of heroin they believe was from Myanmar and destined for Australia. The single haul exceeded some of Thailand's recent yearly seizure totals.
(AP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, Turkish special forces raided buildings in Istanbul used by suspected members of an Islamist militant group active in neighboring Syria and Iraq, leaving three policemen and two suspects wounded.
(Reuters, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, Ukraine lawmakers accepted the resignation of the defense minister Igor Tenyukh as thousands of troops began withdrawing from the Crimean Peninsula, now controlled by Russia. Col. Gen. Mikhail Kovalyov was voted in as his replacement.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Oleksander Muzychko, a prominent Ukrainian far-right activist, was shot dead by police overnight as he tried to escape from a cafe in the western region of Rivne. Police said he was wanted for "hooliganism" and an attack on a local prosecutor.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, The United Nations human rights office said an Egyptian court's decision to sentence 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death contravened international law.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Venezuela’s Pres. Maduro said officials have arrested three air force generals on charges of plotting a coup.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A2)
2014 Mar 25, The World Health Organization published a report saying air pollution kills about 7 million people worldwide every year, with more than half of the fatalities due to fumes from indoor stoves.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2015 Mar 25, The US government and major business leaders renewed their call on the Thai government to crack down on slavery in its fishing fleets, and to punish people who force migrant workers to catch seafood that can end up in the United States.
(AP, 3/26/15)
2015 Mar 25, The US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision threw out a lower court ruling that upheld a state legislature redistricting plan in Alabama that packed black voters into certain districts in a way critics say diminished their clout at the polls.
(Reuters, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, The US Army charged Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for leaving his post in Afghanistan in June, 2009.
(SFC, 3/27/15, p.A7)
2015 Mar 25, The United States and its allies staged 19 air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq over the last 24 hours.
(Reuters, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, California announced legal action to suppress a "reprehensible" ballot initiative to outlaw homosexuality -- on pain of execution. The proposal was submitted by lawyer Matthew McLaughlin to the California Attorney General's office late last month.
(AFP, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, In southern California Giseleangelique Rene D'Milian (47) was arrested for plotting to kidnap two babies, including one found dead on January 4 in a dumpster, and attacking their mothers in a bizarre scheme to fool her boyfriend into thinking she birthed their twins.
(Reuters, 3/25/15)(SFC, 3/28/15, p.A5)
2015 Mar 25, Facebook announced that it has started to turn its Messenger service into a platform on top of which other firms can develop content and apps.
(Econ., 3/28/15, p.68)
2015 Mar 25, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives in downtown Kabul killing at least 7 people.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, In Chile communities in a northern desert region struggled to cope with rain-provoked flooding. At least 24 people were killed as power was knocked out and roadways cut off. The interior ministry declared a state of emergency.
(AP, 3/26/15)(AFP, 3/27/15)(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Mar 25, A number of pilots at Lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary Germanwings refused to fly following the deadly crash a day earlier in the French Alps, saying they were mourning the victims of the doomed aircraft.
(AFP, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, It was reported that workers in Mexico’s state of Baja California have led a week of violent protests over low pay, abuses and poor conditions at large-export-oriented farms.
(SFC, 3/25/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, Pakistani military jets killed 30 militants in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber tribal region. The army said 80 militants were killed in the area over the weekend with 7 government soldiers also killed.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, A Polish court sentenced former priest Wojciech Gill to seven years in prison for abusing six minors in the Dominican Republic between 2009 and 2013, as well as two in Poland in 2001-2002.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin fired the governor of a far-flung region who has been arrested on charges of corruption. Alexander Khoroshavin, governor of the island of Sakhalin just north of Japan, was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of receiving a bribe for building a power station.
(AP, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, The Saudi ambassador to the United States announced that his country had initiated airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Saudi operation was called “Decisive Storm." King Salman gathered a 10-country coalition of Sunni states to bomb the Houthis.
(AFP, 3/25/15)(SSFC, 4/5/15, p.A4)(Econ, 5/23/15, p.18)
2015 Mar 25, Syrian rebels seized an ancient town near the Jordan border that is a key government stronghold, ousting Syrian soldiers and allied militiamen from the region after four days of intense battles. 11 soldiers and allied militia as well as 17 insurgents were killed as an alliance of Islamist rebels including al Qaeda's Nusra Front overran 17 defense posts around Idlib in an offensive to take the city from the army and allied militia.
(AP, 3/25/15) (Reuters, 3/26/15)
2015 Mar 25, Thailand security forces killed 4 people when they raided a village in Pattani, one of three Muslim-dominated provinces bordering Malaysia, as part of an operation to arrest rebels. On April 8 an investigating team said the four Muslim men were not members of any extremist group and called for legal action against those responsible.
(Reuters, 4/7/15)
2015 Mar 25, A Uganda health official said an outbreak of typhoid has infected hundreds of people in the capital, Kampala.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko forced Igor Kolomoisky to step down as head of the key industrial region of Dnipropetrovsk, after a dispute over control of the main state oil and gas company ended up with armed men storming two office blocks in Kiev.
(AFP, 3/25/15)(Econ., 3/28/15, p.55)
2015 Mar 25, Ukraine arrested two top officials on graft charges at a televised cabinet meeting hours after the president sacked a powerful oligarch as regional governor. Police detained Sergiy Bochkovsky, director of Ukraine's state emergencies service, and his deputy Vasyl Stoyetsky, accusing them of "high-level" corruption.
(AFP, 3/26/15)
2015 Mar 25, In Vietnam least 14 people were killed and 30 injured late today when a huge scaffolding collapsed at an industrial complex owned by Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics group in the Vung Ang economic zone of Vietnam’s Ha Tinh province. In December a court sentenced two South Koreans and two Vietnamese to prison for committing safety violations in the collapse that killed 13 people and injured 29 others.
(Reuters, 3/26/15)(AP, 12/21/15)
2015 Mar 25, Yemen Pres. Abed Rabu Mansour Hadi fled the country by sea as Shiite rebels and their allies moved on his last refuge in the south.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A4)
2016 Mar 25, The United States and its allies targeted Islamic State militants in Iraq with 22 strikes and four in Syria.
(Reuters, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, A federal judge in San Diego sentenced Navy Capt. Daniel Dusek, who oversaw operations in the US Pacific Fleet, to 46 months in prison for providing classified information to a Malaysian defense contractor in exchange for luxury hotel stays and the services of prostitutes.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Bangladesh thousands of Muslims rallied in Dhaka to denounce a court petition seeking to remove Islam as the country's official state religion.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In the Congo DRC UN helicopter gunships attacked Ugandan rebels active in the volatile east, inflicting casualties.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Cuba Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones performed a free concert for hundreds of thousands in Havana.
(AFP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, Egypt's army killed 60 gunmen in clashes in the Sinai Peninsula where it is battling a jihadist insurgency.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In western Indonesia rioting prisoners started a fire at the Malabero prison in Bengkulu on Sumatra Island. Five inmates were killed.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, Iran's Pres. Hassan Rouhani arrived in Pakistan on a landmark visit, his first since becoming president. Rouhani and Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif signed a five years strategic action plan aimed at boosting bilateral trade to the level of US Dollars five billion by 2021.
(AP, 3/25/16) (Reuters, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, Iran's official IRNA news agency said that an air ambulance helicopter has crashed in southern Iran, killing all seven onboard.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Iraq a suicide attack ripped through a trophy ceremony after a football tournament and killed 41 people in the Babil province village of Al-Asriya. Mayor Ahmed Shaker was among the dead, as was one of his bodyguards and at least 5 members of the security forces.
(AFP, 3/26/16)(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Iraq thousands rallied in Baghdad in support of firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr's associate, Sheik Asad al-Nasiri, delivered a message from the cleric giving PM Haider al-Abadi 24 hours to implement wide-ranging reforms.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Libya authorities in control of Tripoli declared a "maximum state of emergency" after a UN-backed unity government that they reject said its members would head to Tripoli to begin work.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Libya an Indian nurse and her infant son were killed in a rocket attack on their apartment in Zawiya, a town near Tripoli.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Myanmar the Yangon Stock Exchange officially opened for business more than three months after it was launched in December 2015.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In North Korea American Kim Tong Chol said he had spied for South Korean intelligence in a plot to bring down the North’s leadership and asked for forgiveness at a media presentation.
(AP, 3/25/16)(SFC, 3/26/16, p.A2)
2016 Mar 25, It was reported that North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." To show their loyalty, workers are putting in extra hours to boost production in everything from coal mining to fisheries.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Palestinian Christians and foreign pilgrims marked Good Friday with a procession through Jerusalem's cobbled Old City amid increased security measures during an ongoing wave of violence.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In the Philippines a devotee was nailed to a cross for the 30th time in an annual Good Friday ritual, which he dedicated to peace in Belgium and other countries targeted by Islamic extremists. Ruben Enaje and 14 other men, some screaming in pain, were nailed to wooden crosses by actors dressed as Roman centurions in San Pedro Cutud and two other rice farming villages in Pampanga province north of Manila.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Poland's environment minister said he has approved a much-protested plan to allow extensive logging in Bialowieza Forest, Europe's last pristine forest, arguing it's the way to save it from woodworms.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia will deploy a range of coastal missile systems on the far-eastern Kuril islands, claimed by Japan, as part of its military build-up in the region.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Russian officials said the body of a lawyer representing one of two Russian servicemen on trial in Ukraine has been found buried in an abandoned farm. Two men have been detained in connection with his murder. Yuri Grabovsky was representing Alexander Alexandrov, a serviceman captured along with another Russian, Yevgeny Yerofeyev, last year in rebel-held eastern Ukraine.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Syrian government forces recaptured a Mamluk-era citadel in Palmyra from the extremist Islamic State group, as the fierce battle for control of the historic town entered its third day.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, News reports said that Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli (aka Haji Imam), the Islamic State group's second in command, was killed earlier this month. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said US forces killed Haji Imam, a senior Islamic State leader described as the group's finance minister, among several key members of the militant group eliminated this week.
(AFP, 3/25/16)(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Yemen three suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State group struck checkpoints of loyalist forces in Aden, killing 22 people, including 10 civilians.
(AFP, 3/26/16)
2017 Mar 25, In the SF Bay Area the first day of full service opened at the new Warm Springs BART station in Fremont.
(SSFC, 3/26/17, p.C1)
2017 Mar 25, In Nevada a gunman, later identified as Rolando Cardenas (55), opened fire on a double-decker bus on the Las Vegas Strip, killing one person and wounding another before finally surrendering.
(AFP, 3/26/17)(SSFC, 3/26/17, p.A8)(SFC, 3/27/17, p.A4)
2017 Mar 25, Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge plunged into darkness to mark Earth Hour, as global landmarks began dimming their lights to draw attention to climate change. Conservation group WWF started Earth Hour in 2007.
(AFP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In eastern Bangladesh six people, including two policemen, were killed in explosions near a building in Sylhet. The Islamic State claimed responsibility.
(AP, 3/26/17)(Econ, 4/1/17, p.32)
2017 Mar 25, Belarus authorities detained some 400 people during an attempt to hold a street protest in the capital Minsk, amid rising public anger over falling living standards and an unpopular tax on the unemployed.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 25, Thousands of people marched through London to protest against Britain leaving the European Union, just four days before PM Theresa May launches the start of the formal divorce process from the bloc it joined 44 years ago.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Bulgarian nationalists kept up their protests at the Turkish border against Bulgarian citizens living permanently in Turkey who are coming in to vote in Bulgaria's election.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that China has captured 2,566 fugitives who had fled to more than 90 countries and regions and recovered 8.6 billion yuan ($1.25 billion) of illicit funds from 2014 to 2016.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, China prevented Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney, from returning to Sydney because he's suspected of endangering national security. Feng had been wrapping up a three-week trip researching human rights lawyers. Chinese authorities have staged a wide-reaching crackdown on human rights lawyers across the country since July 2015. On April 1 Feng Chongyi was allowed to return to Australia.
(AP, 3/26/17)(AP, 4/2/17)
2017 Mar 25, In southern China an operation platform collapsed at a power plant under construction in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, killing nine people.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Three Egyptian soldiers were killed in an explosion that hit their armored vehicle in the northern Sinai peninsula. Another officer managing a checkpoint was killed by sniper fire.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)(SSFC, 3/26/17, p.A4)
2017 Mar 25, On the 60th anniversary of the founding of the EU, 27 European leaders signed a document in Rome enshrining a pledge to give member nations more freedom to form partial alliances and set policy when unanimity is out of reach.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and hundreds of supporters marched ahead of a vote for the city's next leader which they reject as a sham.
(AFP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In India one person was killed and about 14 injured when violence erupted following a scuffle between Muslim and Hindu school students in PM Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat.
(Reuters, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Italy a woman's body was found stuffed in a suitcase that was floating at a marina in the Adriatic port of Rimini.
(AP, 3/27/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Japan a Vietnamese man held in an immigration detention center died, drawing fresh attention to conditions in the country's detention system. Van Huan Nguyen (aka Nguyen The Hung) was one of more than 11,000 refugees that the country took in over the three decades to 2005 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Nguyen had complained of pain throughout his detention for a week before his death. The death was the 13th in Japan's detention system since 2006.
(Reuters, 3/26/17)(Reuters, 3/28/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Kyrgyzstan about 250 people had gathered in Bishkek to demand the release of Sadyr Japarov, who was arrested when trying to enter the country earlier in the day. Supporters tried to break through a police cordon outside the national security agency's headquarters, but police turned them back with flash grenades. Dozens were arrested. Japarov had lived the past few years in Cyprus after serving a prison sentence for organizing a 2013 protest that turned violent.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Maldives’ former President Mohamed Nasheed said that he has signed an agreement with his one-time archrival and former strongman to try to restore democracy in the archipelago state.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Mali's main Tuareg separatist factions said they would boycott talks with the government next week on implementing a nearly 2-year-old peace accord that has been riven by quarrelling.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Mexico about 100 journalists and free-speech supporters demonstrated to protest the March 23 killing of reporter Miroslava Breach gunned down in the northern state of Chihuahua.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Pakistan said it has started building a fence along the Afghan border in areas where it says militants have launched cross-border attacks.
(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 25, Philippine soldiers rescued one of two Filipino cargo ship crewmen taken captive just two days ago by suspected Abu Sayyaf militants. Aurelio Agacac, the ship captain, was freed in the remote village of Basakan, Basilan province.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In the southern Philippines at least four people were killed and 23 others wounded in a grenade attack that appeared to be unrelated to terrorism. The attacker was arrested following the blast in Busbus village near the domestic airport in Sulu province's Jolo town.
(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 25, In South Sudan six aid workers working for the Grass Roots Empowerment for Development Organization (GREDO), were killed in an ambush while traveling from the capital Juba towards the town of Pibor. The death toll soon rose to seven after the driver, David Kim Choop, also died.
(Reuters, 3/27/17)(AFP, 3/27/17)(SFC, 3/28/17, p.A2)
2017 Mar 25, In Syria airstrikes hit a main street in the Damascus suburb of Hamouriyeh killing at least 16 people and wounded more than 50. Airstrikes in Idlib province hit several towns and villages as well as the provincial capital the carries the same name. Syria's army and its allies retook a village near Hama, as the government tried to turn back a major insurgent offensive.
(AP, 3/25/17)(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Yemen 16 rebels were killed and 24 wounded over the last 24 hours in air raids by a Saudi-led coalition targeting the insurgents on an air base and arms depot in the east of the rebel-held Hodeida province.
(AFP, 3/25/17)
2018 Mar 25, Linda Brown (75), a key figure in the 1954 school segregation case (Brown vs Bosrd of Education of Topeka), died in Topeka, Kansas. Her father, Oliver Brown (d.1961), had tried to enroll her into an all-white school and became the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that struck down racial segregation in public schools.
(SFC, 3/28/18, p.D2)
2018 Mar 25, Remington, a company that began making flintlock rifles when there were only 19 United States, filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware.
(AP, 3/26/18)(SFC, 3/27/18, p.D2)
2018 Mar 25, In West Virginia two firefighters were killed then their fire truck hit a rock wall while responding to another deadly accident that left three people dead.
(SFC, 3/26/18, p.A5)
2018 Mar 25, In western Afghanistan a suicide attack near a Shi'ite mosque in the city of Herat killed at least one person and wounded eight others.
(Reuters, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Testing of Albania's first ever toll road began and sparked complaints and anger from drivers and from neighboring Kosovo over the cost of using the 110-km (70-mile) highway linking Milot, near the Adriatic coast, to the Morine border.
(AP, 3/26/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Belarus scores of protesters were arrested in Minsk as supporters of the country's repressed opposition tried to hold a march. President Alexander Lukashenko allowed March 25 to be publicly celebrated this year for the first time in his 24-year rule.
(AP, 3/25/18)(AFP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, The maiden flight of a new non-stop regular passenger service between Australia and Britain touched down at London's Heathrow Airport. The new link with Perth, a 14,498-km (9,009-mile) journey, is around three hours quicker than routes that involve stopovers in the Middle East to change planes or refuel.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Cameroon held senate elections, as tensions continued to soar in the French-majority country's anglophone regions where separatist rebels have been fighting government forces for several months. Some 10,000 municipal councilors voted for 70 members of the upper house for a duration of five years.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, China's new central bank governor, Yi Gang, outlined sweeping plans to rein in rising debt and financial risk, but expressed confidence that Beijing can prevent potential dangers.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, A Dubai court sentenced British journalist Francis Matthew (61) to 10 years in jail followed by deportation for bludgeoning to death his wife with a hammer last summer.
(Reuters, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Egyptian authorities said police killed six militants believed to be involved in a weekend bombing in the coastal city of Alexandria that killed two policemen.
(AP, 3/26/18)
2018 Mar 25, The EU said it was "extremely concerned" about DR Congo after the country announced it would decline a $1.7 billion international aid package. The United Nations has declared the humanitarian crisis in the DR Congo to be a Level 3, the UN's highest-level emergency.
(AFP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Carles Puigdemont, the fugitive ex-leader of Catalonia and ardent separatist, was arrested by German police on an international warrant as he tried to enter the country from Denmark. Puigdemont faces charges in Spain including rebellion that could put him in prison for up to 30 years.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Israeli jets pounded Hamas positions in Gaza overnight after Palestinians staged a cross-border raid into southern Israel. The planes hit a base of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, causing damage but no injuries.
(AFP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Mexico gunfire from a helicopter supporting marines against cartel gunmen killed a female passerby and her two children during a confused series of pre-dawn gun battles in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo. One marine was also killed and 12 were wounded. Four gunmen also died.
(AP, 4/7/18)
2018 Mar 25, In southern Mexico a "caravan" of more than 1,200 Central American migrants, organized by the immigrant advocacy group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, began at Tapachula and headed to the US border. Its members were disproportionately from Honduras.
(Reuters, 4/3/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Moldova the former president of Romania Traian Basescu joined more than 10,000 people in Chisinau to rally in support of reunification between Romania and Moldova. The issue highlighted a divide in Moldova between pro-Western and Moscow-backed political factions ahead of elections in November.
(Reuters, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, his ratings in a slump amid a suspected cronyism scandal and cover-up, apologized again for causing anxiety and loss of confidence in his government.
(Reuters, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, In central Mali six people were found dead in a mass grave. Villagers later said they had been arrested by the military three days earlier.
(Reuters, 4/3/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Niger four leading opposition and rights figure were among 23 people arrested after a protest against new taxes degenerated into clashes between demonstrators and police.
(AFP, 3/27/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Russia at least 64 people died in a fire that broke out in a multi-story shopping center in the Siberian city of Kemerovo. Dozens of children were feared to be among the dead.
(AP, 3/25/18)(Reuters, 3/26/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Somalia a car bomb exploded near parliament headquarters in Mogadishu, killing at least four people along with the driver. A few hours earlier, another car bomb outside the capital killed one person plus the driver.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Nearly 2,000 Syrian rebels and civilians began leaving a ravaged pocket of Eastern Ghouta, in fresh evacuations that further emptied the former rebel bastion.
(AFP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Turkmenistan held parliamentary elections that included candidates from three parties and some independents, but no real opposition to President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (60). Serdar Berdymukhamedov (36), the son of the authoritarian president, scored a huge victory in the tightly controlled parliamentary elections. Turkmenistan has no tradition of competitive elections or political opposition.
(AP, 3/25/18)(AFP, 3/30/18)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to March 26
Return to home
The Catholic Feast of the Annunciation.
(HFA, '96, p.26)
Feast of St. Dismas, the patron of undertakers and prisoners. Dismas was the repentant thief crucified with Christ.
(WSJ, 11/2/98, p.B1)
31CE Mar 25, The 1st Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus.
(MC, 3/25/02)
421 Mar 25, Venice was founded on a Friday at 12 PM.
(MC, 3/25/02)
708 Mar 25, Constantine began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1133 Mar 25, Henry II, King of England (1154-1189), was born.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1306 Mar 25, Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) was crowned king of Scotland as the successor to King John.
(HN, 7/11/01)(ON, 2/08, p.6)
1532 Mar 25, Pietro Pontio, composer, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1537 Mar 25, The 5th Lithuanian war with Russia (1534-1537) ended with a peace treaty. It lasted until the start of war with the Livonian Order (1562-1582).
(LHC, 3/25/03)
1584 Mar 25, Sir Walter Raleigh, English explorer, courtier, and writer, renewed Humphrey Gilbert's patent to explore North America. He went on to settle the Virginia colony on Roanoke Island, naming it after the virgin queen.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.23)(MC, 3/25/02)
1609 Mar 25, Henry Hudson embarked on an exploration for Dutch East India Co.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1634 Mar 25, English colonists sent by Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, arrived in present-day Maryland. Maryland was founded as a Catholic colony.
(HN, 3/24/98)(AP, 3/25/08)(AH, 4/07, p.30)
1655 Mar 25, Puritans jailed Governor Stone after a military victory over Catholic forces in the colony of Maryland.
(HN, 3/25/99)
1655 Mar 25, Christiaan Huygens, Dutch inventor and astronomer, discovered Titan, Saturn's largest satellite.
(www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/huyglens.html)
1668 Mar 25, The first horse race in America took place.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1741 Mar 25, The London Foundling Hospital opened in temporary accommodations in Hatton Garden following extensive efforts by former sea captain Thomas Coram (1668-1751).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundling_Hospital)
1752 Mar 25, The first issue of the Halifax Gazette appeared.
(CFA, '96, p.42)
1753 Mar 25, Voltaire left the court of Frederik II of Prussia.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1762 Mar 25, Francesco Giuseppi Pollini, composer, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1767 Mar 25, Joachim Murat (d.1815), Napoleon's brother in law, was born in Labastide-Murat. He was a French marshal and became king of Naples (1808-1815).
(WUD, 1994, p.941)(HN, 3/25/99)(HN, 3/25/99)
1774 Mar 25, English Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1776 Mar 25, The Continental Congress authorized a medal for General George Washington.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1782 Mar 25, Carolina [Maria A] Bonaparte, (countess Lipona), sister of Napoleon), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1797 Mar 25, John Winebrenner, U.S. clergyman who founded the Church of God, was born.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1801 Mar 25, Anthony Ziesenis (69), architect, sculptor (Camper), died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1807 Mar 25, William Wilberforce (1759-1833), evangelical member of Parliament, piloted a slave-trade abolition bill through the British House of Commons. This led to a labor problem in South Africa. In 1833 Britain abolished slavery throughout the British Empire when the Slavery Abolition Bill was read a third time
(HN, 3/24/98)(WSJ, 5/26/04, p.A8)(www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-wilberforce.htm)
1807 Mar 25, 1st railway passenger service began in England.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1811 Mar 25, A comet, dubbed the Great Comet of 1811, was discovered by Honoré Flaugergues at 2.7 AU from the sun in the now-defunct constellation of Argo Navis. In October 1811, at its brightest, it displayed an apparent magnitude of 0, with an easily visible coma.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Comet_of_1811)(http://koolkreations.wix.com/kalopins-legacy)
1812 Mar 25, (OS) Alexander Herzen (d.1870), Russian author, was born. "Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me how to live."
(AP, 8/15/99)(www.bookrags.com/biography/aleksandr-ivanovich-herzen/)
1813 Mar 25, The first U.S. flag flown in battle was on the frigate Essex in the Pacific.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1817 Mar 25, Tsar Alexander I recommended the formation of Society of Israeli Christians.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1821 Mar 25, Greece gained independence from Turkey (National Day). [see Mar 28]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1823 Mar 25, Coelestin Jungbauer (75), composer, died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1825 Mar 25, The first Brazilian Constitution was promulgated by Peter I and solemnly sworn in the Cathedral of the Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Brazil)
1839 Mar 25, William Bell Wait, educator of the blind, was born.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1843 Mar 25, Seventeen Texans, who picked black beans from a jar otherwise filled with white beans, were executed by a Mexican firing squad. After months of raiding, captivity and escapes in Northern Mexico, Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ordered the execution of one tenth of the 176 Texas freebooters of the Mier Expedition. The event was later depicted by artist Theodore Gentilz.
(HNPD, 3/27/00)
1843 Mar 25, England’s Thames Tunnel opened 18 years after construction began. It was completed under engineer Isambard Brunel, the son of Marc Brunel, who began the project in 1824.
(ON, 4/06, p.9)(www.bris.ac.uk/is/services/specialcollections/brunelchronology.html)
1856 Mar 25, A.E. Burnside patented the Burnside carbine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1857 Mar 25, Frederick Laggenheim took the 1st photo of a solar eclipse.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1863 Mar 25, US Sec. of War Edward Stanton awarded Corp. William Pittenger of the 2nd Ohio Regiment and 5 other Union soldiers the first US Medals of Honor. Pittenger had been a member of Andrews Raiders who stole the locomotive General in Georgia on April 12, 1862. Civilian spy James Andrews and 7 other were hanged in 1862 following a Confederate court martial.
(ON, 8/08, p.12)
1863 Mar 25, There was a skirmish at Brentwood, Tennessee.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1864 Mar 25, Battle of Paducah, KY (Forrest's raid).
(MC, 3/25/02)
1865 Mar 25, Battle of Mobile, AL (Spanish Fort, Fort Morgan, Fort Blakely).
(MC, 3/25/02)
1865 Mar 25, Battle of Bluff Spring, FL.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1865 Mar 25, Confederate forces captured Fort Stedman during the siege of Petersburg, Va., but were forced to withdraw by counterattacking Union troops.
(AP, 3/25/97)(HN, 3/24/01)
1867 Mar 25, Gutzon Borglum, sculptor of Mount Rushmore, was born.
(HN, 3/25/01)
1867 Mar 25, Arturo Toscanini (d.1957), Italian-US temperamental conductor (NBC), was born in Parma, Italy.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1872 Mar 25, Vito Pardo, Italian sculptor (Columbus monument in Argentina), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1877 Mar 25, Alphonse de Chateaubriand, French writer (Instantanes aux Pays-Bas), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1879 Mar 25, Japan invaded the kingdom of Liuqiu (Ryukyu) Islands, formerly a vassal of China. The Ruykyuan monarchy was abolished and the islands were annexed to create the Okinawa Prefecture. Prior to this Okinawa had paid tribute to both Japan and China. Okinawa became imperial Japan’s first colony.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, Par p.5)(NH, 9/01, p.56)(Econ, 12/22/12, p.55)
1880 Mar 25, Joseph Rummel (61), composer, died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1882 Mar 25, 1st demonstration of pancake making was in a NYC Dept store.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1894 Mar 25 Jacob S. Coxey began leading an "army" of unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., to demand help from the federal government. Coxey advocated, as a way to provide jobs and increase the amount of money in circulation, a public works program of road construction and local improvements to be financed by the issuance of $500 million in legal tender notes. Coxey's Army of unemployed disbanded when Coxey and two other leaders were arrested for trespassing on the White House lawn in 1894.
(AP, 3/23/97)(HNQ, 8/24/99)
1896 Mar 25, The 1st modern Olympic Games officially opened in Athens. Greece was on the old Julian calendar at this time. The revival was masterminded by Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France. [see Apr 6]
(Econ, 5/29/04, p.81)(www.forthnet.gr/olympics)
1902 Mar 25, Irving W. Colburn patented a sheet glass drawing machine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1905 Mar 25, Rebel battle flags that were captured during the war were returned to the South.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1906 Mar 25, Alan John Percivale Taylor (d.1990), English historian, was born. He pioneered the presentation of the history lecture on British television.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._P._Taylor)
1906 Mar 25, Jean Sablon, French crooner, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1908 Mar 25, Bridget D'Oyly Carte, British theater and hotel director, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1908 Mar 25, David Lean (d.1991), British film director (Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia), was born in Croydon, England.
(HN, 3/25/01)(AP, 3/25/08)
1911 Mar 25, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire killed 146 immigrant workers. 13 girls survived the fire that broke out on the top three floors of the 10-story New York’s Asch Building as the workday was ending. No one knows what caused the fire, but it spread quickly, fueled by the fabric scraps and sewing machine oil used in the manufacture women’s blouses. The three avenues of escape were almost immediately clogged with panicked workers, mostly young immigrant women. Then, to the horror of spectators seven stories below, the desperate women began to jump to their deaths. Appalled by the tragedy, the New York State legislature formed a commission whose findings led to the creation of new fire and building codes that were soon adopted in cities throughout America.
(HNPD, 3/25/00)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A8)(SFC, 2/24/99, p.C4)(AP, 3/23/08)
1913 Mar 25, The home of vaudeville, the Palace Theatre, opened in New York City starring Ed Wynn.
(AP, 3/24/98)(MC, 3/25/02)
1913 Mar 25, Great Dayton, Ohio, flood. [see Mar 25]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1914 Mar 25, Norman Borlaug (d.2009), later agricultural scientist and Nobel Prize winner (1970), was born on a farm near Cresco, Iowa.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug)(WSJ, 9/5/06, p.D8)(SFC, 9/14/09, p.A7)
1914 Mar 25, Frederic Mistral, French poet (Nobel-1904), died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1915 Mar 25, The first submarine disaster occurred when a U.S. F-4 sank off the Hawaiian coast. 21 people were killed.
(HN, 3/24/98)(MC, 3/25/02)
1916 Mar 25, Ishi, the last Yahi Indian in California, died of tuberculosis at the Univ. of California Hospital. His body was cremated but his brain was removed and shipped to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. The documentary film "Ishi, the Last Yahi" was made by John Harrison Quinn (d.2000 at 59). In 2004 Orin Starn authored "Ishi's Brain: In search of the Last "Wild" Indian."
(SFC, 1/26/00, p.A24)(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.M1)(SSFC, 3/20/16, DB p.50)
1918 Mar 25, Howard Cosell, sportscaster (Monday Night Football), was born in Winston-Salem, NC.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Cosell)
1918 Mar 25, Claude Debussy (55), French composer, died in Paris. In 1962 Edward Lockspeiser authored “Debussy," a look at how the composer shaped the work of Symbolist writers.
(AP, 3/25/97)(WSJ, 3/1/08, p.W8)
1918 Mar 25, Belarus proclaimed independence from Russia. The Belarusian People's Republic lasted until 1919.
(LHC, 3/25/03)(AP, 3/25/18)
1919 Mar 25, Jeanne Cagney, actress (Lion is in the Streets, Quicksand), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1919 Mar 25, The Paris Peace Commission adopted a plan to protect nations from the influx of foreign labor.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1920 Mar 25, Howard Cosell (Cohen), was born. He came to be the most liked, and the most disliked, sports journalist across America.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1920 Mar 25, Greek Independence Day.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1921 Mar 25, The US Navy tug Conestoga sailed out the Golden Gate bound for Hawaii with a 56 man crew and was never heard from again. Its suspected wreckage was spotted near the Farallon Islands in 2009. In 2016 government scientists confirmed the find.
(SFC, 3/24/16, p.D1)
1921 Mar 25, Simone Signoret, (Casque d'Or, Room at the Top), was born in Wiesbaden, Germany.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1924 Mar 25, Greece was made a republic and King George II (1890-1947) was deposed in favor of a non-royal government. King George was king from 1922-1923 and from 1935-1947.
(HN, 3/24/98)(WUD, 1994, p.593)
1925 Mar 25, Flannery O'Connor (d.1964), novelist and short story writer, was born in Savannah, Georgia.
(www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-498)(WUD, 1994 p.997)
1928 Mar 25, James A. Lovell Jr, USN, astronaut (Gemini 7, 12, Apollo 8, 13), was born in Cleveland, Oh.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1931 Mar 25, In Alabama 9 young black men, arrested at Paint Rock after riding a freight train, were taken to Scottsboro. Victoria Price (21) and Ruby Bates (17), who had worked as prostitutes in Huntsville, were also found on the train dressed as boys. The 9 men were soon charged with raping the 2 white woman, while riding on the freight train.
(WSJ, 6/20/07, p.A17)(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_chron.html)
1931 Mar 25, Ida Wells-Barnett (b.1862), black journalist, died. In 1893 she investigated the Kentucky lynching of a black man accused of murdering 2 white girls. In 2008 Paula J. Giddings authored “Ida: A Sword among Lions."
(WSJ, 3/8/08, p.W8)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWwells.htm)
1931 Mar 25, Fifty people were killed in riots that broke out in India. Gandhi was one of many people assaulted.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1934 Mar 25, Gloria Steinem, political activist, editor, was born.
(HN, 3/25/01)
1935 Mar 25, Hitler declared that the Soviets endangered peace in Europe.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1936 Mar 25, Britain, the U.S. and France signed a naval accord in London.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1939 Mar 25, Billboard Magazine introduced the hillbilly (country) music chart.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1940 Mar 25, Anita Bryant, homophobe, singer (George Gobel Show), was born in Barnsdall, Okla.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1940 Mar 25, The U.S. agreed to give Britain and France access to all American warplanes.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1941 Mar 25, Carolina Paprika Mills in Dillon, SC, was incorporated.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1941 Mar 25, Yugoslavia joined the Axis powers.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1942 Mar 25, Aretha Franklin, American singer, the "Queen of Soul," was born in Memphis, Tenn.
(HN, 3/25/01)(SSFC, 6/30/02, Par p.30)
1942 Mar 25-26, The 1st 700 Jews from Polish Lvov-district reached concentration camp Belzec. The Germans began sending Jews to Auschwitz in Poland.
(HN, 3/25/98)(MC, 3/25/02)(SS, 3/26/02)
1943 Mar 25, Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore premiered on radio.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1944 Mar 25, RAF Sgt. Nickolas Alkemade survived a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet without a parachute. [see Mar 23]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1945 Mar 25, US 1st army broke out bridgehead near Remagen.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1947 Mar 25, Elton John, [Reginald Kenneth Dwight], English singer (Rocketman), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1947 Mar 25, A coal mine explosion in Centralia, Ill., claimed 111 lives.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1948 Mar 25, The Italians banned a compromise with Yugoslavia and demanded the return of Trieste.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1949 Mar 25, UC Pres. Robert Gordon Sproul proposed a faculty loyalty oath. The Univ. of Calif. Board of Regents later voted to require all employees to sign a loyalty oath.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F2)
1949 Mar 25, Hanns A. Rauter (54), German SS-commandant in Netherlands, was executed.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1949 Mar 25, Soviet occupiers of Lithuania began Operation “Priboj," a 2nd major deportation program (Mar 25-28).
(LHC, 3/25/03)
1952 Mar 25, The U.S., Britain, and France rejected the Soviet proposal for an armed, reunified, neutral Germany.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1953 Mar 25, The USS Missouri fired on targets at Kojo, North Korea, the last time her guns fire until the Persian Gulf War of 1992.
(HN, 3/25/99)
1954 Mar 25, RCA manufactured its first color TV set and began mass production. The 1953 RCA design for color TV was adopted as the national standard. The 12" screen TV was priced at $1000. Westinghouse had introduced a color model a few weeks earlier, but only 1 set was sold in the 1st month.
(HN, 3/24/98)(WSJ, 11/4/99, p.B6)(MC, 3/25/02)(SFC, 2/18/04, p.E1)
1954 Mar 25, At the Academy Awards, "From Here to Eternity" won eight Oscars, including best picture, best director (Fred Zinnemann), best supporting actor (Frank Sinatra) and best supporting actress (Donna Reed). Audrey Hepburn won best actress for "Roman Holiday" and William Holden best actor for "Stalag 17."
(AP, 3/25/04)
1955 Mar 25, E. Germany was granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1957 Mar 25, US Police and customs agents seized copies of “Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. In May Ferlinghetti was arrested along with City Lights manager Shigeyoshi Murao (d.1999) on obscenity charges. The defending attorneys were J.W. Ehrlich and Albert Bendich (1929-2015). By the Fall Judge Clayton Horn found the poem of "redeeming social importance." Shig later managed City Lights and authored the occasional "Shig's Review." In 2006 Bill Morgan and Nancy J. Peters edited “Howl On Trial: The Battle for Free Expression."
(SFEC, 11/28/99, BR p.10)(www.citylights.com/His/CLhowlhist.html)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M3)(SFC, 1/14/15, p.D3)
1957 Mar 25, The Treaties establishing the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community were signed in Rome by six member countries. The Treaty of Rome enabled people, goods, services and money to move unchecked throughout the Union. The Council of Ministers represents the governments of the members. Major decisions are made by the Council of Foreign Ministers. A 20-member Commission composed of appointed representatives of each member state serves as the administrative arm and members represent the Union. The Commission proposes and executes laws and policies. A European Parliament is composed of 626 members elected by the electorates of the member states and they sit in party groups. The Commission proposes, the Parliament advises, and the Council decides. The goal was to create a common market for all products but especially coal and steel.
(http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/eec.htm)(AP, 3/25/97)(HN, 3/24/98)
1957 Mar 25, The Euratom Treaty established the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom). The international organization was founded with the purpose of creating a specialist market for nuclear power in Europe, developing nuclear energy and distributing it to its member states while selling the surplus to non-member states.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Atomic_Energy_Community)
1958 Mar 25, Canada’s era of supersonic flight began, when pilot Jan Zurakowski took off from Malton Airport near Toronto in an Avro CF-105 Arrow for a 35-minute maiden flight. Less than a month later, Zurakowski flew the Arrow at Mach 1.5 at an altitude of 50,000 feet. In spite of the aircraft’s early promise, the Canadian government scrapped the project before the Arrow could be put into production.
(HNPD, 8/21/00)
1960 Mar 25, The 1st guided missile was launched from a nuclear powered sub, the Halibut.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1961 Mar 25, "Gypsy" closed at Broadway Theater in NYC after 702 performances.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1961 Mar 25, Elvis Presley (26) performed live on the USS Arizona, a fund raiser for a memorial. Col. Parker, Presley's manager, came up with the brilliant idea to have Elvis Presley give the benefit concert in the 4,000-seat Bloch Arena next to the entrance to Pearl Harbor.
(Internet)(MC, 3/25/02)
1961 Mar 25, Sputnik 10 carried a dog into Earth orbit; later recovered.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1962 Mar 25, French OAS-leader ex-general Jouhaud was arrested.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1962 Mar 25, Auguste Piccard (78), Swiss explorer, balloonist, died.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1964 Mar 25, Egypt ended a state of siege (1952-64).
(MC, 3/25/02)
1965 Mar 25, The opera “Lizzie Borden" premiered in NYC. It was composed by Jack Beeson with a libretto by Kenward Elmslie. The initial scenario was written by Richard Plant (d.1997 at 87).
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.A20)
1965 Mar 25, Martin Luther King Jr. led a group of 25,000 to the state capital in Montgomery Ala. to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks. Civil Rights pressures increased in the US and blacks and whites marched in Selma and Montgomery.
(TMC, 1994, p.1965)(AP, 3/25/97)(HN, 3/24/98)
1965 Mar 25, Viola Liuzzo (b.1925), a white civil rights worker from Detroit, was shot and killed by the Ku Klux Klan on a road near Selma, Ala. The later trial of Collie Leroy Jenkins, one of 3 men charged in the killing, ended in a hung jury. Jenkins was also acquitted at a 2nd trial but was later convicted along with Eugene Thomas of civil rights violations in federal court and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Liuzzo)(SSFC, 7/20/08, p.B6)
1965 Mar 25, West German Bondsdag extended war crimes retribution.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1969 Mar 25, John and Yoko Ono staged a bed-in for peace in Amsterdam.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1969 Mar 25, Max Forrester Eastman (b.1883), US critic and essayist, died. His books included “Love and Revolution: My Journey Through an Epoch" (1964).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Eastman)
1970 Mar 25, The Concorde, an Anglo-French airplane, made its first supersonic flight.
(HN, 3/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde)
1971 Mar 25, Sheik Mujibur Rahman was arrested in Dhaka. Pakistani forces started Operation Searchlight, a systematic plan to eliminate any resistance. Thousands of people were killed in student dormitories and police barracks in Dhaka.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971)
1972 Mar 25, In El Salvador a group of young army officers, led by Colonel Benjamin Mejia, launched a coup. Their immediate goal was the establishment of a "revolutionary junta." It seemed clear, however, that the officers favored the installation of Jose Duarte as president.
(http://countrystudies.us/el-salvador/11.htm)
1973 Mar 25, Edward Steichen (b.1879), pioneer US photographer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Steichen)
1975 Mar 25, Hue was lost and Da Nang was endangered. The U.S. ordered a refugee airlift to remove those in danger.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1975 Mar 25, In Maryland sisters Sheila (12) and Katharine Lyon (10) vanished from the Wheaton Plaza Mall. On July 15, 2015, authorities announced an indictment on first-degree felony murder charges in the disappearances. Lloyd Michael Welch Jr. (58) said he was with the girls when they were abducted but denied any role in their deaths. Welch told investigators that he left the mall with the two girls and that he saw his uncle sexually assaulting one of them at his home the next day. On Sep 12, 2017, Lloyd Michael Welch Jr. was sentenced to 48 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree felony murder. On September 21 Welch pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two girls in 1996.
(http://tinyurl.com/phqudb7)(SFC, 7/16/15, p.A5)(SFC, 9/13/17 p.A8)(SFC, 9/22/17 p.A5)
1975 Mar 25, King Faisal ibn Abd al-Aziz (68) of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a nephew with a history of mental illness. The nephew was beheaded the following June. In 2008 Joseph A. Kechichian authored “Faisal: Saudi Arabia’s King for All Seasons." In 2013 Alexei Vassiliev authored “King Faisal of Saudi Arabia: Personality, Faith and Times." (AP, 3/25/00)(Econ, 10/04/08, p.92)(Econ, 1/26/12, p.74)
1977 Mar 25, In Argentina political writer Rodolfo Walsh was murdered one day after writing the “Open Letter to the Military Junta" on the first anniversary of the military coup. He had reported on tortures, mass killings, and thousands of disappearances. In 2011 Alfredo Astiz (59), a former navy spy known as "the Angel of Death," was convicted in the kidnapping and disappearing of Rodolfo Walsh.
(http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3170)(AP, 10/26/11)
1977 Mar 25, Philippines’ President Marcos, on March 25, 1977, signed Presidential Proclamation No. 1628 forming an autonomous region in Southern Philippines.
(http://www.armm.gov.ph/armm-history/)
1979 Mar 25, In Northern Ireland Gerard Evans (24) disappeared after leaving a dance. His body was found in 2010. He had been abducted, executed and secretly buried by the IRA for passing information on IRA activities to the police.
(AP, 10/17/10)(www.tribune.ie/article/2009/jan/18/put-that-family-out-of-its-misery/)
1981 Mar 25, The US Embassy in San Salvador was damaged when gunmen attacked, firing rocket propelled grenades and machine guns.
(http://tinyurl.com/2s8s7h)
1982 Mar 25, The TV show “Cagney and Lacey" featured Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly as female police detectives. The show continued to 1988.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.44)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0083395/)
1985 Mar 25, 57th Academy Awards "Amadeus," F. Murray Abraham and Sally Field won.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/57th_Academy_Awards)
1985 Mar 25, British journalist Alec Collett (64) was abducted in Beirut as he covered Lebanon’s civil war. His remains were found in 2009 in the eastern Bekaa Valley. The following year a group belonging to Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Nidal said it killed him in retaliation for US air raids on Libya.
(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-3752719.html)(Reuters, 11/23/09)
1986 Mar 25, President Ronald Reagan ordered emergency aid for the Honduran army. U.S. helicopters took Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1986 Mar 25, US Supreme Court ruled that the Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes.
(www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/goldman.html)
1987 Mar 25, The US Supreme Court ruled employers may sometimes favor women and members of minority groups over men and whites in hiring and promoting in order to achieve better balance in the work force.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1988 Mar 25, In New York City's so-called "preppie murder case," Robert E. Chambers Jr. pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. Chambers was convicted of the killing after what he described as a session of rough sex. Chambers received a sentence of five to 15 years in prison. He walked out of the Auburn Correctional Facility in Auburn, N.Y, Feb, 2003, after serving a full 15-year maximum sentence for the 1986 Central Park killing.
(AP, 3/24/08)
1988 Mar 25, Robert Joffrey (b.1930), founder of the Joffrey Ballet Company, died. In 1996 Sasha Anawalt wrote: "The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company."
(SFEC, 12/15/96, BR p.4)(www.answers.com/topic/joffrey-robert)
1989 Mar 25, In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska's chief environmental officer, Dennis Kelso, criticized cleanup efforts as too slow.
(AP, 3/25/99)
1990 Mar 25, Star Trek V won as worst picture in the 10th Golden Raspberry Awards.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Golden_Raspberry_Awards)
1990 Mar 25, Eighty-seven people, most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants, were killed when an arson fire raced through the illegal Happy Land Social Club in New York City. Julio Gonzalez, 36, was charged with arson and murder. Gonzalez was convicted in August 1991 and was sentenced to 174 twenty-five-year sentences (a total of 4,350 years), the longest sentence ever handed down in New York. He is eligible for parole in 2015.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Gonz%C3%A1lez_(arsonist))
1991 Mar 25, “Dances With Wolves" won seven Oscars, including best picture, at the 63rd annual Academy Awards. Kathy Bates won best actress for “Misery" and Jeremy Irons won best actor for his role in “Reversal of Fortune."
(AP, 3/25/01)
1991 Mar 25, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a rebellious conservative in the Roman Catholic Church, died in Martigny, Switzerland, at age 85.
(AP, 3/25/01)
1992 Mar 25, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi backed away from an offer to turn over two suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to the Arab League.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1992 Mar 25, Soviet cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who'd spent 10 months aboard the orbiting Mir space station, thereby missing the upheaval in his homeland, finally returned to Earth.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1993 Mar 25, The Senate approved an outline of President Clinton's plan to spark the economy and trim the budget deficit by a vote of 54-45.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1994 Mar 25, The US Senate approved a $1.51 trillion budget.
(AP, 3/25/04)
1994 Mar 25, American troops completed their withdrawal from Somalia following a largely unsuccessful fifteen-month mission. 20,000 U.N. troops were left behind to keep the peace and facilitate "nation building."
(AP, 3/25/99)
1995 Mar 25, Mike Tyson was released from the Indiana Youth Center after serving three years for the 1992 rape of Desiree Washington, a beauty pageant contestant.
(AP, 3/25/00)
1995 Mar 25, Two Americans who had strayed across the Kuwaiti border into Iraq were sentenced to eight years in prison. However, David Daliberti and William Barloon were released by Iraq the following July.
(AP, 3/25/00)
1996 Mar 25, "Braveheart" won Academy Awards for best picture and best director Mel Gibson; Nicolas Cage won best actor for "Leaving Las Vegas," Susan Sarandon best actress for "Dead Man Walking."
(AP, 3/25/97)
1996 Mar 25, The redesigned $100 bill went into circulation.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1996 Mar 25, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, accompanied by her daughter, Chelsea, visited U.S. troops in Bosnia.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1996 Mar 25, A group of 18 people including 3 children, who call themselves the Freeman, shut themselves up on a 960 acre farm near Jordan, Montana. Many of them are wanted on state and federal charges that include writing bad checks and threatening a federal judge. Ongoing negotiations have proved fruitless and the FBI ordered in 3 armored vehicles and a helicopter. The standoff by the anti-government Freemen lasted 81 days.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A3)(AP, 3/25/01)
1996 Mar 25, China halted its 18-day intimidating naval exercises around Taiwan led by the new guided-missile destroyer Harbin.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A3)
1996 Mar 25, France, Britain and the US signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons from the South Pacific.
(WSJ, 3/25/96, p.A-15)
1996 Mar 25, In Germany Jan Philipp Reemtsma was attacked, beaten and abducted as he entered his office in Hamburg. For 33 days he was chained to a cellar wall with a ransom set at 30 million marks ($17.6 million). In 1999 he published "In the Cellar," a chronicle of his captivity.
(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.W11)
1997 Mar 25, The Federal Reserve nudged interest rates higher for the first time in two years, hoping to stifle any threat of rising inflation.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1997 Mar 25, Georgia Gov. Zell Miller signed into law a ban on a controversial form of late-term abortion.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1997 Mar 25, Former President George Bush, 73, parachuted from a plane over the Arizona desert.
(AP, 3/24/98)
1997 Mar 25, In Montenegro Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic was given a vote of no confidence by his party of hard-line supporters of Serbian Pres. Milosevic.
(SFC, 3/26/97, p.C2)
1997 Mar 25, In the Netherlands an arson attack left a Turkish woman and 5 children dead in the Hague.
(SFC, 3/29/97, p.A9)
1998 Mar 25, Pres. Clinton visited Rwanda. Shaken by horror stories from the worst genocide since World War II, President Clinton grimly acknowledged during his Africa tour that "we did not act quickly enough" to stop the slaughter of up to 1 million Rwandans four years earlier.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)(AP, 3/25/99)
1998 Mar 25, The FCC netted $578.6 million at auction for licenses for new wireless technology.
(AP, 3/25/99)
1998 Mar 25, The executive body of the EU endorsed a proposal for 11 nations to be part of the new system. These included Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Finland, Ireland, Austria and Luxembourg.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 25, Russia promised to support a comprehensive arms embargo against Yugoslavia, but did not support new sanctions urged by the US.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 25, In Tajikistan Islamic rebels killed over 60 government troops and held another 60 hostage after a 2-day battle near the capital.
(WSJ, 3/26/98, p.A1)
1999 Mar 25, Alexei Yagudin won the men's title for the second time at the World Figure Skating Championships held in Helsinki, Finland.
(AP, 3/25/00)
1999 Mar 25, NATO forces struck Serbian air defenses and other sites for a second night as Serb forces stepped up their efforts to crush resistance in Kosovo. The village of Goden was burned by Serb forces and 174 residents were forced to leave. 20 men were kept back and presumed killed.
(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/4/99, p.A1,8)(AP, 3/25/00)
1999 Mar 25, Some 70 men were reported massacred at the village Bellacerk in Kosovo. In the village of Velika Krusa 14 ethnic Albanians were killed and burned by Serb police and paramilitaries. Selami Elshani played dead escaped to tell the story. Investigators in Bela Crkva later found the bodies of 12 people including 7 children, all shot in the back of the head, killed during the rampage. Serb paramilitaries along with the Serb army attacked the village of Krushe e Vogel, 90 km (55 miles) southwest of Pristina.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A8)(SFEC, 4/18/99, p.1,4)(AP, 4/26/18)
1999 Mar 25, In Nerodimlje, Kosovo, 8 male members of the Berisha family were executed in front of a wall by a Serb gunman.
(SFC, 6/21/99, p.A8)
1999 Mar 25, In Colombia an arrest warrant was issued for German Briceno, aka Grannobles, for the kidnapping and killing of 3 Americans. Briceno was the brother of Jorge Briceno, No. 2 leader of FARC.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C1)
1999 Mar 25, In Kosovo Serbian police officers took away Bajram Kelmendi, a human rights lawyer, and his 2 sons. Their bodies were found the next day.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.A17)
1999 Mar 25, In Haiti Pres. Preval appointed a new government by decree.
(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 25, In South Africa Wouter Basson, the former head of chemical and biological warfare dubbed "Doctor Death," was indicted on 64 charges that included murder, theft and fraud. Conspiracy charges for offenses in Namibia, Swaziland, Mozambique and Britain were later dismissed. 61 charges remained. Basson was acquitted of 46 counts of murder, fraud and drug dealing in 2002.
(SFC, 3/26/99, p.A16)(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A12)(SFC, 4/12/02, p.A8)
2000 Mar 25, Pres. Clinton arrived in Pakistan under heavy security, where he met with the new military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. Clinton urged the government to restore democracy, reduce its nuclear arsenal, fight terrorism and find a peaceful solution to the Kashmir crises with India.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A1)(AP, 3/25/01)
2000 Mar 25, In Belarus thousands of people demonstrated in Minsk against the rule of Pres. Lukashenko and clashed with police.
(SFC, 3/27/00, p.A13)
2000 Mar 25, In Colombia guerrilla attacks began in Antioquia state and 30 people were killed over the next 2 days.
(SFC, 3/28/00, p.A14)
2000 Mar 25, In Israel Pope John Paul II said Mass at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, where Catholics believe that archangel Gabriel told Mary that she would bear the son of God.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A19)(AP, 3/25/01)
2000 Mar 25, In Mozambique it was reported that the Messalo river burst its banks after a week of rain. The Limpopo was expected to flood again and the city of Chokwe was again threatened.
(SFC, 3/25/00, p.A8)
2000 Mar 25, In Northern Ireland David Trimble defeated Rev. Martin Smyth with 57% of the vote of the ruling Ulster Party Council. Henry MacDonald was the author of a new biography on Trimble.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A21)
2000 Mar 25, In South Africa a flashflood down the Storms River Gorge left 7 dead and 6 missing from a group of 24 whitewater enthusiasts.
(SFC, 3/27/00, p.A12)
2001 Mar 25, In the Academy Awards “Gladiator" won 5 Oscars including best picture and best actor for Russell Crowe. Julia Roberts won best actress for “Erin Brockovich." “Crouching Tiger" won for best foreign film and best music score. Steven Soderbergh won best director for “Traffic," which also featured Benicio Del Toro who won the best supporting actor. Marcia Gay Harden won best supporting actress for her role in “Pollock."
(SFC, 3/26/01, p.E5)
2001 Mar 25, In Macedonia the government sent infantry troops backed by tanks and helicopters into the hills above Tetovo to push back ethnic Albanian insurgents.
(SFC, 3/26/01, p.A8)
2001 Mar 25, In Saudi Arabia the Higher Committee for Scientific Research and Islamic Law claimed that Pokemon games and cards have “possessed the minds" of Saudi children.
(SFC, 3/27/01, p.F2)
2002 Mar 25, The Bush administration released thousands of documents on its energy task force just before a midnight deadline. They showed that Spencer Abraham, Sec. of Energy, had relied almost exclusively on industry representatives with no input from conservation or environmental groups.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A3)(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A3)
2002 Mar 25, The US pushed for Ariel Sharon to allow Yasser Arafat to attend an Arab summit in Beirut.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 25, the National Parks Conservation Association released its annual list of “America’s Ten Most Endangered National Parks."
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 25, A 5.8-6.1 earthquake in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan was centered 105 miles north of Kabul and early reports of deaths reached to 1,800. The city of Nahrin was reported destroyed. Deaths in Baghlan province were reduced to 600-800 with 100,000 left homeless.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A6)(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A9)(SFC, 3/30/02, p.A10)(AP, 6/22/02)(AP, 3/25/03)
2002 Mar 25, The Argentine peso fell to 3.4-3.8 to the dollar. Long lines formed outside banks and exchange houses in Buenos Aires.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.B3)(WSJ, 3/26/02, p.A14)
2002 Mar 25, It was reported that educational changes for younger students in Japan included every Saturday off, a 30% decrease in rote learning, and new integral study classes to foster thinking.
(WSJ, 3/25/02, p.A12)
2002 Mar 25, North and South Korea issued a joint statement with plans to resume dialogue to improve relations.
(SFC, 3/25/02, p.A8)
2002 Mar 25, In Madagascar opposition supporters thwarted an attempt by the military to seize control of Parliament.
(SFC, 3/26/02, p.A6)
2003 Mar 25, Celine Dion opened a three-year gig in the new $95 million Colosseum theater at Caesars Palace.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, Pres. Bush issued an order to delay the release of millions of historical documents for more than 3 years and to ease reclassification of data deemed of possible harm to national security.
(WSJ, 3/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 25, The Senate voted to slash President Bush's proposed $726 billion tax-cutting package in half, handing the president a defeat on the foundation of his plan to awaken the nation's slumbering economy.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2003 Mar 25, Former Waterbury, Conn., Mayor Philip Giordano was convicted by a federal jury of violating the civil rights of two preteen girls by sexually abusing them. Giordano was later sentenced to 37 years in federal prison.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2003 Mar 25, The US Navy brought in 2 specially trained bottle-nosed Atlantic dolphins to help ferret out mines in the approaches of the port of Umm Qasr.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, In the 7th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US aircraft dropped more than 2,000 precision-guided bombs on Iraq since the war's start. The "smart" bombs were produced for a relatively cheap $20,000 each. Sandstorms slowed coalition movement and air missions. US officials reported 150-200 Iraqi soldiers were killed near Najaf.
(AP, 3/25/03)(SSFC, 3/30/03, p.W12)(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.C2)
2003 Mar 25, Six satellite jamming devices, which Iraq was using to try to thwart American precision guided weapons, were destroyed in the last 2 nights.
(AP, 3/25/03)
2003 Mar 25, Some 150-500 Iraqi fighters were killed in fighting east of Najaf.
(AP, 3/25/03)(SFC, 3/26/03, p.W1)
2003 Mar 25, A light plane carrying 3 Americans crashed in southern Colombia while searching for 3 other Americans captured by rebels last month.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, Muhamed Sacirbegovic (46), former Bosnia ambassador to the US (1992-2000) was arrested in NYC. The Bosnian government has accused him of stealing more than $2.4 million, about $1.8 million from the nation's Investment Fund Ministry and more than $600,000 from the account of Bosnia's representation at the UN.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, Israeli troops killed 2 wanted Hamas militants. Sprayed bullets also killed a girl (10). A West Bank boy (14) throwing stones was shot dead.
(SFC, 3/26/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 25, Philippine troops killed a senior commander of the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group in a raid on his hideout.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, Saudi Arabia contacted the United States and Iraq with a peace proposal and was still awaiting a response.
(AP, 3/25/03)
2003 Mar 25, In Thailand police said they shot and killed 42 people during a 7-week-old crackdown on drugs that has drawn protest from human rights groups. Nearly 400 drug makers and more than 12,000 dealers were arrested.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 25, In Uganda a gang of ivory poachers killed six adult elephants and one calf in a "gruesome massacre" in Queen Elizabeth National Park. The poachers used acid to remove the tusks.
(AP, 4/4/03)
2004 Mar 25, The United States used its veto power to quash a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel for killing Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in a missile strike.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, Howard Dean endorsed John Kerry as the Democratic presidential candidate.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)
2004 Mar 25, British PM Tony Blair and Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi greeted each other with smiles and handshakes in a meeting that marked a major step back into the international mainstream for the North African state.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, A military truck drove out of a Russian military base in Chechnya after curfew and hit a mine planted outside to deter a rebel attack, killing 10 soldiers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, arriving home from North Korea, saying his three-day trip yielded an agreement from that country's reclusive leader to "push forward" toward a third round of talks on its nuclear program.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, In Colombia attackers shot and killed three retired police officers, at least two of whom were suspected of having links to drug traffickers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, The Olympic torch was lit in Ilida, Greece, and began its journey to herald the summer Olympiad, Aug 13-29. A 6-continent tour was planned using 2 747s named Zeus and Hera with a bill of $50 million.
(AP, 3/26/04)(WSJ, 7/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 25, An Indian court sentenced four Pakistanis to death for "waging war" against India after they were caught smuggling the deadly explosive RDX into the country in 1999.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, A U.S. soldier died in a bombing north of Baghdad amid warnings that attacks will likely increase with fewer than 100 days left before the coalition hands over sovereignty.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, Rebels and the main opposition party, Rally of Republicans, withdrew from Ivory Coast's power-sharing government after security forces in Abidjan fired on protesters demanding implementation of a peace deal. At least 25 people were killed.
(AP, 3/25/04)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A2)(SFC, 3/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 25, A Norwegian Academy awarded the Abel Prize in Mathematics to Isadore M. Singer of MIT and Sir Michael F. Atiyah of the Univ. of Edinburgh for discovering and proving the mathematical concept called the "index theorem."
(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A15)
2004 Mar 25, Armed Palestinians in wetsuits and flippers emerged from the Mediterranean and fired toward a beachfront Israeli settlement of Tel Katifa in Gaza. Two attackers were killed and a third was wounded and fled.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, In eastern Turkey a 5.1 earthquake centered at Cat left at least 9 people dead.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, US Congress passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, making it a separate offense to harm a fetus during violent federal crime.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2004 Mar 25, The US used its veto power to quash a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel for killing Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in a missile strike.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, Howard Dean endorsed John Kerry as the Democratic presidential candidate.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A6)
2004 Mar 25, British PM Tony Blair and Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi greeted each other with smiles and handshakes in a meeting that marked a major step back into the international mainstream for the North African state.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, A military truck drove out of a Russian military base in Chechnya after curfew and hit a mine planted outside to deter a rebel attack, killing 10 soldiers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, arriving home from North Korea, saying his three-day trip yielded an agreement from that country's reclusive leader to "push forward" toward a third round of talks on its nuclear program.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, In Colombia attackers shot and killed three retired police officers, at least two of whom were suspected of having links to drug traffickers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, The Olympic torch was lit in Ilida, Greece, and began its journey to herald the summer Olympiad, Aug 13-29. A 6-continent tour was planned using 2 747s named Zeus and Hera with a bill of $50 million.
(AP, 3/26/04)(WSJ, 7/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 25, An Indian court sentenced four Pakistanis to death for "waging war" against India after they were caught smuggling the deadly explosive RDX into the country in 1999.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, A U.S. soldier died in a bombing north of Baghdad amid warnings that attacks will likely increase with fewer than 100 days left before the coalition hands over sovereignty.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 25, Rebels and the main opposition party, Rally of Republicans, withdrew from Ivory Coast's power-sharing government after security forces in Abidjan fired on protesters demanding implementation of a peace deal. At least 25 people were killed.
(AP, 3/25/04)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A2)(SFC, 3/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 25, A Norwegian Academy awarded the Abel Prize in Mathematics to Isadore M. Singer of MIT and Sir Michael F. Atiyah of the Univ. of Edinburgh for discovering and proving the mathematical concept called the "index theorem."
(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A15)
2004 Mar 25, Armed Palestinians in wetsuits and flippers emerged from the Mediterranean and fired toward a beachfront Israeli settlement of Tel Katifa in Gaza. Two attackers were killed and a third was wounded and fled.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, In eastern Turkey a 5.1 earthquake centered at Cat left at least 9 people dead.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2005 Mar 25, Washington announced it would sell F-16 fighters to Pakistan.
(Reuters, 3/26/05)
2005 Mar 25, Losing still more legal appeals, Terri Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, said his severely brain-damaged daughter was "down to her last hours" as she entered her second week without the feeding tube that had sustained her life for 15 years.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2005 Mar 25, Paul Henning (93), producer of the TV series “The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962-1971) died in Burbank, Ca. Henning also wrote the show’s theme song.
(SFC, 3/26/05, p.B5)
2005 Mar 25, Some 1000 Belarusian demonstrators tried to rally outside the office of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko to demand his ouster, but they were beaten back by riot police swinging truncheons.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 25, Cambodia and Vietnam each confirmed an additional death from bird flu, raising Southeast Asia's death toll to 48.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 25, In Cairo, Egypt, the new $30 million, 74-acre Al-Azhar, was to be inaugurated under the auspices of Aga Khan.
(SFC, 3/12/05, p.F1)
2005 Mar 25, In Ghana sparks from a welder's torch ignited a raging fire on MV Polaris, a Greek tanker moored in Tema, killing three people and leaving 12 others feared dead.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 25, India announced that it has agreed with the United States to a series of steps to boost defense and energy ties.
(Reuters, 3/26/05)
2005 Mar 25, In Iraq Maj. Gen. Salman Muhammad, head of an Iraqi national guard division in Basra, was assassinated on route to a funeral. One of 2 sons was also killed.
(SFC, 3/26/05, p.A11)
2005 Mar 25, Japan’s world fair, Aichi Expo 2005, opened. It ended on Sep 25.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, p.F2)(http://www.expo2005.or.jp/en/)
2005 Mar 25, In Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev (55) was appointed acting president by parliament. The opposition scrambled to restore order in Bishkek, a capital described as "gone mad" with looting and vandalism, after driving President Askar Akayev from power.
(AP, 3/25/05)(SFC, 3/26/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 25, The UN Security Council voted to send 10,700 peacekeepers to Sudan to monitor a peace deal ending a 21-year-civil war.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 25, An ailing, silent Pope John Paul appeared to the faithful via video for Good Friday services at the Vatican.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Some 500,000 people rallied in Los Angeles to protest legislation in Congress that would tighten enforcement against undocumented immigrants and erect more walls along the southern border.
(SSFC, 3/26/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 25, In SF an evangelical Christian concert, dubbed “Battle Cry for a Generation," drew some 25,000 teens to AT&T Park.
(SSFC, 3/26/06, p.B1)
2006 Mar 25, Aderian Gaines (36) was shot and killed while hosting a party for teenagers in Berkeley, Ca. On March 29 SWAT teams arrested James Freeman (29) in Berkeley and Antonio Harris (18) in Oakland for the murder of Gaines. On Nov 27 Harris was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
(SFC, 3/30/06, p.B3)(SFC, 10/26/06, p.B3)(SFC, 11/28/06, p.B3)
2006 Mar 25, In Seattle, Wa., Aaron Kyle Huff (28) fatally shot 6 people at a party and then killed himself.
(SFC, 3/27/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 25, Buck Owens, US country singer, (76) died. The flashy rhinestone cowboy shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw."
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Richard Fleischer (b.1916), film director, died in Woodland Hills, Ca. His films included “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954) and “Conan the Destroyer" (1984). His 1993 memoir was titled "Just Tell Me When to Cry."
(http://tinyurl.com/mdyck)
2006 Mar 25, Afghan and US troops backed by American aircraft fought suspected Taliban in southern Afghanistan, leaving one US service member and seven militants dead.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Researchers said a prototype scramjet engine, that could ultimately lead to two-hour jet flights from Australia to Britain, was launched in the South Australian outback.
(AFP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, In Belarus riot police clashed with protesters in Minsk, forcing demonstrators back and hitting several with truncheons. Four explosions were heard, apparently percussion grenades set off by police.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Kimmie Meissner won the ladies' World Figure Skating Championships title in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2006 Mar 25, Canadian hunters started shooting and clubbing harp seal pups at the start of an annual hunt that is the focus of a tech-savvy protest by animal rights groups.
(Reuters, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, It was reported that Finnish 15-year-olds have the highest level of mathematical skills, scientific knowledge and reading literacy of any rich industrialized country.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.58)
2006 Mar 25, In Haiti 17 human skulls were found in a trash-strewn wooded lot outside Port-au-Prince, including at least some discovered inside a container that had been tossed from a passing car.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, In India PM Manmohan Singh and Iranian Vice-President Rahim Mashaee held talks in New Delhi during which they stressed the need to strengthen bilateral ties, particularly in the energy sector.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, It was reported that Indonesia was losing almost 2m hectares of forest a year, an area the size of Massachusetts or Wales. Timber stock continued to disappear at a rate of 3% a year and over the last 15 years has resulted in a loss of a third of the country’s stock.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.73)
2006 Mar 25, In Iraq more than 50 people were killed in violence, many in a gunbattle between Shiite militia forces and insurgents south of Baghdad. A bomb exploded in a booth for traffic police in north Baghdad, killing four civilians.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Morocco's King Mohammed VI wrapped up a 6-day visit to Western Sahara with talks on a plan to give the territory greater autonomy which will be submitted soon to the UN.
(AFP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Nigeria said it will send back to Liberia exiled ex-president and one-time warlord Charles Taylor, wanted for trial on war crimes by a UN-backed court.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Nigeria announced a two-day extension of a controversial census to allow for everyone in Africa's most populous nation to be counted despite delays caused by poor organization and violence.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, In Pakistan police said they had arrested 57 renegade tribesmen over the last 24 hours in connection with recent bomb and rocket attacks that have killed several people in southwestern Pakistan.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, In Somalia hundreds of heavily armed Islamic militiamen launched an offensive to try to capture a key port and airstrip on the northeastern outskirts of Mogadishu.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, Suspected Tamil Tigers blew up their fishing boat to avoid capture by a navy patrol off the west coast of Sri Lanka, leaving six rebels dead and eight sailors missing.
(AP, 3/26/06)
2006 Mar 25, Taiwan’s annual 8-day Matsu festival began. Tradition says she originated in the 11th century in China's southern Fujian province, directly across from Taiwan. Once revered as a protector of mariners and a guarantor of bountiful harvests, she is now seen as an all-purpose purveyor of health, wealth and happiness.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Mar 25, Tens of thousands rallied in Bangkok, begging their king to intervene in a last-ditch effort to force PM Thaksin Shinawatra from office.
(AP, 3/25/06)
2006 Mar 25, The Vatican's foreign minister said that the "time is ripe" for the Holy See and Beijing to establish diplomatic relations, and confirmed it is ready to move its embassy from Taiwan.
(AP, 3/26/06)
2007 Mar 25, In Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, William Huck Sr. (60) was arrested on child sex charges and has since told authorities he molested 40 children over a 30-year period.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 Mar 25, Lynn Merrick (b.1921), leading lady in American Western films, died in Florida. Her over 40 films included “Two Gun Sheriff" (1940) and “I Love Trouble" (1948).
(SFC, 4/3/07, p.D5)
2007 Mar 25, In Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants attacked a district office in Wardak province in a clash that left 15 militants and two officers dead. In Ghazni province Afghan police and soldiers launched a joint operation against militants in Andar district, which left five suspected Taliban dead and seven wounded.
(AP, 3/27/07)
2007 Mar 25, Armenia’s PM Andranik Margarian (55) died of heart failure. Serzh Sarkisian (Sargsyan), defense minister, was appointed prime minister.
(AP, 3/25/07)(www.eurasianet.org/armenia/parties/serzh.html)
2007 Mar 25, In Belarus security forces prevented up to 1,500 opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko from protesting in the same square where unprecedented rallies shook the former Soviet republic a year ago.
(AFP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, British PM Tony Blair said that the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran as they searched for smugglers off the Iraqi coast were not in Iranian waters and warned that Britain viewed their fate as a "fundamental" issue.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, European Union leaders celebrated half a century of unity by hailing the bloc's achievements in bolstering peace, democracy and prosperity, then pledged to end two years of deadlock over plans to radically overhaul the way the EU does business.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, In Germany Brigitte Mohnhaupt (57), a one-time leader Germany's Red Army Faction, was released after a quarter-century in prison for her involvement in some of the radical left-wing group's most notorious murders.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Incumbent Donald Tsang trounced his challenger in Hong Kong's first contested leadership race since it returned to Chinese rule, but the losing candidate said the vote was rigged and demanded greater democracy. Tsang beat pro-democracy lawmaker Alan Leong 649-123 in the vote by an election committee loaded with tycoons and other elites.
(AP, 3/25/07)(AP, 3/26/07)
2007 Mar 25, Iran announced it was partially suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog agency, citing what it called “illegal and bullying" Security Council sanctions imposed on the country for its refusal to stop enriching uranium.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2007 Mar 25, Suspected Shiite militants bombed a Sunni mosque in Haswa in apparent retaliation for a suicide attack the day before against a Shiite shrine in the same city that killed 11 people. Gunmen and Iraqi security forces clashed in a Sunni area in central Baghdad. At least two people were killed in fighting. At least 27 Iraqis were reported killed. 5 US soldiers were killed in roadside bombings.
(AP, 3/25/07)(SFC, 3/26/07, p.A5)
2007 Mar 25, A powerful earthquake struck central Japan, killing at least one person and injuring 170 others as it toppled buildings, triggered landslides and generated a small tsunami along the coast. The quake was followed throughout the day by aftershocks.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Citizens of Mauritania went to the polls for the second time this month, choosing between two men vying to usher Mauritania into civilian rule. Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi won Mauritania’s first free presidential election.
(AP, 3/25/07)(AP, 3/25/08)
2007 Mar 25, In Nigeria a diplomatic source said an Indian and a Lebanese man kidnapped in volatile southern Nigeria last week amid disputes over oil revenues have been released.
(AFP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Fire broke out in a Moscow striptease club in the early hours, killing 10 people.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, European leaders called for new international sanctions on Sudan over its treatment of civilians in Darfur, where the new UN humanitarian chief warned that humanitarian efforts were at risk of collapse.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, declaring the atmosphere "not fully ripe," shunned officials from the Islamic militant Hamas group. Ban Ki-Moon toured a Palestinian refugee camp and a stretch of Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank, and said the visit strengthened his resolve to work for Mideast peace.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, In Somalia one of the elders involved in negotiations said talks between Ethiopian military officials and elders of the dominant Hawiye clan in Mogadishu have reached an impasse, threatening a two-day truce.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, In northern Sri Lanka thousands of Tamil civilians were on the run as troops and Tiger rebels traded artillery fire across a de facto border, with both sides claiming heavy casualties.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 25, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said that his administration plans to create "collective property" as part of sweeping reforms toward socialism, and that officials would move to seize control of large ranches and redistribute lands deemed "idle."
(AP, 3/25/07)
2008 Mar 25, The US Supreme Court ruled that US ratification of certain treaties isn’t enforceable unless Congress takes additional steps.
(WSJ, 3/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 25, A widely watched index of US home prices fell 11.4 percent in January, its steepest drop since data for the indicator was first collected in 1987. The decline reported in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index means prices have been growing more slowly or dropping for 19 consecutive months.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, America’s baseball season opened in Japan as the Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics 6-5.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.83)
2008 Mar 25, In Florida part of a construction crane fell 30 floors at the site of a Miami condo tower, killing 2 workers and injuring 5.
(WSJ, 3/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 25, US researchers, who have identified all 1,116 unique proteins found in human saliva glands, said the discovery could usher in a wave of convenient, spit-based diagnostic tests that could be done without the need for a single drop of blood.
(Reuters, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, In Afghanistan gunmen have attacked a group of police along the border with Iran, killing four police and two civilians.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports, facing down angry farmers embroiled in a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-exporting nations. The tax on soybeans had been raised to 40%, up from 27% in 2007.
(AP, 3/26/08)(Econ, 3/29/08, p.49)
2008 Mar 25, In western Austria some 70 vehicles were involved in a pileup on an autobahn killing one person and injuring at least 37 others.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Belarus said it had uncovered a spy ring working for Washington, deepening a diplomatic and human rights row between the countries. Police beat demonstrators with truncheons and hauled them into waiting trucks as thousands of opposition protesters turned out in defiance of a government ban on the anniversary of the 1918 short-lived declaration of independence.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Director Koichiro Matsuura said that Visegrad’s Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic bridge, a 16th century stone bridge over the Drina River that links Bosnia and Serbia, has been added to UNESCO's World Heritage List. A ceremony in Sarajevo marked the event.
(AP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, Auctioneers said the painting "La Surprise" (~1718) by French artist Jean-Antoine Watteau, missing for 200 years, has been found in a British country house and could now sell for up to five million pounds.
(AFP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Troops from the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Comoros seized control of the rebel island of Anjouan after a seaborne assault backed by the African Union.
(Reuters, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, In eastern Guatemala at least nine people were killed and seven wounded in a shootout that is likely tied to drug traffickers. Guatemalan drug boss Juan Jose "Juancho" Leon was summoned by Mexican traffickers for what he was told was business. Instead, dozens of attackers ambushed his entourage with grenades and assault rifles, killing Leon and 10 others in a brazen demonstration of power.
(AP, 3/25/08)(AP, 7/21/09)
2008 Mar 25, In western Honduras a passenger bus plunged off a highway and rolled 500 yards down a hillside, killing 26 people and injuring at least 19.
(AP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, Officials said Indonesia plans to restrict access to pornographic and violent sites on the Internet after the country's parliament passed a new information bill.
(Reuters, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, Iraqi forces clashed with Shiite militiamen in the southern oil port of Basra and least 22 people were killed. 5 suspected militants were killed in Basra while attempting to place a roadside bomb. Gunmen patrolled several Baghdad neighborhoods as followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a nationwide civil disobedience campaign to demand an end to the crackdown on their movement. 2 bombs exploded in central Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding eight others. A US-allied Sunni fighter was killed in a drive-by shooting northeast of the capital. In August it was reported that a secret deal with an Iran-backed militia kept British forces out of the battle, leaving US and Iraqi forces to fight alone. The Ministry of Defense denied any deal was struck and said it held back to ensure that the operation was seen as Iraqi-led. The effect was that 4,000 British soldiers were kept out of action for six days until a deal brokered in Iran ended heavy fighting.
(AP, 3/25/08)(AP, 8/5/08)
2008 Mar 25, In Nepal police armed with bamboo sticks stopped a protest by Tibetan refugees and monks in front of the Chinese Embassy and arrested about 100 participants.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 25, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia made a proposal for dialogue among the world’s monotheistic religions. Abdullah said Saudi Arabia's top clerics gave him a green light.
(AP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, In Sri Lanka fighting across the war-ravaged northern district killed at least one soldier and 19 rebels.
(AFP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, In Sudan a World Food Program (WFP) driver was shot dead and his assistant seriously wounded in South Darfur state.
(Reuters, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, It was reported that Syria is cracking down more on Internet use, imposing tighter monitoring of citizens who link to the Web, as well as jailing bloggers who criticize the government and blocking YouTube and other Web sites deemed harmful to state security.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2009 Mar 25, Australia PM Kevin Rudd visited the US and urged Americans not to view China as an enemy but as a country offering huge economic opportunities, even though its leaders have "done some bad things in the past."
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, The US House voted to set aside over 2 million acres in 9 states as protected wilderness. Legislators also approved a $400 million project to restore a 3-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River in central California.
(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/26/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 25, One of the US Air Force's top-of-the-line F-22 fighter jets crashed in the high desert of Southern California, killing test pilot David Cooley (49), an employee of prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.
(AP, 3/26/09)(WSJ, 3/26/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 25, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe signed 2 bills creating a state lottery, making his state the 43rd plus the district of Columbia to hold such contests.
(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 25, Conservation International, a Washington D.C.-based conservation group, announced the discovery of over 50 new animal species in a remote, mountainous region of Papua New Guinea. The group spent the past several months analyzing more than 600 animal species found during its expedition to the South Pacific island nation in July and August.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, North Dakota officials issued an urgent call for volunteers to help with sandbagging as record amounts of water poured into the Missouri River and evacuations were ordered in riverside areas.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, John Hope Franklin (b.1915), revered Duke Univ. historian and scholar of the African American experience, died in North Carolina. His books included “From Slavery to Freedom" (1947).
(SFC, 3/26/09, p.B5)
2009 Mar 25, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb ripped through a van carrying civilians on a road used by foreign troops, killing 10 and wounding 7 others in Khost province.
(AP, 3/25/09)(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 25, Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb, Canadian theater impresarios from a company called Livent, were convicted of fraud. They had been indicted in the US in 1999 and fled to Canada, where they were charged in 2002. Six former Livent accountants testified in the trial, saying they were ordered to inflate income and profit documentation.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.44)(http://news.yahoo.com/s/playbill/20090325/en_playbill/127701)
2009 Mar 25, China’s state media said forestry officials in far western China have resorted to scattering abortion pills near gerbil burrows in a bid to halt a rodent plague threatening the desert region's fragile ecosystem.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, Czech PM Mirek Topolanek, the current rotating president of the EU, slammed US plans to spend its way out of recession as "a road to hell."
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, An Ecuadorean air force training jet crashed in a jungle area near the Colombian border. The pilot and a member of the air force rescue team were killed when a cable snapped as they were being lifted to a helicopter.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, Egypt, one of the strongest US allies in the Middle East, welcomed Sudan's president despite an international warrant seeking his arrest on charges of war crimes in Darfur. Egypt is not an ICC signatory and both it and the Arab League have backed al-Bashir.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, The EU laid out new labeling rules laid allowing Rose wine customers to know exactly how their grapes were treated to turn their tipple a blushing pink.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, The MT Nipayia, a Greek-owned and Panama registered ship with a crew of 19, was hijacked 450 miles east of Somalia’s south coast.
(AP, 3/27/09)(WSJ, 3/27/09, p.A8)
2009 Mar 25, The Indian army said it had killed 17 militants from Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kashmir. Recent fighting has left at least 25 people dead.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Iraq an American soldier has died of non-combat injuries.
(AP, 3/27/09)
2009 Mar 25, Incoming Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said his government would be a "partner for peace with the Palestinians," softening his rhetoric a day after the centrist Labor Party joined his coalition in exchange for vaguely worded promises to pursue negotiations.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Mexico US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Mexico in its violent struggle against drug cartels, and acknowledged the US shares blame because of its demand for drugs and supply of weapons.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Pakistan a suspected US missile attack killed 8 militants, including 4 foreigners, in the stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's top Taliban commander. The New York Times carried a report on its Web site saying ISI operatives provide money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders, with proof of the ties coming from electronic surveillance and trusted informants. The US State Department announced a $5 million bounty for Baitullah Mehsud.
(AP, 3/25/09)(AP, 3/26/09)(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 25, Romania was given a loan totaling 20 billion euros (27 billion dollars) by the IMF, the EU, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). An austerity program accompanied the loans.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, In northwestern Russia Kirovsk mayor Ilya Kelmanzon was shot dead in his office. A local utilities chief who was in Kelmanzon's office, then shot himself dead.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, Fahad al-Ruwaily, a senior al-Qaida leader, returned to Saudi Arabia voluntarily and turned himself in. He was on a list of the kingdom's 85 most wanted militants living abroad.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Edinburgh, Scotland, vandals attacked the home of former Royal Bank of Scotland head Fred Goodwin, smashing windows at the house of the ex-CEO whose 700,000 pound ($1.2 million) annual pension has prompted public outrage.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, Hundreds of Somalis demonstrated in Baidoa against Islamist fighters after they imposed a ban on leaf qat, a popular narcotic.
(SFC, 3/26/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 25, Sri Lanka's military repulsed a Tamil Tiger counterattack in the north of the island and killed at least 30 of the rebels.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 25, Sudanese officials said at least 2 people were killed when attackers set fire overnight to a camp for the internally displaced in Darfur, destroying hundreds of shelters. A spokesman for the Darfur rebel group Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) put the toll at three dead and three injured and blamed a pro-government militia for the attack.
(AFP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Turkey a helicopter crashed in the snow-covered mountains of southern Turkey. Muhsin Yazicioglu, leader of the small conservative Great Unity Party, was one of six people on board. Authorities the next day released a recording of an emergency call made after the crash by journalist Ismail Gunes, who said he thought he was the only survivor. Rescue workers found the wreckage on March 27. All 6 people aboard were found dead.
(AP, 3/26/09)(AP, 3/27/09)
2010 Mar 25, The US Dept. of Defense announced stricter guidelines for discharging gay and lesbian service members allowing only generals to approve discharges.
(SFC, 3/26/10, p.A6)
2010 Mar 25, Florida Int’l. Univ. (FIU) running back Kendall Berry was stabbed late at night, after the 22-year-old junior from Haines City, Fla., was involved in an argument with another man outside the front doors of the school's student recreation center in Miami.
(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, Maine Gov. John Baldacci signed into law America’s first blanket “extended producer responsibility" (EPR) framework law. It ordered manufacturers to assume the cost of disposing their products following consumer use. Maine’s EPR law for electronic waste went into effect in 2004.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.67)(http://tinyurl.com/y5ew8vk)
2010 Mar 25, In western Tennessee a medical helicopter crashed ion stormy weather killing its crew of three.
(SFC, 3/26/10, p.A6)
2010 Mar 25, The top UN envoy for Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, met with delegates from Hezb-e-Islami, the country's second-biggest militant group, who are in Kabul for talks on a possible peace deal. Hezb-e-Islami is headed by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is black-listed as a terrorist by the UN and the US.
(AFP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden threatened in a new audio recording released to kill any captured Americans if the US executes the self-professed mastermind of the Sept.11 attacks or any other al-Qaida suspects.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, A top Australian official said about 100 Australian police are being investigated for circulating racist and pornographic e-mails via the internal police e-mail system, and one officer involved in the scandal has committed suicide.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, Bangladesh set up a war crimes tribunal for long-delayed trials of people accused of murder, torture, rape and arson during its 1971 independence war.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Belarus some 2,000 opposition activists held a protest rally despite police blocks that authorities explained were part of security measures against an alleged bomb threat. March 25 has long been a traditional day of opposition demonstration, marking what they call Freedom Day, the anniversary of the 1918 declaration of the first, short-lived independent Belarusian state.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In London a teenager (15) was stabbed in front of commuters during the evening rush hour at Victoria station. Paramedics were unable to resuscitate the boy. 20 detainees (14 to 17) and were being questioned in connection with the incident.
(AFP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, Chinese officials said emergency wells were being drilled and cloud-seeding operations carried out in southern China, where the worst drought in decades has left millions of people without water and caused more than 1,000 schools to close.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, China agreed to share water level data at 2 dams to ease pressure from nations downstream, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A3)
2010 Mar 25, In Colombia a package bomb killed a 12-year-old boy who may have been given it to take to a police station after school in the coca-growing southwest.
(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, Dubai said it would inject 9.5 billion dollars into Dubai World, which announced it was asking creditors to wait for up to eight years to be repaid in full.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, Leaders of the 16 eurozone countries agreed to a plan to rescue Greece if it finds itself unable to borrow.
(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, Former French PM Dominique de Villepin announced the creation of a new center-right party set to challenge bitter rival President Nicolas Sarkozy in elections in two years' time.
(Reuters, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Ireland a judge in Limerick ruled that the city’s 110 pubs can open on April 2 because the city is hosting a major Irish rugby match. This will be the 1st time that pubs anywhere in Ireland will open on Good Friday.
(SFC, 3/26/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 25, Kenyan police arrested an American of Somali origin who was on a terror watch list as he and two associates attempted to fly to Somalia. American Suleman Essa, Canadian Ahmed Ali Hassan and Kenyan Muhammed Hussein Hash were about to board a plane ferrying aid to Somalia when they were arrested. All 4 were released the next day.
(AP, 3/25/10)(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Mexico police were searching for two prison guards and 40 prisoners who disappeared after a pre-dawn jailbreak in the Mexican city of Matamoros across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Gunmen killed a deputy police chief and his bodyguard in Nogales, Sonora state.
(AP, 3/25/10)(AP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 25, A Netherlands court fined the owner of what was the biggest marijuana-selling "coffee shop" in the country almost euro10 million ($13.34 million) for violating liberal Dutch drug laws, in what is seen as a test for authorities seeking to rein in the growth of such cafes.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, Pirates attacked a Turkish cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria, injuring three crew members. Eight to 10 pirates with automatic weapons boarded the Ozay 5. They robbed the crew of money and cellphones but fled after the ship began making distress calls.
(Reuters, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, It was reported that deaths from starvation in North Korea’s South Pyongan province was in the thousands since January and that the bodies of malnourished elderly people were being found in the streets of Pyongyang.
(SFC, 3/25/10, p.A4)
2010 Mar 25, Pakistani military airstrikes killed 61 suspected militants in an area near the Afghan border, including dozens at a seminary where Taliban commanders were believed to be meeting. Pakistani police said they had arrested two of the men who kidnapped a British boy (5) for 12 days this month, and paraded the hooded and shackled suspects before the media. Taliban fighters seized a security checkpoint in the Orakzai tribal region close to the Afghan border, sparking clashes that killed five soldiers and 32 insurgents in a region where the army is pressing an offensive.
(AP, 3/25/10)(AP, 3/26/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Qatar the CITES UN wildlife meeting rejected efforts to regulate the trade in overfished porbeagle sharks, reversing an earlier ruling at the conference and leaving none of the proposed shark species with protection. Asia nations managed to reopen the debate on the final day of the conference and voted to kill the proposal.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Switzerland the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council (HRC) voted 20-17 for a text that lists the “defamation of religion" as an infringement of liberty.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.62)
2010 Mar 25, In Venezuela Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of Globovision, was arrested, raising concerns the government is pursuing a widening crackdown to silence opponents. Globovision is the country’s only remaining TV channel that takes a critical line against Pres. Chavez.
(AP, 3/26/10)
2011 Mar 25, The World Trade Organization ruled that some anti-dumping duties imposed by the United States on imports of Brazilian orange juice violated international trade rules.
(AFP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a teacher merit-pay bill. The bill also ended tenure-like job protections.
(SFC, 3/26/11, p.A5)
2011 Mar 25, NY state information technology workers at the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal hit the jackpot. They won $319 million in the multistate Mega Millions game's fifth-largest prize in its history. Each of the 7 winners will collect a check for $19.1 million, after taxes.
(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Mar 25, The Oregon Province of Jesuit priests agreed to pay $166.1 million to over 450 Native Americans who were abused at the order’s schools around the Pacific Northwest.
(SFC, 3/26/11, p.A5)
2011 Mar 25, Africa's highest court on human rights ordered Libya to immediately cease any action that would result in the loss of life. The order also compelled Libya to report to the Tanzania-based court within two weeks. The ruling was not made public until March 30.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 25, A global network of conservationists said Africa's rhinos face their worst poaching crisis in decades with organized crime syndicates killing more than 800 in the past three years alone.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Thousands of Bahrainis turned out for a sermon of a major Shi'ite cleric ahead of "Day of Rage" protests planned across the Gulf Arab country despite a ban imposed under martial law. Security forces fired tear gas and pellets at anti-government protesters after a prominent Shiite cleric vowed that their demands for the Sunni monarchy to loosen its grip on power will not be silenced by "brutal force." Activists said one person died.
(Reuters, 3/25/11)(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Belarus police attacked hundreds of opposition activists who tried to hold an anti-government rally. March 25 has long been a traditional day of opposition rallies marking the anniversary of Belarus' short-lived declaration of independence from Russia in 1918.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, Canadian opposition parties toppled PM Harper on the grounds that his government was tainted by sleaze, had managed the economy poorly and was in contempt of Parliament. Canada's 40th Parliament ended with cheers from opposition legislators as politicians voted along party lines to drive the Conservatives out of office.
(Reuters, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay said that Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard has been designated to lead the NATO alliance's military campaign in Libya. Bouchard will be in charge of both the air campaign and the naval task force implementing the arms embargo.
(AP, 3/25/11)(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, In China Ying Jianguo, general manager of Taizhou Suqi Storage Battery Co. Ltd., was taken into custody in the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang province. The official Xinhua News Agency reported 139 cases of lead poisoning near the plant. More testing soon found at least 168 villagers, including 53 children, had high lead levels.
(AP, 3/27/11)
2011 Mar 25, Croatia arrested Bojan Milkovic, head of the INA, the country’s national oil company, on corruption charges.
(Econ, 4/23/11, p.56)(http://tinyurl.com/3tnzyqm)
2011 Mar 25, El Salvador police arrested Carlos Ernesto Teos Parada, a man accused of running a human smuggling ring that transported some of the victims in the massacre of 72 migrants in northern Mexico last August.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, European leaders agreed a new package of anti-crisis measures at a two-day summit, but were forced to delay increasing their rescue fund and acknowledged they faced new threats from a government collapse in Portugal.
(Reuters, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, European Union leaders called for worldwide stress testing of nuclear plants and committed to putting their 143 reactors through the toughest security checks possible.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, A Honduras supreme court judge dismissed three arrest warrants for former President Manuel Zelaya, allowing him to return without detention to the country where he was deposed in a June 2009 coup. A day later Zelaya said he won't return to Honduras for fear of being killed.
(AP, 3/25/11)(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, In India Pradeep Kumar, a government aviation official, and 3 other people were arrested in a widening investigation of corruption in awarding flying licenses to airline pilots.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Iran two members of the security forces were killed in two armed attacks in Sanandaj, capital of Iran's Kurdistan province bordering Iraq. Two of the rebels who were involved in the attacks were reported killed on April 4.
(AFP, 4/4/11)
2011 Mar 25, Israel deployed its newly developed "Iron Dome" rocket defense system for the first time to defend its southern communities from attacks by Gaza militants after a bloody week of Palestinian strikes and Israeli reprisals.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Ivory Coast about 1,000 people frantically crowded around buses rented by Mali to evacuate its citizens, as the UN said up to 1 million have fled their homes amid fears of civil war.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Japanese officials said a suspected breach in Unit 3 reactor at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant could mean more serious radioactive contamination, as PM Naoto Kan called the country's ongoing fight to stabilize the plant "very grave and serious." The official death toll jumped past 10,000. With the cleanup and recovery operations continuing and more than 17,400 listed as missing, the final number of dead was expected to surpass 18,000.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Jordan pro-government supporters attacked a gathering of protesters in central Amman demanding the dissolution of parliament and the firing of the country's prime minister, pelting them with stones and injuring six people.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In eastern Libya rebel gunners fought artillery duels with Muammar Gaddafi's forces. Western warplanes struck at heavy armor used by the government to crush the revolt. NATO said its no fly zone operation could last three months, and France cautioned the conflict would not end soon.
(Reuters, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, A boat left Tripoli carrying 72 people. It drifted for more than two weeks after it ran out of fuel, water and food. Only 9 people survived. The survivors were arrested by pro-Gadhafi forces after their boat came ashore in Libya, but managed to flee again.
(AFP, 5/13/11)(AP, 5/13/11)
2011 Mar 25, In northwestern Pakistan gunmen attacked a minibus carrying mostly Shiite Muslims and killed eight people in an area that has seen a recent peace deal between rival Sunni and Shiite tribes.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, A Palestinian was shot and wounded by Israeli police after he injured a soldier in the West Bank.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, The Philippine Catholic church led tens of thousands of Filipinos in one of the biggest rallies against a proposed family planning law, saying it will promote artificial contraception and lead to more abortions.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Qatar flew its first sortie after joining the forces of 10 other nations enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, A Saudi news agency says several hundred Shiite Muslims have held protests in eastern Saudi Arabia to demand the release of detainees and show support for fellow Shiites protesting against the Sunni monarchy in nearby Bahrain.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Syria demonstrations took place in Daraa and throughout the country in what organizers called a "Day of Dignity." Thousands took to the streets demanding reforms and mourning dozens of protesters who were killed during a violent, weeklong crackdown that has brought extraordinary pressure on the country's autocratic regime. Presidential adviser Buthaina Shaaban said 34 people have been killed in the weeklong crackdown. 4 people were reported killed when armed forces fired on protesters in Latakia. Troops and soldiers opened fire in at least six places, killing some 15 protesters.
(AP, 3/25/11)(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 25, In Thailand a court ordered leaders of the self-styled People' Alliance for Democracy to pay millions of dollars to airport operators in compensation for occupying Bangkok's airports for a week in 2008.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh told tens of thousands of supporters that he's ready to step down but only if he can leave the country in "safe hands," while anti-government protesters massed for a rival rally.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 25, A Zimbabwean court ordered Energy Minister Elton Mangoma, a top political ally of PM Tsvangirai, to be held in jail after his second arrest this month. The arrests have been criticized by the prime minister's party as being politically motivated.
(AP, 3/25/11)
2012 Mar 25, Pres. Obama met with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of a nuclear security conference in South Korea. Obama other key allies considered providing Syrian rebels with communications help, medical aid and other "non-lethal" assistance.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Michigan the bodies of two women, Abreeya Brown (18) and Ashley Conaway (22), were discovered in shallow graves on Detroit’s west side. 5 men were soon charged in their abduction and slaying.
(SSFC, 4/8/12, p.A10)
2012 Mar 25, "Titanic" director James Cameron (57) made a solo submarine dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific, the deepest point in the world's oceans. On Jan 23, 1960, a two-man crew aboard the US Navy submersible Trieste, then the only humans to have reached Challenger Deep, spent just 20 minutes on the bottom.
(AFP, 3/26/12)(Econ, 3/31/12, p.90)
2012 Mar 25, Afghan officials said the US paid $50,000 in compensation for each villager killed and $11,000 for each person wounded in a shooting rampage allegedly carried out by a rogue American soldier on March 11.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, Gabor Rakonczay arrived in Antigua after canoeing across the Atlantic Ocean in 76 days. He had left Lagos, Portugal, on December 21, 2011.
(SFC, 3/27/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 25, Four people died when their small plane crashed shortly after taking off from a tiny airport in the Bahamas en route to Florida.
(AP, 3/26/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Belarus several thousand people joined an anti-government rally calling for the release of political prisoners and for European-style democracy.
(SFC, 3/26/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 25, British Tory treasurer Peter Cruddas, a senior member of David Cameron's Conservative party, resigned after he apparently offered access to the British premier in return for party donations of £250,000.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck central Chile, the strongest and longest that many people said they had felt since a huge quake devastated the area two years ago. There were no reports of major damage or deaths due to quake-related accidents.
(AP, 3/26/12)
2012 Mar 25, Twenty people from DR Congo drowned when their boats capsized while crossing the river border with Zambia enroute to a soccer game.
(AFP, 3/27/12)
2012 Mar 25, Egypt's newly empowered Islamists have tightened their grip, giving themselves a majority on a 100-member panel tasked with drafting a constitution that will define the shape of the government in the post-Hosni Mubarak era. The panel will have nearly 60 Islamists, including 37 legislators selected the day before by parliament's two chambers.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, Hong Kong held elections for a new chief executive. Only 1,200 people, handpicked from the populations, were eligible to vote. Henry Tang Ying-Yen was favored to win. Self-made millionaire property consultant Leung Chun-ying (57) won the leadership election with 689 votes.
(Econ, 3/3/12, p.58)(AFP, 3/25/12)(SFC, 3/26/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 25, Bertie Ahern (60), former Irish PM (1997-2008), announced he has resigned from the Fianna Fail party rather than be expelled over an investigation into secret payments he received while in office, but vowed to clear his name.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, France handed down preliminary murder and terrorism charges against Abdelkader Merah alleging he helped his brother Mohamed plan recent attacks against Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers.
(SFC, 3/26/12, p.A2)
2012 Mar 25, Malian soldiers repelled a fresh attack by Tuareg rebels in the north following a coup as the junta struggled to restore order after ousting the west African nation's president. Mali's foreign minister and 13 others being detained by the junta that took over Mali started a hunger strike.
(AFP, 3/25/12)(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Mexico tens of thousands of people gathered to attend the highlight of Pope Benedict XVI's visit: an open-air Mass in the shadow of the Christ the King monument in Guanajuato state.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Nigeria 3 suspected members of Boko Haram were killed overnight in the northern city of Maiduguri in a shootout with soldiers deployed to crush the Islamist sect. About 20 gunmen had attacked a police station with rifles and explosives.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, The Palestinian Prisoners' Club reported that around 30 Palestinian prisoners have taken up hunger strikes across the Israeli prison system. The club said Israel is holding some 700 members of the Palestinian security services, along with 27 Palestinian lawmakers, 24 of them from Hamas.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, Russian spacecraft controllers intentionally plunged a defunct communications satellite, called Express-AM4, into the ocean. The $265 million satellite was launched into the wrong orbit on Aug 18, 2011, and had been languishing in space ever since. The company Polar Broadband Systems Ltd. tried in vain to save and recycle the Russian satellite.
(SPACE.com, 3/28/12)
2012 Mar 25, Senegalese voted in a run-off election in which incumbent Abdoulaye Wade (85) is fighting off a mass opposition effort to foil his controversial bid for a third term. Opposition candidate Macky Sall won the vote. Wade conceded defeat just hours after results showed his opponent winning.
(AFP, 3/25/12)(AP, 3/26/12)
2012 Mar 25, Six South African rugby players from a local club in Port Elizabeth drowned after a rip-current pulled 21 people out to sea. 7 lifeguards rescued 15 people.
(AFP, 3/26/12)
2012 Mar 25, Syrian forces attacked flashpoint areas, carrying out raids and clashing with rebels as President Bashar Assad's allies in Russia said the country may be facing its last chance for peace. The LCC reported five troops and three mutinous soldiers killed in the southern town of Nawa.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, In Tunisia at least 8,000 Islamists staged a mass demonstration in central Tunis in the latest show of force to demand the adoption of Islamic law in the north African country.
(AFP, 3/25/12)
2012 Mar 25, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was in Cuba to begin radiation therapy treatment one month after undergoing surgery that removed a cancerous tumor.
(AP, 3/25/12)
2013 Mar 25, Pres. Obama signed a proclamation using the Antiquities Act to preserve some 1,000 acres of the San Juan Islands, Washington state, as a national monument.
(SSFC, 4/7/13, p.P6)
2013 Mar 25, Abu Zubaydah, a Guantanamo detainee who allegedly revealed valuable information about 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, sued Poland. Lawyers said he was held in a CIA black site in Poland (2002-2003), which they say has withheld critical information needed to investigate his case.
(AP, 3/27/13)
2013 Mar 25, In California people celebrated the opening of the new Devil’s Slide Tunnel. It opened to public traffic on March 26.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A1)
2013 Mar 25, In San Francisco executives of the Palace Hotel changed their minds, amid ringing outcry, and planned to return the Pied Piper painting by Maxfield Parrish to the hotel following restoration work.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A1)
2013 Mar 25, New Jersey lottery officials said Pedro Quezada (44), an immigrant from the Dominican Rep., has won the $338.3 million Powerball jackpot.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A7)
2013 Mar 25, Yahoo acquired Summly, a British startup, for some $30 million. Summly founder Nick d’Aloisio (17) had created an iPhone app to summarize articles in 300-400 characters.
(SFC, 4/18/13, p.66)
2013 Mar 25, In Afghanistan the US military gave control of its last local detention facility to Kabul, a year after the two sides initially agreed on the transfer.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, A fishing boat carrying nearly 100 asylum seekers capsized off Australia's west coast. 2 people died and another 93 were rescued after the boat overturned north of Christmas Island.
(Reuters, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, In Canada waste water from Suncor's oil sands operation north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, escaped when a pipe broke after freezing. An estimated 350 cubic meters of contaminated water was released into the river over a 10-hour period, the company said, adding that it did not contain tar-like bitumen.
(Reuters, 3/27/13)
2013 Mar 25, Central African Republic's President Francois Bozize fled to neighboring Cameroon. Michel Djotodia, one of the leaders of the Seleka rebel coalition, said that he plans to stay in power until 2016, the length of time left in the term of Bozize.
(AP, 3/25/13)(AP, 3/26/13)
2013 Mar 25, Cyprus clinched a last-minute solution to avert imminent financial meltdown early today after it agreed to slash its oversized banking sector and inflict hefty losses on wealthy depositors in troubled banks to secure a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout. Under the terms of the bailout deal, the country' second largest bank, Laiki — which sustained the most damaged from bad Greek debt and loans — is to be split up, with its nonperforming loans and toxic assets going into a "bad bank." The healthy side will be absorbed into the Bank of Cyprus.
(AP, 3/25/13)(AP, 3/30/13)
2013 Mar 25, A Dubai court convicted American businessman Zack Shahin for fraud and sentenced him to 15 years' imprisonment after a nearly five-year legal battle that included a hunger strike and a failed attempt to flee.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Egypt’s top prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 5 rights activists on suspicion of inciting violence against members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A2)
2013 Mar 25, Israel's government said it will resume transferring tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Kenya’s Supreme Court ordered the election commission to recount votes in 22 of the country's 291 constituencies to see if any of the tallies exceed the number of registered voters.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Libya's foreign minister said the widow of the late ruler Moammar Gadhafi and other family members have been granted asylum in Oman.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Malaysia’s PM Najib Razak announced the creation of the Eastern Sabah Safety Zone. Authorities said they will resettle people out of the area of Borneo where fighting in Sabah has left 74 people dead.
(SFC, 3/26/13, p.A4)(SSFC, 3/31/13, p.A4)
2013 Mar 25, Myanmar's government warned that religious violence could threaten democratic reforms after anti-Muslim mobs rampaged through three more towns in the country's predominantly Buddhist heartland.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, TNT Express NV, a Dutch-based package delivery company, said it will restructure operations, taking €150 million ($195 million) in charges and cutting 4,000 jobs, or 6 percent of its work force, by the end of 2015. A takeover by UPS was blocked by European regulators in January.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Peru's government declared an environmental state of emergency in a remote Amazon jungle region it says has been affected by years of contamination at the country's most productive oil fields, which are currently operated by Argentina-based Pluspetrol.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Russian prosecutors and tax police searched the Moscow headquarters of Amnesty International and several other rights groups, continuing a wave of pressure that activists say is part of President Vladimir Putin's attempt to stifle dissent.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, South Africa's president said 13 South African soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in weekend fighting in the Central African Republic.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, In Syria a series of mortar strikes near a downtown traffic circle in Damascus killed two people and wounded several others.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Zimbabwe's High Court ordered the immediate release of prominent rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, detained for eight days for obstructing the course of justice. A free Mtetwa said her arrest was a ploy to intimidate human rights activists and pro-democracy groups ahead of upcoming elections expected in July.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 25, Zambia's former president, Rupiah Banda (76), was arrested by police for alleged abuse of authority and corruption. He was released on bail of Kwacha 500,000 ($100,000) and ordered to turn in his passport.
(AP, 3/26/13)
2014 Mar 25, The US Coast Guard partially reopened the Houston Ship Channel following the March 22 collision between an oil barge and a bulk carrier near Texas City. 170,000 gallons of tar-like coal were spilled.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A6)
2014 Mar 25, Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert signed a law that allows parents of children with severe epilepsy to obtain marijuana extract to help with seizures.
(SFC, 3/25/14, p.A6)
2014 Mar 25, Facebook said it has agreed to purchase Oculus VR, a startup specializing in virtual reality, for $2.3 billion in cash and stock.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A1)
2014 Mar 25, King Digital, ticker KING, raised $500 million from the sale of 22.2 million shares. Established in 2002, King's business has soared in the last two years thanks to the spectacular popularity of Candy Crush Saga, which boasts some 97 million players worldwide.
(AFP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, In Afghanistan suicide bombers and gunmen attacked an election commission office beside the home of presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani, less than two weeks before a crucial election. 10 people were killed including 2 policemen, an election worker and a provincial council candidate. 3 suicide bombers entered a branch of Kabulbank in the eastern province of Kunar, killing at least 3 security guards and injuring two bank workers.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)(Reuters, 3/29/14)
2014 Mar 25, The Arab League held a summit in Kuwait. UN peace mediator for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, called for an end the flow of arms to the combatants in the war.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Royal Mail, Britain's main postal operator, said it plans to axe 1,600 jobs under a fresh cost-cutting program, six months after its controversial part-privatization by the government.
(AFP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, China's eastern city of Hangzhou said will start restricting car sales on March 26, joining major cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, in the fight against snarling traffic and heavy smog in the world's largest automobile market.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Egypt's leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie (70), and 682 others went on trial on charges including murder. Defense lawyers boycotted the court session, attended by 60 of the defendants, after complaining of irregularities. Reporters were barred from the courtroom.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Indian police arrested Tehseen Akhtar (23), the alleged head of militant group the Indian Mujahideen. The group was blamed for a string of deadly attacks including one at a rally in October by election frontrunner Narendra Modi.
(AFP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Ireland's police chief Martin Callinan resigned following months of criticism of his force's handling of allegations of illegal wire-tapping and corrupt enforcement of traffic laws.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Kenya’s wildlife authority said it needs help to curb the killings of elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns. Poachers this year have killed 18 rhinos and 51 elephants.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A2)
2014 Mar 25, Myanmar said it will ban the export of logs starting April 1 to reduce deforestation and boost its wood-based industry by exporting only value-added products. Myanmar's forest cover shrank from 57.9 percent of its total land area in 1990 to 47.6 percent in 2005.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, NATO member Norway suspended all joint activities with the Russian military through May because of Moscow's annexation of Crimea.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In the Netherlands 35 countries pledged to turn international guidelines on nuclear security into national laws, a move aimed at preventing terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear material.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In the Netherlands US President Barack Obama, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye met to discuss North Korea's security threat.
(AP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, Dutch police detained 28 anti-nuclear demonstrators at a reactor ahead of a visit by a delegation of energy sector bosses.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In northeastern Nigeria two explosions in Maiduguri killed 11 people, including 5 policemen who were believed to have been targeted.
(AFP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In central Nigeria police recovered 7 bodies following an attack on Agena village, Benue state, in renewed violence between herdsmen and farmers.
(AFP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, Singapore authorities intercepted about one ton of ivory worth $1.6 million in a shipping container from Africa marked as carrying coffee berries.
(AFP, 4/3/14)
2014 Mar 25, Sudan said a pro-government militia has killed 151 rebels in clashes this week in the country's restive Darfur region.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Syria's opposition fighters seized Samra a Mediterranean coastal village as they pushed to consolidate their presence in a key regime bastion near the Turkish border.
(AFP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Thai police seized 147 kg (323 pounds) of heroin they believe was from Myanmar and destined for Australia. The single haul exceeded some of Thailand's recent yearly seizure totals.
(AP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, Turkish special forces raided buildings in Istanbul used by suspected members of an Islamist militant group active in neighboring Syria and Iraq, leaving three policemen and two suspects wounded.
(Reuters, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 25, Ukraine lawmakers accepted the resignation of the defense minister Igor Tenyukh as thousands of troops began withdrawing from the Crimean Peninsula, now controlled by Russia. Col. Gen. Mikhail Kovalyov was voted in as his replacement.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Oleksander Muzychko, a prominent Ukrainian far-right activist, was shot dead by police overnight as he tried to escape from a cafe in the western region of Rivne. Police said he was wanted for "hooliganism" and an attack on a local prosecutor.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, The United Nations human rights office said an Egyptian court's decision to sentence 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death contravened international law.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Venezuela’s Pres. Maduro said officials have arrested three air force generals on charges of plotting a coup.
(SFC, 3/26/14, p.A2)
2014 Mar 25, The World Health Organization published a report saying air pollution kills about 7 million people worldwide every year, with more than half of the fatalities due to fumes from indoor stoves.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2015 Mar 25, The US government and major business leaders renewed their call on the Thai government to crack down on slavery in its fishing fleets, and to punish people who force migrant workers to catch seafood that can end up in the United States.
(AP, 3/26/15)
2015 Mar 25, The US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision threw out a lower court ruling that upheld a state legislature redistricting plan in Alabama that packed black voters into certain districts in a way critics say diminished their clout at the polls.
(Reuters, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, The US Army charged Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for leaving his post in Afghanistan in June, 2009.
(SFC, 3/27/15, p.A7)
2015 Mar 25, The United States and its allies staged 19 air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq over the last 24 hours.
(Reuters, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, California announced legal action to suppress a "reprehensible" ballot initiative to outlaw homosexuality -- on pain of execution. The proposal was submitted by lawyer Matthew McLaughlin to the California Attorney General's office late last month.
(AFP, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, In southern California Giseleangelique Rene D'Milian (47) was arrested for plotting to kidnap two babies, including one found dead on January 4 in a dumpster, and attacking their mothers in a bizarre scheme to fool her boyfriend into thinking she birthed their twins.
(Reuters, 3/25/15)(SFC, 3/28/15, p.A5)
2015 Mar 25, Facebook announced that it has started to turn its Messenger service into a platform on top of which other firms can develop content and apps.
(Econ., 3/28/15, p.68)
2015 Mar 25, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives in downtown Kabul killing at least 7 people.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, In Chile communities in a northern desert region struggled to cope with rain-provoked flooding. At least 24 people were killed as power was knocked out and roadways cut off. The interior ministry declared a state of emergency.
(AP, 3/26/15)(AFP, 3/27/15)(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Mar 25, A number of pilots at Lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary Germanwings refused to fly following the deadly crash a day earlier in the French Alps, saying they were mourning the victims of the doomed aircraft.
(AFP, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, It was reported that workers in Mexico’s state of Baja California have led a week of violent protests over low pay, abuses and poor conditions at large-export-oriented farms.
(SFC, 3/25/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, Pakistani military jets killed 30 militants in the Tirah Valley of the Khyber tribal region. The army said 80 militants were killed in the area over the weekend with 7 government soldiers also killed.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, A Polish court sentenced former priest Wojciech Gill to seven years in prison for abusing six minors in the Dominican Republic between 2009 and 2013, as well as two in Poland in 2001-2002.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin fired the governor of a far-flung region who has been arrested on charges of corruption. Alexander Khoroshavin, governor of the island of Sakhalin just north of Japan, was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of receiving a bribe for building a power station.
(AP, 3/25/15)
2015 Mar 25, The Saudi ambassador to the United States announced that his country had initiated airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Saudi operation was called “Decisive Storm." King Salman gathered a 10-country coalition of Sunni states to bomb the Houthis.
(AFP, 3/25/15)(SSFC, 4/5/15, p.A4)(Econ, 5/23/15, p.18)
2015 Mar 25, Syrian rebels seized an ancient town near the Jordan border that is a key government stronghold, ousting Syrian soldiers and allied militiamen from the region after four days of intense battles. 11 soldiers and allied militia as well as 17 insurgents were killed as an alliance of Islamist rebels including al Qaeda's Nusra Front overran 17 defense posts around Idlib in an offensive to take the city from the army and allied militia.
(AP, 3/25/15) (Reuters, 3/26/15)
2015 Mar 25, Thailand security forces killed 4 people when they raided a village in Pattani, one of three Muslim-dominated provinces bordering Malaysia, as part of an operation to arrest rebels. On April 8 an investigating team said the four Muslim men were not members of any extremist group and called for legal action against those responsible.
(Reuters, 4/7/15)
2015 Mar 25, A Uganda health official said an outbreak of typhoid has infected hundreds of people in the capital, Kampala.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A2)
2015 Mar 25, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko forced Igor Kolomoisky to step down as head of the key industrial region of Dnipropetrovsk, after a dispute over control of the main state oil and gas company ended up with armed men storming two office blocks in Kiev.
(AFP, 3/25/15)(Econ., 3/28/15, p.55)
2015 Mar 25, Ukraine arrested two top officials on graft charges at a televised cabinet meeting hours after the president sacked a powerful oligarch as regional governor. Police detained Sergiy Bochkovsky, director of Ukraine's state emergencies service, and his deputy Vasyl Stoyetsky, accusing them of "high-level" corruption.
(AFP, 3/26/15)
2015 Mar 25, In Vietnam least 14 people were killed and 30 injured late today when a huge scaffolding collapsed at an industrial complex owned by Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics group in the Vung Ang economic zone of Vietnam’s Ha Tinh province. In December a court sentenced two South Koreans and two Vietnamese to prison for committing safety violations in the collapse that killed 13 people and injured 29 others.
(Reuters, 3/26/15)(AP, 12/21/15)
2015 Mar 25, Yemen Pres. Abed Rabu Mansour Hadi fled the country by sea as Shiite rebels and their allies moved on his last refuge in the south.
(SFC, 3/26/15, p.A4)
2016 Mar 25, The United States and its allies targeted Islamic State militants in Iraq with 22 strikes and four in Syria.
(Reuters, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, A federal judge in San Diego sentenced Navy Capt. Daniel Dusek, who oversaw operations in the US Pacific Fleet, to 46 months in prison for providing classified information to a Malaysian defense contractor in exchange for luxury hotel stays and the services of prostitutes.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Bangladesh thousands of Muslims rallied in Dhaka to denounce a court petition seeking to remove Islam as the country's official state religion.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In the Congo DRC UN helicopter gunships attacked Ugandan rebels active in the volatile east, inflicting casualties.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Cuba Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones performed a free concert for hundreds of thousands in Havana.
(AFP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, Egypt's army killed 60 gunmen in clashes in the Sinai Peninsula where it is battling a jihadist insurgency.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In western Indonesia rioting prisoners started a fire at the Malabero prison in Bengkulu on Sumatra Island. Five inmates were killed.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, Iran's Pres. Hassan Rouhani arrived in Pakistan on a landmark visit, his first since becoming president. Rouhani and Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif signed a five years strategic action plan aimed at boosting bilateral trade to the level of US Dollars five billion by 2021.
(AP, 3/25/16) (Reuters, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, Iran's official IRNA news agency said that an air ambulance helicopter has crashed in southern Iran, killing all seven onboard.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Iraq a suicide attack ripped through a trophy ceremony after a football tournament and killed 41 people in the Babil province village of Al-Asriya. Mayor Ahmed Shaker was among the dead, as was one of his bodyguards and at least 5 members of the security forces.
(AFP, 3/26/16)(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Iraq thousands rallied in Baghdad in support of firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr's associate, Sheik Asad al-Nasiri, delivered a message from the cleric giving PM Haider al-Abadi 24 hours to implement wide-ranging reforms.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Libya authorities in control of Tripoli declared a "maximum state of emergency" after a UN-backed unity government that they reject said its members would head to Tripoli to begin work.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Libya an Indian nurse and her infant son were killed in a rocket attack on their apartment in Zawiya, a town near Tripoli.
(AP, 3/26/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Myanmar the Yangon Stock Exchange officially opened for business more than three months after it was launched in December 2015.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In North Korea American Kim Tong Chol said he had spied for South Korean intelligence in a plot to bring down the North’s leadership and asked for forgiveness at a media presentation.
(AP, 3/25/16)(SFC, 3/26/16, p.A2)
2016 Mar 25, It was reported that North Koreans are being mobilized en masse to boost production and demonstrate their loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un in a 70-day campaign aimed at wiping out "indolence and slackness." To show their loyalty, workers are putting in extra hours to boost production in everything from coal mining to fisheries.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Palestinian Christians and foreign pilgrims marked Good Friday with a procession through Jerusalem's cobbled Old City amid increased security measures during an ongoing wave of violence.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In the Philippines a devotee was nailed to a cross for the 30th time in an annual Good Friday ritual, which he dedicated to peace in Belgium and other countries targeted by Islamic extremists. Ruben Enaje and 14 other men, some screaming in pain, were nailed to wooden crosses by actors dressed as Roman centurions in San Pedro Cutud and two other rice farming villages in Pampanga province north of Manila.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Poland's environment minister said he has approved a much-protested plan to allow extensive logging in Bialowieza Forest, Europe's last pristine forest, arguing it's the way to save it from woodworms.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia will deploy a range of coastal missile systems on the far-eastern Kuril islands, claimed by Japan, as part of its military build-up in the region.
(AFP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Russian officials said the body of a lawyer representing one of two Russian servicemen on trial in Ukraine has been found buried in an abandoned farm. Two men have been detained in connection with his murder. Yuri Grabovsky was representing Alexander Alexandrov, a serviceman captured along with another Russian, Yevgeny Yerofeyev, last year in rebel-held eastern Ukraine.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, Syrian government forces recaptured a Mamluk-era citadel in Palmyra from the extremist Islamic State group, as the fierce battle for control of the historic town entered its third day.
(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, News reports said that Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli (aka Haji Imam), the Islamic State group's second in command, was killed earlier this month. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said US forces killed Haji Imam, a senior Islamic State leader described as the group's finance minister, among several key members of the militant group eliminated this week.
(AFP, 3/25/16)(AP, 3/25/16)
2016 Mar 25, In Yemen three suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State group struck checkpoints of loyalist forces in Aden, killing 22 people, including 10 civilians.
(AFP, 3/26/16)
2017 Mar 25, In the SF Bay Area the first day of full service opened at the new Warm Springs BART station in Fremont.
(SSFC, 3/26/17, p.C1)
2017 Mar 25, In Nevada a gunman, later identified as Rolando Cardenas (55), opened fire on a double-decker bus on the Las Vegas Strip, killing one person and wounding another before finally surrendering.
(AFP, 3/26/17)(SSFC, 3/26/17, p.A8)(SFC, 3/27/17, p.A4)
2017 Mar 25, Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge plunged into darkness to mark Earth Hour, as global landmarks began dimming their lights to draw attention to climate change. Conservation group WWF started Earth Hour in 2007.
(AFP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In eastern Bangladesh six people, including two policemen, were killed in explosions near a building in Sylhet. The Islamic State claimed responsibility.
(AP, 3/26/17)(Econ, 4/1/17, p.32)
2017 Mar 25, Belarus authorities detained some 400 people during an attempt to hold a street protest in the capital Minsk, amid rising public anger over falling living standards and an unpopular tax on the unemployed.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 25, Thousands of people marched through London to protest against Britain leaving the European Union, just four days before PM Theresa May launches the start of the formal divorce process from the bloc it joined 44 years ago.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Bulgarian nationalists kept up their protests at the Turkish border against Bulgarian citizens living permanently in Turkey who are coming in to vote in Bulgaria's election.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that China has captured 2,566 fugitives who had fled to more than 90 countries and regions and recovered 8.6 billion yuan ($1.25 billion) of illicit funds from 2014 to 2016.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, China prevented Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney, from returning to Sydney because he's suspected of endangering national security. Feng had been wrapping up a three-week trip researching human rights lawyers. Chinese authorities have staged a wide-reaching crackdown on human rights lawyers across the country since July 2015. On April 1 Feng Chongyi was allowed to return to Australia.
(AP, 3/26/17)(AP, 4/2/17)
2017 Mar 25, In southern China an operation platform collapsed at a power plant under construction in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, killing nine people.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Three Egyptian soldiers were killed in an explosion that hit their armored vehicle in the northern Sinai peninsula. Another officer managing a checkpoint was killed by sniper fire.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)(SSFC, 3/26/17, p.A4)
2017 Mar 25, On the 60th anniversary of the founding of the EU, 27 European leaders signed a document in Rome enshrining a pledge to give member nations more freedom to form partial alliances and set policy when unanimity is out of reach.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and hundreds of supporters marched ahead of a vote for the city's next leader which they reject as a sham.
(AFP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In India one person was killed and about 14 injured when violence erupted following a scuffle between Muslim and Hindu school students in PM Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat.
(Reuters, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Italy a woman's body was found stuffed in a suitcase that was floating at a marina in the Adriatic port of Rimini.
(AP, 3/27/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Japan a Vietnamese man held in an immigration detention center died, drawing fresh attention to conditions in the country's detention system. Van Huan Nguyen (aka Nguyen The Hung) was one of more than 11,000 refugees that the country took in over the three decades to 2005 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Nguyen had complained of pain throughout his detention for a week before his death. The death was the 13th in Japan's detention system since 2006.
(Reuters, 3/26/17)(Reuters, 3/28/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Kyrgyzstan about 250 people had gathered in Bishkek to demand the release of Sadyr Japarov, who was arrested when trying to enter the country earlier in the day. Supporters tried to break through a police cordon outside the national security agency's headquarters, but police turned them back with flash grenades. Dozens were arrested. Japarov had lived the past few years in Cyprus after serving a prison sentence for organizing a 2013 protest that turned violent.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Maldives’ former President Mohamed Nasheed said that he has signed an agreement with his one-time archrival and former strongman to try to restore democracy in the archipelago state.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Mali's main Tuareg separatist factions said they would boycott talks with the government next week on implementing a nearly 2-year-old peace accord that has been riven by quarrelling.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Mexico about 100 journalists and free-speech supporters demonstrated to protest the March 23 killing of reporter Miroslava Breach gunned down in the northern state of Chihuahua.
(AP, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, Pakistan said it has started building a fence along the Afghan border in areas where it says militants have launched cross-border attacks.
(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 25, Philippine soldiers rescued one of two Filipino cargo ship crewmen taken captive just two days ago by suspected Abu Sayyaf militants. Aurelio Agacac, the ship captain, was freed in the remote village of Basakan, Basilan province.
(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In the southern Philippines at least four people were killed and 23 others wounded in a grenade attack that appeared to be unrelated to terrorism. The attacker was arrested following the blast in Busbus village near the domestic airport in Sulu province's Jolo town.
(AP, 3/26/17)
2017 Mar 25, In South Sudan six aid workers working for the Grass Roots Empowerment for Development Organization (GREDO), were killed in an ambush while traveling from the capital Juba towards the town of Pibor. The death toll soon rose to seven after the driver, David Kim Choop, also died.
(Reuters, 3/27/17)(AFP, 3/27/17)(SFC, 3/28/17, p.A2)
2017 Mar 25, In Syria airstrikes hit a main street in the Damascus suburb of Hamouriyeh killing at least 16 people and wounded more than 50. Airstrikes in Idlib province hit several towns and villages as well as the provincial capital the carries the same name. Syria's army and its allies retook a village near Hama, as the government tried to turn back a major insurgent offensive.
(AP, 3/25/17)(Reuters, 3/25/17)
2017 Mar 25, In Yemen 16 rebels were killed and 24 wounded over the last 24 hours in air raids by a Saudi-led coalition targeting the insurgents on an air base and arms depot in the east of the rebel-held Hodeida province.
(AFP, 3/25/17)
2018 Mar 25, Linda Brown (75), a key figure in the 1954 school segregation case (Brown vs Bosrd of Education of Topeka), died in Topeka, Kansas. Her father, Oliver Brown (d.1961), had tried to enroll her into an all-white school and became the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that struck down racial segregation in public schools.
(SFC, 3/28/18, p.D2)
2018 Mar 25, Remington, a company that began making flintlock rifles when there were only 19 United States, filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware.
(AP, 3/26/18)(SFC, 3/27/18, p.D2)
2018 Mar 25, In West Virginia two firefighters were killed then their fire truck hit a rock wall while responding to another deadly accident that left three people dead.
(SFC, 3/26/18, p.A5)
2018 Mar 25, In western Afghanistan a suicide attack near a Shi'ite mosque in the city of Herat killed at least one person and wounded eight others.
(Reuters, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Testing of Albania's first ever toll road began and sparked complaints and anger from drivers and from neighboring Kosovo over the cost of using the 110-km (70-mile) highway linking Milot, near the Adriatic coast, to the Morine border.
(AP, 3/26/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Belarus scores of protesters were arrested in Minsk as supporters of the country's repressed opposition tried to hold a march. President Alexander Lukashenko allowed March 25 to be publicly celebrated this year for the first time in his 24-year rule.
(AP, 3/25/18)(AFP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, The maiden flight of a new non-stop regular passenger service between Australia and Britain touched down at London's Heathrow Airport. The new link with Perth, a 14,498-km (9,009-mile) journey, is around three hours quicker than routes that involve stopovers in the Middle East to change planes or refuel.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Cameroon held senate elections, as tensions continued to soar in the French-majority country's anglophone regions where separatist rebels have been fighting government forces for several months. Some 10,000 municipal councilors voted for 70 members of the upper house for a duration of five years.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, China's new central bank governor, Yi Gang, outlined sweeping plans to rein in rising debt and financial risk, but expressed confidence that Beijing can prevent potential dangers.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, A Dubai court sentenced British journalist Francis Matthew (61) to 10 years in jail followed by deportation for bludgeoning to death his wife with a hammer last summer.
(Reuters, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Egyptian authorities said police killed six militants believed to be involved in a weekend bombing in the coastal city of Alexandria that killed two policemen.
(AP, 3/26/18)
2018 Mar 25, The EU said it was "extremely concerned" about DR Congo after the country announced it would decline a $1.7 billion international aid package. The United Nations has declared the humanitarian crisis in the DR Congo to be a Level 3, the UN's highest-level emergency.
(AFP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Carles Puigdemont, the fugitive ex-leader of Catalonia and ardent separatist, was arrested by German police on an international warrant as he tried to enter the country from Denmark. Puigdemont faces charges in Spain including rebellion that could put him in prison for up to 30 years.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Israeli jets pounded Hamas positions in Gaza overnight after Palestinians staged a cross-border raid into southern Israel. The planes hit a base of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, causing damage but no injuries.
(AFP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Mexico gunfire from a helicopter supporting marines against cartel gunmen killed a female passerby and her two children during a confused series of pre-dawn gun battles in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo. One marine was also killed and 12 were wounded. Four gunmen also died.
(AP, 4/7/18)
2018 Mar 25, In southern Mexico a "caravan" of more than 1,200 Central American migrants, organized by the immigrant advocacy group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, began at Tapachula and headed to the US border. Its members were disproportionately from Honduras.
(Reuters, 4/3/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Moldova the former president of Romania Traian Basescu joined more than 10,000 people in Chisinau to rally in support of reunification between Romania and Moldova. The issue highlighted a divide in Moldova between pro-Western and Moscow-backed political factions ahead of elections in November.
(Reuters, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, his ratings in a slump amid a suspected cronyism scandal and cover-up, apologized again for causing anxiety and loss of confidence in his government.
(Reuters, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, In central Mali six people were found dead in a mass grave. Villagers later said they had been arrested by the military three days earlier.
(Reuters, 4/3/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Niger four leading opposition and rights figure were among 23 people arrested after a protest against new taxes degenerated into clashes between demonstrators and police.
(AFP, 3/27/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Russia at least 64 people died in a fire that broke out in a multi-story shopping center in the Siberian city of Kemerovo. Dozens of children were feared to be among the dead.
(AP, 3/25/18)(Reuters, 3/26/18)
2018 Mar 25, In Somalia a car bomb exploded near parliament headquarters in Mogadishu, killing at least four people along with the driver. A few hours earlier, another car bomb outside the capital killed one person plus the driver.
(AP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Nearly 2,000 Syrian rebels and civilians began leaving a ravaged pocket of Eastern Ghouta, in fresh evacuations that further emptied the former rebel bastion.
(AFP, 3/25/18)
2018 Mar 25, Turkmenistan held parliamentary elections that included candidates from three parties and some independents, but no real opposition to President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (60). Serdar Berdymukhamedov (36), the son of the authoritarian president, scored a huge victory in the tightly controlled parliamentary elections. Turkmenistan has no tradition of competitive elections or political opposition.
(AP, 3/25/18)(AFP, 3/30/18)
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