Today in History - March 30
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1282 Mar 30,
Furious inhabitants of Palermo attacked French occupation force in the
"Sicilian Vespers." The Mafia appeared in Sicily to revolt against
French rule after a drunken soldier attacked a young woman on her
wedding day.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(MC, 3/30/02)
1298 Mar 30, Duke Vytenis joined
with Riga and its archbishop against the Livonian order.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1422 Mar 30, Ketsugan, a Zen
teacher, performed exorcisms to free the Aizoji temple.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1423 Mar 30, Lithuania and Poland
reached an agreement at Kezmark with Emperor Sigismund, who agreed to
recall Sigismund Kaributa from Poland.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1492 Mar 30, King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella signed a decree expelling all Jews from Spain. Jews
numbered about 80,000 and it was estimated that about half chose to
convert. [see Mar 31]
(HN, 3/30/98)(WSJ, 4/16/98, p.A20)
1533 Mar 30, Henry VIII made
Thomas Cranmer archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer had advised Henry that
his 1509 marriage to Catherine of Aragon was null and void because she
had previously married Henry’s late brother Arthur, even though that
marriage was ever consummated.
(PCh, 1992ed, p.177)
1603 Mar 30, Battle at Mellifont:
English army under Lord Mountjoy beat the Irish.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1719 Mar 30, Sir John Hawkins,
author of the first history of music, was born.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1767 Mar 30, Jonas Kristupas
Glaubicas, one of the founders of the Vilnius school of baroque
architecture, died.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1814 Mar 30, Britain and allies
marched into Paris after defeating Napoleon.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1820 Mar 30, Anna Sewell, English
novelist, was born. Her "Black Beauty" has become the classic story
about horses.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1822 Mar 30, Congress combined
East and West Florida into the Florida Territory.
(AP, 3/30/97)(MC, 3/30/02)
1840 Mar 30, "Beau" Brummell
(b.1778), English dandy and former favorite of the prince regent, died
of syphilis in a French lunatic asylum for paupers. In 2006 Ian Kelly
authored the biography “Beau Brummel.”
(HN, 3/30/99)(WSJ, 5/7/06, p.P9)
1842 Mar 30, Crawford Williamson
Long (1815-1878) of Jefferson, Ga., utilized ether the first time to
remove a tumor from the neck of his patient, Mr. James M. Venable.
(AP,
3/30/97)(www.general-anaesthesia.com/images/crawford-long.html)
1853 Mar 30, Vincent Van Gogh
(d.1890), Dutch artist, was born in Zundert, Neth. His work included
“The Drawbridge and Sunflowers in a Vase,” and “Harvest in Prevance,”
which was done both in oil and as a watercolor. The watercolor sold in
1997 for $14.7 mil. He produced an estimated 900 paintings and 1200
drawings but sold virtually none of them. In 1997 it was reported that
more than 100 of his paintings and drawings might be fakes. 300 of his
canvasses were painted in the last 15 months of his life.
(AAP,1964)(WUD,1994, p.606)(SFC, 6/26/97,
p.A21)(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.8)(HN, 3/30/98)
1855 Mar 30, First election in
Territorial Kansas. Some 5,000 "Border Ruffians" invaded the territory
from western Missouri and forced the election of a pro-slavery
legislature.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1856 Mar 30, Russia signed Peace
of Paris ending the Crimean War.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1858 Mar 30, Hyman L. Lipman of
Philadelphia patented the pencil with an eraser attached on one end.
(HN, 3/30/98)(SFC, 9/16/98, Z1 p.6)
1864 Mar 30, Skirmish at Mount
Elba, Arkansas.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1867 Mar 30, U.S. Secretary of
State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia’s Baron
Stoeckl to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, two cents
an acre, a deal roundly ridiculed as "Seward's Folly," "Seward's
icebox," and President Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden." The treaty
was signed the nest day.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/01)(MC, 3/30/02)
1870 Mar 30, The 15th Amendment to
the US Constitution, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race,
was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.
(HN, 3/30/98)(AP, 3/30/08)
1870 Mar 30, Texas was the last
Confederate state readmitted to the Union.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1873 Mar 30, Benedict Augustin
Morel (63), psychologist (dementia praecox), died.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1880 Mar 30, Sean O'Casey (d.
1964), Irish playwright, was born. "It is my rule never to lose me
temper till it would be detrimental to keep it."
(AP, 3/17/00)(HN, 3/30/01)
1883 Mar 30, Jo Davidson, American
sculptor, was born.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1885 Mar 30, Texas was the last
Confederate state readmitted to the Union.
(HN, 3/30/01)
1885 Mar 30, In Afghanistan,
Russian troops inflicted a crushing defeat on Afghan forces Ak Teppe
despite orders not to fight.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1902 Mar 30, Roberta Brooke
Russell (d.2007) was born in Portsmouth, NH. In 1953 she married
millionaire Vincent Astor (d.1959) and became a major philanthropist
following his death.
(SFC, 8/14/07, p.B5)
1909 Mar 30, The Queensboro
Bridge, the first double decker bridge, opened and linked the New
York boroughs of Manhattan and Queens.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1916 Mar 30, Pancho Villa killed
172 at the Guerrero garrison in Mexico.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1919 Mar 30, Gandhi announced
resistance against Rowlatt Act.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1921 Mar 30, Countess of
Sutherland, English great land owner, multi-millionaire, was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1925 Mar 30, Stalin supported
rights of non-Serbian Yugoslavians.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1926 Mar 30, Feliks E. Dzerzjinski
(48), Lithuanian organizer (KGB), died. Felix Dzerzhinsky was the
founder of the communist secret police, the Cheka.
(MC, 3/30/02)(WSJ, 10/15/02, p.D6)
1930 Mar 30, David Staple, joint
president of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland, was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1931 Mar 30, In Scottsboro, Ala.,
9 young black men were indicted for rape. By the end of April all were
tried, convicted and sentenced to death, except for one age 13, who was
sentenced to life in prison. The US Supreme Court later overturned the
convictions, but they were convicted at a 2nd trial, even though one of
the accused said no rape had occurred. The sentences were again
overturned.
(WSJ, 6/20/07, p.A17)
1935 Mar 30, Britain and Russia
agreed on treaties intended to curb the power of the Reich.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1936 Mar 30, Britain announced a
naval construction program of 38 warships. This was the largest
construction program in 15 years.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1937 Mar 30, Warren Beatty,
American actor and director, was born in Richmond, Va., as Henry Warren
Beaty. His older sister became famous as actress Shirley MacLaine
(b.1934). In 2010 Peter Biskind authored ”How Warren Beatty Seduced
America.”
(SSFC, 1/10/10, Books p.F1)
1940 Mar 30, The Japanese set up a
puppet government called Manchuko in Nanking, China.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1941 Mar 30, The U.S. seized
Italian, German and Danish ships in 16 ports.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1941 Mar 30, The German Afrika
Korps under General Erwin Rommel began its first offensive against
British forces in Libya.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1942 Mar 30, Graeme Edge, rock
drummer (Moody Blues-Your Wildest Dreams), was born in England.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1942 Mar 30, SS murdered 200
inmates of Trawniki labor camp.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1943 Mar 30, Rodgers and
Hammerstein's first collaboration, Oklahoma, opened on Broadway. [see
Mar 31]
(HN, 3/30/01)(MC, 3/30/02)
1944 Mar 30, The U.S. fleet
attacked Palau, near the Philippines.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1944 Mar 30, Gobbledygook was
coined by US Rep. Maury Maverick, a Texas Democrat, in a memo banning
"gobbledygook language" at the Smaller War Plants Corporation. It was a
reaction to his frustration with the "convoluted language of
bureaucrats." However, the first time the new word was seen by the
average person was on May 21, 1944. That day, he wrote a long article
for the New York Times magazine, explaining how he invented the word,
and giving readers many examples of how the new word could be used.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobbledygook)(NYT,
5/21/1944, p.SM11)
1944 Mar 30, 781 British bombers
attacked Nuremberg.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1945 Mar 30, A Soviet cable was
intercepted that referred to an agent named Ales, later suspected of
being Alger Hiss. The intercepted cables were classified as part of the
“Venona Project” released in 1996. The US began releasing the coded
Venona cables in 1995. They implicated 349 US citizens and residents as
Soviet helpers. In 1999 John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr published
"Venona," the story of the Soviet infiltration of Washington.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.A27)(WSJ, 6/24/99, p.A20)
1945 Mar 30, 289 anti-fascists
were murdered by Nazis in Rombergpark, Dortmund.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1945 Mar 30, The Soviet Union
invaded Austria during World War II.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1946 Mar 30, The Allies seized
1,000 Nazis who were attempting to revive the Nazi party in Frankfurt.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1949 Mar 30, Friedrich C.R.
Bergius (64), chemist (brown coal, Nobel 1931), died.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1950 Mar 30, President Truman
denounced Senator Joe McCarthy as a saboteur of U.S. foreign policy.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1950 Mar 30, Phototransistor
invention was announced in Murray Hill, NJ. It was invented by Dr. John
Northrup Shive of the Bell Telephone Laboratories.
(http://tinyurl.com/ewxqh)
1953 Mar 30, Einstein announced a
revised unified field theory.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1954 Mar. 30, Canada's first
subway line opened in Toronto.
(CFA, '96, p.42)(HN, 3/30/98)
1957 Mar 30, Tunisia and Morocco
signed a friendship treaty in Rabat.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1961 Mar 30, P.J. Melotte,
discovered Jupiter's 8th satellite, Pasiphae, died.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1962 Mar 30, M.C. Hammer, [Stanley
Kirk Burrell], rapper (Hammer Time), was born in Oakland, Ca.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1964 Mar 30, Tracy Chapman, US
singer, songwriter (Freedom Now, I Got a Fast Car), was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1964 Mar 30, John Glenn withdrew
from the Ohio race for U.S. Senate because of injuries suffered in a
fall.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1964 Mar 30, The original version
of the TV game show "Jeopardy!" premiered on NBC. Merv Griffin
(1925-2007) created the TV game show “Jeopardy.” He sold the rights for
the show to Coca-Cola for $250 million in 1986. The show was hosted by
Art Fleming until 1975. It resurfaced in syndication in 1984 with Alex
Trebek as host.
(SFC, 8/13/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/15/07, p.D12)(AP,
3/30/08)
1968 Mar 30, General Ludvik
Svoboda (1895-1979) was elected president of Czechoslovakia. He stayed
in office to 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludv%C3%ADk_Svoboda)
1970 Mar 30, Secretariat, race
horse, triple crown (1973), was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1970 Mar 30, The musical
"Applause" with Lauren Bacall opened on Broadway. It was based on the
movie "All About Eve."
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Par p.7)(AP, 3/30/07)
1972 Mar 30, Hanoi launched its
heaviest attack in four years, crossing the DMZ in the Easter
offensive. 200,000 North Vietnamese soldiers under the command of
General Vo Nguyen Giap wage an all-out attempt to conquer South
Vietnam. The offensive is a tremendous gamble by Giap and is undertaken
as a result of US troop withdrawal, the strength of the anti-war
movement in America likely preventing a US retaliatory response, and
the poor performance of South Vietnam's Army during Operation Lam Son
719 in 1971. The Communist Easter invasion in South Vietnam was
defeated.
(WSJ, 10/5/98,
p.A21)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1973 Mar 30, Ellsworth Bunker
resigned as US ambassador to South Vietnam. He was succeeded by Graham
A. Martin.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1975 Mar 30, As the North
Vietnamese forces moved toward Saigon, desperate South Vietnamese
soldiers mobbed rescue jets. Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap masterminded the North
Vietnamese victory. Da Nang fell as 100,000 South Vietnamese soldiers
surrender after being abandoned by their commanding officers.
(SFEC, 4/9/00,
p.C16)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1976 Mar 30, Israel killed 6
Palestinians protesting land confiscation.
(www.balad.org/index.php?id=138)
1979 Mar 30, Northern Ireland
spokesman Airey Neave, a leading member of the British parliament, was
killed by a bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA)
in the House of Commons car park in London.
(AP, 3/30/99)(AP, 2/8/10)
1979 Mar 30, Anthrax spores leaked
from a secret germ-warfare plant and spread over Sverdlovsk
(Yekaterinburg), Russia. Over the course of 2 months at least 105
people died of anthrax poisoning. [see Apr 2] Reports did not emerge
until October.
(WSJ, 10/11/01,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_Anthrax_leak)
1980 Mar 30, The Mormon Church
celebrated its 150th anniversary in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1981 Mar 30, John W. Hinckley Jr.
shot and wounded Pres. Ronald Reagan outside a Washington, D.C., hotel.
Press Sec. James Brady took a bullet as did Secret Service agent Tim
McCarthy and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty.
(SFC, 7/14/96, Par p.2)(HN, 3/30/02)(AP, 3/30/08)
1985 Mar 30, Workers at cemeteries
in Colma, Ca., joined striking East Bay graveyard employees.
(SSFC, 3/28/10, DB p.42)
1986 Mar 30, Actor James Cagney
(86) died at his farm in Stanfordville, N.Y.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1987 Mar 30, Vincent Van Gogh's
"Sunflowers" was bought for $39.85 million. The Vincent van Gogh
painting “Sunflowers” was presented by art teacher Claude-Emile
Schuffenecker at a 1901 Paris exhibition. It sold in 1987 for $40.3
million to the Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Co. and was reported in
1997 to be a possible fake. Van Gogh’s letters refer to only 6
paintings of sunflowers, and the Yasuda painting is a seventh.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.D4)(HN, 3/30/98)
1987 Mar 30, The movie "Platoon"
won four Academy Awards, including best picture; Paul Newman was named
best actor for "The Color of Money," Marlee Matlin won best actress for
"Children of a Lesser God."
(AP, 3/30/97)
1988 Mar 30, US House Democratic
and Republican leaders said that they had agreed in principle on a
package of about $50 million to aid the Nicaraguan rebels.
(http://tinyurl.com/n6uak)
1988 Mar 30, An attorney for the
Rev. Jimmy Swaggart said the televangelist would return to the pulpit,
defying national Assemblies of God church officials who had suspended
him for at least a year for "moral failure."
(AP, 3/30/98)
1989 Mar 30, "The Heidi
Chronicles" by Wendy Wasserstein won the Pulitzer Prize for drama; in
the journalism category, the Anchorage Daily News won the public
service award for its reports on alcoholism and suicide among native
Alaskans.
(AP, 3/30/99)
1990 Mar 30, Idaho Gov. Cecil
Andrus vetoed a highly restrictive state abortion measure, saying the
bill gave a woman and her family no flexibility in cases of rape and
incest.
(AP, 3/30/00)
1990 Mar 30, Harry Bridges
(b.1901), Australian-born SF labor activist, died.
(SFC, 7/27/01, p.A19)
1991 Mar 30, Patricia Bowman, a
resident of Jupiter, Florida, told authorities she’d been raped hours
earlier by William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Senator Edward Kennedy,
at the family’s Palm Beach estate. Smith was later acquitted at trial.
(AP, 3/30/01)
1991 Mar 30, In Milwaukee, Wisc.,
serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed and dismembered Konerak
Sinthasomphone (b.1976).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer)
1992 Mar 30, "The Silence of the
Lambs" won five Oscars at the 64th annual Academy Awards, including
best picture, best actress for Jodie Foster and best actor for Anthony
Hopkins.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1993 Mar 30, Washington attorney
Robert Altman went on trial in New York City, charged with wrongdoing
in connection with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International
(BCCI). He was later acquitted.
(AP, 3/30/98)
1993 Mar, 30, Richard Diebenkorn,
California artist, died. He moved between figuration and abstraction
when the two modes were widely thought to be inimical.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Diebenkorn)(SFEC, 9/28/97, DB
p.36)(SFC, 10/9/97, p.E1,6)
1993 Mar 30, Israeli authorities
barred West Bank Palestinians from entering Israel after two traffic
police officers were shot to death.
(AP, 3/30/98)
1994 Mar 30, The Clinton
administration announced it was lifting virtually all export controls
on non-military products to China and the former Soviet bloc.
(AP, 3/30/99)
1994 Mar 30, Serbs and Croats
signed a cease-fire to end their war in Croatia while Bosnian Muslims
and Serbs continued to battle each other.
(AP, 3/30/99)
1995 Mar 30, Pope John Paul II
issued the 11th encyclical of his papacy in which he condemned abortion
and euthanasia as crimes that no human laws could legitimize.
(AP, 3/30/00)
1995 Mar 30, In Japan Takaji
Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency, was seriously wounded
by a masked gunman. Two months later a police officer confessed to the
attack. He was a member of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult and said that he was
ordered to carry out the attack. The confession was kept secret until
anonymous newspaper accounts warned of a cover-up in 1996.
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.A1,6)
1995 Mar 30, Tens of thousands of
Rwandan refugees, fleeing violence in Burundi, began a two-day trek to
sanctuary in Tanzania.
(AP, 3/30/00)
1996 Mar 30, In the NCAA
basketball finals, Kentucky beat Syracuse, 76-67.
(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A-20)
1996 Mar 30 The space shuttle
Atlantis narrowly avoided having to make an emergency landing when its
cargo-bay doors wouldn't open at first to release built-up heat.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1996 Mar 30, The El Bethal Church
in Satartia, Miss., burned down. Arson was suspected and investigations
by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Mar 30, Funeral services were
held in Bethesda, Maryland, for former senator and secretary of state
Edmund Muskie.
(AP, 3/30/01)
1996 Mar 30, Hezbollah guerillas
fired 30 Katyusha rockets across the Lebanon border into northern
Israel. Israel responded by shelling 15 Shiite Muslim villages. Israel
contended that responsibility for the attacks lies with Lebanon and
Syria, which occupies Lebanon with 35,000 troops and exercises dominion
over government decisions.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 4/14/96, p.A-10)
1996 Mar 30, Tamil rebels mounted
suicide attacks on a naval convoy and killed a crew of ten. 35 rebels
were killed and six of their vessels were sunk off the island nation’s
northeast coast.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 30, The Olympic torch was
lit in Greece and began its journey to the games in Atlanta, USA. The
games will run 17 days from 7/19-8/4.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)
1997 Mar 30, The reigning champion
Lady Vols of Tennessee won their fifth NCAA women's basketball title by
defeating Old Dominion, 68-59.
(AP, 3/30/98)
1998 Mar 30, The Univ. of Kentucky
beat the Utah Utes 78-69 at the Alamodome in San Antonio for the NCAA
men’s basketball finals. It was Kentucky’s 7th national title.
(WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A16)
1998 Mar 30, In eastern Arizona
nearly a dozen Mexican gray wolves were released into the White
Mountains after an absence of 30 years.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 30, In Columbia Falls,
Mont., it was reported that $100 million would be distributed amongst
1000 employees of the Columbia Falls Aluminum plant. Roberta Gilmore
led a winning legal suit that claimed the company did not divvy out
profits to workers as promised.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1,12)
1998 Mar 30, In Algeria some 123
people including 58 civilians and many children were reported killed in
the west and south in the last 3 days.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, In Armenia Prime
Minister Robert Kocharian led the runoff vote with 60%.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B5)(WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, In Britain the
Rolls-Royce company of Vickers PLC was sold to BMW of Germany for $570
million. However, BMW was later successfully outbid by Volkswagen AG
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)(AP, 3/30/08)
1998 Mar 30, Prince Norodom
Ranariddh returned to Cambodia and will oppose Hun Sen in the Jul 26
elections.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)
1998 Mar 30, In Columbia it was
reported that oil pipeline sabotage had spilled 1.5 million barrels of
crude over the last decade.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 30, In Romania Prime
Minister Victor Ciorbea resigned and stepped down from his role as
mayor of Bucharest.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 30, In Somalia Ali
Mohamed Mahdi and Hussein Mohamed Aidid agreed to a joint
administration for Mogadishu after 7 years of fighting. 30 people were
killed as rival clans clashed in Kismayu.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 30, A Syrian-Iraqi Health
week started. Health Minister Iyad Shatti arrived in Iraq from Syria
with 12 trucks of food and medicine.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A9)
1999 Mar 30, A jury in Oregon hit
Philip Morris with an $81 million verdict for damages in the lung
cancer death of Jesse Williams who died of lung cancer after smoking
Marlboros for four decades. $821,000 was for compensatory damages and
the rest for punitive damages. The Supreme Court threw out the verdict
in October 2003, saying it should be reviewed by lower courts to ensure
it was not unconstitutionally excessive. In 2007 the Supreme Court
rejected the original $79.5 million punitive payout, but declined to
lay down numerical limits for such damages. By 2008 damages due to
interest reached $143 million. In 2009 the Supreme Court decided not to
a challenge by Philip Morris.
(SFC, 3/31/99, p.A1)(AP, 3/30/04)(Econ, 2/24/07,
p.76)(SFC, 4/1/09, p.A8)
1999 Mar 30, Olusegun Obasanjo,
pres. elect of Nigeria, met with Pres. Clinton and vowed to build
democracy.
(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 30, Yugoslav leader
Slobodan Milosevic insisted that NATO attacks stop before he moved
toward peace, declaring his forces ready to fight "to the very end."
The US called the offer "woefully inadequate." NATO moved to step up
the air war and Serbian forces continued unopposed in Kosovo as
refugees streamed out. NATO answered with new resolve to wreck his
military with a relentless air assault.
(AP, 3/30/00)(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 30, Tanzania arrested a
former Rwanda army officer suspected in the killing of 10 Belgian
peacekeepers in 1994. The officer was freed Mar 29 by a UN war crimes
tribunal.
(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)
2000 Mar 30, Russia’s Alexei
Yagudin won his third title in the World Figure Skating Championships;
Canada’s Elvis Stojko finished second, and American Michael Weiss was
third.
(AP, 3/30/01)
2000 Mar 30, In the midst of the
2000 presidential campaign, Vice President Al Gore broke with the
Clinton administration, saying he supported legislation to allow
six-year-old Elian Gonzalez to remain in the country while the courts
resolved his custody case.
(AP, 3/30/01)
2000 Mar 30, In Colombia a truck
bomb exploded in Cachipay. 4 people were killed and at least 14 were
injured.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A21)
2000 Mar 30, In Japan Mount Usu
erupted on Hokaido following 22 years of dormancy. Evacuations from
Date, Sobetsu and Abuta preceded the eruption.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A17)(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 30, In Sri Lanka an air
force plane leased from a Ukrainian company crashed and 36 military
personnel were killed along with 4 Russian crew members.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.E4)
2000 Mar 30, In Uganda 80 more
bodies were unearthed in Rushojwa. This brought the doomsday sect body
count to 724.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A16)
2001 Mar 30, The Bush
administration suspended a late Clinton rule that directed federal
agencies to assess whether prospective contractors had violated federal
laws.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A3)
2001 Mar 30, A Bruce Rozet, a
landlord-developer, admitted to taking part in a $3.4 million fraud
scheme against HUD and agreed to pay $10.2 million in fines and
penalties.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A3)
2001 Mar 30, Top environment
officials from North, Central and South America ended two days of talks
in Montreal without a consensus agreement on global warming. A
statement signed by 26 ministers from Latin American and Caribbean
countries faulted a decision by the United States to reject the 1997
Kyoto Protocol.
(AP, 3/30/02)
2001 Mar 30, In Indonesia 2 human
rights defenders and their driver were killed in Aceh province after
leaving the police station in Simpang Tiga Alue Pakuk.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A14)
2001 Mar 30, Israeli Arabs
observed Land Day with peaceful marches. Israeli soldiers shot to death
6 Palestinians and wounded over 100.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 30, Macedonia declared a
successful conclusion to their offensive against ethnic Albanian
insurgents.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A10)
2002 Mar 30, The United States
joined other U.N. Security Council members in adopting a resolution
calling on Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities,
including Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat headquarters was under siege.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2002 Mar 30, The Angola government
and Unita signed a preliminary cease-fire agreement. The deal carved up
the nation’s diamond mines among officials in Luanda and the rebels.
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A12)(WSJ, 4/1/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 30, It was reported that
a massive dust storm spread from northwest China to South Korea. It was
largest recorded since records began 130 years ago. Trans Pacific winds
carried the dust clouds west.
(SFC, 3/30/02, p.A20)
2002 Mar 30, Britain’s Queen
Elizabeth (b.1900), the Queen Mother, died at age 101 in her sleep at
Royal Lodge, Windsor. In 2009 William Shawcross authored “Queen
Elizabeth, the Queen Mother: The Official Biography.”
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A3)(AP, 3/30/04)(Econ, 9/19/09,
p.97)
2002 Mar 30, In Kashmir suspected
Islamic militants exchanged fire with Indian police in Jammu and 10
people were killed.
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A17)
2002 Mar 30, A suicide bomber,
Mohannad Salahat (22), struck in Tel Aviv and 32 people were injured.
Israeli troops sealed Arafat in his Ramallah compound.
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/1/02, p.A1)(SFC,
7/24/02, p.A14)
2003 Mar 30, In the 12th day of
Operation Iraqi Freedom an Iraqi general, captured by British forces in
southern Iraq, was pressed to provide information. A British TV
correspondent covering the war in Iraq died after apparently falling
from a hotel roof.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Mar 30, Students in China
staged a rare state-sanctioned protest as hundreds of thousands around
the world staged another day of rallies denouncing the US led war in
Iraq.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Mar 30, In Jakarta,
Indonesia, tens of thousands of protesters marched upon the U.S.
Embassy chanting "America Imperialist, No. 1 terrorist!"
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Mar 30, In Netanya, Israel,
Rami Ghanem (20), a Palestinian suicide bomber, exploded near the
London Café and at least 30 people were injured. The Islamic
Jihad called the attack "Palestine's gift to the heroic people of Iraq."
(SFC, 3/31/03, p.A1)(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, President Bush agreed
to do what he had insisted for weeks he would not: allow National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify publicly and under oath
before an independent panel investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, AT&T officially
began to offer phone calls via the Internet (VOIP) in 2 state, New
Jersey and Texas.
(WSJ, 3/30/04, p.B1)
2004 Mar 30, Alistair Cooke
(b.1908), television host and author, died in NYC at age 95. His books
included "Alistair Cooke's America" (1972).
(Econ, 4/3/04, p.89)
2004 Mar 30, In Bolivia an angry
miner with dynamite strapped to his chest blew himself up inside
Congress, also killing two police officers.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, British police raids
in London led to the arrest of 8 men and the seizure of half a ton of
ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer compound used in the Oklahoma City
bombing.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Cuba arrested Carlos
Ahumada, a Mexican businessman, wanted in Mexico for his role in a
graft scandal involving Mexico City Mayor Manuel Lopez Obrador. Ahumada
was soon deported to Mexico.
(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.A14)
2004 Mar 30, French PM Jean-Pierre
Raffarin was spared the ax despite a massive local election defeat, but
ordered to form a new government to push ahead with unpopular social
and economic reforms.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, In Iraq a suicide
bombing outside the house of a police chief killed the attacker and
wounded seven others. Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier died in a bomb blast,
and Spanish soldiers and Iraqi police quelled a riot by jobseekers.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Myanmar's military
government said it will take the first step on a self-proclaimed "road
to democracy" by reconvening a constitutional convention that was
suspended eight years ago.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Philippine officials
reported the arrest of 4 Muslim extremists in the brutal
al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group. They were found with a stash of TNT
targeted for terror attacks on trains and shopping malls in the
Philippine capital. A suspected Muslim extremist told police
interrogators he planted TNT in a television set on a ferry that caught
fire last month, killing more than 100 people
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Serbian lawmakers
awarded salaries, legal fees and other financial perks to former
President Slobodan Milosevic and fellow Serbian war crimes suspects
being tried by a U.N. tribunal in the Netherlands.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, A boat carrying 107
people sank during the crossing from Somalia to Yemen and only four
other people, including two crew members, were rescued.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, In Sri Lanka gunmen
stormed the home of a Tamil parliamentary candidate who was allied to a
renegade rebel leader, killing the candidate and one of his relatives.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, In Uzbekistan gunfire
and explosions resounded in Tashkent as government forces battled for
hours with suspected Islamic militants after two more suicide attacks.
Officials claimed 20 terrorists and three police died in the fighting.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2005 Mar 30, The US Bureau of
Economic Analysis final estimate of inflation adjusted GDP indicated
3.8% growth for the 4th quarter of 2004.
(www.bea.gov/bea/dn1.htm)
2005 Mar 30, The US Supreme Court
ruled that federal law allows people 40 and over to file age bias
claims over salary and hiring even if employers never intended any harm.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2005 Mar 30, Fred Korematsu (86),
who'd challenged the World War II internment policy that sent
Japanese-Americans to detention camps, died in Larkspur, Ca.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2005 Mar 30, Robert Creeley
(b.1926), US poet, died in Odessa, Texas.
(SFC, 4/1/05, p.B7)
2005 Mar 30, Under heavy
protection, First Lady Laura Bush visited the capital of Afghanistan,
where she talked with Afghan women freed from Taliban repression and
urged greater rights.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2005 Mar 30, Inmates of Barbados'
lone prison set fires and battled guards and each other for a second
day, leaving one prisoner dead and eight injured.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, In Toronto, Canada, a
massive blaze ravaged a plastics factory in the city's west-end,
closing a section of a major highway and keeping firefighters on the
scene for hours as they struggled to contain the six-alarm blaze.
(AP, 3/31/05)
2005 Mar 30, In India shops kept
their shutters down as striking traders said they would step up their
protest against a new value-added tax (VAT) due to take effect on April
1.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, In Iraq two US
soldiers died in separate clashes. A car bomb exploded in western
Baghdad, killing one person and injuring at least six others. Gunmen
also opened fire on a truck carrying faithful near Hillah, 60 miles
south of Baghdad. One person was killed.
(AP, 3/30/05)(AP, 3/31/05)
2005 Mar 30, Dutch bank ABN Amro
announced a 6.3 billion euros ($8.1 billion) bid for the 87 percent of
Italian bank Antonveneta it does not already own, the second foreign
offer for an Italian bank in as many days.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, Nepalese Finance
Minister Madhukar Shumsher Rana and Pakistan's Minister of State for
Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar concluded two days of talks by
signing an agreement to boost trade and investment. Pakistan offered
Nepal five million dollars in trade credits and talks on a free trade
agreement after the first meeting of senior economic officials of the
two countries in a decade.
(AFP, 3/30/05)
2006 Mar 30, Pres. Bush arrived in
Cancun, Mexico, for 2 days of North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) talks with Canadian PM Stephen Harper and Mexico’s Pres. Fox.
(Reuters, 3/30/06)(WSJ, 3/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 30, The Bush
administration said that it is filing a trade case against China before
the World Trade Organization in a dispute involving auto parts from the
US and other nations.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, The Massachusetts top
court said gay couples can’t marry in Massachusetts if they are from US
states where same-sex unions are prohibited.
(WSJ, 3/31/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 30, US Major League
Baseball began its investigation into alleged steroid use by Barry
Bonds and others.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2006 Mar 30, The Translational
Genomics Research Institute announced that researchers have identified
a genetic cause for epilepsy, which could lead to the development of
medicines to treat epilepsy and autism.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In eastern
Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants killed a district chief and
three of his staff in an ambush. In the south rebels killed a police
commander and his brother.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Researchers reported
in the journal Science that record levels of greenhouse gases may be
trapping heat above the ice sheets of Antarctica.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A2)
2006 Mar 30, Researchers in
Australia's Outback launched a test flight of a supersonic jet designed
to fly 10 times faster than conventional airplanes.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Australia's remote
northwest shore was lashed by 80 mph winds as Cyclone Glenda made
landfall. There were no immediate reports of substantial damage.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, A cruise boat
carrying some 130 people capsized in calm Gulf waters only a few
hundred yards off the Bahrain coast. 58 people were killed.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A11)(AP, 4/2/07)
2006 Mar 30, China said it would
spend 1.2 billion dollars cleaning up the Songhua River following a
major chemical spill last year that contaminated water supplies for
millions of people.
(AFP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Former German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was appointed chairman of the consortium
building a strategically vital gas pipeline linking Russia's vast
reserves with German markets, and awarded a salary of about $300,000.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Germany's
metal-working sector was hit by a second consecutive day of strikes as
members of the giant IG Metall union applied more pressure for a
five-percent pay rise.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In western Guatemala
4 people were killed and 12 others were injured in an explosion at a
home-based fireworks factory.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In Iraq Jill Carroll,
a freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor, was set free nearly
three months after she was kidnapped in a bloody ambush that killed her
translator. She said she had been treated well. Assailants in speeding
cars gunned down a police commando as he was leaving his house in south
Baghdad, and drive-by shooters killed a lawyer as she got out of a taxi
in the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, John McGahern (71),
Irish writer, died in Dublin. His stark depiction of love and despair
in repressive rural Ireland made him one of his country's most
acclaimed fiction writers.
(www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/books/31mcgahern.html)
2006 Mar 30, In Jamaica Portia
Simpson Miller (60) became Jamaica's prime minister and first female
head of government.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.42)(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Japan and the US
pledged to work together to defend intellectual property rights amid
concern in both countries about piracy in rapidly growing China.
(AFP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, A Palestinian
militant killed four Israelis in a suicide bombing in the West Bank,
weeks after being released from a Palestinian prison.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Mar 30, The EU, Russia, the
UN and the US warned the Hamas-led Palestinian government that it must
recognize Israel and seek peace talks if it wants to be guaranteed
continued aid.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, A Russian-American
crew and Marcos Pontes, Brazil’s 1st astronaut, lifted off in a Soyuz
TMA-8 spacecraft to dock with the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 30, Russia's natural-gas
monopoly OAO Gazprom said that Belarus must pay European rates for its
gas, an apparent bargaining ploy to win control over its neighbor's gas
pipeline system and one that could stir trouble between the allies.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Spain's lower house
of parliament approved a divisive proposal to grant greater autonomy to
Catalonia and boost the wealthy region's tax collecting and judicial
powers.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In southeast Turkey
violent protests by thousands of Kurdish demonstrators left at least 20
hurt as protesters hurled firebombs and police opened fire to disperse
the crowds.
(AP, 3/3006)
2006 Mar 30, In the UAR hours
after a human rights group blasted the United Arab Emirates for what it
called wanton abuses of Asian workers, the country's labor minister
said a law in the works will give laborers the right to form trade
unions and bargain collectively.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In Uganda a fire
destroyed a school dormitory in Kabarole where the children had been
reading by candlelight, killing at least 10 of the students.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Mar 30, Uruguay said it will
repay $630 million to the IMF ahead of schedule, clearing all its 2006
obligations to the agency in a sign of the country's improving economic
health.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2007 Mar 30, President Bush went
to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he apologized to troops for
shoddy conditions in outpatient housing.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2007 Mar 30, The Pentagon released
a transcript in which Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national of
Yemeni descent, told a military hearing at Guantanamo that he was
tortured into confessing that he was involved in the bombing of the USS
Cole.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, A military judge at
Guantanamo Bay said the prison sentence of David Hicks (31), an
Australian detainee who pleaded guilty to providing material support
for terrorism. would be limited to seven years under terms of a plea
bargain. Marine Corps Judge Col. Ralph Kohlmann said all but nine
months would be suspended. The deal required his silence about alleged
abuse.
(AP, 3/30/07)(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, The Food and Drug
Administration said it had found melamine, a chemical used to make
plastics, in samples of Menu Foods pet food, as well as in wheat gluten
used as an ingredient in the wet-style products.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2007 Mar 30, The Bush
administration, facing heavy pressure to deal with soaring trade
deficits, said it is imposing economic sanctions against China to
protect American paper producers from unfair Chinese government
subsidies.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, It was reported that
shark overfishing has led scallops to decline because their predators,
mainly rays, aren’t being eaten.
(WSJ, 3/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 30, Man Group PLC, the
world's largest publicly traded hedge fund company, said it plans to
split off its brokerage business, making it an independent company
through an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Lombard, Illinois,
Hubert D. Thompson (28), a former Michigan State football player,
hurled James Malone (66) to his death from a 3rd floor apartment
balcony. In 2009 an Illinois judge ruled Thompson not guilty by reason
of insanity and ordered him confined to a mental institution. Thompson
was once the nation’s top-rated defensive end prospect. He was ejected
from the 2000 Citrus Bowl for fighting with a Florida offensive lineman.
(SFC, 9/11/09,
p.A9)(http://cbs2chicago.com/local/Lombard.standoff.Hubert.2.336248.html)
2007 Mar 30, Leaked extracts of a
UN report said Australia will suffer more droughts, fires, floods and
storms due to global warming and its famous Great Barrier Reef will be
devastated by 2030.
(AFP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Bangladesh 6 top
Islamic militants convicted of killing two judges in a 2005 bomb attack
in southern Bangladesh were hanged. Bangladesh officials said bird flu
has spread to five more farms in central and northern districts.
(AP, 3/30/07)(Reuters, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, A protest by air
traffic controllers forced the suspension of flights from Brazilian
airports, stranding thousands of travelers across the country.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Canada Menu Foods
Income Fund, maker of the tainted pet foods at the center of this
month's massive recall, said it is no longer using a Chinese supplier
of wheat gluten after US officials found the chemical melamine in some
of the recalled products.
(Reuters, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, In El Salvador Maria
Julia Hernandez (b.1939), a renowned human rights activist, died of a
heart attack. She had aided victims of El Salvador's civil war.
(AP, 3/31/07)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.97)
2007 Mar 30, A French architect
claimed to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid
of Khufu was built. Jean-Pierre Houdin said advanced 3D technology had
shown the main ramp which was used to haul the massive stones to the
apex was contained 10-15 meters beneath the outer skin, tracing a
pyramid within a pyramid..
(Reuters, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, A leading German
retailer said that it will pay $117.5 million to compensate a Jewish
family for real estate that was taken by the Nazis and eventually
resold to the firm. The Jewish Claims Conference said it will use an
unspecified amount of the money from KarstadtQuelle AG to fund programs
for Holocaust victims, and give the rest to heirs of the Wertheim
family, which was been seeking compensation for 15 years.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Guinea a motorized
wooden boat crowded with passengers and merchandise capsized offshore
from Conakry, drowning at least 46 people and possibly dozens more.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, One of the 15 British
service members held captive in Iran appeared on the government's
Arabic-language TV and said he apologized "deeply" for entering Iranian
waters without permission.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, The radical cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr issued a scathing attack on the US, following one of
the country's bloodiest days, blaming Washington for Iraq's troubles
and calling for a mass demonstration April 9, the fourth anniversary of
the fall of Baghdad.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, Islamic countries
pushed through a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council urging a
global prohibition on the public defamation of religion, a response
largely to the furor last year over caricatures published in a Danish
newspaper of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, A video purportedly
showing the beheading of a drug cartel hit man appeared on
video-sharing Web site YouTube, and its makers called on Mexicans to
kill more members of the gang.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Mar 30, Nepal's seven ruling
political parties and the country's former Maoist rebels agreed to form
a joint government, the latest step in ending a decade of civil war.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Pakistan fighting
between local and foreign militants near the Afghan border killed 52
people.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Somalia insurgents
shot down a helicopter gunship in Mogadishu and mortar shells slammed
into a hospital in the worst fighting seen here in more than 15 years.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, Authorities arrested
a man armed with a knife who hijacked a Sudan Airways plane while
flying from Libya to Sudan.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In an unprecedented
show of support to empower the physically and mentally impaired, 80
countries signed a UN convention enshrining the rights of the world's
650 million disabled. 19 more ratifications are needed before the
convention comes into force.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, A Vietnamese court
sentenced a dissident Catholic priest to eight years in prison for
anti-government activities after a dramatic trial in which the
defendant shouted denunciations of the ruling Communist Party. A judge
at Thua Thien Hue Provincial People's Court in central Vietnam
sentenced Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly on charges of disseminating
anti-government documents and communicating with pro-democracy
activists overseas.
(AP, 3/30/07)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y9Mzp-61fU)
2007 Mar 30, The World Health
Organization (WHO) said demand for human organ transplants far exceeds
supply, fueling a growth in "transplant tourism" to developing nations
where organs can be bought.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2008 Mar 30, The Pritzker jury
announced French architect jean Nouvel (62) as the winner of the 2008
Pritzker Prize.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A5)
2008 Mar 30, Leading doctors urged
a return to older, tried-and-true treatments for high cholesterol after
hearing full results of a failed trial of Vytorin.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Mar 30, British Airways
cancelled another batch of flights as it struggled to cope with a
massive backlog of luggage at London Heathrow airport's new
multi-billion-pound Terminal 5.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, Dith Pran (65), whose
experiences during the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s were adapted
into the award-winning movie "The Killing Fields," died in New Jersey.
(AFP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, Pernod Ricard SA, a
French spirits company, agreed to pay the Swedish government 5.28
billion euros for Vin & Sprit, the maker of Absolut, outbidding
three competitors.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Mar 30, Shiite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr offered to pull his fighters off the streets of Basra and other
cities if the government halts raids against his followers and releases
prisoners held without charge.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, Israel pledged to
remove 50 West Bank roadblocks as part of a package to improve everyday
life for Palestinians after US Sec. of State Rice met with Israel's
defense minister, Ehud Barak, and Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, In Syria Iraq refused
to endorse the final declaration of the Arab summit because it did not
condemn terrorism in the country, a divisive end to a gathering marred
by disputes and boycotts.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, The Vatican said
Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism in number of adherents. It
recently put the Roman Catholic number at 1.13 billion. Others
estimated Muslims to number around 1.3 billion.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A8)
2008 Mar 30, Zimbabwe's opposition
said it had won the most crucial election since independence, but
President Robert Mugabe's government warned premature victory claims
would be seen as an attempted coup.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2009 Mar 30, President Barack
Obama said that neither General Motors nor Chrysler has proposed
sweeping enough changes to justify further large federal bailouts, and
demanded "painful concessions" from creditors, unions and others as
their price for survival. Driving home the point, the White House
ousted the GM Chairman Rick Wagoner as it rejected GM and Chrysler's
restructuring plans. Fritz Henderson, GM's president and chief
operating officer, became the new CEO. Board member Kent Kresa, the
former chairman and CEO of defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp.,
was named interim chairman of the GM board.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Pres. Obama signed
legislation setting aside over 2 million acres as protected wilderness.
(SFC, 3/31/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 30, An “Open Cloud”
manifesto was published. IBM and other tech companies issued a
statement of principles that called for keeping cloud computing
services as open as possible.
(www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090329_463505.htm)
2009 Mar 30, Intel released
Nehalem, its new superfast chip for servers.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.73)
2009 Mar 30, Findings were
presented for an experimental combo pill, to prevent heart attacks and
strokes, indicating it as effective as nearly all of its components
taken alone, with no greater side effects. The study tested the
Polycap, an experimental combo formulated by Cadila Pharmaceuticals of
Ahmedabad, India.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew himself up
inside a police headquarters in Kandahar, killing nine people and
wounding eight. A roadside bomb killed three police in the eastern
province of Paktia.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Argentina’s health
minister acknowledged that the country was in the middle of a dengue
fever epidemic with nearly 8,000 people infected. Neighboring Bolivia
had about 51,000 cases reported, while Brazil counted some 40,000 cases.
(http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46371)(SSFC,
4/19/09, p.G3)
2009 Mar 30, Downtown Sydney,
Australia's largest city, was plunged into chaos during the late rush
hour when a power cut blacked out traffic lights, caused gridlock on
the roads and left tens of thousands of buildings in darkness. The
blackout exposed a flaw in the city's terrorism warning system.
(AP, 3/30/09)(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, Banking officials
meeting in Colombia said Argentina and China have tentatively agreed to
swap $10 billion worth of their currencies to enable South America's
second-largest economy to avoid using dollars in trade between the
nations.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, The French government
banned companies that get state funding from issuing stock options to
top managers and limited some other forms of compensation in an effort
to quell public anger over executive pay.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.B1)
2009 Mar 30, Hungary’s ruling
Socialist Party nominated economy minister Gordon Bajnai to become the
country’s next prime minister.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.A14)
2009 Mar 30, In Lahore, Pakistan,
a group of gunmen attacked the Manawan Police Training School and
rampaged through it for hours, throwing grenades, seizing hostages and
killing 7 police and 2 civilians before being overpowered by Pakistani
security forces in armored vehicles and helicopters. Six militants were
arrested and 8 others died in the 8-hour battle. A suicide car bombing
killed four soldiers in Bannu district.
(AP, 3/30/09)(AFP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, Malaysia's national
car maker Proton and Detroit Electric, a Dutch-based company, signed a
$555 million deal to make zero emission electric cars that they said
would be more powerful that any existing model.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Northern Ireland
suspected IRA dissidents and their supporters hijacked cars in
working-class Catholic areas in a coordinated effort to block roads and
threaten police stations.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, Fishermen in the
Philippines accidentally caught and soon ate a megamouth shark, one of
the rarest fishes in the world with only 40 others recorded to have
been encountered. The 1,100-pound (500-kilogram) 13-foot (4-meter)
megamouth died while struggling in the fishermen's net off Burias
island.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Qatar Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi stormed out of an Arab summit after denouncing
the Saudi king and declaring himself "the dean of Arab rulers."
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Russia PM Putin
pledged over $1 billion in state support to its ailing car industry in
a bid to avoid heavy job losses and potential social unrest.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.B2)(http://tinyurl.com/csyby9)
2009 Mar 30, In Russia Sergei
Protazanov, a newspaper employee in a Moscow suburb, died one day after
being beaten near his home in the in the town of Khimki. Protazanov had
been compiling an issue that included reports on alleged falsifications
in local mayoral elections.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Sri Lanka 26
rebels were killed in a sea battle off Chalai. Four boats belonging to
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were sunk in the battle, which
lasted about four hours before dawn. A leader of the Sea Tigers, the
rebels' naval wing, was among the dead while one government sailor died
and three were wounded.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Thailand's prime
minister avoided his office, as thousands of protesters calling for his
resignation surrounded the seat of government for the fifth day and
ignored police warnings to disperse.
(AP, 3/30/09)
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