Monday, March 12
2007-03-12 08:41
Today is Monday, March 12, the 71st day of 2007. There are 294
days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
641 AD - Chinese Princess Wen Cheng goes to Tibet to marry the
Tibetan ruler. The marriage is the basis for China's claim to
sovereignty over the region.
1470 - In the War of the Roses, English King Edward IV defeats
rebels at Empingham.
1664 - New Jersey becomes the British colony as King Charles II
grants land in the New World to his brother James, the Duke of
York.
1799 - Austria declares war on France.
1832 - Captain Charles Boycott, the Irish estate manager who
caused boycotts, was born. He earned a reputation for unfairness
that drove peasant tenant-farmers in his charge to organise against
him in an 1879 act of civil disobedience. Hence the derivation of
the word, 'boycott.'
1848 - Revolution breaks out in Vienna with university
demonstrations.
1854 - Britain and France conclude alliance with Turks against
Russia.
1867 - Napoleon III withdraws French support from Maximillian of
Mexico.
1868 - Britain annexes Basutoland, South Africa.
1930 - Indian political and spiritual leader Mohandas K Gandhi
begins a 322km march to protest a British tax
on salt.
1933 - US President Franklin Roosevelt delivers the first of
his radio "fireside chats," telling Americans what was being done
to deal with the nation's economic crisis.
1938 - The "Anschluss" takes place as German troops enter
Austria, completing Adolf Hitler's mission to restore his homeland
to the Third Reich.
1939 - Pope Pius XII is formally crowned in ceremonies at the
Vatican.
1940 - Finland and the Soviet Union conclude an armistice during
World War II. Fighting between the two countries flares again the
following year.
1947 - US President Harry Truman establishes what became known
as the Truman Doctrine to help Greece and Turkey resist Communism.
1966 - General Suharto is sworn in as acting President of
Indonesia after President Sukarno is stripped of authority.
1968 - Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, a British colony,
proclaims its independence.
1972 - Britain and China agree to exchange ambassadors, 22 years
after London first recognised the Peking government.
1980 - A Chicago jury finds John Wayne Gacy Jr guilty of
murdering 33 men and boys. He is executed in 1994.
1984 - The British ice dancing team, Torvill and Dean, become
the first skaters to receive nine perfect 6.0 scores in the world
championships.
1986 - Susan Butcher becomes the first woman to win the
1863km Iditarod Sled Dog race in the Alaskan
wilderness.
1988 - South African government bans church-led opposition group
headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as "threat to public safety."
1990 - Mongolian Communist Party leadership approves opposition
demands for sweeping political reforms.
199 - A cease-fire is shattered when the city of Agdam comes
under heavy shelling that kills 25 people in the battle over the
Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
1993 - A series of bombs explode in Bombay, and at least 200
people are killed and 1 100 injured; Janet Reno is sworn in as the
United States' first female attorney general.
1994 - The Church of England ordains its first women priests.
1996 - Chinese combat planes and warships open eight days of war
games off Taiwan meant to dampen pro-independence sentiment.
1997 - Burundi authorities arrest five people, including two
soldiers, after they attempted to kill Burundian leader Major Pierre
Buyoya.
1998 - Astronomers debunk a warning that a mile-wide asteroid
might collide with Earth on October 26, 2028, saying the calculations
were off by 965 400km.
1999 - The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland join NATO in a
ceremony at Independence, Missouri.
2003 - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic dies after being
struck by two bullets as he walked from his car to a government
building in Belgrade.
2004 - Iran abruptly freezes further UN inspections of its
nuclear program for six weeks, throwing into turmoil international
attempts to verify Tehran's claims that it is developing atomic
power and not weapons.
2006 - French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin vows that a
controversial law on youth jobs contracts that provoked broad
protests will be applied.
Today's Birthdays:
Thomas Arne, English composer (1710-1778); Jack Kerouac,
American writer (1922-1969); Elaine De Kooning, US painter
(1929-1989); Edward Albee, US playwright (1928--); Barbara
Feldon, US actress (1941--); Liza Minnelli, US singer-actress
(1946--); James Taylor, US singer (1948--)
Thought For Today:
If power corrupts, being out of power corrupts absolutely -
Douglass Cater, American author and educator.
- SAPA