This Week in History
HISTORY, 16 Mar 2015
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service
March 16–22
Quote of the Week:
“Don’t be afraid to stand for what you believe in, even if that means standing alone.” – Unknown
MARCH 16
2014 Crimea votes in a controversial referendum to secede from Ukraine to join Russia.
2005 Israel officially hands over Jericho to Palestinian control.
2003 Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American woman involved with the International Solidarity Movement, is killed trying to prevent a Palestinian home from being destroyed by a bulldozer in Rafah.
1989 In Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy is found near the Pyramid of Cheops.
1988 The Troubles: Ulster loyalist militant Michael Stone attacks a Provisional IRA funeral in Belfast with pistols and grenades. Three people are killed and more than 60 wounded. The attack was filmed by news crews.
1988 Halabja poison gas attack: The Kurdish town of Halabjah in Iraq is attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents on the orders of Saddam Hussein, killing 5000 people and injuring about 10000 people.
1988 Iran-Contra Affair: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
1988 US sends 3,000 soldiers to Nicaragua’s neighbor Honduras.
– Visit, for instance, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34462.html ;_ and/or _ http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/18/world/us-troops-arrive-at-honduras-base-to-show-support.html.
1984 William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, is kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists and later died in captivity.
1979 Sino-Vietnamese War: The People’s Liberation Army crosses the border back into China, ends the war.
1978 Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped and later killed by his captors.
1977 Assassination of Kamal Jumblatt, the main leader of the anti-government forces in the Lebanese Civil War.
1968 Vietnam War: In the My Lai massacre, between 347 and 500 Vietnamese villagers (men, women, and children) are killed by American troops.
1950 Communist Czechoslovakia‘s ministry of foreign affairs asks nuncios of Vatican to leave the country.
1945 Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers. 5,000 are killed.
1945 World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ended, but small pockets of Japanese resistance persisted.
1942 The first V-2 rocket test launch. It exploded at lift-off.
1939 From Prague Castle, Hitler proclaims Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.
1935 Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.
1924 In accordance with the Treaty of Rome, Fiume becomes annexed as part of Italy.
1818 In the Second Battle of Cancha Rayada, Spanish forces defeated Chileans under José de San Martín.
1815 Prince Willem proclaims himself King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the first constitutional monarch in the Netherlands.
1812 Battle of Badajoz (March 16 – April 6) – British and Portuguese forces besieged and defeated French garrison during Peninsular War.
1802 The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point.
MARCH 17
2004 Unrest in Kosovo: More than 22 are killed and 200 wounded. Thirty-five Serbian Orthodox shrines in Kosovo and two mosques in Belgrade and Niš are destroyed.
2003 Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
2000 530 members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in a fire, considered to be a mass murder or suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult. Elsewhere another 248 members are later found dead.
1992 A referendum to end apartheid in South Africa is passed 68.7% to 31.2%.
1988 Eritrean War of Independence: The Nadew Command, an Ethiopian army corps in Eritrea, is attacked on three sides by military units of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front in the opening action of the Battle of Afabet.
1973 The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
– On the other hand, also see these photographs that depicts other facets of the same war: https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrB8pCmweBUEHEAmjqJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIycnM2bHQ0BHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZANiMDI0OWNmYTMzMzRjNTI4NzJjMTJlMmI3YzJhMjUwZgRncG9zAzEEaXQDYmluZw–?.origin=&back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3DTragic%2BChildren%2BVietnam%2BWar%26fr%3Dyfp-t-315%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D1&w=600&h=352&imgurl=www.photosfan.com%2Fimages%2Ffamous-war-photographs-child-in-vietnam1.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.photosfan.com%2F2010-11%2F&size=40.9KB&name=famous+%3Cb%3Ewar%3C%2Fb%3E+photographs.+%3Cb%3EChild%3C%2Fb%3E+in+%3Cb%3EVietnam%3C%2Fb%3E&p=Tragic+Children+Vietnam+War&oid=b0249cfa3334c52872c12e2b7c2a250f&fr2=&fr=yfp-t-315&tt=famous+%3Cb%3Ewar%3C%2Fb%3E+photographs.+%3Cb%3EChild%3C%2Fb%3E+in+%3Cb%3EVietnam%3C%2Fb%3E&b=0&ni=128&no=1&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=111db5ie9&sigb=1393hfcj2&sigi=125i8nppp&sigt=11tnc5fkd&sign=11tnc5fkd&.crumb=eLWvdbFUYg5&fr=yfp-t-315;_and/or_ http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/19/world/gallery/iconic-vietnam-war-photos/index.html.
1970 My Lai Massacre: The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.
1969 Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
1966 Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
1960 U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
1959 Australia & USSR restore diplomatic relations.
– Visit, for instance, https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Australia%E2%80%93Russia_relations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93Russia_relations ;_and/or _ http://gevans.org/speeches/old/1989/240589_fm_relationswithussr.pdf.
1959 Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet for India.
– Visit, for instance, http://www.friendsoftibet.org/main/intervw.html;_ http://www.tibetsun.com/news/2014/07/29/china-continues-to-suppress-religious-rights-of-tibetans-us;_ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-16689779;_ and/or _ http://www.netplaces.com/buddhism/tibetan-buddhism/exile-and-diaspora.htm.
1953 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
– Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93Russia_relations http://gevans.org/speeches/old/1989/240589_fm_relationswithussr.pdf.
1950 Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name “californium“.
1948 The Benelux, France, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.
1947 First flight of the B-45 Tornado strategic bomber.
1942 Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.
1939 Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and Japan begins,
1927 US government doesn’t sign League of Nations disarmament treaty.
-Visit, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Conference ;_ http://ww.johndclare.net/league_of_nations4_disarmament.htm;_ http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/disarmament-conference.html;_ and/or_ http://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/naval-conference.
1921 The Second Republic of Poland adopts the March Constitution.
1921 Lenin proclaims New Economic Politics.
1861 The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed.
1860 The First Taranaki War begins in Taranaki, New Zealand, a major phase of the New Zealand land wars.
1842 The Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is formed.
– For Mormon’s humanitarian assistance, visit http://mormonreligion.org/mormons/mormon-humanitarian-aid.
– For religion and humanitarian assistance, visit, for instance, http://www.academia.edu/3537854/The_Role_of_Religion_in_Humanitarian_Action;_http://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/tag/religion;_ http://religionfactor.net/2013/12/13/humanity-in-action-religion-human-rights-and-the-question-of-neutrality/;_http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/publications/religion-and-humanitarianism ;_and/or _ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarianism#An_increasing_role_of_Regional_organisations.
1805 The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King.
MARCH 18
2014 The parliaments of Russia and Crimea sign an accession treaty.
1994 Bosnia‘s Bosniaks and Croats sign the Washington Agreement, ending war between the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and establishing the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1990 Germans in the German Democratic Republic vote in the first democratic elections in the former communist dictatorship.
1987 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
1977 US restricts citizens from visiting Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea & Cambodia.
1974 Oil embargo crisis: Most OPEC nations end a five-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
1972 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC.
1970 Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
1969 The United States begins secretly bombing the Sihanouk Trail in Cambodia, used by communist forces to infiltrate South Vietnam.
1962 The Evian Accords end the Algerian War of Independence, which had begun in 1954.
1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law allowing for Hawaiian statehood, which would become official on August 21.
1948 Soviet consultants leave Yugoslavia in the first sign of the Tito-Stalin split.
– For this issue, visit, for instance, http://www.digplanet.com/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split;_ http://www.academia.edu/2972298/The_Soviet_Orgins_of_Titos_Yugoslavia_1937-1948 ;_ http://schoolworkhelper.net/tito-stalin-dispute-1948-timeline-analysis-significance/ ;_ http://www.titomanija.com.ba/e-knjige/TitoStalin.pdf;_ http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/ir/bitstream/1840.16/1006/1/etd.pdf ;_and/or_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josip_Broz_Tito#Tito.E2.80.93Stalin_split.
1946 Diplomatic relations between Switzerland and the Soviet Union are established.
1945 World War II: 1,250 American bombers attack Berlin.
1942 The War Relocation Authority is established in the United States to take Japanese Americans into custody.
For this issue, visit, for instance, http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation ;_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans ;_ http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation/ ;_ http://www.ushistory.org/us/51e.asp ;_ and/or_ http://www.japaneserelocation.org/
1940 World War II: Axis Powers – Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.
1938 Mexico nationalizes all foreign-owned oil properties within its borders.
1937 Spanish Civil War: Spanish Republican forces defeat the Italians at the Battle of Guadalajara.
1922 In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience. He serves only 2 years.
1921 The second Peace of Riga is signed between Poland and the Soviet Union.
1915 World War I: During the Battle of Gallipoli, three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles.
1913 King George I of Greece is assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki.
1874 Hawaii signs a treaty with the United States granting exclusive trade rights.
1871 Declaration of the Paris Commune; President of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, orders the evacuation of Paris.
1848 March Revolution: in Berlin there is a struggle between citizens and military, costing about 300 lives.
1793 The first republic in Germany, the Republic of Mainz, is declared by Andreas Joseph Hofmann.
MARCH 19
2011 Libyan Civil War: After the failure of Muammar Gaddafi‘s forces to take Benghazi, French Air Force launches Opération Harmattan, beginning foreign military intervention in Libya.
2004 A Swedish DC-3 shot down by a Russian MiG-15 in 1952 over the Baltic Sea is finally recovered after years of work. The remains of the three crewmen are left in place, pending further investigations.
2002 Zimbabwe is suspended from the Commonwealth on charges of human rights abuses and of electoral fraud, following a turbulent presidential election.
1990 The ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureş begin four days after the anniversary of the Revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas.
1989 The Egyptian Flag is raised on Taba, Egypt announcing the end of the Israeli occupation after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the peace negotiations in 1979.
1982 Falklands War: Argentinian forces land on South Georgia Island, precipitating war with the United Kingdom.
1972 India & Bangladesh sign friendship treaty.
– Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Bangladeshi_Treaty_of_Friendship,_Cooperation_and_Peace.
1962 The Algerian War of Independence against the French ends.
1946 French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion become overseas départements of France.
1945 World War II: Adolf Hitler issues his “Nero Decree” ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed.
1945 World War II: Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 724 of her crew. Badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under her own power.
1944 World War II: Nazi forces occupy Hungary.
– Visit, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Margarethe ;_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary_in_World_War_II ;_ http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/life-in-nazi-occupied-europe/jews-in-occupied-countries/hungary/#.VODn6C4qLX4 ;_ http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/History/Articles/HungarianJews.html ;_ http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005458 ;_ and/or _ http://www.degob.org/index.php?showarticle=2031.
1941 World War II: The 99th Pursuit Squadron also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the first all-black unit of the US Army Air Corps, is activated.
1921 Irish War of Independence: One of the biggest engagements of the war takes place at Crossbarry, County Cork. About 100 Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers escape an attempt by over 1,300 British forces to encircle them.
1920 The United States Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles for the second time (the first time was on November 19, 1919).
– For this issue, visit, for instance, http://answerparty.com/question/answer/why-didnt-the-united-states-ratify-the-treaty-of-versailles ;_ http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/march-19-1920-senate-rejects-treaty-of-versailles-for-second-and-final-time/comment-page-1/?_r=0 ;_ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6961.html ;_ http://www.panzertruppen.org/guderian/versalles.html ;_ and/or _ http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Grant-Eisenhower/Woodrow-Wilson-The-treaty-fight-in-the-united-states-1919-1920.html.
1918 The U.S. Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time.
1861 The First Taranaki War ends in New Zealand.
1853 The Taiping reform movement occupies and makes Nanjing its capital until 1864.
MARCH 20
2012 At least 52 people are killed and more than 250 injured in a wave of terror attacks across 10 cities in Iraq.
2006 Over 150 Chadian soldiers are killed in eastern Chad by members of the rebel UFDC. The rebel movement sought to overthrow Chadian president Idriss Deby.
2003 2003 invasion of Iraq: In the early hours of the morning, the United States and three other countries (the UK, Australia and Poland) begin military operations in Iraq.
1993 The Troubles: A Provisional IRA bomb kills two children in Warrington, England. It leads to mass protests in both Britain and Ireland.
1990 Ferdinand Marcos‘s widow, Imelda Marcos, goes on trial for bribery, embezzlement, and racketeering.
1988 Eritrean War of Independence: Having defeated the Nadew Command, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front enters the town of Afabet, victoriously concluding the Battle of Afabet.
1980 US appeals to International Court on hostages in Iran.
– Visit, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis;_and _ http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?sum=334&p1=3&p2=3&case=64&p3=5.
1972 The Troubles: A Provisional IRA car bomb kills seven and injures 148 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was the first of many car bomb attacks by the group.
1968 LBJ signs a bill removing gold backing from US paper money.
– Visit, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard ;_http://www.cmi-gold-silver.com/article/gold-standard-inflation-fiat-money/ ;_ http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41887.pdf;_ http://gold-standard.procon.org/ ;_and/or_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_dollar.
1956 Tunisia gains independence from France.
1952 The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
– Visit, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_San_Francisco ;_ http://www.cfr.org/japan/treaty-san-francisco-1951/p30267 ;_ http://www.china.usc.edu/%28S%28hvmzvbinmivm4055yhpumv45%29X%281%29A%28eYsVIm-A0AEkAAAAZTcwYzU2YzEtMmM1MC00MDMzLTlhOWItZDJiYzYwZWIwMGI2AZ8yha4RSirkpkEp3Bd9SiO9pso1%29%29/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=427&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 ;_ and/or_ http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/748/11PacRimLPolyJ063.pdf.
1942 World War II: General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, makes his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he says: “I came out of Bataan and I shall return.”
– Visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEbwuehH35I ;_and/or _ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/filmmore/reference/primary/index.html#pinky.
1916 Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.
– Visit, for instance, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,993017,00.html ;_http://www.openculture.com/2012/02/bertrand_russells_iabc_of_relativityi_the_classic_introduction_to_einstein_available_in_free_audio.html ;_ http://www.space.com/17661-theory-general-relativity.html ;_ and/or _ http://physics.about.com/od/relativisticmechanics/a/relativity.htm.
1883 The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property is signed.
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe‘s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published.
1815 After escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule.
MARCH 21
1990 Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule.
1986 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations is adopted.
– Visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_the_Law_of_Treaties_between_States_and_International_Organizations_or_between_International_Organizations ; _and/or _ http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/vcltsio/vcltsio.html.
Text: http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_2_1986.pdf.
1980 US President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
1970 The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by Mayor of San Francisco Joseph Alioto.
– Visit, for instance, http://www.earthsite.org/
1968 Battle of Karameh in Jordan between Israeli Defense Forces and Fatah.
1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
1960 Apartheid in South Africa: Massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180.
1945 World War II: Bulgaria and the Soviet Union successfully complete their defense of the north bank of the Drava River as the Battle of the Transdanubian Hills concludes.
1945 World War II: Operation Carthage: Royal Air Force planes bomb Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. They also hit a school and 125 civilians are killed.
1945 World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma.
1937 Ponce Massacre: Nineteen people in Ponce, Puerto Rico, are gunned down by a police squad acting under orders of US-appointed Governor, Blanton C. Winship.
1935 Shah of Iran Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran, meaning “Land of the Aryans“.
1933 Construction of Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed.
1928 Charles Lindbergh is presented with the Medal of Honor for the first solo trans-Atlantic flight.
1925 The Butler Act prohibits the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee.
1921 The New Economic Policy is implemented by the Bolshevik Party in response to the economic failure as a result of War Communism.
1919 The Hungarian Soviet Republic is established becoming the first Communist government to be formed in Europe after the October Revolution in Russia.
1918 World War I: The first phase of the German Spring Offensive, Operation Michael, begins.
1871 Otto von Bismarck is appointed Chancellor of the German Empire.
1844 The Bahá’í calendar begins. This is the first day of the first year of the Bahá’í calendar. It is annually celebrated by members of the Bahá’í Faith as the Bahá’í New Year or Náw-Rúz.
1821 Greek War of Independence: First revolutionary act in the monastery of Agia Lavra, Kalavryta.
1814 Napoleonic Wars: Austrian forces repel French troops in the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube.
1804 Code Napoléon is adopted as French civil law.
1801 The Battle of Alexandria is fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis in Egypt.
MARCH 22
2012 Massive fire devours thousands of hectares of ancient forests and threatens wildlife on Mount Kenya. (Note that this date, “March 22”, is an approximate date because the exact date this fire began is debatable.)
– For this incident, visit http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/03/20123229592167488.html ;_ http://mwcnews.net/news/africa/17688-ancient-forests.html;_ and/or_ http://newspoststz.blogspot.com/2012/03/fire-devours-kenyas-ancient-forests.html.
– For Mount Kenya, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kenya.
2006 Three Christian Peacemaker Team hostages are freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days of captivity and the murder of their colleague, American Tom Fox.
2004 Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas, two bodyguards, and nine civilian bystanders are killed in the Gaza Strip when hit by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache fired Hellfire missiles.
1992 Fall of communism in Albania: The Democratic Party of Albania wins a decisive majority in the parliamentary election.
1975 A fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Decatur, Alabama causes a dangerous reduction in cooling water levels.
– For Brown’s Ferry Nuclear Power Plant accident, visit, for instance, http://www.ccnr.org/browns_ferry.html ;_ and_ http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20110320/NEWS/110319577.
– For nuclear power plants accidents general, visit, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents ;_ http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/14/nuclear-power-plant-accidents-list-rank ;_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country;_ and/or_ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jmoilane/nuclear/Accidents.html.
1963 “At a broadcast press conference, President John F. Kennedy speaks about the possibility that by the 1970s “…of the U.S. having to face a world in which 15 or 20 or 25 nations may have these [nuclear] weapons…I regard that as the greatest possible danger and hazard.” While those fears were not quite realized, it is nevertheless true that nuclear proliferation in Iran, North Korea, and elsewhere remains a deadly serious problem in the 21st century. Some experts believe that only by phasing out nuclear power in the next few decades, can the world head off the actualization of our 35th President’s worst fears.
(Source: Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. “The Untold History of the United States.” New York: Gallery Books, 2012.)” Quoted from http://www.wagingpeace.org/march-this-month-in-nuclear-threat-history/.
1954 Closed since 1939, the London bullion market reopens.
1945 The Arab League is founded when a charter is adopted in Cairo, Egypt.
1943 World War II: the entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by German occupation forces.
1942 World War II: In the Mediterranean Sea, the Royal Navy confronts Italy’s Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte.
1939 World War II: Germany takes Memel from Lithuania.
1920 Azeri and Turkish army soldiers with participation of Kurdish gangs attacked the Armenian inhabitants of Shushi (Nagorno Karabakh).
1916 The last Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicates the throne and the Republic of China is restored.
1873 A law is approved by the Spanish National Assembly in Puerto Rico to abolish slavery.
1849 The Austrians defeat the Piedmontese at the Battle of Novara.
1829 In the London Protocol, the three protecting powers (United Kingdom, France and Russia) establish the borders of Greece.
______________________________
Satoshi Ashikaga is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment originally from Japan.
(Sources and references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_16 to 22; http://www.brainyhistory.com/days/march_16.html to 22.html; http://www.historyorb.com/events/march/16 to 22; and other relevant websites and documents, mentioned above.)
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 16 Mar 2015.
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