TODAY HISTORY LESSON: MARCH 23
1490 1st dated edition of Maimonides “Mishneh Torah”, a code of Jewish religious law is published
1657 France and England form an alliance against Spain.
1775 American revolutionary hero Patrick Henry, while addressing the House of Burgesses, declares “give me liberty, or give me death!”
1791 Etta Palm, a Dutch champion of woman’s rights, sets up a group of women’s clubs called the Confederation of the Friends of Truth.
1839 1st recorded use of “OK” [oll korrect] (Boston’s Morning Post)
1857 Elisha Otis installs the first modern passenger elevator in a public building, at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City.
1877 The first Easter egg roll was held on the White House lawn.
1880 John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patents the grain crushing mill. This mill allows flour production to increase by 70 percent.
1889 President Harrison opens Oklahoma for white colonization
1901 A group of U.S. Army soldiers, led by Brigadier General Frederick Funston, capture Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine Insurrection of 1899.
1909 Theodore Roosevelt begins an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
1909 British Lt. Ernest Shackleton finds the magnetic South Pole.
1912 Dixie Cup invented
1919 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party re-establishes a five-member Politburo which becomes the center of political power in the Soviet Union. Original members Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Krestinsky
1933 The Enabling Act of 1933 grants Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers in Germany
1945 Battle of Okinawa: US Navy ships bomb the Japanese island of Okinawa in preparation for the Allied invasion; it would become the largest battle of the Pacific War in World War II
1951 U.S. paratroopers descend from flying boxcars in a surprise attack in Korea.
1956 Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic, although it is still within the British Commonwealth.
1980 Archbishop Óscar Romero calls on members of the El Salvador armed forces to stop killing their fellow Salvadorians
1981 Supreme Court rules states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teen-age girls sought abortions
1981 U.S. Supreme Court upholds a law making statutory rape a crime for men but not women.
1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan proposed a space-based missile defense system called the Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars.”
1994 Howard Stern formally announced his Libertarian run for New York governor.
1994 Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexico’s leading presidential candidate, was assassinated in Tijuana. Mario Aburto Martinez was arrested at the scene and confessed to the killing.
1998 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that term limits for state lawmakers were constitutional.
2001 The Russian space station Mir plunges into the sea. The legendary station was disposed of in a controlled crash after 15 years in space.
2003 A U.S. Army convoy was ambushed in Iraq with 11 killed and seven captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch.
2019 Syrian Democratic Forces announce that the last Islamic State territory has been retaken raising flags in Baghuz, Syria and ending the five-year Islamic State “caliphate”
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
