AP Features, March 13th, 2007
Today is Tuesday, March 20, the 79th day of 2007. There are 286 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1616 - Sir Walter Raleigh is released from Tower of London to seek gold in Guyana.
1784 - Holland cedes Negapatama and Madras, India, to Britain.
1816 - U.S. Supreme Court affirms its right to review state court decisions.
1849 - Second Sikh War between Sikhs and Britain begins in India; Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, abdicates.
1850 - Another Anglo-Kaffir war breaks out in South Africa.
1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's influential novel about slavery, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," is published in the United States.
1896 - Marines land in Nicaragua to protect U.S. citizens in the wake of a revolution.
1899 - Martha M. Place of Brooklyn, New York, becomes the first woman to be executed in the electric chair in the United States.
1916 - Allies agree on partition of Turkey.
1942 - U.S. General Douglas MacArthur declares: "I shall return" to the Philippines after leaving for Australia in the face of a Japanese invasion.
1956 - France recognizes independence of Tunisia, with Habib Bourguiba as its first president.
1972 - Nineteen mountain climbers on Japan's Mount Fuji are killed in avalanche.
1976 - Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst is convicted of armed robbery for her part in a San Francisco bank holdup.
1987 - Italian air force Gen. Livio Giorgieri is shot dead by two youths on motorcycle. The attack is attributed to the Red Brigades terrorist group; U.S. Food and Drug Administration approve the sale of AZT, a drug shown to prolong the lives of some AIDS patients.
1988 - Honduran warplanes bomb Nicaraguan troops who chased Contras rebels into Honduras.
1989 - PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat blames Israeli government for escalating violence in West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1990 - Namibia becomes an independent nation, marking the end of 75 years of South African rule.
1991 - U.S. forces shoot down an Iraqi warplane saying it was violating a cease-fire agreement; Khaleda Zia is elected prime minister in the first peaceful, democratic transfer of power in Bangladesh.
1992 - Iraq backs down under threat of possible air raids and admits far larger ballistic and chemical arsenals than disclosed earlier.
1993 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin declares emergency rule until he can conduct a referendum on whether the people trust him or the hard-line Congress to govern.
1994 - Tunisians elect first multiparty parliament.
1995 - In Tokyo, 12 people are killed, more than 5,500 others sickened when packages containing the poisonous gas sarin leak on five separate subway trains.
1997 - The Swiss National Bank confirms that it helped other neutral European countries to buy millions of dollars worth of Nazi gold during World War II.
1998 - The Trans-Kalahari Highway, sub-Saharan Africa's first road connecting the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, is opened.
2000 - President Abdou Diouf concedes defeat in Senegalese elections, marking a rare victory for democratic change in Africa and bringing a fiery opposition leader to power.
2003 - Former U.S. Air Force Sergeant Brian Regan accepts a sentence of life in prison for attempting to sell U.S. defense secrets to China and Iraq.
2004 - Thousands of people march in cities across the globe to mark the first anniversary of the war in Iraq, demanding an end to the U.S. occupation _ which some blamed for spawning more terrorism _ and the withdrawal of international troops.
2005 - Iraq recalls its ambassador to neighboring, Sunni-dominated Jordan in a growing dispute over Shiite Muslim claims that Aman is failing to block terrorists from entering Iraq.
2006 - About 1,000 pro-democracy activists march in the Nepalese capital of Katmandu, demanding King Gyanendra free political detainees and give up powers he seized in 2005.
Today's Birthdays:
Ovid, Latin poet (43 B.C.-17 A.D.); Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian dramatist (1828-1906); Lauritz Melchior, Danish-American operatic tenor (1890-1973); Carl Reiner, U.S. producer (1922--); Fred Rogers, U.S. children's TV personality (1928-2003); Spike Lee, U.S. filmmaker (1957--); Holly Hunter, U.S. actress (1958--).
Thought For Today:
Spring has no language but a cry _ Thomas Wolfe, American author (1900-1938).
