March 23rd Major News Events

1940 Romania German Oil Embargo

1940 : Germany had requested help from Romania. This assistance was initially delivered in the form of oil. However, Germany had met with Allied opposition (the countries fighting against the Nazi regime in World War II). Countries opposed to Germany during the war refused to that country oil.

1955 England Aneurin Bevan

1955 : Clement Atlee had saved Aneurin Bevan from losing his position within the British Labor Party. Bevan’s expulsion was put on the back burner and a hearing was scheduled to take place in front of a subcommittee. He had almost lost his position in office after defying Atlee’s leadership.

1963 Korea Peace Talks

1963 : An offer to schedule peace talks in Seoul, Korea was made by minister Won Woo. The military government had invited representatives from 14 different political parties as well as leaders of other organizations. This meeting was set to take place on the Wednesday after this date, in the capitol conference room.

1966 Vatican Church Leaders Meet

1966 : For the first time in more than four centuries, heads of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches met in Vatican City.

1972 Jordan King Hussein

1972 : King Hussein, the man who was commonly referred to as the “father of Jordan”, made a plan to visit the U.S. He wanted to discuss his plans for the Middle East with President Richard Nixon. At this time, Hussein was offering a proposal for forming the United Arab Kingdom. This particular political structure would be made up of two plots of land that exist on both sides of the Jordan River. Additionally, King Hussein denied plans to create a partially self-governing entity on the West Bank of the Jordan.

1981 U.S.A. Supreme Court Abortion Ruling

1981 : The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teenage girls seek abortions.

Currently 6 states in the US do not require parental consent

Other US states require one or all of the following prior to allowing abortion.

One or both parents to be informed

One or both parents must consent

Parental notification law currently enjoined

Parental consent law currently enjoined

There are a number of other laws in each state relating to this highly charged issue and parental consent is just one of the laws used to make abortion harder or easier depending on the ideological stance in that state.

1983 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

1983 : President Ronald Reagan proposes that the United States starts a program to develop antimissile technology that would make the country nearly impervious to attack by nuclear missiles often called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

1987 West Germany IRA Bombing

1987 : A British Army base in Rheindahlen, West Germany is targeted by a large car bomb injuring 30 as part of the ongoing war of terrorism by the IRA on British Troops.

1987 Lebanon US Hostages

1987 : In Lebanon, a group of Muslim kidnappers held an 1ll American hostage. They wanted to trade this sick hostage for 100 Arab prisoners held in Israel. Avi Pazner, aid to Prime Yitzhak Shamir, refused to consider the kidnappers’ demands. Pazner said that Israel does not negotiate with terrorists.

2001 Mir Space Station Ends

2001 : Mir Russia's and the worlds first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space ended 15 yrs in space when it is decommissioned and ends with a planned fiery plunge into the South Pacific. The space station was originally built for only Russian space exploration. The use of Mir evolved over the years as tensions between East and West eased with the ending of the cold war to become a sign that space exploration could become a truly joint project with the US Space Shuttle taking supplies and new crew members from many countries including the US and Russia.

2002 U.S.A. War Against Terrorism Funding

2002 : A news report indicates that President George Bush requested an extra $27 billion from Congress for use on the war against terrorism. While Bush was visiting in El Paso, Texas he said that the “price of freedom is never too high” as far as he was concerned.

2006 France’s marriage age is changed

2006 : The French parliament passes a law that raises the age at which a woman can get married from 15 to 18. The earlier law had set the minimum age for women to marry at 15, and men at 18, and had been introduced in 1804. The new legislation brings France into line with most of the other European Union members. The punishments for rape and assault of a spouse will now include partners and ex-partners, and sentences for murder have also been increased.

2007 Australia Burnley Tunnel Accident

2007 : A crash involving three trucks and four cars deep in the Burnley Tunnel in Melborne results in an explosion and subsequent fire which causes the death of three and the evacuation of drivers and passengers from 200 vehicles. It was estimated that at one point the fire reached temperatures in excess of 1800 °F ( 1000 °C, but for the well organised emergency services and the Tunnels design many more could have lost their lives.

2007 Royal Navy sailors captured in Iraqi/Iranian waters

2007 : Fifteen British navy personnel have been captured at gunpoint by Iranian forces. The men were seized when they boarded a boat in the Gulf, off the coast of Iraq, which they suspected was involved in smuggling. The Royal Navy has said the group was on a routine patrol in Iraqi waters, but the Iranians have said that they had illegally entered Iranian waters. The sailors were from the Type 22 frigate H.M.S. Cornwall.

2008 4000 U.S. servicemen and women dead in Iraq

2008 : The number of United States military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion has passed the 4,000 mark. The latest to die were the four soldiers whose vehicle was blown up by a bomb in southern Baghdad today. A fifth soldier was wounded in the attack, which took place about 3 p.m. E.T. This milestone has come just days after Americans marked the fifth anniversary of the war's start.

2009 United States Mount Redoubt volcano Eruption

2009 : The Mount Redoubt volcano in Alaska has erupted again, and sent a cloud of ash to around 50,000 feet. The volcano, which is 103 miles from Anchorage, had erupted on the evening of March 22nd, and four more explosions have taken place today. The volcano's ash has fallen on towns to the north of Anchorage, although the city itself has not been affected. Alaskan Airlines have canceled nineteen flights because of the ash, and aircraft at the Elmendorf Air Force Base are also being sheltered. The National Weather Service has called it 'a light dusting.'

2010 Obama signs US healthcare reform bill into law

2010 : President Obama has signed his healthcare bill, which has been hailed as the most expansive social legislation in decades, saying it enshrines "the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.” Having signed the measure, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, he spoke to an audience of of the Democratic lawmakers who have ridden the legislative process. They interrupted him repeatedly with cheers, applause and standing ovations.

2010 Virgin Galactic's Space Ship Two

2010 : Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo "VSS Enterprise" is shown to reporters from around the world on its maiden flight from the Mojave Air and Spaceport in Mojave, California, United States. Space Ship Two is designed to carry "space tourists" with tickets costing $200,000 each, under development by The Spaceship Company, a joint venture between Scaled Composites and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group. 65,000 would-be space tourists have applied for the first batch of 100 tickets.

2011 Portuguese Prime Minister Resigns

2011 : The Prime Minister of Portugal, Jose Socrates, resigned after his austerity budget failed to pass in parliament. Failure to pass the budget meant that Portugal would likely join the ranks of Greece and Ireland in the European Union, and would need help from a bailout package similar to the ones that those two countries received in 2010. The budget aimed at tackling the harsh economic situation in the country included tax rises and spending cuts, however the five opposition parties all voted against it.

2013 US Popular Band Splits

2013 : The popular band My Chemical Romance from the US state of New Jersey announced that they would be splitting up after performing together for twelve years. The alternative group had reached their peak of mainstream popularity in the mid-2000s in the USA and worldwide.

2014 Guinea Ebola Outbreak Reaches Capital

2014 : A deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus reached the capital of Guinea, Conakry. The virus had already killed fifty-nine of the reported eighty people who had been infected in the outbreak.