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“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
~ Patrick Henry, in a speech to the House of Burgesses (March 23, 1775) - by Peter F. Rothermel
Wikiquote (Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799) was a prominent figure in the American Revolution, known and remembered primarily for his stirring oratory.)
March 23rd, 1400
Vietnam:
1400 - The Tran Dynasty of Vietnam Hai Phong Vietnam, kills 6,000 civilians.
Wikipedia Photo: Hang En Cave, Vietnam, by Carsten Peter; Tour boats moored in Ha Long Bay at dusk enjoy a serene seascape of limestone sculptures hewn by nature.This UNESCO World Heritage site is host to a diversity of ecosystems including sandy beaches, mangrove forests, and offshore coral reefs. Some of its roughly 1,600 islands and islets boast beautiful grottos with hidden ponds and unusual stone formations; Terraced rice paddies ring the Vietnamese countryside in bright green. The crop, has been grown in Vietnam for thousands of years; Halong Bay, Vietnam; Ba Vi National Park, Hanoi. credit National Geographic.
March 23rd, 1708
James Francis Edward Stuart lands at the Firth of Forth.
Wikipedia Photo: Bass Rock, Firth of Forth, Scotland, Phillip Capper
March 23rd, 1775
American Revolutionary War:
1775 - Patrick Henry delivers his speech – "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" – at Saint John's Church in Richmond, Virginia.
Wikipedia Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
Grand Union - Stars and Stripes Flag
March 23rd, 1806
After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" begin their arduous journey home.
Wikipedia Painting: Lewis and Clark Expedition / Shoshone guide Sacagawea with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
March 23rd, 1821
Greek War of Independence:
1821 - Battle and fall of city of Kalamata.
1905 - Theriso revolt; Eleftherios Venizelos calls for Crete's union with Greece.
Wikipedia Painting: Bishop Germanos of old Patras blessing the Greek banner at Agia Lavra on the outset of the national revolt against the Turks on 25 March 1821, by Theodoros Vryzakis (oil painting, 1852, Benaki Museum, Athens).
March 23rd, 1848
The ship John Wickliffe arrives at Port Chalmers carrying the first Scottish settlers for Dunedin, New Zealand - Otago province is founded.
Wikipedia Photo: Auckland in the North Island of New Zealand ● Satellite image of New Zealand ● The Church of the Good Shepherd stands on the shore of New Zealand's Lake Tekapo, credit Thomas Young, National Geographics ● Milford Sound, credit Madan Paul, National Geographics ● Fiordland National Park, credit Brian J. Skerry, National Geographics ● Hunua Falls New Zealand.
March 23rd, 1857
Elisha Otis's first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway, New York City.
Wikipedia Photo: Elisha Otis and the elevator.
March 23rd, 1862
American Civil War:
1862 - First Battle of Kernstown; Virginia, marks the start of Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. Though a Confederate defeat, the engagement distracts Federal efforts to capture Richmond.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● First Battle Between Ironclads: CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
March 23rd, 1919
Post World War I:
1919 - In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement.
Wikipedia Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.
March 23rd, 1931
Pre World War II:
1931 - Indian struggle for independence; Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar are hanged for murder.
1933 - The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.
1935 - Signing of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.
World War II:
1939 - Slovak–Hungarian War The Hungarian air force attacks the headquarters of Slovak air force in the city of Spišská Nová Ves.
1940 - Lahore Resolution; (Qarardad-e-Pakistan or the then Qarardad-e-Lahore) is put forward at the Annual General Convention of the All India Muslim League.
1942 - Indian Ocean; Japanese forces capture the Andaman Islands.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
March 23rd, 1956
1956 - Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. (Republic Day in Pakistan).
Wikipedia Image: Map Satellite India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet AR, Bangladesh.
March 23rd, 1962
NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace initiative.
Wikipedia Photo: NS Savannah named for SS Savannah, was the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship.
March 23rd, 1965
Gemini program: NASA's
1965 - Gemini 3 (human spaceflight); the United States' first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).
Wikipedia Photo: An Agena Target Vehicle floats between the Gemini 11 spacecraft and Baja California, Mexico, while connected to the Gemini craft by a tether in September 1966. credit Arizona State University / NASA.
March 23rd, 1989
Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce their discovery of cold fusion at the University of Utah.
Wikipedia Photo: Cold fusion is a hypothetical type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature, compared with temperatures in the millions of degrees that is required for "hot" fusion.
March 23rd, 1994
Aviation accidents and incidents:
1994 - Aeroflot Flight 593; crashes in Siberia when the pilot's fifteen-year old son accidentally disengages the autopilot, killing all 75 people on board.
1994 - Green Ramp disaster; A United States Air Force (USAF) F-16 aircraft collides with a USAF C-130 Hercules at Pope Air Force Base and then crashes, killing 24 United States Army soldiers on the ground.
2009 - FedEx Express Flight 80; A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 flying from Guangzhou, China crashes at Tokyo Narita International Airport, Japan, killing both the captain and the co-pilot.
Wikipedia Photo: ● Pan AM 747 ● U.S. Airways flight 1549 also known as the "Miracle on the Hudson" navigates an exit ramp near Burlington, New Jersey, June 5, 2011 ● Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, Reuters ● US Airways plane crashes into New York Hudson River, Photo: AP
March 23rd, 2001
The Russian Mir space station is disposed of, breaking up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.
Wikipedia Image: Mir Space Station endured 15 years in orbit, three times its planned lifetime, credit NASA.
U2, Lockheed TR-1 in flight.
March 23rd, 2003
Gulf War - Iraq War:
2003 - Operation Iraqi Freedom; In Nasiriyah, Iraq, 11 soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company as well as 18 United States Marines are killed during the first major conflict. (654 Iraqi combatants are also killed.)
Wikipedia Photo: USAF F-15Es, F-16s, and a USAF F-15 flying over burning Kuwaiti oil wells; Iraqi Army T-72 main battle tanks. The T-72 tank was a common Iraqi battle tank used in the Gulf War; F-15Es parked during Operation Desert Shield; The oil fires caused were a result of the scorched earth policy of Iraqi military forces retreating from Kuwait; Aerial view of destroyed Iraqi T-72 tank, BMP-1 and Type 63 armored personnel carriers and trucks on Highway 8 in March 1991.
March 23rd, 2005
Texas City Refinery explosion: During a test on a distillation tower liquid waste builds up and flows out of a blowout tower. Waste fumes ignite and explode killing 15 workers.
Wikipedia Photo: British Petroleum Texas City Refinery explosion exploded in 2005 killing 15 and injuring 170.
March 23rd, 2009
Aviation accidents and incidents:
2009 - FedEx Express Flight 80; A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 flying from Guangzhou, China crashes at Tokyo's Narita International Airport, killing both the captain and the co-pilot.
Wikipedia Photo: ● Pan AM 747 ● U.S. Airways flight 1549 also known as the "Miracle on the Hudson" navigates an exit ramp near Burlington, New Jersey, June 5, 2011 ● Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, Reuters ● U.S. Airways plane crashes into New York Hudson River, Photo: AP