This Week In History
March 24, 2018
The March For Our Lives, mass protests across the United States led by survivors of the school shooting in Florida that killed 17 people, called for tighter gun control
1934: The US adopted the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which gave the Philippines full independence in 1946
1989: Two little known scientists claimed to have unlocked the secret of low-temperature nuclear fusion
1989: The Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground in Alaska, spilling some 64 million litres of oil
1999: NATO launched airstrikes in Yugoslavia, which continued until Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo
March 25, 1655
Christiaan Huygens, Dutch astronomer and mathematician, discovered Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Huygens also determined the nature of Saturn’s rings
1954: The first colour television went on sale for around US$1,000, roughly the same cost as a car at that time 1995: WikiWikiWeb, the world’s first user-editable website, was created
2009: Scientists reported that debris from an asteroid had been recovered for the first time after it fell to Earth
2009: Sweden’s Parliament announced that the 50-Øre coin would cease to be legal tender from Sept 30, 2010 Picture: Newscom
March 26, 1979
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin signed a peace treaty at the White House, ending 30 years of war between their two countries 1898: The Sabi Game Reserve, the world’s first dedicated wild life park, was designated in South Africa
1989: The Communists were defeated in parliamentary elections in the Soviet Union 1999: The European Union backed the “unqualified” right of Palestinians to have their own independent state 2017: Carrie Lam was elected Chief Executive of Hong Kong, its first female leader
March 27, 1914
The first successful non-direct blood transfusion, using stored blood rather than transfusing directly from donor to receiver, was performed 1899: Guglielmo Marconi made the first international radio transmission between France and England
1994: Media mogul Silvio Berlusconi seized victory in Italy’s general elections
1994: A prototype of the four-nation Eurofighter aircraft made a successful test flight in Germany
2017: The Big Maple Leaf, a 100kg Canadian gold coin worth US$4.5mil (RM18.2mil), was stolen from a Berlin museum
March 28, 1939
The Spanish Civil War ended when General Franco’s fascist forces took Madrid after three years of warfare and the loss of tens of thousands of lives
1979: A meltdown at the Three Mile Island power plant caused the worst nuclear accident in US history
2009: A Chinese spying network was found to have infiltrated more than 1,000 computers in 103 countries
2011: Sea water near Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant was found to be highly contaminated
2018: Three Australian cricketers were given lengthy bans over a ball-tampering scandal
The United Kingdom invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on European Union, beginning the formal process of Brexit. Britain is due to leave the EU today
1974: Nasa’s Mariner 10 became the first spacecraft to reach the planet Mercury 1999: Wall Street celebrated as the Dow Jones index passed 10,000 for the first time 2004: Ireland became the world’s first country to impose a nationwide ban on smoking in public places
2004: The Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were formally welcomed into NATO Picture: Newscom
March 30, 1939
Germany’s Heinkel He 100 fighter plane set a world airspeed record of 746.606km/h, but it did not go into series production and none survived World War II
1979: Iran voted in favour of establishing an Islamic Republic
1981: US President Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest as he left a Washington hotel
1989: The new entrance of the Louvre Museum, a dramatic glass pyramid designed by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei, was opened
1999: A cigarette manufacturer was ordered to pay US$81mil to the family of a man who died from lung cancer