Today in history

Today is Monday, March 23, the 83rd day of 2020. There are 283 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 23, 1933, the German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers.

On this date:

In 1775, Patrick Henry delivered an address to the Virginia Provincial Convention in which he is said to have declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”

In 1792, Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 in G Major (the “Surprise” symphony) had its first public performance in London.

In 1806, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, having reached the Pacific coast, began their journey back east.

In 1919, Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.

In 1942, the first Japanese-Americans evacuated by the U.S. Army during World War II arrived at the internment camp in Manzanar, California.

In 1956, Pakistan became an Islamic republic.

In 1965, America’s first two-person space mission took place as Gemini 3 blasted off with astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom and John W. Young aboard for a nearly 5-hour flight.

In 1990, the romantic comedy “Pretty Woman,” starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, was released by Buena Vista Pictures.

In 1993, scientists announced they’d found the renegade gene that causes Huntington’s disease.

In 2003, during the Iraq War, a U.S. Army maintenance convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah (nahsih-REE’-uh); 11 soldiers were killed, including Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa (pyES’-tuh-wah); six were captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued on April 1, 2003.

In 2005, truck driver Tyrone Williams was convicted in federal court in Houston for his role in the 2003 deaths of 19 immigrants he was smuggling across Texas. (After initially receiving a life sentence, Williams was resentenced in Jan. 2011 to nearly 34 years in prison.)