DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Thursday, March 23, the 82nd day of 2023. There are 283 days left in the year.
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!”
1806: Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, having reached the Pacific coast, began their journey back east.
1919: Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.
1933: The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers.
1942: The first Japanese-americans evacuated by the U.S. Army during World War II arrived at the internment camp in Manzanar, California.
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.
1981: The U.S. Supreme Court, in H.L. v. Matheson, ruled that states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teenage girls seek abortions.
1993: Scientists announced they’d found the renegade gene that causes Huntington’s disease.
1994: Aeroflot Flight 593, an Airbus A310, crashed in Siberia with the loss of all 75 people on board; it turned out that a pilot’s teenage son who was allowed to sit at the controls had accidentally disengaged the autopilot, causing loss of control.
1998: “Titanic” tied an Academy Awards record by winning 11 Oscars, including best picture, director (James Cameron) and song (“My Heart Will Go On”).
2003: During the Iraq War, a U.S. Army maintenance convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah; 11 soldiers were killed, including Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa; six were captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued on April 1, 2003.
2010: Claiming a historic triumph, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, a $938 billion health care overhaul.
2018: A French-moroccan gunman killed four people before being killed by police in southern France who stormed a supermarket where he had taken hostages; the victims included a police officer who had swapped himself for a hostage being held in the supermarket.
Singer Chaka Khan is 70. Actor Amanda Plummer is 66. Actor Catherine Keener is 64. Actor Hope Davis
(“The Matador,” “About Schmidt”) is 59. Actor Richard Grieco (“21 Jump Street”) is 58. Drummer Kevin Griffin of Yankee Grey is 58. Actor Marin Hinkle
(“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Two and a Half Men”) is 57. Singer-keyboardist Damon Albarn
of Blur and of Gorillaz is 55. Actor Kelly Perine
(“Knight Squad,” “One on One”) is 54. Drummer John Humphrey of The Nixons is 53. Bandleader Reggie Watts
(“The Late Late Show with James Corden”) is 51. Actor Randall Park (“The Interview,” “Fresh Off the Boat”) is 49. Actor Michelle Monaghan is 47. Actor Keri Russell is 47.