Today in History - March 5
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1279 Mar
5, Lithuanians overcame Livonian forces at Aizkraukle.
(LHC, 3/5/03)
1291 Mar 5, Sa'ad al'Da'ulah,
Jewish grand vizier of Persia, was assassinated.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1324 Mar 5, David II Bruce, king
of Scotland (1331-71), was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1326 Mar 5, Louis I (the Great),
King of Hungary (1342-1382) and Poland (1370-1382), was born.
(HN, 3/5/98)(MC, 3/5/02)
1496 Mar 5, English king Henry VII
hired John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) to explore.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1512 Mar 5, Gerardus Mercator
(d.1594), Flemish philosopher and cartographer, was born in Rupelmonde,
Flanders (later Belgium).
(www.navis.gr/men/mercator.htm)
1558 Mar 5, Smoking tobacco was
introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes. [see 1556]
(MC, 3/5/02)
1574 Mar 5, William Oughtred,
mathematician and inventor of the slide rule, was born.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1616 Mar 5, The Catholic Church’s
Congregation of the Index banned Catholics from reading “On the
Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres” (1543) by Nicholas Copernicus. The
prohibition was officially lifted in 1835.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_revolutionibus_orbium_coelestium)
1623 Mar 5, The 1st American
temperance law was enacted in Virginia.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1624 Mar 5, Class-based
legislation was passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper
class from punishment by whipping.
(HN, 3/5/99)
1637 Mar 5, John van der Heyden,
Dutch painter, inventor (fire extinguisher), was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1658 Mar 5, Antoine de la Mothe
Cadillac, French colonial governor of America, was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1668 Mar 5, Francesco Gasparini,
composer, was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1696 Mar 5, Giambattista Giovanni
Battista Tiepolo (d.1770), Venetian Rococo painter (Isaac's Sacrifice),
was born. He painted for the Dolfin family in the 1720s. His work
included: “The Annunciation” (c1765-1770), “Apelles Painting a Portrait
of Campaspe,” “Martyrdom of St. Agatha,” “Sacrifice of Isaac,” “The
Finding of Moses,” “Nobility and Virtue” (1743), “Satyress with a
Putto,” “Satyress With Two Putti and a Tambourine,” and “Halberdier in
a Landscape.” His contemporaries included Francesco Fontebasso,
Allesandro Longhi, and Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1483)(WSJ, 10/14/96,
p.A14)(SFC, 3/25/97, p.E3)(MC, 3/5/02)
1732 Mar 5, Joseph-Francois
Salomon (82), composer, died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1746 Mar 5, Jacobin troops left
Aberdeen, Scotland.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1750 Mar 5, The 1st American
Shakespearean production, was an "altered" Richard III in NYC.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1766 Mar 5, Spanish official Don
Antonio de Ulloa arrived in New Orleans to take possession of the
Louisiana Territory from the French.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1770 March 5, British troops
taunted by a crowd of colonists fired on an unruly mob in Boston and
killed five citizens in what came to be known as the Boston Massacre.
The fracas between a few angry Boston men and one British sentry ended
with five men dead or dying in the icy street corner of King Street and
Shrimton’s Lane. Captain Thomas Preston did not order the eight British
soldiers under his command to fire into the hostile crowd. The nervous
soldiers claimed to be confused by shouts of "Why do you not fire?"
coming from all sides. Versions of the event rapidly circulated through
the colonies, bolstering public support for the Patriot cause. The
British Captain Preston and seven soldiers were defended by John Adams.
The captain and five of the soldiers were acquitted, the other two
soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and were branded on the hand
with a hot iron. The first colonist killed in the American Revolution
was the former slave, Crispus Attucks, shot by the British at the
Boston Massacre. The event was later illustrated by Boston engraver
Paul Revere.
(HFA, '96, p.26)(A&IP, Miers, p.18)(SFC,
12/18/96, p.A25)(AP, 3/5/98)(HN, 3/5/98)(HNPD, 3/5/99)(WSJ, 4/12/08,
p.W14)
1776 Mar 5, A terrific storm
wrecked British hope of a counterattack on Dorchester Heights in
Boston, Mass.
(WSJ, 5/20/05, p.W10)
1778 Mar 5, Thomas A. Arne (67),
English composer (Alfred, Rule Britannia), died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1783 Mar 5, King Stanislaus
Augustus Poniatowski granted rights to Jews of Kovno.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1793 Mar 5, Austrian troops crush
the French and recapture Liege.
(HN, 3/5/99)
1807 Mar 5, 1st performance of
Ludwig von Beethoven's 4th Symphony in B.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1815 Mar 5, Friedrich (Franz)
Anton Mesmer (b.1734), German physician who pioneered the medical field
of hypnotic therapy, died in obscurity in Meersburg, Swabia (now
Germany). He was suspected of having seduced a pretty pianist while
attempting to cure her blindness through hypnosis.
(HN, 5/23/98)(WSJ, 5/30/00, p.A24)(MC, 3/5/02)
1820 Mar 5, Dutch city of
Leeuwarden forbade Jews to go to synagogues on Sundays.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1821 Mar 5, Monroe was the first
president to be inaugurated on March 5, only because the 4th was a
Sunday.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1821 May 5, Napoleon Bonaparte
died in exile on the island of St. Helena. They poisoned him by putting
arsenic in his food.
(V.D.-H.K.p.232)(AP, 5/5/97)
1824 Mar 5, Elisha Harris, U.S.
physician, founder of the American Public Health Association, was
born.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1824 Mar 5, James Merritt Ives,
lithographer for Currier and Ives, was born.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1827 Mar 5, Pierre-Simon Laplace
(b.1749), French mathematician, astronomer, physicist, died. He
invented perturbation theory and wrote the 5-volume work "Celestial
Mechanics." In 1998 Charles Couiston Gillespie published his biography
"Pierre-Simon Laplace: A Life in Exact Science."
(WSJ, 2/19/98,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace)
1827 Mar 5, Alessandro Volta
(b.1745), Italian physicist who made 1st battery (1800), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Volta)
1828 Mar 5, Johann Gungl,
composer, was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1836 Mar 5, Samuel Colt
manufactured the 1st pistol, a 34-caliber "Texas" model.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1849 Mar 5, Zachary Taylor took
the oath of office at his presidential inauguration.
(AP, 3/5/99)
1853 Mar 5, Howard Pyle, writer
and illustrator (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood), was born.
(HN, 3/5/01)
1853 Mar 5, Arthur W. Foote,
organist, composer (Suite for Strings in E), was born in Salem, Mass.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1856 Mar 5, Covent Garden Opera
House was destroyed in a fire.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1867 Mar 5, An abortive Fenian
uprising against English rule took place in Ireland.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1868 Mar 5, Arrigo Boito's opera
"Mefistofele," premiered in Milan.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1868 Mar 5, The Senate was
organized into a court of impeachment to decide charges against
President Andrew Johnson, who was later acquitted.
(AP, 3/5/08)
1868 Mar 5, A stapler was patented
in England by C.H. Gould.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1870 Mar 5, Frank Norris, novelist
(McTeague, The Octopus), was born.
(HN, 3/5/01)
1871 Mar 5, In Brazil Maria do
Carmo Jeronimo was born as a slave in the town of Carmo de Minas in
Minas Gerais state under the rule of Emperor Pedro II. Jeronimo died in
2000, but the lack of a birth certificate prevented her being
recognized as the world’s oldest woman.
(SFC, 6/16/00, p.A34)
1872 Mar 5, George Westinghouse
Jr. patented triple air brake for trains.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1874 Mar 5, Blanche Kelso Bruce
(1841-1898), elected by the Mississippi Legislature, formally entered
the US Senate. Bruce was the first full-term African American Senator
(1874-1881). In 2006 Lawrence Otis Graham authored “The Senator and the
Socialite: The True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty.”
(SSFC, 7/2/06,
p.M1)(www.csusm.edu/Black_Excellence/documents/pg-b-bruce.html)
1877 Mar 5, Rutherford B. Hayes
was inaugurated as 19th US president.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1887 Mar 5, Heitor Villa-Lobos,
composer, was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
(HN, 3/5/01)(MC, 3/5/02)
1888 Mar 5, Friedrich Schnack,
German journalist, writer (Rosewood), was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1893 Mar 5, Emmett J. Culligan,
founder of water treatment organization, was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1893 Mar 5, Hippolyte Taine (64),
French philosopher, historian, died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1895 Mar 5, Henry Creswicke
Rawlinson (85), soldier and scholar, died in England. In 1835 he had
begun examining the ancient inscriptions on the rock of Behistun in the
Kurdish foothills of the Zagros mountain range and found that they had
been made to honor Darius the Great, Persian ruler in the 5th century
BCE. He deciphered text from Old Akkadian cuneiform. In 2004 Lesley
Adkins authored “Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost
Languages of Babylon.”
(www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/pqrst/rawlinson_henry.html)
(ON, 4/04, p.9)(WSJ, 12/21/04, p.D8)
1897 Mar 5, Mei-ling Soong
(d.2003, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, was born on Hainan Island, China. As
wife of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek she was instrumental in enlisting
U.S. sympathy and relief for China in World war II.
(www.nndb.com/people/978/000086720/)(HN, 6/5/99)
1899 Mar 5, Patrick Hadley,
composer, was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1899 Mar 5, 1st performance of
Edward MacDowell's 2nd Concerto in D.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1905 Mar 5, Russians began to
retreat from Mukden in Manchuria.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1907 Mar 5, The 2nd Russian
Duma, which included 7 Lithuanians, began work. The Duma stayed in
session until June 15.
(LHC, 3/5/03)
1908 Mar 5, Rex Harrison, actor
(My Fair Lady), was born in Lancashire, England.
(AP, 3/5/08)
1912 Mar 5, The Italians became
the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for
reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1912 Mar 5, Spanish steamer
"Principe de Asturias" sank NE of Spain and 500 died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1917 Mar 5, The 1st jazz recording
for Victor Records was released by RCA Victor in Camden, NJ. Viktor
issued “Dixie Jass Band One-Step” and “Livery Stable Blues” by The
Dixie Jass Band.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.D5)(MC, 3/5/02)
1918 Mar 5, The Soviets moved the
capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1922 Mar 5, Pier Paolo Pasolini,
director (Teorema, Pigsty), was born in Bologna, Italy.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1922 Mar 5, "Nosferatu" premiered
in Berlin.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1923 Mar 5, Laurence Tisch
(d.2003) was born in Brooklyn. In 1946 his parents entrusted him with
$125,000 to invest. He and his brother grew it to billions through
their Loews conglomerate.
(SSFC, 11/16/03, p.A29)
1923 Mar 5, Montana and Nevada
passed the US's first old age pension grants, giving $25 per month.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1924 Mar 5,
Computing-Tabulating-Recording Corp became IBM.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1927 Mar 5, Some 1,000 US marines
landed in China to "protect American property."
(MC, 3/5/02)
1928 Mar 5, Hitler's National
Socialists won the majority vote in Bavaria.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1930 Mar 5, Lorin Maazel,
conductor (NBC Symphony Orch 1941), was born in Neuilly, France.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1931 Mar 5, In Bolivia President
Daniel Salamanca Urey (1869-1935) became president.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Salamanca)
1931 Mar 5, Gandhi and British
viceroy Lord Irwin signed a pact.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1933 Mar 5, Franklin D. Roosevelt
ordered a four-day bank holiday in order to stop large amounts of money
from being withdrawn from the banks.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1933 Mar 5, In German
parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote,
enabling it to join with Nationalists to gain a slender majority in the
Reichstag. It was the last free election in Germany until after World
War II.
(AP, 3/5/98)(HN, 3/5/02)
1934 Mar 5, Mother-in-law's day
was 1st celebrated in Amarillo, Tx.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1936 Mar 5, A prototype Type 300
Spitfire made it's 1st flight at the Eastleigh Aerodrome in
Southampton, England.
(ON, 3/07, p.2)
1938 Mar 5, Lynn Margulis,
biologist, was born.
(HN, 3/5/01)
1940 Mar 5, The British surprised
Mussolini by taking seven Italian coal ships.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1940 Mar 5, Stalin among others
signed an Order for the massacre at Katyn, Poland. Soviet agents shot
21,768 Polish military officers, intellectuals and priests who had been
taken prisoner during the invasion. Between April and May some 25,700
(15,000) Polish citizens were massacred by the Soviets in the Katyn and
Miednoje (Mednoye) forests on the outskirts of Moscow and at Kharkov in
western Russia (later Ukraine). Some 14,700 Polish officers were
identified by their uniforms. Documents were made public in 1992 by
Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet leader. They included a
letter by Lavrenty Beria, head of the secret police, recommending the
execution of the Polish prisoners of war. The letter bears the
signatures of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and three other members of
the Politburo. Excavations of the sites began in 1994. 6,313 Polish
officers were all shot in the back of the head near Mednoye. 9,000
Russians were also massacred at the site. In 2008 Andrzej Wajda
directed the film “Katyn.” In 2004 Russia's top military prosecutor
closed the investigation after concluding that the massacre did not
constitute genocide. In 2009 Russia's Supreme Court rejected appeals to
re-open the investigation. On April 7, 2010, Russian PM Vladimir Putin
attended a memorial ceremony. Hours later he said Stalin had ordered
the atrocity as revenge for the death of Red Army soldiers in Polish
prisoner of war camps in 1920.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.16)(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.A18)(AP,
3/6/05)(Econ, 6/21/08, p.65)(AP, 1/29/09)(SFC, 4/8/10, p.A2)(AP,
4/28/10)
1941 Mar 5, Britain severed all
relation with Bulgaria and prepared for an air attack on Bulgaria.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1942 Mar 5, Josip Broz "Tito"
established the 3rd Proletariat Brigade in Bosnia.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1942 Mar 5, Japanese troop marched
into Batavia.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1943 Mar 5, RAF bombed Essen,
Germany. [see Mar 6]
(MC, 3/5/02)
1943 Mar 5, In desperation due to
war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military
service in the German army.
(HN, 3/5/99)
1943 Mar 5, The Gloster Meteor
first flew. Great Britain emerged from World War II with a decided head
start in jet technology, the only Allied power to have had a jet
fighter operational in squadron strength before the German surrender on
May 8, 1945. On July 21, 1944, the first two production Meteors arrived
at Culmhead and formed the nucleus of No. 616 Squadron, Royal Air Force
(RAF). Appropriately, the Meteor’s first duty was to defend Britain
from attacks by German V-1 pulse jet-powered guided bombs, of which
they destroyed 13 by the end of the war. Meteor IIIs of No. 616
Squadron were committed to Continental Europe in the last months of the
conflict, but they never got the opportunity to meet the German Me-262A
in battle.
(HNQ, 8/21/01)
1945 Mar 5, US 7th Army Corps
captured Cologne.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1945 Mar 5, Allies bombed The
Hague, Netherlands.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1946 March 5, Winston Churchill
appeared as Pres. Truman's guest at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.
and delivered his ”Sinews Of Peace” speech later known as the “Iron
Curtain Speech:” "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the
Adriatic, an iron Curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind
that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and
Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Sofia, all
these famous cities and the populations around them lie in ... the
Soviet sphere."
(SFEC, 3/30/97, p.T5)(AP, 3/5/98)
1947 Mar 5, Communist leader
Maurice Thorez declared support for the French sovereignty over
Vietnam.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1948 Mar 5, Leslie Marmon Silko,
writer (Ceremony), was born.
(HN, 3/5/01)
1950 Mar 5, Edgar Lee Masters
(b.1868), poet (Spoon River Anthology), novelist, died in Philadelphia.
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/3088)
1952 Mar 5, Terence Rattigan's
"Deep Blue Sea," premiered in London.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1953 Mar 5, Russian Premier Joseph
Stalin died at age 73 after 29 years in power. After his death the
Chechens were allowed to return home. In 1973 Prof. Adam B. Ulam of
Harvard Univ. authored "Stalin: The Man and His Era." In 2003 Simon
Sebag Montefiore authored "Stalin : The court of the Red Tsar." In 2004
Robert Service authored “Stalin: A Biography.”
(AP, 3/5/98)(SFC, 4/1/00, p.A26)(Econ, 7/26/03,
p.78)(Econ, 1/8/05, p.74)
1953 Mar 5, Sergei Prokofiev (61),
Russian composer (Peter and the wolf), died in Moscow.
(AP, 3/5/04)
1954 Mar 5, "Girl in Pink Tights"
opened at Mark Hellinger in NYC for 115 performances.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1955 Mar 5, A truck driver from
Tupelo, Miss., made his first-ever TV appearance on this night. Elvis
Aron Presley was featured on "Louisiana Hayride". This prompted
promoters to send Elvis to New York City to audition for Arthur
Godfrey's immensely popular and career-making "Talent Scouts" program.
Talent coordinators and Godfrey are said to have passed on Elvis
appearing on the show. Not much later, he was tossed out of the Grand
Ole Opry as well, and told to "go back to driving a truck." In a little
over a year, however, the nation was caught up in Presley-mania which
continues even today.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt1087605/)(www.scottymoore.net/tourdates50s.html)y
1956 Mar 5, "King Kong" was 1st
televised.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1956 Mar 5, The U.S. Supreme Court
affirmed the ban on segregation in public schools in Brown vs. Board of
Education.
(HN, 3/5/01)
1957 Mar 5, Britain adopted a plan
to triple nuclear energy production by 1965.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1957 Mar 5, Eamon de Valera's
Fianna Fail-party won election in Ireland. DeValera (1882-1975) was
elected Taoiseach (prime minister) and served his 3rd term as PM.
(MC, 3/5/02)(www.apostles.com/devalera.html)(ON,
9/04, p.7)
1960 Mar 5, Elvis Presley ended
his 2-year hitch in US Army.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1962 Mar 5, The U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that airports must compensate people living in the near vicinity
for noise and vibrations.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1963 Mar 5, A private plane crash
near Camden, Tenn., claimed the lives of country music performers
Patsy Cline (30), "Cowboy" Copas and "Hawkshaw" Hawkins, as well as
pilot Randy Hughes, Cline's manager.
(AP, 3/5/08)
1966 Mar 5, 75 MPH air currents
caused a BOAC 707 to crash into Mount Fuji and 124 died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1966 Mar 5, Anna Akhmatova,
Russian poet, died in Leningrad. She was born in 1889 as Anna Gorenko
near Odessa, Ukraine. In 2005 Elaine Feinstein authored “Anna of All
the Russias: A Life of Anna Akhmatova.
(www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Anna_Akhmatova)(SSFC, 4/2/06, p.M3)
1967 Mar 5, Mohammed H. Mosaddeq
(b.1882), former prime minister of Iran (1951-53), died in Iran
following a period of house arrest. He had been ousted in a military
coup organized by the CIA and British intelligence.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mossadegh)
1969 Mar 5, “What the Butler Saw,”
the final play of Joe Orton (1933-1967), was first performed in London.
The sex farce was set in a mental hospital.
(SFC, 6/12/09,
p.E1)(http://talkingbroadway.org/regional/sanfran/s823.html)
1969 Mar 5, Gustav Heinemann was
elected West German President.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1970 Mar 5, A nuclear
non-proliferation treaty went into effect after 43 nations ratified it.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1972 Mar 5, Greek composer Mikis
Theodorakis (b.1925) left the communist party.
(http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php/1972)
1973 Mar 5, During spring training
in Florida, Yankee pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich
announced they had swapped wives.
(www.around-the-horn.com/?p=131)
1973 Mar 5, Paul Kletzki (b.1900),
Polish violinist, composer, conductor, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kletzki)
1974 Mar 5, A revived "Candide"
opened at Broadway Theater in NYC for 740 performances. The book and
lyrics were revised from the 1956 version.
(SFC, 1/11/05, p.E1)
1974 Mar 5, Solomon I "Sol" Hurok
(b.1888), Ukraine-born US impresario, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Hurok)
1975 Mar 5, The Homebrew Computer
Club, founded by peace activist Fred Moore, held its first meeting in
Menlo Park, Ca. It was an outgrowth of the store-front based People’s
Computer Co. The meeting inspired Steve Wozniak (24) to design and
build the first Apple computer.
(SSFC, 4/23/05, p.B1)(Reuters, 9/27/06)
1976 Mar 5, The British pound fell
below the equivalent of $2 for the first time.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1976 Mar 5, Britain gave up on the
Ulster talks and decided to retain rule in Northern Ireland
indefinitely.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1977 Mar 5, President Carter took
questions from 42 telephone callers in 26 states on a network radio
call-in program moderated by Walter Cronkite.
(AP,
3/5/98)(www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/timeline.php?id=39)
1979 Mar 5, Voyager I made its
closest approach to Jupiter (128,400 miles).
(www.jpl.nasa.gov/history/70s/Voyager1_1979.htm)
1980 Mar 5, The California coast
Channel Islands National Park was established. It included San Miguel,
Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa and Santa Barbara. Complete protection
was completed by 1997.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, Z1
p.1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Islands_National_Park)
1980 Mar 5, Jay Silverheels
(b.1912), son of a Mohawk Indian chief and actor who portrayed Tonto on
"The Lone Ranger", died in Woodland Hills, Ca., from a stroke.
(www.imdb.com)
1980 Mar 5, Winifred Wagner (82),
English-born head of the German Wagner family, died in Uberlingen. In
2006 Brigitte Hamann authored “Winifred Wagner, A Life at the Heart of
Hitler’s Bayreuth.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifred_Wagner)(SFC,
12/13/06, p.F2)
1981 Mar 5, President Reagan asked
Congress to end federal legal aid to the poor.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1982 Mar 5, John Belushi
(33), comedian (Sat Night Live), was found dead of a drug overdose at
the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Strip, a rented bungalow in Hollywood.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.4)(AP,
3/5/98)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0000004/)
1983 Mar 5, The Australian Labor
Party won the federal election. The new prime minister, Bob Hawke, had
vowed to stop the Franklin River dam from being constructed, and the
anti-dam vote increased Hawke's majority.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Dam)
1984 Mar 5, The US Supreme Court
ruled that cities have the right to display the Nativity scene as part
of their Christmas display.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1984 Mar 5, The US accused Iraq of
using poison gas against Iran. Iraq had used tabun against Iran. This
was the first use ever of a nerve agent in war.
(http://tinyurl.com/2jd895)(www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/program.htm)
1984 Mar 5, Tito Gobbi (b.1923),
Italian baritone (Scarpia in Tosca), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito_Gobbi)
1986 Mar 5, In Lebanon Islamic
Jihad issued a statement saying it had "executed" Michel Seurat, a
French history researcher, who had been abducted May 22, 1985. His
remains were found in 2006.
(AP, 3/5/00)(AP, 3/7/06)
1988 Mar 5, Vice President George
Bush won the South Carolina Republican primary, with Kansas Senator Bob
Dole running a distant second, followed by Pat Robertson and New York
Congressman Jack Kemp.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1989 Mar 5, Machinists striking
Eastern Airlines withdrew an immediate threat to picket the nation's
railroads, after a federal judge issued an order temporarily
prohibiting rail workers from honoring the Eastern picket lines.
(AP, 3/5/99)
1990 Mar 5, To the cheers of
onlookers, workers in Bucharest, Romania, finally succeeded in removing
a 25-foot, seven-ton bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin from its
foundation.
(AP, 3/5/00)
1991 Mar 5, Iraq repealed its
annexation of Kuwait. The Iraqis turned over 35 prisoners of war,
including 15 Americans, to the Red Cross. An anti-Saddam Hussein
uprising was reported sweeping city after city in Iraq.
(AP, 3/5/01)
1992 Mar 5, Nebraska Sen. Bob
Kerrey dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(AP, 3/5/02)
1992 Mar 5, The trial of four Los
Angeles police officers charged with beating motorist Rodney King
opened in Simi Valley, Calif.
(AP, 3/5/02)
1992 Mar 5, In Copenhagen the
Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany,
Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden, in the presence
of the representative from the European Commission, opened a 2-day
meeting and decided to establish a Council of the Baltic Sea States to
serve as a forum for guidance and overall coordination among the
participating states. Iceland joined the CBSS in 1995
(Econ, 6/7/08,
p.63)(www.bmwi.de/English/Navigation/European-policy/baltic-market.html)
1993 Mar 5, The White House sought
new ways to inflict what a spokesman called "real pain and real price"
on Serb aggressors in Bosnia by tightening the U.N. blockade on
supplies and money to the region.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1994 Mar 5, White House Counsel
Bernard Nussbaum resigned in the wake of turmoil over the Clinton
administration's handling of questions related to Whitewater.
(AP, 3/5/99)
1994 Mar 5, A jury in Pensacola,
Fla., convicted anti-abortion activist Michael F. Griffin of
first-degree murder in the shooting death of Dr. David Gunn; Griffin
was sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 3/5/99)
1995 Mar 5, An Australian yacht
broke in two and sank in heavy wind and fierce winds off the Southern
California coast, the first sinking in the history of America's Cup
racing; all 17 crew members were rescued.
(AP, 3/5/00)
1996 Mar 5, Senate Majority Leader
Bob Dole swept the “Junior Tuesday” primaries.
(AP, 3/5/01)
1996 Mar 5, Representative Enid
Greene Waldholtz (Republican, Utah), tangled in a financial mess that
she blamed on her estranged husband, announced she would not seek a
second term.
(AP, 3/5/01)
1996 Mar 5, The St. Paul AME
Church in Hatley, Miss., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Mar 5, The Sri Lankan army
raised flags over Jaffna town marking the end of a 7 week campaign to
capture the Tamil rebel stronghold.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1997 Mar 5, Tommy Lasorda, Nellie
Fox and Willie Wells Sr. were elected to baseball's Hall of Fame.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1997 Mar 5, Brain researchers
announced that some instinctual behavior was successfully transferred
between chicken and quail embryos. The young birds did not live past 14
days.
(SFC, 3/5/97, p.A4)
1997 Mar 5, The Ohio River rose to
its highest level in a generation, flooding the area near Louisville,
Ky.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1997 Mar 5, North Korea and South
Korea met for first time in 25 years to talk peace.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1998 Mar 5, Details of President
Clinton's deposition testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment
case against him were published in The Washington Post, prompting an
angry denunciation from the president for the news leak.
(AP, 3/5/99)
1998 Mar 5, NASA officials
announced that the Lunar Prospector probe found the presence of water
on the moon at the north and south poles. As much as 100 million tons
of water was estimated. They said that the water frozen in the loose
soil of the moon might support a lunar base and a human colony.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/6/98, p.A1)(AP, 3/5/99)
1998 Mar 5, In a speech by Premier
Li Peng it was announced that China planned to eliminate 11 ministries
and lay off as many as 4 million bureaucrats. The plan was developed by
economic chief Zhu Rongji, who was expected to replace Li Peng.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 5, In Japan prosecutors
raided the Finance Ministry and later arrested 2 officials, Takashi
Sakakibara and Toshio Miyano for accepting bribes in exchange for
approving new financial products.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 5, In Chiapas, Mexico, 46
prison inmates escaped after a labor group of taxi drivers marched into
the Ocosingo jail in a protest demanding the release of some inmates
and the withdrawal of government troops.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A13)
1998 Mar 5, Serbian police mounted
a counterinsurgency operation and killed 20 ethnic Albanians in the
Drenica region of Kosovo.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A13)
1998 Mar 5, In Colombo, Sri Lanka,
a bus bomb with at least 2 shrapnel-laden bombs killed at least 32
people and injured over 300.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1999 Mar 5, Italian Prime Minister
Massimo D'Alema met at the White House with President Clinton, a day
after a military jury in North Carolina acquitted a Marine pilot in the
Italian cable car accident that killed 20 people; D'Alema demanded
justice, while Clinton expressed profound regret.
(AP, 3/5/00)
1999 Mar 5, A federal appeals
court in Virginia struck down the 1994 Violence Against Women Act which
let rape victims sue for civil-rights violations.
(WSJ, 3/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 5, Actor Richard Kiley
died in Warwick, N.Y., at age 76.
(AP, 3/5/00)
1999 Mar 5, In Bosnia the town of
Brco was removed from ethnic Serb control and proclaimed a neutral zone
under int'l. supervision. Nikola Poplasen, president of the Bosnian
Serb Republic, was removed from office for not cooperating with the
int'l. community.
(SFC, 3/5/99, p.A12)(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 5, In China the annual
2-week plenary session was scheduled to amend the Constitution. The
preamble will mention the goal of developing a "socialist market
economy" and acknowledge the late Deng Xiaoping. Revisions were also
planned to protect private enterprise and recognize multiple forms of
ownership.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.A22)(WSJ, 2/1/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 5, Denmark's parliament
voted 81-27 to legalize prostitution, effective Jul 1.
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A14)
1999 Mar 5, Indonesia enacted Law
No. 5 Concerning the Prohibition of Monopolistic Practices and
Unhealthy/Unfair Business Competition (popularly know as the
Competition Law or the Law), after the IMF required Indonesia to pass
laws that ensure fair competition. The Commission to Monitor Business
Competition (KPPU) was charged with enforcing the Law.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.76)(http://tinyurl.com/3b2rty9)
1999 Mar 5, From Sudan it was
reported that southern rebels had kidnapped 7 people working with the
Int'l. Committee of the Red Cross near the town of Bentiu, 500 miles
south of Khartoum.
(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A16)
1999 Mar 5, In Cankiri, Turkey, a
car bomb attack killed 3 people and wounded provincial governor Ayhan
Cevik. The Maoist guerrillas of the Turkish Workers and Peasants
Liberation Army (TIKKO) claimed responsibility.
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A14)
2000 Mar 5, A Blacksburg,
Virginia, subsidiary of PPL Therapeutics of Edinburgh, Scotland, the
company that cloned Dolly the sheep, produced the first cloned pigs.
(SFC, 3/15/00, p.A3)(AP, 3/5/01)
2000 Mar 5, In Virginia an
explosion at an auto parts factory killed 3 people in at New River
Castings in Radford.
(SFC, 3/7/00, p.A5)
2000 Mar 5, In Angola some 500
armed men killed 30 diamond prospectors in Chivungo. UNITA rebels were
blamed.
(SFC, 3/8/00, p.C4)
2000 Mar 5, NATO peacekeeping
troops arrested Dragoljub Prcac, a Bosnian Serb, for war crimes
committed at the Omarska prison camp in 1992, where he served as deputy
commander.
(SFC, 3/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 5, In Israel the
government voted to back Prime Minister Barak's plan to withdraw troops
from southern Lebanon by July.
(SFC, 3/6/00, p.A10)(AP, 3/5/01)
2000 Mar 5, In India supporters of
the Rashtriya Janata Dal party went on a rampage in Patna after their
party was dislodged from elections in Bihar led by the National
Democratic Alliance. 2 people died and thousands were jailed.
(SFC, 3/6/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 5, In Mozambique some 600
US troops arrived to help deliver food and medical supplies where
flooding left an estimated 1 million people homeless.
(SFC, 3/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Mar 5, In Israel the
government voted to back Prime Minister Barak's plan to withdraw troops
from southern Lebanon by July.
(SFC, 3/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Mar 5, In Russia acting Pres.
Putin said that Russia would consider joining NATO if it were treated
as an equal partner.
(SFC, 3/6/00, p.A10)
2001 Mar 5, Vice President Dick
Cheney underwent an angioplasty for a partially blocked artery after
going to a hospital with chest pains.
(AP, 3/5/02)
2001 Mar 5, Charles Andrew
Williams (15), a freshman at Santana High School in Santee, Ca., a San
Diego suburb, shot and killed 2 students and wounded 13 others.
Williams was sentenced 50 years to life in prison on Aug 15, 2002.
(SFC, 3/6/01, p.A1)(SFC, 8/16/02, p.A3)
2001 Mar 5, China announced a
17.7% increase in defense spending.
(SFC, 3/6/01, p.A12)
2001 Mar 5, In Colombia rightists
vowed to prevent the formation of a 2nd leftist sanctuary and fought
rebels in a battle that left 24 dead.
(WSJ, 3/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 5, France banned exports
of animals at risk for hoof-and-mouth disease.
(SFC, 3/6/01, p.A11)
2001 Mar 5, In Macedonia heavy
fighting against ethnic Albanian rebels continued for a 2nd day on the
border with Kosovo.
(SFC, 3/6/01, p.A12)
2001 Mar 5, Muslim pilgrims began
the stoning of the three pillars symbolizing the devil as part of the
annual hajj to Mecca. 35 people suffocated to death during the stoning
of the devil ritual.
(WSJ, 3/5/01, p.A1)(SFC, 3/6/01, p.A11)
2002 Mar 5, Pres. Bush approved
tariffs of 8-30% on several types of imported steel.
(SFC, 3/6/02, p.A4)
2002 Mar 5, Pres. Bush planned to
nominate Elias Zerhouni, vice dean of John Hopkins School of Medicine,
as director of the NIH.
(SFC, 3/6/02, p.A3)
2002 Mar 5, Pres. Bush met with
Egypt’s Pres. Mubarek, who called for greater US involvement in seeking
Middle East peace.
(SFC, 3/5/02, p.A11)(SFC, 3/6/02, p.A13)
2002 Mar 5, In California state
elections Bill Simon won the Republican race over Richard Riordan
(49-30) to face Gov. Davis in Nov. In Modesto Rep. Gary Condit lost to
Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza (56-37) for the Democratic nomination to
Congress. Voters rejected Prop 45, an easing of term limits.
(SFC, 3/6/02, p.A1)(SFC, 3/7/02, p.A13)
2002 Mar 5, It was reported that a
team of physicists claimed nuclear fusion utilizing a burst of
ultrasound on a bubble of gases in a phenomenon known as
sonoluminescence. Details were to appear the journal Science. In 2008
Purdue Univ. said physicist Rusi Taleyarkhan was guilty of misconduct
in his research.
(SFC, 3/5/02, p.A4)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A4)
2002 Mar 5, Joyce and Pete
Cottrell of New Hampshire began to walk the trans-continental American
Discovery Trail. They left the Atlantic coast at Cape Henlopen, Del.,
and arrived at the Pacific Ocean at Point Reyes, Ca., Aug 19, 2003.
(SFC, 8/20/03, p.A2)
2002 Mar 5, In China Falun Gong
members cut into a cable network in Changchun and broadcast its
messages for some 50 minutes.
(SFC, 3/8/02, p.A12)(WSJ, 3/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 5, In Tel Aviv a gunmen
killed 3 people at a restaurant in the early hours and wounded 31 other
before he was killed. A suicide bomber blew himself up at the Afula bus
station and 1 Israeli was killed. In Dura a Palestinian police officer
was killed and 4 wounded during a gunfight with Israeli soldiers.
(SFC, 3/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 5, In the Philippines a
6.8 earthquake struck about 10 miles under the sea some 147 miles
southwest of General Santos and 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 3/6/02, p.A8)
2002 Mar 5, In Zimbabwe Pres.
Mugabe reinstated controversial election laws that had been struck down
by the Supreme Court.
(SFC, 3/6/02, p.A7)
2003 Mar 5, Thousands of US
students nationwide walked out of classes to protest a possible war.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2003 Mar 5, Comedian George Miller
(b.1950) died in Los Angeles.
(AP,
3/5/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Miller_(comedian))
2003 Mar 5, In Argentina
the Supreme declared unconstitutional a government decree that
converted dollar bank accounts to devalued pesos.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Mar 5, In Armenia
Pres. Robert Kocharian won Armenia's presidential runoff. The
opposition claimed he was trying to fix the outcome. Kocharian had 67.5
percent and challenger Stepan Demirchian had 32.5 percent,
(AP, 3/6/03)
2003 Mar 5, Sir Hardy Amies
(93), Savile Row designer and self-described snob, died.
(SFC, 3/6/03, p.A19)
2003 Mar 5, Cambodia sealed
its border with Thailand, due to sluggish progress "to normalize
relations in border areas" since January's anti-Thai riots.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Mar 5, In northeastern
Colombia a bomb set off by suspected rebels ripped through a shopping
center in Cucuta, killing 7 people, injuring at least 20 and setting
the complex on fire.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Mar 5, The foreign
ministers of France, Germany and Russia said they will block any
attempt to get UN approval for war against Iraq.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Mar 5, In Israel a
Palestinian suicide bombing, the 1st in two months, tore apart a packed
Israeli bus in the port city of Haifa, killing 14 Israelis and an
American teenager, and wounding about 55.
(AP, 3/5/03)(AP, 3/5/08)
2003 Mar 5, A Kuwaiti policeman
was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 2002 attack that wounded
two U.S. soldiers on a Kuwaiti desert highway.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2003 Mar 5, In
Nigeria Marshall Harry, a senior member of the main opposition
party, was shot and killed by gunmen who broke into his home in the
capital.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2004 Mar 5, Pres. Bush welcomed
Mexican Pres. Fox to his Texas ranch for a 2-day visit.
(SFC, 3/06/04, p.A3)
2004 Mar 5, Martha Stewart was
convicted in New York of obstructing justice and lying to the
government about why she'd unloaded her Imclone stock just before the
price plummeted; her ex-stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, also was found
guilty in the stock scandal. Each later received a five-month prison
sentence.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2004 Mar 5, U.S. special
operations forces killed nine suspected Taliban rebels in a firefight
in eastern Afghanistan after the militants tried to sneak by their
position.
(AP, 3/6/04)
2004 Mar 5, Suspected Taliban
gunmen killed a Turkish engineer and an Afghan soldier after stopping
their car along a main road linking the capital with the turbulent
south.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2004 Mar 5, China's Premier Wen
Jiabao addressed the 2,904-member legislature and turned attention and
resources to the hundreds of millions of citizens who work the land.
(AP, 3/5/04)(SFC, 3/06/04, p.A10)
2004 Mar 5, Carlos Julio Arosemena
(84), one-time president of Ecuador whose term ended in a 1963 military
coup, died. Elected vice president in 1960, Arosemena rose to the
presidency following the ouster of President Velasco Ibarra a year
later in a military coup.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2004 Mar 5, In Haiti some 3
thousand supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide marched on the
U.S. and French embassies, shouting their anger at his ouster. A
seven-member council met for the first time to help form a transitional
government.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2004 Mar 5, The signing of Iraq's
interim constitution was delayed indefinitely after five Shiite members
of the Governing Council rejected concessions made to Kurds and the
makeup of the presidency.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2004 Mar 5, A bomb exploded as
south Lebanon's police chief was driving across a bridge in the eastern
region, blowing off one foot and mangling another.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2004 Mar 5, Libya acknowledged
stockpiling 44,000 pounds of mustard gas and disclosed the location of
a production plant in a declaration submitted to the world's chemical
weapons watchdog.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2004 Mar 5, Mexican Air Force
pilots filmed 11 unidentified flying objects in the skies over southern
Campeche state. The video was publicly aired May10.
(AP, 5/11/04)
2004 Mar 5, In Nepal some 10,000
demonstrators marched through the streets of the capital, the latest
protest against the king for dismissing an elected government and
replacing it with one loyal to the monarchy.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2005 Mar 5, It was reported that
an experimental technique called deep-brain stimulation was effective
in turning off depression. In 2005 the US FDA approved an implant for
vagus nerve stimulation as therapy for depression that fails to respond
to other conventional treatments.
(Econ, 3/5/05, p.78)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.79)
2005 Mar 5, China's foreign
exchange chief said a sharp appreciation of China's yuan is unlikely
and the currency will be kept in a small range as the country gradually
implements a more flexible exchange rate.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2005 Mar 5, India’s Finance
Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the government would try to
ensure economic growth of over 7 percent and urged the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) to maintain benign interest rates, now at three-decade
lows, to promote investment.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2005 Mar 5, India clinched a deal
to operate a Venezuelan oilfield and import the output as Asia's third
largest consumer and the world's No.5 oil exporter vowed to strengthen
ties.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2005 Mar 5, The governor of the
lawless Indian eastern state of Bihar recommended federal rule in the
province as no political grouping could muster the required numbers to
form a government in polls last month. This ended control by the Yadav
family.
(AP, 3/6/05)(Econ, 3/12/05, p.45)
2005 Mar 5, Iran said it will
never agree to a permanent halt on enriching uranium and warned that a
more unstable Middle East would result from a U.S.-backed effort to
haul Tehran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2005 Mar 5, Pakistani troops
raided a hideout of suspected al-Qaida militants in a remote tribal
area near Afghanistan. A shootout left 2 foreigners dead. 11 people
were arrested.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2005 Mar 5, Syria’s Pres. Assad
outlined a two-step pullback: 1st to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, nearer to
the Syrian border; 2nd, a redeployment from there all the way to the
Syrian frontier. He failed to address broad international demands that
he completely withdraw Syria's 15,000 troops after nearly 30 years in
Lebanon.
(AP, 3/5/05)
2006 Mar 5, The film Crash” won
best picture in the Academy Awards. Lead-acting Oscars went to Philip
Seymour Hoffman as author Truman Capote in "Capote" and Reese
Witherspoon as country singer June Carter in "Walk the Line," while
corporate thrillers earned supporting-performer Oscars for George
Clooney in "Syriana" and Rachel Weisz in "The Constant Gardener.
"Brokeback Mountain" filmmaker Ang Lee won the best-director award.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 5, AT&T Inc. said it
would buy BellSouth Corp. for $67 billion to acquire the rest of
Cingular Wireless it does not already own, and expand into the
southeastern US to gain heft to battle growing competition from cable
television and Internet companies.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 5, In Algeria a young man
injured three police officers and was then killed by a policeman in
Zeralda, a suburb of Algiers, triggering riots in which youths attacked
public buildings.
(AFP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 5, Premier Wen Jiabao
opened the annual session of China's figurehead parliament with
promises to spread prosperity to the restive countryside and
predictions of fast but steady economic growth.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, Chinese Commerce
Minister Bo Xilai said on Sunday that anti-dumping duties by the
European Union and U.S. threats of more trade complaints contradict the
spirit of free trade and add to global protectionism.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, In eastern Congo UN
troops killed several militia fighters during heavy clashes after a
joint operation with the government army was aborted by a mutiny among
its soldiers.
(Reuters, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 5, Jacques Bernard, a top
election official who fled Haiti under threat, returned to help
organize a legislative runoff needed to form a new government.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 5, Egyptian security
forces arrested three more members of the Muslim Brotherhood, taking to
15 the number of Islamists from the banned opposition group arrested in
the last few days.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, French President
Jacques Chirac on a trip to Saudi Arabia preached greater tolerance and
respect after the publication of satirical cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammad a month ago whipped up protests around the world.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, Iran warned it will
start large-scale uranium enrichment if it is referred to the UN
Security Council because of international concerns over its nuclear
program.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, In Iraq 8 people were
killed in bombings and clashes around the country. Two British
newspapers, the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Mirror, quoting unnamed
senior British Army sources, said the coalition intended to reduce its
presence on the ground over the next 12 months, while withdrawing
forces into bases. The US military strongly denied news reports that
coalition forces have finalized plans to quit Iraq.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, A top political ally
said Israel’s acting PM Ehud Olmert plans to withdraw from more West
Bank settlements immediately after forming the next government and to
set Israel's final borders within four years if it wins upcoming
elections.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, In Japan thousands of
protesters gathered on the southern island of Okinawa to rally against
plans to relocate the Futenma US air base there, with reports saying
the protesters numbered as many as 35,000.
(AP, 3/5/06)(Econ, 5/1/10, p.46)
2006 Mar 5, State TV said Libya
had named a new prime minister, Baghdadi Mahmudi, as part of a major
cabinet reshuffle. Mahmudi replaced former premier Shukri Ghanem, who
had held the post since 2003. Ghanem would no longer be part of the
cabinet but would head the state-owned Libya National Oil.
(AFP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, Malaysian PM Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi launched an information offensive to counter public dismay
after the government imposed the country's biggest ever fuel price
hikes.
(AFP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, Nigerian militants
threatened to halve the country's oil output by cutting another one
million barrels a day this month in their campaign to gain more
autonomy for the southern delta region.
(Reuters, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, Hundreds of people
lugging bags and bundles of clothes fled Miran Shah, a northwestern
Pakistan, town after a battle between pro-Taliban tribesmen and
security forces killed at least 51 people. The fighting came just days
after the army attacked a suspected al-Qaida camp in the village of
Saidgi near the Afghan border.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, Tens of thousands of
people massed in Pakistan and Turkey to protest cartoons of Islam's
Prophet, Muhammad, that have fired anger throughout the Muslim world.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, Milan Babic (50), the
Serb leader of a rebel republic in Croatia and one of the key figures
in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, committed suicide in prison in the
Netherlands.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 5, Tens of thousands of
Thais marched to Government House, demanding the resignation of PM
Thaksin Shinawatra in the fourth protest against him in as many weeks.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, In Yemen Hezam Ali
Hassan (17) and Khaled Saleh (18), convicted of trying to kill US
ambassador Edmund Hull in 2003, were sentenced to five years in prison.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 5, Zimbabwe state media
reported that foreign hunters have bid a total of $1.5 million to shoot
leopards, lions, elephants and buffaloes in Zimbabwe this year.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2007 Mar 5, President Bush, facing
criticism he'd been ignoring Latin America, said the US would spend
tens of millions of dollars to improve education, housing and health
care across the region.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2007 Mar 5, In SF Richard Aicardi
(19) and Brian Dwyer (19) were charged with felony assault and battery
in the Jan 1 assault on members of Baker’s Dozen, a Yale singing group.
(SFC, 3/6/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 5, In Hayward, Ca., 3
children, aged 3-4, were shot in a drive-by shooting. Two 4-year-old
sisters were left clinging to life. Datasha Wilson (4) died Mar 8.
(SFC, 3/6/07, p.D1)(SFC, 3/10/07, p.B1)
2007 Mar 5, In southern
Afghanistan NATO-led troops launched an offensive, dubbed Operation
Achilles, against Taliban militants Helmand province where hundreds of
militant fighters have massed in recent months. The UN drug agency
chief said a "cancer of insurgency" in southern Afghanistan could drive
the 2007 opium poppy harvest to record levels.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, African Union
commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare urged Guinea's President Lansana
Conte to step down as he voiced solidarity with recent protests against
the veteran leader.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, in Austria a
helicopter and a small plane collided in the air and crashed near a ski
slope, killing all eight people aboard the two aircraft.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Brazil Bishop Ivo
Lorscheiter (79), a prominent critic of the former military regime,
died in Santa Maria. Lorscheiter, a leading advocate of liberation
theology, had also squared off with the Vatican over his progressive
beliefs.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Cambodia PM Hun Sen
publicly rebuked members in the upper ranks of his Cambodian People’s
Party for dodgy land deals as small farmers and slum-dwellers fell
victim to land-grabbing.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.38)
2007 Mar 5, In Copenhagen,
Denmark, demolition crews started tearing down a graffiti-sprayed brick
building, prompting tears and cries of protest from youths whose
eviction from the makeshift cultural center led to three nights of
rioting. The Youth House served since 1982 as a popular cultural center
for anarchists, punk rockers and left-wing groups. The squatters
considered it free public housing, but courts ordered them out after
the city sold the building to a Christian congregation. Ruth Evensen,
leader of the small congregation that bought the Youth House in 2001,
said the four-story structure had to be torn down because it was "a
total wreck" and posed a fire hazard.
(AP, 3/5/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.48)
2007 Mar 5, Badri
Patarkatsishvili, one of the most famous Georgian oligarchs, left
Georgia. His departure was announced in London as the relocation of his
activities of "Georgia in the West," underscoring the desire to leave
the country definitively. The millionaire, who holds first-rank
influence in both finances and the media, co-holds one of the most
important Georgian media concerns, Imedi, which includes a radio
station and a television station.
(www.caucaz.com/home_eng/breve_contenu.php?id=307)
2007 Mar 5, A suicide car bomber
shattered a relative lull in Baghdad's violence, killing at least 38
people in a blast that touched off raging fires and a blizzard of
bloodstained paper from a popular book market. Gunmen opened fire on
Shiite pilgrims in several places around Baghdad, killing at least
seven people. Six US soldiers died when a bomb exploded near their
vehicles during a combat operation in Salahuddin province. Another
three US soldiers died in a roadside bomb attack in Diyala province.
(AP, 3/5/07)(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, A Tokyo paper said
Japan, the United States and India will carry out a joint military
drill in the Pacific off Japan's coast amid concerns about China's
military build-up.
(AFP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, Kosovo's former PM
Ramush Haradinaj went on trial in the Netherlands at the UN tribunal on
war crimes charges related to his time as a guerrilla leader in the war
against Serb forces between 1998-99. Haradinaj, a former regional
commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), resigned as prime
minister in 2005 after being indicted for murder, rape and torture
allegedly committed by forces under his command.
(Reuters, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, The bodies of two
Pakistani tribesmen, accused of being US informers, were found near the
Afghan border shot dead by suspected pro-Taliban militants.
(Reuters, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, A daylong gunbattle
between rival Palestinian factions raged in the streets of Gaza City as
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Ismail Haniyeh again failed
to agree on the formation of a unity government.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Somalia gunmen shot
dead five people in two separate attacks in the lawless capital of
Mogadishu in an escalation of killings ahead of the planned deployment
of African Union peacekeepers.
(AFP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Sudan gunmen killed
two African Union peacekeepers and critically wounded a third in the
western Darfur region.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 5, In central Turkey a
rock fall caused the roof of a hillside nightclub to collapse in the
Cappadocia area, killing three people.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 5, John Holmes, the new
UN humanitarian chief, said the UN plans to open an office in Jordan to
deal with the increasingly serious humanitarian problems posed by 1.8
million Iraqis who have fled to neighboring countries and a similar
number who have fled their homes and are still inside Iraq.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2008 Mar 5, The US Federal Housing
Authority (FHA) raised loan limits in California.
(WSJ, 3/6/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 5, Hillary Rodham
Clinton, fresh off a campaign-saving comeback, hinted at the
possibility of sharing the Democratic presidential ticket with Barack
Obama, with her at the top. Obama played down his losses, stressing
that he still holds the lead in number of delegates.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, Hassan Abu-Jihaad
(b.1976 as Paul R. Hall), a former US sailor, was convicted by a jury
for disclosing in 2001 the location of Navy ships and their weaknesses
to someone suspected of financing terrorism. In 2009 he was sentenced
to 10 years in prison, the maximum penalty for his crime.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Abujihaad)
2008 Mar 5, Oil surged to a new
record high closing at 104.52 on the NY Mercantile Exchange. The
previous inflation-adjusted high of $103.76 was reached in April 1980.
(WSJ, 3/6/08, p.A3)
2008 Mar 5, According to a study
released by Fidelity Investments a couple retiring this year will need
about $225,000 in savings to cover medical costs in retirement.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, Dirk Kemphorne,
US Interior Sec., released a flood of water from the Glen Canyon Dam to
help restore the Colorado River ecosystem. The canyon had been flooded
2 times earlier in 1996 and 2004.
(SFC, 3/6/08, p.A12)
2008 Mar 5, In North Carolina Eve
Carson (22), Univ. of North Carolina student body president, was found
dead on a street not far from the Chapel Hill campus. She had been shot
several times, including once in the right temple. On March 12 Lawrence
Alvin Lovette Jr. (17) and Demario James Atwater (21) were
charged with first-degree murder in the death of Carson. A day later
Lovette was also charged with first-degree murder in the death of
Abhijit Mahato, a doctoral student in computational mechanics, who was
found shot to death inside his apartment a few blocks south of Duke's
campus in January. In 2010 Atwater pleaded guilty to several federal
crimes and agreed to a life sentence.
(AP, 3/8/08)(AP, 3/13/08)(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A6)
2008 Mar 5, Joseph Weizenbaum
(b.1923), a computer programmer who helped advance artificial
intelligence only to become a critic of the technology later in his
life, died. He was a professor at MIT when in 1966 he introduced ELIZA,
named for Eliza Doolittle, the heroine of "My Fair Lady." The program
allowed a person to "converse" with a computer, using what the person
said to create the computer's reply.
(AP, 3/13/08)(WSJ, 3/15/08, p.A6)
2008 Mar 5, Australia cancelled a
one billion dollar (930 million US) contract for US-made Seasprite
helicopters following a review of the troubled project.
(AFP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, In Central African
Republic rebels killed five government soldiers and lost one of their
own men in 2 days of clashes near the country's northwestern border
with Chad.
(Reuters, 3/7/08)
2008 Mar 5, In northwest China a
hijacker in Xi’an armed with explosives took a group of Australian
tourists and a translator hostage before police shot and killed him. A
fire at a coal mine in northeastern China killed 17 people.
(AP, 3/5/08)(AFP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, In China at least 13
miners were missing at the Taiyuan Coal Mine in Hegang city. 43 men
were trapped when the mine caught fire, but 30 were rescued. The mine
owners in northeastern Heilongjiang province initially concealed the
number of missing workers.
(AP, 3/12/08)
2008 Mar 5, The Washington-based
OAS declared Colombia’s attack on rebels in Ecuador a violation of
Ecuador's sovereignty and called for OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel
Insulza to lead a delegation to both countries to ease tensions. But
the resolution stopped short of explicitly condemning the assault.
Pres. Chavez said Venezuela will search for other countries like
Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina to replace products imported from
Colombia.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 5, In Egypt police
arrested 86 Brotherhood members in several provinces. All faced charges
of belonging to an illegal group and possessing Brotherhood-related
promotional leaflets.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 5, The EU urged Serbia to
make clear it saw its future with Europe and laid out incentives on
visas, education and transport to try to boost the bloc's image in the
Balkans.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, In Germany scores of
flights were canceled as hundreds of airport workers walked off the job
at several airports, part of a wider labor action to win higher pay for
public service workers.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, Iraq's cabinet gave
the green light to the Oil Ministry to sign agreements with
international oil companies to help increase the nation's crude output.
An Iraqi official said Turkish warplanes attacked Kurdish separatist
rebels in northern Iraq less than a week after the end of a large-scale
ground operation. The US military freed two former Health Ministry
officials after an Iraqi court dropped charges of kidnapping, murder,
and corruption stemming from Shiite militia activity.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, In western Japan 3
vessels collided in a strait, killing one Filipino crew member and
leaving three others missing when their cargo ship sank. The body of
Gold Leader's captain, Tomas Nirid Demandaco Jr. (51), was found the
next day. A suspected right-wing activist committed suicide by shooting
himself in the head in front of Japan's parliament in apparent protest
against Japan's warming ties with China.
(AP, 3/5/08)(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 5, In Myanmar
pro-democracy party of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's
said they had failed in a bid to sue the military government for not
recognizing their 1990 election victory.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, An aid group said
North Korea executed 15 people trying to flee of helping others escape.
(WSJ, 3/6/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 5, In Pakistan a court
quashed corruption cases against Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of slain
former PM Benazir Bhutto. In the North West Frontier (NWFP) the Awami
National Party (ANP) signed a provincial power sharing agreement with
the Pakistan People’s Party.
(AP, 3/5/08)(Econ, 3/22/08, p.46)
2008 Mar 5, Visiting Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice persuaded Palestinians to return to peace talks.
President Mahmoud Abbas said he will resume peace talks with Israel,
backing off a threat to boycott negotiations until Israel reaches a
truce with Hamas militants in Gaza.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, Philippine officials
said soaring oil prices and the rising cost of living have driven
nearly four million people in the Philippines back into poverty.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, In Puerto Rico public
school teachers voted to suspend a 10-day strike that shuttered
classrooms and sparked clashes between protesters and police.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, Sweden’s Karolinska
Institute said researchers have discovered a protein that stimulates
the formation of fat cells, a finding that could potentially be used to
treat obesity.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, Russia's state gas
monopoly announced that it was ending a reduction in natural gas
supplies to Ukraine after the two countries' presidents and gas company
chiefs reached an agreement aimed at ending a debt and contract dispute.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, In Somalia a firefight
between Islamic insurgents and Somali police at a checkpoint outside
the capital has left five people dead.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 5, South Ossetia appealed
for international recognition as an independent nation, further adding
to simmering tensions in Georgia and throughout the strategic South
Caucasus region.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 5, Turkmenistan's state
media reported that President Berdymukhamedov had approved a plan to
reward women who give birth to eight or more children, a one-time bonus
and lifetime perks.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 5, A NATO official said
that Uzbekistan has allowed some members of the alliance, including the
US, to use an air base on its territory in a signal of thawing
relations with the West.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2009 Mar 5, A US federal grand
jury in LA charged Bruce E. Karatz (63) former chairman and chief
executive of KB Home, with multiple counts of fraud and other crimes
related to a stock option backdating scheme that authorities say bilked
shareholders out of millions of dollars.
(AP, 3/6/09)
2009 Mar 5, In Bozeman, Montana, a
natural gas explosion collapsed 3 downtown buildings and prompted the
evacuation of a 2-block area. One person was left missing.
(SFC, 3/6/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 5, In Ohio 5 people were
found killed in one of Cleveland’s most horrific shootings in
years. Davon Crawford (33), a newlywed, was suspected of killing his
wife, his sister-in-law and three young children. Crawford shot himself
in the head the next day as police confronted in a home where he was
hiding.
(AP, 3/6/09)(SFC, 3/7/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 5, Australia and South
Korea agreed during a summit between PM Kevin Rudd and President Lee
Myung-bak to deepen security ties and launch formal talks on a free
trade agreement.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, China fleshed out an
ambitious expansion in government spending designed to prevent the
sinking global economy from further dragging down the country's
recently buoyant growth and sparking unrest among laid-off workers and
poorer Chinese.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, The Bank of England
cut interest rates by 50 basis points to a record low of 0.5%, and said
it would pump 75 billion pounds of new money into buying assets in its
battle with recession.
(Reuters, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, A Colombian warlord
who has cooperated closely with prosecutors was extradited to the
United States despite human rights groups' objections that sending him
away could leave hundreds of murders unsolved. Heberth Veloza (41),
alias "HH," has admitted to personally killing more than 100 people and
acknowledged that fighters under his command killed hundreds more.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, The European Central
Bank cut its main interest rate by a half percentage point to 1.5
percent, dropping the cost of borrowing in the 16 countries that use
the euro to a new record low amid grim economic news.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, The European Court of
Justice said Britain's law requiring retirement at age 65 is legal
under EU rules. The advocacy group Age Concern took the British
government to court in 2006 to demand the reversal of the forced
retirement rule.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, Germany’s restored
Neues Museum was unveiled after six years of painstaking work to repair
World War II bomb damage that ruined much of the renowned Berlin
building.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, In Ingushetia five
policemen were killed trying to defuse a bomb. Violence continues to
wrack Ingushetia, with bombings, shootings and attacks on police
reported almost daily.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, Iraq's parliament
passed a $58.6 billion budget after agreeing to sharp cuts amid falling
oil prices. A car bomb exploded in a crowded livestock market selling
sheep, cattle and goats south of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people
and wounding dozens. Justin Pope (25), a US veteran who returned to
Iraq as a civilian contractor, was shot to death overnight while
protecting American diplomats in Kirkuk.
(AP, 3/5/09)(AP, 3/8/09)
2009 Mar 5, Israeli airstrikes
killed 3 gunmen close to the border after they fired an anti-tank
missile at Israeli forces. In Jerusalem Mari al-Radeideh (26), a
Palestinian driver, rammed a construction vehicle into a bus and police
car on a highway, wounding two officers before he was shot dead, the
latest in a string of attacks by militants using heavy machinery
against Israeli targets.
(AP, 3/5/09)(SFC, 3/6/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 5, The Israeli and
Turkish foreign ministers met secretly on the sidelines of a NATO
conference, the first high-level contact between the countries since
friction erupted over Israel's recent offensive in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, A political scandal in
Japan widened when government figures, including an influential former
premier, said they had taken money linked to a firm whose murky
donations have shaken the opposition.
(AFP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, In Kenya Oscar Kamau
Kingara and John Paul Oulu, who investigated extrajudicial
killings, were shot at close range night while their car was
stuck in traffic near the Univ. of Nairobi. The next day Kenya's top
human rights group charged that the slaying was part of a pattern of
assassinations of people who made allegations about police death squads.
(AP, 3/6/09)
2009 Mar 5, NATO foreign ministers
agreed to resume high-level formal ties with Russia, suspended last
year after Moscow's military thrust into Georgia.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, Pakistani officials
said that they have identified the gunmen who ambushed the Sri Lankan
cricket team in Lahore on March 3, leaving 8 people dead. Police
detained over 2 dozen men and most of them belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed
and Lashkar-e-Mohammed, groups linked to Al-Qaida and designated as
terrorist organizations by the US.
(WSJ, 3/6/09, p.A9)
2009 Mar 5, Protests spread from
two French possessions in the Caribbean to the island of Reunion in the
Indian Ocean, where about 15,000 people demonstrated in different
cities against high prices.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, Sri Lanka offered a
new safe passage for thousands of civilians trapped in the island's war
zone as a local Red Cross employee was killed while helping
non-combatants leave the area.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 5, Ukraine’s Naftogaz
paid its February bill for Russian gas just hours after Pres. Putin
said Russia would halt supplies if Ukraine failed to meet a March 7
deadline.
(WSJ, 3/6/09, p.A10)
2009 Mar 5, In Zimbabwe PM Morgan
Tsvangirai said more than 4,000 people have died in the cholera
epidemic that has hit at least 85,000 people, warning the figures were
likely an underestimate.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2010 Mar 5, In Alabama Larry
Langford (63), the former mayor of Birmingham, was sentenced to 15
years in prison for taking $241,000 in bribes.
(SFC, 3/6/10, p.A5)
2010 Mar 5, In Arizona 6 people
were killed when a passenger bus hit another vehicle and rolled over on
the interstate south of Phoenix.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 5, Edgar Wayburn (103),
former 5-term president of the Sierra Club, died in SF. In 1999 he was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his years of efforts in
preserving wilderness.
(SFC, 3/8/10, p.A1)
2010 Mar 5, An Australian court
ruled that the once-popular painkiller Vioxx doubled the risk of heart
attack and was unfit for consumption, awarding a man leading a class
action suit against the drug's maker 287,000 Australian dollars
($259,000) in compensation.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 5, It was reported that
the advocacy group Big Brother Watch found, through a series of Freedom
of Information requests, that many local governments, called councils
in Britain, are installing microchips in trash cans distributed
to households, but in most cases have not yet activated them — in part
because officials know the move would be unpopular. Proponents called
it a bid to push recycling. Microchips were first fitted into some
British trash bins eight years ago, and the debate over whether the
state has the right to weigh or otherwise analyze residents' refuse has
surfaced periodically since.
(AP, 3/6/10)
2010 Mar 5, Dutch anti-Islam
maverick Geert Wilders (46) took his cinematic assault on the Quran to
Britain's House of Lords, sparking heated debate inside the building
and angry protests outside. Wilders screened his 15-minute film "Fitna"
to about 60 people, including a half-dozen peers, in a wood-paneled
committee room in Parliament. The film associates the Quran with
terrorism, homophobia and repression of women.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 5, Canada’s Tim Hortons
Inc unveiled a fresh strategy to take on Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts in
the US market, saying it would open hundreds of new American cafes that
break the mold of Tim's iconic Canadian coffee shops.
(Reuters, 3/6/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Chile 3 strong
aftershocks shook the center of the country, sending panicked residents
rushing out of their homes and leveling more buildings in an area
already hard hit by the Feb 6 monster earthquake.
(AFP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Ethiopia 25 African
states agreed to step up efforts to regulate mercenary activity on the
continent amid an explosion of private security companies on the
continent.
(AFP, 3/6/10)
2010 Mar 5, Eight Fijian men were
sentenced to jail terms of three to seven years for their roles in a
2007 plot to assassinate the armed forces chief Commodore Frank
Bainimarama, the island nation's prime minister, who seized power in a
bloodless coup in 2006.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 5, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy summoned bank leaders to his Elysee palace to order
them to boost lending to the economy and smaller companies.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 5, Germany and the group
of countries using the euro ruled out any immediate financial aid for
debt-ridden Greece at the start of a diplomatic tour by PM George
Papandreou.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Greece masked
youths attacked the leader of the country’s biggest union and stoned
police in Athens in an outbreak of violence over cutbacks proposed by
PM George Papandreou, who was abroad seeking European leaders' support
for his efforts to defuse the country's debt crisis.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Israel clashes
erupted between Muslim worshippers and Israeli riot police at a sacred
and disputed hilltop compound following a sermon on a recent Israeli
decision to include two West Bank shrines on a list of national
heritage sites.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Mexico heavily
armed gunmen ambushed a convoy of federal police on a highway near the
port city of Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state, killing two officers and
wounding three. Soldiers seized 28,000 pounds of marijuana, seven
vehicles and 18 high-powered weapons in Altar, Sonora, 35 miles south
of the Arizona border.
(AP, 3/6/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Pakistan a suicide
bomber targeted Shiite Muslims on two buses being escorted by security
forces through a northwestern border area rife with sectarian and
insurgent violence, killing 12 people. Pakistan army helicopters
destroyed a sprawling hideout of a key al-Qaida-linked militant leader,
Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, in the northwestern tribal region of Bajur,
killing 25 insurgents. Maulvi Faqir Mohammed and fellow commander Qari
Ziaur Rehman, top Taliban commanders close to al-Qaida, were believed
to have been killed in the army airstrike.
(AP, 3/5/10)(AP, 3/6/10)
2010 Mar 5, Swarms of Somali
pirates moved into the waters off East Africa, triggering four
shootouts with French and Spanish fishing vessels including a skirmish
with French military personnel that sunk a pirate skiff. Somali pirates
near Madagascar hijacked the Norwegian-owned ship with 21 crew members.
The UBT Ocean chemical tanker was carrying fuel oil.
(AP, 3/5/10)(AP, 3/6/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Spain the regions
of Madrid, Valencia and southern Murcia said they will keep
bullfighting legal and give the sport cultural heritage protection.
(SFC, 3/6/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 5, Election officials in
Tajikistan declared the governing party the overwhelming winner of
parliamentary elections that international observers say were marred by
widespread fraud. The Central Election Commission said that a
definitive count of ballots cast in the Feb 28 contest showed the
People's Democratic Party winning 70.6% of the vote. It was now set to
take 54 of the 63 seats in the Central Asian nation's lower chamber of
parliament. The Islamic Revival Party came a distant second with 8.2%
of the vote.
(AP, 3/5/10)
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