Today in History - March 30
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1282 Mar 30,
Furious inhabitants of Palermo attacked French occupation force in
the "Sicilian Vespers." The Mafia appeared in Sicily to revolt
against French rule after a drunken soldier attacked a young woman
on her wedding day.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(MC, 3/30/02)
1298 Mar 30, Duke Vytenis
joined with Riga and its archbishop against the Livonian order.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1422 Mar 30, Ketsugan, a Zen
teacher, performed exorcisms to free the Aizoji temple.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1423 Mar 30, Lithuania and
Poland reached an agreement at Kezmark with Emperor Sigismund, who
agreed to recall Sigismund Kaributa from Poland.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1492 Mar 30, King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella signed a decree expelling all Jews from Spain. Jews
numbered about 80,000 and it was estimated that about half chose to
convert. [see Mar 31]
(HN, 3/30/98)(WSJ, 4/16/98, p.A20)
1533 Mar 30, Henry VIII made
Thomas Cranmer archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer had advised Henry
that his 1509 marriage to Catherine of Aragon was null and void
because she had previously married Henry’s late brother Arthur, even
though that marriage was ever consummated.
(PCh, 1992ed, p.177)
1603 Mar 30, Battle at
Mellifont: English army under Lord Mountjoy beat the Irish.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1719 Mar 30, Sir John Hawkins,
author of the first history of music, was born.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1767 Mar 30, Jonas Kristupas
Glaubicas, one of the founders of the Vilnius school of baroque
architecture, died.
(LHC, 3/30/03)
1814 Mar 30, Britain and allies
marched into Paris after defeating Napoleon.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1820 Mar 30, Anna Sewell,
English novelist, was born. Her "Black Beauty" has become the
classic story about horses.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1822 Mar 30, Congress combined
East and West Florida into the Florida Territory.
(AP, 3/30/97)(MC, 3/30/02)
1840 Mar 30, "Beau" Brummell
(b.1778), English dandy and former favorite of the prince regent,
died of syphilis in a French lunatic asylum for paupers. In 2005 Ian
Kelly authored the biography “Beau Brummel: The Ultimate Dandy.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Brummell)(WSJ,
5/7/06, p.P9)
1842 Mar 30, Crawford
Williamson Long (1815-1878) of Jefferson, Ga., utilized ether the
first time to remove a tumor from the neck of his patient, Mr. James
M. Venable.
(AP,
3/30/97)(www.general-anaesthesia.com/images/crawford-long.html)
1850 Mar 30, Charles Dickens
published the first issue of his magazine “Household Words.”
(Econ, 9/10/11,
p.95)(www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/hw.html)
1853 Mar 30, Vincent Van Gogh
(d.1890), Dutch artist, was born in Zundert, Neth. His work included
“The Drawbridge and Sunflowers in a Vase,” and “Harvest in
Prevance,” which was done both in oil and as a watercolor. The
watercolor sold in 1997 for $14.7 mil. He produced an estimated 900
paintings and 1200 drawings but sold virtually none of them. In 1997
it was reported that more than 100 of his paintings and drawings
might be fakes. 300 of his canvasses were painted in the last 15
months of his life.
(AAP,1964)(WUD,1994, p.606)(SFC, 6/26/97,
p.A21)(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.8)(HN, 3/30/98)
1855 Mar 30, First election in
Territorial Kansas. Some 5,000 "Border Ruffians" invaded the
territory from western Missouri and forced the election of a
pro-slavery legislature.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1856 Mar 30, Russia signed the
Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War. It guaranteed the integrity
of Ottoman Turkey and obliged Russia to surrender southern
Bessarabia, at the mouth of the Danube. The Black Sea was
neutralized, and the Danube River was opened to the shipping of all
nations. In 2010 Allen Lane authored “Crimea: The Last Crusade.”
(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/143040/Crimean-War)(Econ,
10/2/10, p.89)
1858 Mar 30, Hyman L. Lipman of
Philadelphia patented the pencil with an eraser attached on one end.
(HN, 3/30/98)(SFC, 9/16/98, Z1 p.6)
1864 Mar 30, Skirmish at Mount
Elba, Arkansas.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1867 Mar 30, US Secretary of
State William H. Seward signed an agreement with Russia’s Baron
Edouard de Stoeckl to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2
million, two cents an acre, a deal roundly ridiculed as "Seward's
Folly," "Seward's icebox," and President Andrew Johnson's "polar
bear garden."
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/01)(Reuters, 5/24/11)
1870 Mar 30, The 15th Amendment
to the US Constitution, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of
race, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.
(HN, 3/30/98)(AP, 3/30/08)
1870 Mar 30, Texas was the last
Confederate state readmitted to the Union.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1873 Mar 30, Benedict Augustin
Morel (63), psychologist (dementia praecox), died.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1880 Mar 30, Sean O'Casey (d.
1964), Irish playwright, was born. "It is my rule never to lose me
temper till it would be detrimental to keep it."
(AP, 3/17/00)(HN, 3/30/01)
1883 Mar 30, Jo Davidson,
American sculptor, was born.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1885 Mar 30, Texas was the last
Confederate state readmitted to the Union.
(HN, 3/30/01)
1885 Mar 30, In Afghanistan,
Russian troops inflicted a crushing defeat on Afghan forces Ak Teppe
despite orders not to fight.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1902 Mar 30, Roberta Brooke
Russell (d.2007) was born in Portsmouth, NH. In 1953 she married
millionaire Vincent Astor (d.1959) and became a major philanthropist
following his death.
(SFC, 8/14/07, p.B5)
1909 Mar 30, The Queensboro
Bridge, the first double decker bridge, opened and linked the
New York boroughs of Manhattan and Queens.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1916 Mar 30, Pancho Villa
killed 172 at the Guerrero garrison in Mexico.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1919 Mar 30, Gandhi announced
resistance against Rowlatt Act.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1921 Mar 30, Countess of
Sutherland, English great land owner, multi-millionaire, was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1925 Mar 30, Stalin supported
rights of non-Serbian Yugoslavians.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1926 Mar 30, Feliks E.
Dzerzjinski (48), Lithuanian organizer (KGB), died. Felix
Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the communist secret police, the
Cheka.
(MC, 3/30/02)(WSJ, 10/15/02, p.D6)
1930 Mar 30, David Staple,
joint president of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland,
was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1931 Mar 30, In Scottsboro,
Ala., 9 young black men were indicted for rape. By the end of April
all were tried, convicted and sentenced to death, except for one age
13, who was sentenced to life in prison. The US Supreme Court later
overturned the convictions, but they were convicted at a 2nd trial,
even though one of the accused said no rape had occurred. The
sentences were again overturned.
(WSJ, 6/20/07, p.A17)
1935 Mar 30, Britain and Russia
agreed on treaties intended to curb the power of the Reich.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1936 Mar 30, Britain announced
a naval construction program of 38 warships. This was the largest
construction program in 15 years.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1937 Mar 30, Warren Beatty,
American actor and director, was born in Richmond, Va., as Henry
Warren Beaty. His older sister became famous as actress Shirley
MacLaine (b.1934). In 2010 Peter Biskind authored ”How Warren Beatty
Seduced America.”
(SSFC, 1/10/10, Books p.F1)
1940 Mar 30, The Japanese set
up a puppet government called Manchuko in Nanking, China.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1941 Mar 30, The U.S. seized
Italian, German and Danish ships in 16 ports.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1941 Mar 30, The German Afrika
Korps under General Erwin Rommel began its first offensive against
British forces in Libya.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1942 Mar 30, Graeme Edge, rock
drummer (Moody Blues-Your Wildest Dreams), was born in England.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1942 Mar 30, SS murdered 200
inmates of Trawniki labor camp.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1943 Mar 30, Rodgers and
Hammerstein's first collaboration, Oklahoma, opened on Broadway.
[see Mar 31]
(HN, 3/30/01)(MC, 3/30/02)
1944 Mar 30, The U.S. fleet
attacked Palau, near the Philippines.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1944 Mar 30, Gobbledygook was
coined by US Rep. Maury Maverick, a Texas Democrat, in a memo
banning "gobbledygook language" at the Smaller War Plants
Corporation. It was a reaction to his frustration with the
"convoluted language of bureaucrats." However, the first time the
new word was seen by the average person was on May 21, 1944. That
day, he wrote a long article for the New York Times magazine,
explaining how he invented the word, and giving readers many
examples of how the new word could be used.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobbledygook)(NYT,
5/21/1944, p.SM11)
1944 Mar 30, 781 British
bombers attacked Nuremberg.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1945 Mar 30, A Soviet cable was
intercepted that referred to an agent named Ales, later suspected of
being Alger Hiss. The intercepted cables were classified as part of
the “Venona Project” released in 1996. The US began releasing the
coded Venona cables in 1995. They implicated 349 US citizens and
residents as Soviet helpers. In 1999 John Earl Haynes and Harvey
Klehr published "Venona," the story of the Soviet infiltration of
Washington.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.A27)(WSJ, 6/24/99, p.A20)
1945 Mar 30, 289 anti-fascists
were murdered by Nazis in Rombergpark, Dortmund.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1945 Mar 30, The Soviet Union
invaded Austria during World War II.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1946 Mar 30, The Allies seized
1,000 Nazis who were attempting to revive the Nazi party in
Frankfurt.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1949 Mar 30, Friedrich C.R.
Bergius (64), chemist (brown coal, Nobel 1931), died.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1950 Mar 30, President Truman
denounced Senator Joe McCarthy as a saboteur of U.S. foreign policy.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1950 Mar 30, Phototransistor
invention was announced in Murray Hill, NJ. It was invented by Dr.
John Northrup Shive of the Bell Telephone Laboratories.
(http://tinyurl.com/ewxqh)
1953 Mar 30, Einstein announced
a revised unified field theory.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1954 Mar. 30, Canada's first
subway line opened in Toronto.
(CFA, '96, p.42)(HN, 3/30/98)
1957 Mar 30, Tunisia and
Morocco signed a friendship treaty in Rabat.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1961 Mar 30, The UN adopted its
Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs. It included language that
prohibited the chewing of coca leaves. It became effective on Dec
13, 1964.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs)(SFC,
1/19/11, p.A2)
1961 Mar 30, P.J. Melotte,
discovered Jupiter's 8th satellite, Pasiphae, died.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1962 Mar 30, M.C. Hammer,
[Stanley Kirk Burrell], rapper (Hammer Time), was born in Oakland,
Ca.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1964 Mar 30, Tracy Chapman, US
singer, songwriter (Freedom Now, I Got a Fast Car), was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1964 Mar 30, John Glenn
withdrew from the Ohio race for U.S. Senate because of injuries
suffered in a fall.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1964 Mar 30, The original
version of the TV game show "Jeopardy!" premiered on NBC. Merv
Griffin (1925-2007) created the TV game show “Jeopardy.” He sold the
rights for the show to Coca-Cola for $250 million in 1986. The show
was hosted by Art Fleming until 1975. It resurfaced in syndication
in 1984 with Alex Trebek as host.
(SFC, 8/13/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/15/07, p.D12)(AP,
3/30/08)
1968 Mar 30, General Ludvik
Svoboda (1895-1979) was elected president of Czechoslovakia. He
stayed in office to 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludv%C3%ADk_Svoboda)
1970 Mar 30, Secretariat, race
horse, triple crown (1973), was born.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1970 Mar 30, The musical
"Applause" with Lauren Bacall opened on Broadway. It was based on
the movie "All About Eve."
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Par p.7)(AP, 3/30/07)
1972 Mar 30, Hanoi launched its
heaviest attack in four years, crossing the DMZ in the Easter
offensive. 200,000 North Vietnamese soldiers under the command of
General Vo Nguyen Giap wage an all-out attempt to conquer South
Vietnam. The offensive is a tremendous gamble by Giap and is
undertaken as a result of US troop withdrawal, the strength of the
anti-war movement in America likely preventing a US retaliatory
response, and the poor performance of South Vietnam's Army during
Operation Lam Son 719 in 1971. The Communist Easter invasion in
South Vietnam was defeated.
(WSJ, 10/5/98,
p.A21)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1973 Mar 30, Ellsworth Bunker
resigned as US ambassador to South Vietnam. He was succeeded by
Graham A. Martin.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1975 Mar 30, As the North
Vietnamese forces moved toward Saigon, desperate South Vietnamese
soldiers mobbed rescue jets. Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap masterminded the
North Vietnamese victory. Da Nang fell as 100,000 South Vietnamese
soldiers surrender after being abandoned by their commanding
officers.
(SFEC, 4/9/00,
p.C16)(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)
1976 Mar 30, Israel killed 6
Palestinians protesting land confiscation.
(www.balad.org/index.php?id=138)
1979 Mar 30, Northern Ireland
spokesman Airey Neave, a leading member of the British parliament,
was killed by a bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army
(INLA) in the House of Commons car park in London.
(AP, 3/30/99)(AP, 2/8/10)
1979 Mar 30, Anthrax spores
leaked from a secret germ-warfare plant and spread over Sverdlovsk
(Yekaterinburg), Russia. Over the course of 2 months at least 105
people died of anthrax poisoning. [see Apr 2] Reports did not emerge
until October.
(WSJ, 10/11/01,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_Anthrax_leak)
1980 Mar 30, The Mormon Church
celebrated its 150th anniversary in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1981 Mar 30, John W. Hinckley
Jr. shot and wounded Pres. Ronald Reagan outside a Washington, D.C.,
hotel. Press Sec. James Brady took a bullet as did Secret Service
agent Tim McCarthy and District of Columbia police officer Thomas
Delahanty.
(SFC, 7/14/96, Par p.2)(HN, 3/30/02)(AP, 3/30/08)
1985 Mar 30, Workers at
cemeteries in Colma, Ca., joined striking East Bay graveyard
employees.
(SSFC, 3/28/10, DB p.42)
1985 Mar 30, In Virginia Jens
Soering (b.1966), the son of a Germany diplomat, stabbed to death
the parents of his girlfriend, Derek (72) and Nancy Haysom (53). In
court, Jens Soering claimed that Elizabeth Haysom (b.1964) was the
murderer and he wanted to spare her the death penalty by confessing.
(SFC, 7/7/10,
p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Soering)
1986 Mar 30, Actor James Cagney
(86) died at his farm in Stanfordville, N.Y.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1987 Mar 30, Vincent Van Gogh's
"Sunflowers" was bought for $39.85 million. The Vincent van Gogh
painting “Sunflowers” was presented by art teacher Claude-Emile
Schuffenecker at a 1901 Paris exhibition. It sold in 1987 for $40.3
million to the Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Co. and was reported
in 1997 to be a possible fake. Van Gogh’s letters refer to only 6
paintings of sunflowers, and the Yasuda painting is a seventh.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.D4)(HN,
3/30/98)
1987 Mar 30, The movie
"Platoon" won four Academy Awards, including best picture; Paul
Newman was named best actor for "The Color of Money," Marlee Matlin
won best actress for "Children of a Lesser God."
(AP, 3/30/97)
1988 Mar 30, US House
Democratic and Republican leaders said that they had agreed in
principle on a package of about $50 million to aid the Nicaraguan
rebels.
(http://tinyurl.com/n6uak)
1988 Mar 30, An attorney for
the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart said the televangelist would return to the
pulpit, defying national Assemblies of God church officials who had
suspended him for at least a year for "moral failure."
(AP, 3/30/98)
1989 Mar 30, "The Heidi
Chronicles" by Wendy Wasserstein won the Pulitzer Prize for drama;
in the journalism category, the Anchorage Daily News won the public
service award for its reports on alcoholism and suicide among native
Alaskans.
(AP, 3/30/99)
1990 Mar 30, Idaho Gov. Cecil
Andrus vetoed a highly restrictive state abortion measure, saying
the bill gave a woman and her family no flexibility in cases of rape
and incest.
(AP, 3/30/00)
1990 Mar 30, Harry Bridges
(b.1901), Australian-born SF labor activist, died.
(SFC, 7/27/01, p.A19)
1991 Mar 30, Patricia Bowman, a
resident of Jupiter, Florida, told authorities she’d been raped
hours earlier by William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Senator Edward
Kennedy, at the family’s Palm Beach estate. Smith was later
acquitted at trial.
(AP, 3/30/01)
1991 Mar 30, In Milwaukee,
Wisc., serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed and dismembered Konerak
Sinthasomphone (b.1976).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer)
1992 Mar 30, "The Silence of
the Lambs" won five Oscars at the 64th annual Academy Awards,
including best picture, best actress for Jodie Foster and best actor
for Anthony Hopkins.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1993 Mar 30, Washington
attorney Robert Altman went on trial in New York City, charged with
wrongdoing in connection with the Bank of Credit and Commerce
International (BCCI). He was later acquitted.
(AP, 3/30/98)
1993 Mar, 30, Richard
Diebenkorn, California artist, died. He moved between figuration and
abstraction when the two modes were widely thought to be inimical.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Diebenkorn)(SFEC, 9/28/97, DB
p.36)(SFC, 10/9/97, p.E1,6)
1993 Mar 30, Israeli
authorities barred West Bank Palestinians from entering Israel after
two traffic police officers were shot to death.
(AP, 3/30/98)
1994 Mar 30, The Clinton
administration announced it was lifting virtually all export
controls on non-military products to China and the former Soviet
bloc.
(AP, 3/30/99)
1994 Mar 30, Serbs and Croats
signed a cease-fire to end their war in Croatia while Bosnian
Muslims and Serbs continued to battle each other.
(AP, 3/30/99)
1995 Mar 30, Pope John Paul II
issued the 11th encyclical of his papacy in which he condemned
abortion and euthanasia as crimes that no human laws could
legitimize.
(AP, 3/30/00)
1995 Mar 30, In Japan Takaji
Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency, was seriously
wounded by a masked gunman. Two months later a police officer
confessed to the attack. He was a member of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult
and said that he was ordered to carry out the attack. The confession
was kept secret until anonymous newspaper accounts warned of a
cover-up in 1996.
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.A1,6)
1995 Mar 30, Tens of thousands
of Rwandan refugees, fleeing violence in Burundi, began a two-day
trek to sanctuary in Tanzania.
(AP, 3/30/00)
1996 Mar 30, In the NCAA
basketball finals, Kentucky beat Syracuse, 76-67.
(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A-20)
1996 Mar 30 The space shuttle
Atlantis narrowly avoided having to make an emergency landing when
its cargo-bay doors wouldn't open at first to release built-up heat.
(AP, 3/30/97)
1996 Mar 30, The El Bethal
Church in Satartia, Miss., burned down. Arson was suspected and
investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)
1996 Mar 30, Funeral services
were held in Bethesda, Maryland, for former senator and secretary of
state Edmund Muskie.
(AP, 3/30/01)
1996 Mar 30, Hezbollah
guerillas fired 30 Katyusha rockets across the Lebanon border into
northern Israel. Israel responded by shelling 15 Shiite Muslim
villages. Israel contended that responsibility for the attacks lies
with Lebanon and Syria, which occupies Lebanon with 35,000 troops
and exercises dominion over government decisions.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 4/14/96, p.A-10)
1996 Mar 30, Tamil rebels
mounted suicide attacks on a naval convoy and killed a crew of ten.
35 rebels were killed and six of their vessels were sunk off the
island nation’s northeast coast.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 30, The Olympic torch
was lit in Greece and began its journey to the games in Atlanta,
USA. The games will run 17 days from 7/19-8/4.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-1)
1997 Mar 30, The reigning
champion Lady Vols of Tennessee won their fifth NCAA women's
basketball title by defeating Old Dominion, 68-59.
(AP, 3/30/98)
1998 Mar 30, The Univ. of
Kentucky beat the Utah Utes 78-69 at the Alamodome in San Antonio
for the NCAA men’s basketball finals. It was Kentucky’s 7th national
title.
(WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A16)
1998 Mar 30, In eastern Arizona
nearly a dozen Mexican gray wolves were released into the White
Mountains after an absence of 30 years.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 30, In Columbia Falls,
Mont., it was reported that $100 million would be distributed
amongst 1000 employees of the Columbia Falls Aluminum plant. Roberta
Gilmore led a winning legal suit that claimed the company did not
divvy out profits to workers as promised.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1,12)
1998 Mar 30, In Algeria some
123 people including 58 civilians and many children were reported
killed in the west and south in the last 3 days.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, In Armenia Prime
Minister Robert Kocharian led the runoff vote with 60%.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B5)(WSJ, 4/1/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, In Britain the
Rolls-Royce company of Vickers PLC was sold to BMW of Germany for
$570 million. However, BMW was later successfully outbid by
Volkswagen AG
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)(AP, 3/30/08)
1998 Mar 30, Prince Norodom
Ranariddh returned to Cambodia and will oppose Hun Sen in the Jul 26
elections.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)
1998 Mar 30, In Columbia it was
reported that oil pipeline sabotage had spilled 1.5 million barrels
of crude over the last decade.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 30, In Romania Prime
Minister Victor Ciorbea resigned and stepped down from his role as
mayor of Bucharest.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 30, In Somalia Ali
Mohamed Mahdi and Hussein Mohamed Aidid agreed to a joint
administration for Mogadishu after 7 years of fighting. 30 people
were killed as rival clans clashed in Kismayu.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 30, A Syrian-Iraqi
Health week started. Health Minister Iyad Shatti arrived in Iraq
from Syria with 12 trucks of food and medicine.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A9)
1999 Mar 30, A jury in Oregon
hit Philip Morris with an $81 million verdict for damages in the
lung cancer death of Jesse Williams who died of lung cancer after
smoking Marlboros for four decades. $821,000 was for compensatory
damages and the rest for punitive damages. The Supreme Court threw
out the verdict in October 2003, saying it should be reviewed by
lower courts to ensure it was not unconstitutionally excessive. In
2007 the Supreme Court rejected the original $79.5 million punitive
payout, but declined to lay down numerical limits for such damages.
By 2008 damages due to interest reached $143 million. In 2009 the
Supreme Court decided not to a challenge by Philip Morris.
(SFC, 3/31/99, p.A1)(AP, 3/30/04)(Econ, 2/24/07,
p.76)(SFC, 4/1/09, p.A8)
1999 Mar 30, Olusegun Obasanjo,
pres. elect of Nigeria, met with Pres. Clinton and vowed to build
democracy.
(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 30, Yugoslav leader
Slobodan Milosevic insisted that NATO attacks stop before he moved
toward peace, declaring his forces ready to fight "to the very end."
The US called the offer "woefully inadequate." NATO moved to step up
the air war and Serbian forces continued unopposed in Kosovo as
refugees streamed out. NATO answered with new resolve to wreck his
military with a relentless air assault.
(AP, 3/30/00)(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 30, Tanzania arrested
a former Rwanda army officer suspected in the killing of 10 Belgian
peacekeepers in 1994. The officer was freed Mar 29 by a UN war
crimes tribunal.
(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A1)
2000 Mar 30, Russia’s Alexei
Yagudin won his third title in the World Figure Skating
Championships; Canada’s Elvis Stojko finished second, and American
Michael Weiss was third.
(AP, 3/30/01)
2000 Mar 30, In the midst of
the 2000 presidential campaign, Vice President Al Gore broke with
the Clinton administration, saying he supported legislation to allow
six-year-old Elian Gonzalez to remain in the country while the
courts resolved his custody case.
(AP, 3/30/01)
2000 Mar 30, In Colombia a
truck bomb exploded in Cachipay. 4 people were killed and at least
14 were injured.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A21)
2000 Mar 30, In Japan Mount Usu
erupted on Hokaido following 22 years of dormancy. Evacuations from
Date, Sobetsu and Abuta preceded the eruption.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A17)(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 30, In Sri Lanka an
air force plane leased from a Ukrainian company crashed and 36
military personnel were killed along with 4 Russian crew members.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.E4)
2000 Mar 30, In Uganda 80 more
bodies were unearthed in Rushojwa. This brought the doomsday sect
body count to 724.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A16)
2001 Mar 30, The Bush
administration suspended a late Clinton rule that directed federal
agencies to assess whether prospective contractors had violated
federal laws.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A3)
2001 Mar 30, A Bruce Rozet, a
landlord-developer, admitted to taking part in a $3.4 million fraud
scheme against HUD and agreed to pay $10.2 million in fines and
penalties.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A3)
2001 Mar 30, Top environment
officials from North, Central and South America ended two days of
talks in Montreal without a consensus agreement on global warming. A
statement signed by 26 ministers from Latin American and Caribbean
countries faulted a decision by the United States to reject the 1997
Kyoto Protocol.
(AP, 3/30/02)
2001 Mar 30, In Indonesia 2
human rights defenders and their driver were killed in Aceh province
after leaving the police station in Simpang Tiga Alue Pakuk.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A14)
2001 Mar 30, Israeli Arabs
observed Land Day with peaceful marches. Israeli soldiers shot to
death 6 Palestinians and wounded over 100.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 30, Macedonia declared
a successful conclusion to their offensive against ethnic Albanian
insurgents.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A10)
2002 Mar 30, The United States
joined other U.N. Security Council members in adopting a resolution
calling on Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities,
including Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat headquarters was under
siege.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2002 Mar 30, The Angola
government and Unita signed a preliminary cease-fire agreement. The
deal carved up the nation’s diamond mines among officials in Luanda
and the rebels.
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A12)(WSJ, 4/1/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 30, It was reported
that a massive dust storm spread from northwest China to South
Korea. It was largest recorded since records began 130 years ago.
Trans Pacific winds carried the dust clouds west.
(SFC, 3/30/02, p.A20)
2002 Mar 30, Britain’s Queen
Elizabeth (b.1900), the Queen Mother, died at age 101 in her sleep
at Royal Lodge, Windsor. In 2009 William Shawcross authored “Queen
Elizabeth, the Queen Mother: The Official Biography.”
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A3)(AP, 3/30/04)(Econ, 9/19/09,
p.97)
2002 Mar 30, In Kashmir
suspected Islamic militants exchanged fire with Indian police in
Jammu and 10 people were killed.
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A17)
2002 Mar 30, A suicide bomber,
Mohannad Salahat (22), struck in Tel Aviv and 32 people were
injured. Israeli troops sealed Arafat in his Ramallah compound.
(SSFC, 3/31/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/1/02, p.A1)(SFC,
7/24/02, p.A14)
2003 Mar 30, In the 12th day of
Operation Iraqi Freedom an Iraqi general, captured by British forces
in southern Iraq, was pressed to provide information. A British TV
correspondent covering the war in Iraq died after apparently falling
from a hotel roof.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Mar 30, Students in China
staged a rare state-sanctioned protest as hundreds of thousands
around the world staged another day of rallies denouncing the US led
war in Iraq.
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Mar 30, In Jakarta,
Indonesia, tens of thousands of protesters marched upon the U.S.
Embassy chanting "America Imperialist, No. 1 terrorist!"
(AP, 3/30/03)
2003 Mar 30, In Netanya,
Israel, Rami Ghanem (20), a Palestinian suicide bomber, exploded
near the London Café and at least 30 people were injured. The
Islamic Jihad called the attack "Palestine's gift to the heroic
people of Iraq."
(SFC, 3/31/03, p.A1)(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, President Bush
agreed to do what he had insisted for weeks he would not: allow
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify publicly and
under oath before an independent panel investigating the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, AT&T
officially began to offer phone calls via the Internet (VOIP) in 2
state, New Jersey and Texas.
(WSJ, 3/30/04, p.B1)
2004 Mar 30, Alistair Cooke
(b.1908), television host and author, died in NYC at age 95. His
books included "Alistair Cooke's America" (1972).
(Econ, 4/3/04, p.89)
2004 Mar 30, In Bolivia an
angry miner with dynamite strapped to his chest blew himself up
inside Congress, also killing two police officers.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, British police
raids in London led to the arrest of 8 men and the seizure of half a
ton of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer compound used in the Oklahoma
City bombing.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Cuba arrested
Carlos Ahumada, a Mexican businessman, wanted in Mexico for his role
in a graft scandal involving Mexico City Mayor Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Ahumada was soon deported to Mexico.
(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.A14)
2004 Mar 30, French PM
Jean-Pierre Raffarin was spared the ax despite a massive local
election defeat, but ordered to form a new government to push ahead
with unpopular social and economic reforms.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, In Iraq a suicide
bombing outside the house of a police chief killed the attacker and
wounded seven others. Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier died in a bomb
blast, and Spanish soldiers and Iraqi police quelled a riot by
jobseekers.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Myanmar's military
government said it will take the first step on a self-proclaimed
"road to democracy" by reconvening a constitutional convention that
was suspended eight years ago.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Philippine
officials reported the arrest of 4 Muslim extremists in the brutal
al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group. They were found with a stash of
TNT targeted for terror attacks on trains and shopping malls in the
Philippine capital. A suspected Muslim extremist told police
interrogators he planted TNT in a television set on a ferry that
caught fire last month, killing more than 100 people
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, Serbian lawmakers
awarded salaries, legal fees and other financial perks to former
President Slobodan Milosevic and fellow Serbian war crimes suspects
being tried by a U.N. tribunal in the Netherlands.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, A boat carrying
107 people sank during the crossing from Somalia to Yemen and only
four other people, including two crew members, were rescued.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, In Sri Lanka
gunmen stormed the home of a Tamil parliamentary candidate who was
allied to a renegade rebel leader, killing the candidate and one of
his relatives.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Mar 30, In Uzbekistan
gunfire and explosions resounded in Tashkent as government forces
battled for hours with suspected Islamic militants after two more
suicide attacks. Officials claimed 20 terrorists and three police
died in the fighting.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2005 Mar 30, The US Bureau of
Economic Analysis final estimate of inflation adjusted GDP indicated
3.8% growth for the 4th quarter of 2004.
(www.bea.gov/bea/dn1.htm)
2005 Mar 30, The US Supreme
Court ruled that federal law allows people 40 and over to file age
bias claims over salary and hiring even if employers never intended
any harm.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2005 Mar 30, Fred Korematsu
(86), who'd challenged the World War II internment policy that sent
Japanese-Americans to detention camps, died in Larkspur, Ca.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2005 Mar 30, Robert Creeley
(b.1926), US poet, died in Odessa, Texas.
(SFC, 4/1/05, p.B7)
2005 Mar 30, Under heavy
protection, First Lady Laura Bush visited the capital of
Afghanistan, where she talked with Afghan women freed from Taliban
repression and urged greater rights.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2005 Mar 30, Inmates of
Barbados' lone prison set fires and battled guards and each other
for a second day, leaving one prisoner dead and eight injured.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, In Toronto,
Canada, a massive blaze ravaged a plastics factory in the city's
west-end, closing a section of a major highway and keeping
firefighters on the scene for hours as they struggled to contain the
six-alarm blaze.
(AP, 3/31/05)
2005 Mar 30, In India shops
kept their shutters down as striking traders said they would step up
their protest against a new value-added tax (VAT) due to take effect
on April 1.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, In Iraq two US
soldiers died in separate clashes. A car bomb exploded in western
Baghdad, killing one person and injuring at least six others. Gunmen
also opened fire on a truck carrying faithful near Hillah, 60 miles
south of Baghdad. One person was killed.
(AP, 3/30/05)(AP, 3/31/05)
2005 Mar 30, Dutch bank ABN
Amro announced a 6.3 billion euros ($8.1 billion) bid for the 87
percent of Italian bank Antonveneta it does not already own, the
second foreign offer for an Italian bank in as many days.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, Nepalese Finance
Minister Madhukar Shumsher Rana and Pakistan's Minister of State for
Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar concluded two days of talks by
signing an agreement to boost trade and investment. Pakistan offered
Nepal five million dollars in trade credits and talks on a free
trade agreement after the first meeting of senior economic officials
of the two countries in a decade.
(AFP, 3/30/05)
2005 Mar 30, The UN-backed
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report was released. It identified
24 main ecosystem services, most of which are found in forests.
(www.maweb.org/en/article.aspx?id=58)(Econ,
9/25/10, SR p.6)
2006 Mar 30, Pres. Bush arrived
in Cancun, Mexico, for 2 days of North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) talks with Canadian PM Stephen Harper and Mexico’s Pres.
Fox.
(Reuters, 3/30/06)(WSJ, 3/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 30, The Bush
administration said that it is filing a trade case against China
before the World Trade Organization in a dispute involving auto
parts from the US and other nations.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, The Massachusetts
top court said gay couples can’t marry in Massachusetts if they are
from US states where same-sex unions are prohibited.
(WSJ, 3/31/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 30, US Major League
Baseball began its investigation into alleged steroid use by Barry
Bonds and others.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2006 Mar 30, The Translational
Genomics Research Institute announced that researchers have
identified a genetic cause for epilepsy, which could lead to the
development of medicines to treat epilepsy and autism.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In eastern
Afghanistan suspected Taliban militants killed a district chief and
three of his staff in an ambush. In the south rebels killed a police
commander and his brother.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Researchers
reported in the journal Science that record levels of greenhouse
gases may be trapping heat above the ice sheets of Antarctica.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A2)
2006 Mar 30, Researchers in
Australia's Outback launched a test flight of a supersonic jet
designed to fly 10 times faster than conventional airplanes.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Australia's remote
northwest shore was lashed by 80 mph winds as Cyclone Glenda made
landfall. There were no immediate reports of substantial damage.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, A cruise boat
carrying some 130 people capsized in calm Gulf waters only a few
hundred yards off the Bahrain coast. 58 people were killed.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A11)(AP, 4/2/07)
2006 Mar 30, China said it
would spend 1.2 billion dollars cleaning up the Songhua River
following a major chemical spill last year that contaminated water
supplies for millions of people.
(AFP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Former German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was appointed chairman of the
consortium building a strategically vital gas pipeline linking
Russia's vast reserves with German markets, and awarded a salary of
about $300,000.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Germany's
metal-working sector was hit by a second consecutive day of strikes
as members of the giant IG Metall union applied more pressure for a
five-percent pay rise.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In western
Guatemala 4 people were killed and 12 others were injured in an
explosion at a home-based fireworks factory.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In Iraq Jill
Carroll, a freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor, was set
free nearly three months after she was kidnapped in a bloody ambush
that killed her translator. She said she had been treated well.
Assailants in speeding cars gunned down a police commando as he was
leaving his house in south Baghdad, and drive-by shooters killed a
lawyer as she got out of a taxi in the southern city of Basra.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, John McGahern
(71), Irish writer, died in Dublin. His stark depiction of love and
despair in repressive rural Ireland made him one of his country's
most acclaimed fiction writers.
(www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/books/31mcgahern.html)
2006 Mar 30, In Jamaica Portia
Simpson Miller (60) became Jamaica's prime minister and first female
head of government.
(Econ, 3/25/06, p.42)(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Japan and the US
pledged to work together to defend intellectual property rights amid
concern in both countries about piracy in rapidly growing China.
(AFP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, A Palestinian
militant killed four Israelis in a suicide bombing in the West Bank,
weeks after being released from a Palestinian prison.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Mar 30, The EU, Russia,
the UN and the US warned the Hamas-led Palestinian government that
it must recognize Israel and seek peace talks if it wants to be
guaranteed continued aid.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, A Russian-American
crew and Marcos Pontes, Brazil’s 1st astronaut, lifted off in a
Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft to dock with the int’l. space station.
(SFC, 3/31/06, p.A3)
2006 Mar 30, Russia's
natural-gas monopoly OAO Gazprom said that Belarus must pay European
rates for its gas, an apparent bargaining ploy to win control over
its neighbor's gas pipeline system and one that could stir trouble
between the allies.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, Spain's lower
house of parliament approved a divisive proposal to grant greater
autonomy to Catalonia and boost the wealthy region's tax collecting
and judicial powers.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In southeast
Turkey violent protests by thousands of Kurdish demonstrators left
at least 20 hurt as protesters hurled firebombs and police opened
fire to disperse the crowds.
(AP, 3/3006)
2006 Mar 30, In the UAR hours
after a human rights group blasted the United Arab Emirates for what
it called wanton abuses of Asian workers, the country's labor
minister said a law in the works will give laborers the right to
form trade unions and bargain collectively.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar 30, In Uganda a fire
destroyed a school dormitory in Kabarole where the children had been
reading by candlelight, killing at least 10 of the students.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Mar 30, Uruguay said it
will repay $630 million to the IMF ahead of schedule, clearing all
its 2006 obligations to the agency in a sign of the country's
improving economic health.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2007 Mar 30, President Bush
went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he apologized to
troops for shoddy conditions in outpatient housing.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2007 Mar 30, The Pentagon
released a transcript in which Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi
national of Yemeni descent, told a military hearing at Guantanamo
that he was tortured into confessing that he was involved in the
bombing of the USS Cole.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, A military judge
at Guantanamo Bay said the prison sentence of David Hicks (31), an
Australian detainee who pleaded guilty to providing material support
for terrorism. would be limited to seven years under terms of a plea
bargain. Marine Corps Judge Col. Ralph Kohlmann said all but nine
months would be suspended. The deal required his silence about
alleged abuse.
(AP, 3/30/07)(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, The Food and Drug
Administration said it had found melamine, a chemical used to make
plastics, in samples of Menu Foods pet food, as well as in wheat
gluten used as an ingredient in the wet-style products.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2007 Mar 30, The Bush
administration, facing heavy pressure to deal with soaring trade
deficits, said it is imposing economic sanctions against China to
protect American paper producers from unfair Chinese government
subsidies.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, It was reported
that shark overfishing has led scallops to decline because their
predators, mainly rays, aren’t being eaten.
(WSJ, 3/30/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 30, Man Group PLC, the
world's largest publicly traded hedge fund company, said it plans to
split off its brokerage business, making it an independent company
through an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Lombard,
Illinois, Hubert D. Thompson (28), a former Michigan State football
player, hurled James Malone (66) to his death from a 3rd floor
apartment balcony. In 2009 an Illinois judge ruled Thompson not
guilty by reason of insanity and ordered him confined to a mental
institution. Thompson was once the nation’s top-rated defensive end
prospect. He was ejected from the 2000 Citrus Bowl for fighting with
a Florida offensive lineman.
(SFC, 9/11/09,
p.A9)(http://cbs2chicago.com/local/Lombard.standoff.Hubert.2.336248.html)
2007 Mar 30, Leaked extracts of
a UN report said Australia will suffer more droughts, fires, floods
and storms due to global warming and its famous Great Barrier Reef
will be devastated by 2030.
(AFP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Bangladesh 6
top Islamic militants convicted of killing two judges in a 2005 bomb
attack in southern Bangladesh were hanged. Bangladesh officials said
bird flu has spread to five more farms in central and northern
districts.
(AP, 3/30/07)(Reuters, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, A protest by air
traffic controllers forced the suspension of flights from Brazilian
airports, stranding thousands of travelers across the country.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Canada Menu
Foods Income Fund, maker of the tainted pet foods at the center of
this month's massive recall, said it is no longer using a Chinese
supplier of wheat gluten after US officials found the chemical
melamine in some of the recalled products.
(Reuters, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, In El Salvador
Maria Julia Hernandez (b.1939), a renowned human rights activist,
died of a heart attack. She had aided victims of El Salvador's civil
war.
(AP, 3/31/07)(Econ, 4/14/07, p.97)
2007 Mar 30, A French architect
claimed to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great
Pyramid of Khufu was built. Jean-Pierre Houdin said advanced 3D
technology had shown the main ramp which was used to haul the
massive stones to the apex was contained 10-15 meters beneath the
outer skin, tracing a pyramid within a pyramid..
(Reuters, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, A leading German
retailer said that it will pay $117.5 million to compensate a Jewish
family for real estate that was taken by the Nazis and eventually
resold to the firm. The Jewish Claims Conference said it will use an
unspecified amount of the money from KarstadtQuelle AG to fund
programs for Holocaust victims, and give the rest to heirs of the
Wertheim family, which was been seeking compensation for 15 years.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Guinea a
motorized wooden boat crowded with passengers and merchandise
capsized offshore from Conakry, drowning at least 46 people and
possibly dozens more.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, One of the 15
British service members held captive in Iran appeared on the
government's Arabic-language TV and said he apologized "deeply" for
entering Iranian waters without permission.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, The radical cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr issued a scathing attack on the US, following one of
the country's bloodiest days, blaming Washington for Iraq's troubles
and calling for a mass demonstration April 9, the fourth anniversary
of the fall of Baghdad.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, Islamic countries
pushed through a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council urging a
global prohibition on the public defamation of religion, a response
largely to the furor last year over caricatures published in a
Danish newspaper of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, A video
purportedly showing the beheading of a drug cartel hit man appeared
on video-sharing Web site YouTube, and its makers called on Mexicans
to kill more members of the gang.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Mar 30, Nepal's seven
ruling political parties and the country's former Maoist rebels
agreed to form a joint government, the latest step in ending a
decade of civil war.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Pakistan
fighting between local and foreign militants near the Afghan border
killed 52 people.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In Somalia
insurgents shot down a helicopter gunship in Mogadishu and mortar
shells slammed into a hospital in the worst fighting seen here in
more than 15 years.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, Authorities
arrested a man armed with a knife who hijacked a Sudan Airways plane
while flying from Libya to Sudan.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, In an
unprecedented show of support to empower the physically and mentally
impaired, 80 countries signed a UN convention enshrining the rights
of the world's 650 million disabled. 19 more ratifications are
needed before the convention comes into force.
(AP, 3/31/07)
2007 Mar 30, A Vietnamese court
sentenced a dissident Catholic priest to eight years in prison for
anti-government activities after a dramatic trial in which the
defendant shouted denunciations of the ruling Communist Party. A
judge at Thua Thien Hue Provincial People's Court in central Vietnam
sentenced Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly on charges of disseminating
anti-government documents and communicating with pro-democracy
activists overseas.
(AP,
3/30/07)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y9Mzp-61fU)
2007 Mar 30, The World Health
Organization (WHO) said demand for human organ transplants far
exceeds supply, fueling a growth in "transplant tourism" to
developing nations where organs can be bought.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2008 Mar 30, The Pritzker jury
announced French architect jean Nouvel (62) as the winner of the
2008 Pritzker Prize.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A5)
2008 Mar 30, Leading doctors
urged a return to older, tried-and-true treatments for high
cholesterol after hearing full results of a failed trial of Vytorin.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Mar 30, British Airways
cancelled another batch of flights as it struggled to cope with a
massive backlog of luggage at London Heathrow airport's new
multi-billion-pound Terminal 5.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, Dith Pran (65),
whose experiences during the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s were
adapted into the award-winning movie "The Killing Fields," died in
New Jersey.
(AFP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, Pernod Ricard SA,
a French spirits company, agreed to pay the Swedish government 5.28
billion euros for Vin & Sprit, the maker of Absolut, outbidding
three competitors.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Mar 30, Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr offered to pull his fighters off the streets of
Basra and other cities if the government halts raids against his
followers and releases prisoners held without charge.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, Israel pledged to
remove 50 West Bank roadblocks as part of a package to improve
everyday life for Palestinians after US Sec. of State Rice met with
Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, and Palestinian PM Salam
Fayyad.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, In Syria Iraq
refused to endorse the final declaration of the Arab summit because
it did not condemn terrorism in the country, a divisive end to a
gathering marred by disputes and boycotts.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2008 Mar 30, The Vatican said
Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism in number of adherents. It
recently put the Roman Catholic number at 1.13 billion. Others
estimated Muslims to number around 1.3 billion.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A8)
2008 Mar 30, Zimbabwe's
opposition said it had won the most crucial election since
independence, but President Robert Mugabe's government warned
premature victory claims would be seen as an attempted coup.
(AP, 3/30/08)
2009 Mar 30, President Barack
Obama said that neither General Motors nor Chrysler has proposed
sweeping enough changes to justify further large federal bailouts,
and demanded "painful concessions" from creditors, unions and others
as their price for survival. Driving home the point, the White House
ousted the GM Chairman Rick Wagoner as it rejected GM and Chrysler's
restructuring plans. Fritz Henderson, GM's president and chief
operating officer, became the new CEO. Board member Kent Kresa, the
former chairman and CEO of defense contractor Northrop Grumman
Corp., was named interim chairman of the GM board.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Pres. Obama signed
legislation setting aside over 2 million acres as protected
wilderness.
(SFC, 3/31/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 30, An “Open Cloud”
manifesto was published. IBM and other tech companies issued a
statement of principles that called for keeping cloud computing
services as open as possible.
(www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090329_463505.htm)
2009 Mar 30, Intel released
Nehalem, its new superfast chip for servers.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.73)
2009 Mar 30, Findings were
presented for an experimental combo pill, to prevent heart attacks
and strokes, indicating it as effective as nearly all of its
components taken alone, with no greater side effects. The study
tested the Polycap, an experimental combo formulated by Cadila
Pharmaceuticals of Ahmedabad, India.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew himself
up inside a police headquarters in Kandahar, killing nine people and
wounding eight. A roadside bomb killed three police in the eastern
province of Paktia.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Argentina’s health
minister acknowledged that the country was in the middle of a dengue
fever epidemic with nearly 8,000 people infected. Neighboring
Bolivia had about 51,000 cases reported, while Brazil counted some
40,000 cases.
(http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46371)(SSFC,
4/19/09, p.G3)
2009 Mar 30, Downtown Sydney,
Australia's largest city, was plunged into chaos during the late
rush hour when a power cut blacked out traffic lights, caused
gridlock on the roads and left tens of thousands of buildings in
darkness. The blackout exposed a flaw in the city's terrorism
warning system.
(AP, 3/30/09)(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, Banking officials
meeting in Colombia said Argentina and China have tentatively agreed
to swap $10 billion worth of their currencies to enable South
America's second-largest economy to avoid using dollars in trade
between the nations.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, The French
government banned companies that get state funding from issuing
stock options to top managers and limited some other forms of
compensation in an effort to quell public anger over executive pay.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.B1)
2009 Mar 30, Hungary’s ruling
Socialist Party nominated economy minister Gordon Bajnai to become
the country’s next prime minister.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.A14)
2009 Mar 30, In Lahore,
Pakistan, a group of gunmen attacked the Manawan Police Training
School and rampaged through it for hours, throwing grenades, seizing
hostages and killing 7 police and 2 civilians before being
overpowered by Pakistani security forces in armored vehicles and
helicopters. Six militants were arrested and 8 others died in the
8-hour battle. A suicide car bombing killed four soldiers in Bannu
district.
(AP, 3/30/09)(AFP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, Malaysia's
national car maker Proton and Detroit Electric, a Dutch-based
company, signed a $555 million deal to make zero emission electric
cars that they said would be more powerful that any existing model.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Northern
Ireland suspected IRA dissidents and their supporters hijacked cars
in working-class Catholic areas in a coordinated effort to block
roads and threaten police stations.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, Fishermen in the
Philippines accidentally caught and soon ate a megamouth shark, one
of the rarest fishes in the world with only 40 others recorded to
have been encountered. The 1,100-pound (500-kilogram) 13-foot
(4-meter) megamouth died while struggling in the fishermen's net off
Burias island.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Qatar Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi stormed out of an Arab summit after
denouncing the Saudi king and declaring himself "the dean of Arab
rulers."
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Russia PM Putin
pledged over $1 billion in state support to its ailing car industry
in a bid to avoid heavy job losses and potential social unrest.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.B2)(http://tinyurl.com/csyby9)
2009 Mar 30, In Russia Sergei
Protazanov, a newspaper employee in a Moscow suburb, died one day
after being beaten near his home in the in the town of Khimki.
Protazanov had been compiling an issue that included reports on
alleged falsifications in local mayoral elections.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Sri Lanka 26
rebels were killed in a sea battle off Chalai. Four boats belonging
to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were sunk in the battle,
which lasted about four hours before dawn. A leader of the Sea
Tigers, the rebels' naval wing, was among the dead while one
government sailor died and three were wounded.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 30, Thailand's prime
minister avoided his office, as thousands of protesters calling for
his resignation surrounded the seat of government for the fifth day
and ignored police warnings to disperse.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2010 Mar 30, Pres. Obama signed
into law the final changes to the sweeping medical plan approved by
lawmakers last week, along with reforms in college student loan
programs.
(Reuters, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, A US federal court
ruled that the US patents held by Myriad Genetics on the BRCA genes
are unsustainable as a matter of law.
(Econ, 4/17/10, p.91)(http://tinyurl.com/y8camvj)
2010 Mar 30, San Francisco City
Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the escrow firm Rehab Financial Corp.
after learning the company had abruptly shuttered its Huntington
Beach office and drained accounts holding city funds. The suit
accused the company of misappropriating several million dollars from
SF and at least a dozen other California cities.
(SFC, 4/1/10, p.C2)
2010 Mar 30, A gunman sprayed
bullets from a moving vehicle into a crowd in southeastern
Washington, killing four and wounding at least five others, before
leading police on a chase into neighboring Maryland. Three people
were arrested in the drive-by shooting.
(AP, 3/31/10)
2010 Mar 30, Chevron said the
Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has ruled in favor of
its claim against Ecuador related to past operations of its Texaco
unit. The tribunal ruled that Ecuador’s courts delayed rulings on a
contract dispute and awarded Chevron about $700 million as of Dec
22, 2006. A separate case over a $27 billion pollution claim
remained pending.
(SFC, 3/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 30, Jaime Escalante
(b.1930), a Bolivia-born math teacher in East Los Angeles, died. The
1987 film "Stand and Deliver," starring Lou Diamond Phillips, was
based on the story of his success teaching math to inner-urban kids.
(SFC, 3/31/10, p.C6)
2010 Mar 30, In western
Afghanistan 5 civilians have been killed after their van hit a bomb
planted in the road outside Herat.
(AFP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Australian media
groups and sports bodies signed a code of conduct aimed at ending
years of disputes and boycotts over press coverage of major sporting
events.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Canada’s PM
Stephen Harper told US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton that its
military mission in Afghanistan will end in 2011.
(SFC, 3/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 30, In Quebec, Canada,
the world's leading industrial nations (G8) called for stronger
action against Iran over its nuclear program and the United States
said it was confident China would agree on the need for sanctions.
(Reuters, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Google Inc said
its mobile services have been partially blocked in China for two
days, while searches on its Chinese-language site became erratic,
about a week after the company shut its mainland Chinese portal and
rerouted Web searches to a Hong Kong site.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, In Ecuador
journalist Emilio Palacio, facing a 3-year prison sentence for
defamation, accused President Rafael Correa of orchestrating his
prosecution as a warning that critics of the government will be
severely punished.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Amnesty
International said Europe had its first year without executions in
2009. But the London-based organization said the spell was recently
broken by the execution of two men in Belarus.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Britain's media
watchdog, the Press Complaints Commission, upheld a complaint
against a blog written by a journalist in what was its first-ever
move to censure a newspaper or magazine over comments by a blogger.
Former BBC journalist and commentator Rod Liddle was censured over a
blog in which he said that young Afro-Caribbean men carried out the
"overwhelming majority" of violent crime in London. The blog which
was published in December on the website of right-wing weekly
magazine The Spectator.
(AFP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, In India
Paramhamsa Nityananda (32), a Hindu holy man with thousands of
followers across India, resigned as head of Dhyanapeetam (knowledge
center) after police began investigating his role in a sex scandal.
On April 21 Nityananda, who claims to have devotees in 33 countries,
and an aide Nithya Bhaktananda, were nabbed in the northern state of
Himachal Pradesh on charges including obscenity and hurting
religious sentiments.
(Reuters, 3/30/10)(AFP, 4/21/10)
2010 Mar 30, An Indian naval
spokesman said Somali pirates may be holding several dhows carrying
an estimated 100 Indian sailors they have seized over the past five
days.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Iran's state
television reported that its intelligence agents mounted a
"complicated" cross-border mission and freed an Iranian diplomat
kidnapped in 2008 by gunmen in northwestern Pakistan. Heshmatollah
Attarzadeh and his Pakistani bodyguard were driving over a narrow
bridge in Peshawar on Nov. 13, 2008 when two gunmen blocked their
way with a car and opened fire.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Japan’s government
approved a plan to halt the privatization of Japan Post, the world’s
biggest bank, and increased the amount of deposits it can take from
a customer to 20 million yen. The government will retain a stake of
over one-third, giving it veto power.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.77)
2010 Mar 30, In northern Mexico
dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks
targeting two army garrisons, touching off firefights that killed 18
attackers in the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Mar 30, Russia's Pres.
Medvedev signed an order formally implementing UN Security
Council-approved sanctions against North Korea. The sanctions were
passed in June by the Security Council, which includes Russia.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, Serbia's
parliament approved a declaration condemning the 1995 Serb massacre
of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, in a bid to distance the country
from past warmongering under the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, The International
Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank, said Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir has long been working to ensure next month's
elections are rigged, making the eventual winner illegitimate.
(AFP, 3/31/10)
2010 Mar 30, In Switzerland
scientists cheered the historic crash of two proton beams at the
CERN Large Hadron Collider.
(SFC, 3/31/10, p.A4)
2010 Mar 30, Vietnam and the
United States signed a pact described as a key foundation for
development of peaceful atomic power in the communist country.
(AFP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, In Zimbabwe 13
legislators from both parties in the coalition government were not
allowed to enter the Chiadzwa diamond district. They spent 2 days
waiting for clearance.
(AP, 4/1/10)
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