23 March History
- 1657 - France and England form an alliance against Spain.
- 1743 - Handel's Messiah is performed for the first time in London.
- 1775 - American revolutionary hero Patrick Henry, while addressing the House of Burgesses, declares "give me liberty, or give me death!"
- 1791 - Etta Palm, a Dutch champion of woman's rights, sets up a group of women's clubs called the Confederation of the Friends of Truth.
- 1848 - Hungary proclaims its independence of Austria.
- 1857 - Elisha Otis installs the first modern passenger elevator in a public building, at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City.
- 1858 - Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patents the cable street car, which runs on overhead cables.
- 1862 - Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson faces his only defeat at the Battle of Kernstown, Va
- 1880 - John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patents the grain crushing mill. This mill allows flour production to increase by 70 percent.
- 1901 - A group of U.S. Army soldier led by Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston capture Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine Insurrection of 1899.
- 1903 - The Wright brothers obtain an airplane patent.
- 1909 - British Lt. Ernest Shackleton finds the magnetic South Pole.
- 1909 - Theodore Roosevelt begins an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
- 1917 - Austrian Emperor Charles I makes a peace proposal to French President Poincare.
- 1920 - Great Britain denounces the United States because of its delay in joining the League of Nations.
- 1921 - Arthur G. Hamilton sets a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.
- 1927 - Captain Hawthorne Gray sets a new balloon record soaring to 28,510 feet.
- 1933 - The Reichstag gives Adolf Hitler the power to rule by decree.
- 1942 - The Japanese occupy the Anadaman Islands in the Indian Ocean.
- 1951 - U.S. paratroopers descend from flying boxcars in a surprise attack in Korea.
- 1956 - Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic, although it is still within the British Commonwealth.
- 1967 - Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. calls the Vietnam War the biggest obstacle to the civil rights movement.
- 1970 - Mafia boss Carlo Gambino is arrested for plotting to steal $3 million.
- 1972 - The United States calls a halt to the peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris.
- 1981 - U.S. Supreme Court upholds a law making statutory rape a crime for men but not women.
23 March Birthdays
- 1900 - Erich Fromm, German psychologist (The Sane Society).
- 1907 - Daniele Bovet, Swiss-born Italian pharmacologist.
- 1908 - Joan Crawford, American actress.
- 1910 - Akira Kurosawa, film director (Rashomon, The Seven Samurai).
- 1912 - Werner von Braun, German-born rocket pioneer.
- 1929 - Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to run the mile in less than four minutes.