Wednesday, March 31, 2010

31 MARCH

1899 - Malolos, the capital of the fledgling Philippine Republic, falls to the imperialist American forces led by General Arthur MacArthur, thus forcing President Emilio Aguinaldo to transfer the capital northwards to Tarlac; American's sense of racial superiority is seen today as explaining US colonization of the Southeast Asian archipelago, as reflected in the diary of Sgt. Hiram Harlow, an American soldier who sees action in  several battles in Malolos, with his multiple referral to the Filipinos as "niggers."

1959 - The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, escapes to India by crossing the Indian border following the fierce Chinese crackdown on the Tibetan uprising earlier this month; the Dalai Laima travelled for 15 days on foot from Lhasa, over the Himalayan mountains, to the Indian border and will be given Asylum in India where about 80,000 Tibetans will follow him in exile away from communist rule of Tibet.

1966 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10, the first human-made unmanned space object to orbit the moon; also called Lunik 10, it is launched from an Earth orbiting platform and will enter the lunar orbit three days later and within 3 hours, will complete its first orbit (April 4, Moscow time).

1968 - United States President Lyndon Baines Johnson announces his irrevocable decision not to seek election, citing the need for national unity, which is America's "ultimate strength"; Johnson's decision is now seen the result of turmoil within the Democratic Party related to opposition to the Vietnam War.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

30 MARCH

1591 - During the Spanish colonial period, an ordinance is issued in the city of Manila, Philippines that forbids the wearing of silk and other fabrics from China, for the reason, that it is detrimental to the general welfare and the good government of the city; Western colonization of the Southeast Asian archipelago began in 1565 when the Spaniards established settlements in Cebu.

1856 - The Treaty of Paris forces Russia to accept the new status of the Black Sea as demilitarize and neutral, which effectively ensures British dominance in the eastern Mediterranean; Russia also renounced claims to a protectorate of all Balkan Christians.

1981 - United States President Ronald Reagan is shot outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by a deranged drifter named John Hinckley Jr while on his way to his limousine following his speech at a labor meeting at the Washington Hilton Hotel; Hinckley, who has fired a total of six shots that hit Reagan three times as the other three bullets hit the House Press Secretary, a Secret Service agent and a DC policeman, will be found not guilty by reason of insanity while Reagan will survive the assassination attempt.

2002 - The Queen Mother of Great Britain dies peacefully in her sleep at age 101, seven weeks after the death of her daughter, Princess Margaret; her remains will be interred with the remains of Princess Margaret and will be buried beside King George VI, her husband, in St. George's chapel at Windsor Castle.

Monday, March 29, 2010

29 MARCH

1896 - The Supreme Council of the Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK), the secret revolutionary movement  in the Philippines aiming to overthrow Spanish colonial rule, decides to elevate Balangay Nagbangon, its branch  in the town of Pasig, to the status of a Sangguniang Bayan (Sb.) and to create a new one under its jurisdiction, Balangay Pinaglabanan, with the newly elected officers of the two units immediately taking their oaths-of-office; according to the United States Library of Congress, the KKK "insinuated itself into the community by setting up mutual aid societies and education for the poor [and by] 1896, the Katipunan had over 30,000 members and functioned at the national, provincial, and municipal levels."

1951 - The United States completes a draft of a peace treaty with Japan, communicating ito to the Soviet Union and 13 other cobelligerent powers; during World War II that lasted until 1945 when the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the East Asian country was one of the Axis powers defeated by the Allied forces.

1966 - The 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union starts, with the Chinese Communists not only rejecting the invitation to attend but also attacking Soviet policies; the USSR-China relations have been on a falling off course following Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's rebuff of Chinese call insisting  for it to have a special place in the socialist world, maintaining instead that all Communist countries should be equal.

1973 - The last American troops leave South Vietnam, leaving behind an unfinished war that has deeply scarred both the Southeast Asian country and the United States; the US entered the Vietnam War beginning in the 1950s in the bid to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of the wider Cold War strategy of containment but the ferocity of the North Vietnamese coupled with anti-War protests, led it to Vietnamize the war until the South Vietnam government eventually fell.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

28 MARCH

1907 - In accord with America's propaganda policy of falsely claiming that the Philippine-American War ("insurrection" daw) ended in 1902, Governor James F. Smith certifies that since the publication of the Philippine Census in 1905 there have been no serious disturbances of the public order save those committed by outlaws and religious fanatics and that the great mass of the Filipinos have been “law-abiding, peaceful and loyal to the United States”; decades later, even American historians will write that the war of resistance valiantly fought by Filipino patriots against the imperialist United States forces well continued on until 1915 [and in] years to come, Americans [will remain] divided over the nation’s actions and imperial ambitions.

1979 - The worst accident in the history of the United States nuclear power industry occurs at Three Mile Island when the pressure valve at its Unit-2 reactor is unable to close, thus overheating the core and draining the radiation-contaminated cooling water from the open valve into the adjoining structures; the safety devices of the state-of-the-art reactor would have prevented a larger crisis but the human operators, misreading the confusing and contradictory findings,  has shut off the automatic emergency cooling pumps, subsequently melting down the core and causing deadly radiation to drift across the countryside.

1956 - Iceland's Parliament calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country and in four months, a new coalition government will be formed by the Progressive Party, the Social Democrats, and the Communist People's Alliance that will get two cabinet posts; five years earlier, in April 1951, at the request of the Danish government, the United States sent an armed force contingent to assist the country's defense during the Cold War.

1962 - Military leaders depose Argentine President Arturo Frondizi, who had won elections three years earlier with the support of former leader Juan Peron; the coup installs Senate President Jose Maria Guido as President, who will then nullify the recent provincial and legislative elections, establish dictatorial rule, and will ban the Peronist and Communist Parties.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

27 MARCH

1583 - As a result of a memorial sent by Bishop Salazar containing an account of the tyranny to which the natives of the newly conquered islands of the Philippines were subjected to by the encomenderos, King Philip II of Spain issues an order directing colonial government members to prevent slave owners from engaging in such conduct and requesting the bishop to keep him informed of the results; in 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan claimed the Southeast Asian archipelago in the name of Spain (he would later be killed by a native chieftain Lapu-Lapu) and in 1565, colonization will begin as Miguel Lopez de Legaspi forms the first settlements in Cebu.

196  BC - The Decree of Memphis that stipulates the terms of an agreement between Ptolemy V, the Macedonian ruler of Egypt, and a general synod of the kingdom's Egyptian priests are inscribed in hieroglyphic script, in Greek, and in demotic on what will be known as the Rosetta stone; centuries later, the stone will provide the first key to the ancient Egyptian language, thus forming the the foundation of modern Egyptology.

1958 - Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev becomes the Premier of the Soviet Union in addition to being First Secretary of the Communist Party following the dutiful and unanimous vote by the Soviet legislature; the 63-year-old Khrushchev is a former mine mechanic who, in the five years since Stalin's death, has emerged from the collective leadership and advanced to overwhelming responsibility and power.

1977 - 583 people die as two jumbo jets collided while taxiing for take-off on a runway in the holiday destination of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, in what has been called the history's worst aviation disaster involving aircraft on the ground; a KLM Boeing 747 has failed to check if his plane was already clear for take-off and collided with the Pan American 747 in the dense fog, the resulting explosion being heard across the island.

Friday, March 26, 2010

26 MARCH

1920 - During the American colonial period, the Philippine Legislature passes Act No. 2928 adopting the Philippine flag as the official flag of the Government of the Philippine Islands to be flown next to the American flag; earlier, Act No. 1696 or the Flag Law  of 1907 adopted by the imperialist government had outlawed the display of the Philippine flag midway into the  protracted Filipino-American War (1899-1914).


1885 - The North-West Rebellion staged by the Metis people of the District of Saskatchewan breaks out against the Dominion of Canada over the issue of the government's failure to address the survival of the indigenous First People; also known as the North West Resistance Saskatchewan Rebellion, it would be a brief six-week rebellion that would end in the execution-by-hanging of its leader, elected Member of Parliament for Provencher Louis David Riel.

1973 - Women are allowed on to the trading floor of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) for the first time in the institution's 200 year history; the historic development came following years of women's campaign in the financial sector, with the media describing the LSE as the "'last bastion of misogyny."

1979 - Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat sign the Camp David peace treaty brokered by United States President Jimmy Carter; the formal agreement signed by all parties in Arabic, English, and Hebrew versions ends more than 30 years of hostilities between the two neighboring Middle East countries.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

25 MARCH

1898 - Developments during the Philippine Revolution against Spanish colonial rule: Filipino revolutionary Isabelo and his man capture Candon, Ilocos Sur; Spanish soldiers massacre many Visayan sailors in Camba St., Manila, while the 74th Filipino regiment at the Cavite naval fort march out of the barracks, bringing arms and equipment with them as they join the revolution.

1669 - Mount Etna (Catania) in Sicily erupts with a roar that could be heard for 50 miles, sending a 2-mile-wide lava flood flow over 50 villages and towns; some 100,000 people died directly from the eruption that followed a series of earthquakes that has destroyed nearby Nicolosi.

1975 - Saudi Arabia's King Faisal is assassinated by his own nephew, Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed, using three pistol shots at point blank range; Musaed will be found to have acted alone and will be beheaded in the public square in Riyadh, the traditional Islamic method of execution.

1980 - The British Olympic Association (BOA) overwhelmingly votes to send athletes to the Moscow Olympic Games, defying government pressure for boycott of the summer games to the 22nd Olympics in 1980; the United States has led many countries in the boycott following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 in the bid to propel a fledgling Marxist government.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

24 MARCH

1897 - Filipino patriot Gen. Artemio Ricarte takes his oath of office as the General-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army, but not without initial reluctance because he believed that he was not qualified to head the revolutionary forces and because he believed the Tejeros Convention was tainted by fraud; the Tejeros Convention held two days earlier has been declared invalid and marred with fraud by Andres Bonifacio, the founder of the original revolutionary body, Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK) .

1603 - Elizabeth I of England, the "Virgin Queen" dies at the age of 69, ending the period referred to as the Elizabethan Age;  Elizabeth's rule has been marked by the rise of England from a state of despair  and financial bankruptcy to the revival of commerce, including the selling of African black slaves in West Indies, the flourishing of literature, support for Protestant faith, and later, the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

1965 - Million watch as NASA's Ranger 9 moon lander directly beams out pictures to Earth while the space probe hurtles to its destruction on the Moon; The pictures show that the Moon's surface is capable of bearing the weight of a manned spacecraft, which  is a key issue for NASA scientists of the period. 

1996 - Former Marxist military rule Mathieu Kerekou wins the presidential runoffs in Benin (formerly Dahomey) and will pledge natinal reconciliation at his inauguration; Kerekou staged a coup in 1967 and has since then ruled the West African country, including the period from 1979 when transition to civilian rule occurred.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

23 MARCH

1901 - Philippine President-on-the-run Emilio Aguinaldo is captured by imperialist American soldiers posing as prisoners of the traitorous local Macabebe scouts in Palanan, Isabela; instead of fighting the forces of Gen. Frederick Funston as a way of sustaining the morale of his soldiers still valiantly fighting the new colonizing forces during the Philippine-American, Aguinaldo will become a cooperative US Prisoner of War and will swear allegiance to the enemy flag within only a few days from capture.

1878 - The Treaty of San Stefano between the Ottoman Empire and Russia is ratified; the treaty provides that Montenego and Serbia are to be independent and to be enlarged; Romania to become independent as well; Bosnia and Herzegovina are to be granted reforms; Bulgaria will include much of Macedonia, to be occupied for a period of two years by Russian troops but will become an autonomous state under an elected monarch; Russia is to get Ardahan, Batum, Bayazid, and Batum; and finally, the Ottomans have to pay Russia a big indemnity sum.

1983 - United States President Ronald Reagan launches Cold War into space with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a defensive shield utilizing laser or particle beam technology to "intercept and destroy" incoming missiles as they travel through the stars; the SDI, which will later be dubbed as "Star Wars," will worsen the relationship between the US and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

1999
- Paraguay's Vice-President Luis Maria Argana is assassinated by unidentified government but President Raul Cubas will be largely blamed for the killing because Argana had earlier disagreed with Cubas over the decision to release Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo; within a week, Cubas will be forced out of office and will flee the country, along with Ovieda whose imprisonment stemmed from his conviction of  leading a failed coup attempt against former President Juan Carlos Wasmosy;

Monday, March 22, 2010

22 MARCH

1897 - The controversial Tejeros Convention elects the new officers of the Philippine revolutionary government, with Andres Bonifacio, head of the Katipunan, the original revolutionary body fighting the colonial Spaniards, being elected Interior Director and Emilio Aguinaldo, the President; Bonifacio, who has been lured into Cavite so he can supposedly unite the Magdalo and Magdiwang factions of the province, will soon issue Acta de Tejeros declaring the corrupt elections invalid, but unfortunately, he will be caught by Aguinaldo's forces before reaching Manila.

1945 - The Arab League, a regional organization based in Cairo, Egypt, is formed with the original aims of strengthening and coordinating political, cultural, economic, and social programs and to mediate disputes, but will later add the aim of providing for coordinated military defense; the original members are Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan (formerly Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, and, as well, Yemen.

1956 -  Civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King is convicted of organising an illegal boycott by black passengers of buses in the US state of Alabama; jailed many times for his Mahatma Gandhi-inspired non-violent method of campaigning for the equal rights of black Americans throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Nobel Peace Prize winner will later be assassinated.

1963 - Marchers demonstrate in Seoul, South Korea against ruling junta leader Pak's statement of March 16 in which he withdrew his promise of elections to a new  government, claiming the necessity of four more years of military government; Pak's government will later relent and will hold elections in the fall to effect an interim military-civilian coalition government.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

21 MARCH

1935 - Hiroshi Tamura, a major in the Japanese Imperial Army stationed in Taiwan, writes former revolutionary leader and Philippine President General Aguinaldo about his strong sentiments against imperialist American presence in the Southeast Asian Archipelago; the United States invaded the Philippines at the turn of the century and during World War II, Japan will drive out the US forces as it briefly occupies the same as part of its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity master plan.

 1960 - Sixty-nine people are killed by some 300 policemen who fired into several thousand demonstrators during what will later be called the Sharpeville massacre in Johannesburg, South Africa; the demonstrators were protesting against the apartheid government's passage of pass laws requiring black people to carry reference books when moving in white areas.

1984 - The European Economic Community summit collapses over disagreements on Europe's annual rebate to Britain; British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's demand for a £730m rebate, which is intended to cover any shortfall between money the UK invests in Europe and how much is eventually returned, is denied by other EEC members.

1990 -  Namibia, a country in Southern Africa, gains independence from South Africa following the Namibian War of Independence; formerly named South West Africa, the United Nations assumed direct responsibility over it beginning 1966 following a number of uprisings and demands made by African leaders.

Friday, March 19, 2010

20 MARCH

1900 - Filipino Gen. Manuel Tinio orders the execution of all local, civil and barrio officials who either assist the enemy Americans  or fail to report to the nearest guerrilla commander the movements and plans of the imperialist troops during the Philippine-American War; Tinio's order is in response to the enemy's use of Philippine Scouts, making traitors out of locals to assist them in subjugating the Southeast Asian archipelago.

1815 - Napoleon enters Paris where he will be able to establish government anew and rebuild the army even amidst the ban issued by the Allies against him; the French ruler has earlier escaped from imprisonment in Elba and the troops sent to oppose him rallied around him instead.


1952 - The United States Senate ratifies the peace treaty with Japan, the target of its two atomic bombing missions during World War II; security agreements contracted with the Pacific countries of Australia, New Zealand, former colony the Philippines, and Japan are also approved.

1956 - Mount Bezymianny, Kamchatka Peninsula in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics USSR, erupts--the largest single volcanic eruption in the twentieth century; the eruption will lastfor one full year and total ashfall would be enough to cover the whole of Paris 49 feet deep but luckily for the country, the volcano is situated some 30 miles away from the nearest settlement.

19 MARCH

1731 - Maria Josefa Gabriela Cari-oSilang, Filipina patriot who will lead a rebellion against the Spanish colonizers, is born in Sta. Caniogan, Ilocos Sur; better known as Gabriela Silang, she will take over leadership of her husband's rebel group in the Ilocos province and will thus become the first woman revolutionary of the Philippines

1982 - A group of around 50 Argentines land on the British colony Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic and plant their nation's flag; Britain and Argentina have disputed sovereignty over the islands the latter call Islas Malvinas and the incident will become a in what will be a trigger for a minor war between the two countries, won by the latter.

1990 - Columbian peasant-based rebel group M-19 (April 19 Movement) signs a peace accord with the government, giving its members amnesty and a right to political representation; its presidential candidate will soon be murdered following the assasination of another  from the Popular Union party.

2003 - The United States begins to invade Iraq, with President George W. Bush shortly announcing on televised address that "At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger;" Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein will later be caught and executed but it will later be found that Bush's claims that the Hussein government has weapons of mass destruction and has been supporting Al Qaeda terrorists are false.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

18 MARCH

1901 - Filipino soldiers led by General Ananias Diokno are ambushed while trying to fight off the invading American imperialist forces in the island of Panay during the Philippine-American War; Gen. Diokno, who has been compelled to conduct a guerrilla war with a few men left in his control following the February 2 surrender of General Martin Delgado to enemy Gen. Robert P. Hughes, will patriotically refuse the American offer of the directorship of the Bureau of Agriculture.

1950 - The Belgian government falls as a plebiscite on the return of exiled King Leopold III resulted in a narrow majority; the King will be allowed to return by the parliament but he will abdicate in favor of his son Baudouin who, in turn, will rule until his death in the early 1990s.

1962 - France and Algeria sign a truce to end the Algerian War, signaling the end of 130 years of colonial French rule; beginning in 1954, Muslims belonging to the Front de Liberation Nationale embarked on a guerrilla-style war of independence and although they were contained, French President Charles de Gaulle saw the inevitability of Algerian independence and, thus, decided to forge the truce.

1992 - South Africa overwhelmingly votes yes in a referendum on instituting political reforms to end apartheid and create a power-sharing multi-racial government; apartheid, expanded racial segregation that discriminated against the black majority, was officially adopted in the 1950s but internal and international opposition to the practice eventually pressured the white government to reform.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

17 MARCH

1899 - A member of a prominent Manila family visits Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, for the purpose of convincing President Emilio Aguinaldo that further resistance against imperialist American forces was useless; upon hearing of his arguments, Aguinaldo [would order] his immediate execution, although the latter would himself swear allegiance to the American flag within only a few days of his capture by the enemy soldiers.

1921 - The Soviet Union adopts the New Economic Policy (NEP), sponsored by Vladimir Lenin, and which aims to prevent the economy from collapsing; the new policy, which allows limited small, private businesses while the states continues to control large industries, banks, and foreign trade, abolishes the food levy and in its place, a limited grain tax is adopted, thus leaving the peasants at least part of the surplus.

1978 - Palestinian civilians flee Southern Lebanon on the third day of Israeli attacks during the 1978 South Lebanon conflict; code-named Operation Litani, the Israeli invasion covering in Lebanon up the Litani River would prove to be a military success in its goal of pushing Palestinian Liberation Organization forces northwards, although objections from the Lebanese government would later lead to the creation of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force and a partial Israeli withdrawal.

2005 - The last statue of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco is taken down; Franco, who died in 1975, rose to power from a career army officer, to army chief of staff to head of government and ruled Spain as a regent for life when he abolished the republic and instead installed representative monarchy  in 1947.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

16 MARCH

1521 - Portuguese-born explorer for the Spanish crown Ferdinand Magellan sights the first islands of the archipelago of San Lazaro, what will later be called the Philippines; his ship will later successively land at the at the islands of Gada, Seilani, and Mazava, and pass by or anchor at Matan(=Mactan), Subu(=Cebu), Baibai(=Baybay), will pass by Panilongo and will anchor at Bohol.

1953 - Yugoslavia's leader, Marshal Josef Tito, arrives in Britain in the first ever visit of a Communist head of state to the Western country; Tito, who has developed his own form of communism independent of the USSR, has travelled by sea in the Yugoslavian Vessel Galeb (Seagull) in the bid to strengthen the ties of the two nations.

1968 - American soldiers brutally kill between 200 and 500 unarmed civilians at My Lai, a hamlet in South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War; the US soldiers had entered My Lai during an operation against forces of the Viet Cong but even when they found unarmed villagers, majority of whom were women, children, and old men, the Americans nonetheless raped, tortured and killed the Vietnamese.

1988 - At least 3,200 are reported to have been killed and some 7,000 injured in a poison gas attack on a Kurdish city in the northern region of Iraq; around 20 aircraft that might have dropped mustard gas and nerve agents tabun, sarin, and VX have been seen overhead in Halabja in an attack that followed major developments during the Iran-Iraq War. 

Monday, March 15, 2010

15 MARCH

1899 - Philippine Gen. Mariano Trias submits to President Aguinaldo the report of the Commission of Investigation on the incident at San Juan Bridge on February 4, 1899, [concluding that]  the Americans were the first to fire and that their attack had been premeditated; the United States went to war based on a false claim that Filipinos began attacking American soldiers in Manila [as] historians would later discover a “prearranged plan” by the U.S. military to precipitate [the Philippine-American War] as soon as an incident was provoked.

44 BC - Gaius Julius Caesar, dictator of Rome, is stabbed to death in the Roman Senate house by 60 conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus; Caesar has enlarged the Roman empire and launched grand reform programs but the conspirators (erroneously) believe that his death would restore the Roman Republic.

1939 - At nightfall, Hungary begins to occupy Carpatho-Ukraine and will annex it following heavy fighting with the inhabitants who had only hours earlier actually declared the independence of the nation from Czechoslovakia; the Nazi Occupation of Hungary in 1944 and subsequent crossing of Soviet troops into Czech territory during World War II will lead to the proclamation of  the "will of the Ukrainian people" to join Soviet Ukraine.

1981 - Pakistan Airways jet hostages are released after having been hostaged for nearly two weeks by the Al Zulfikar group which wants to oust General Zia ul-Haq; the hijackers are said to be in cahoots with the son of former leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who was ousted in a coup by ul-Haq four years ago and then executed for a supposed murder of a political opponent.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

14 MARCH

1947 - The controversial RP-US Military Bases Agreement (MBA) that grants American access to 22 military, naval, and air bases in the Philippines is signed by Philippine President Manuel A. Roxas and United States Ambassador Paul V. McNutt at Malacanang some eight months after the imperialist Bald Eagle nation granted "independence" to its Southeast Asian colony; supposedly forged for the mutual defense of the two countries, the agreement would be decried by nationalists as both a symbol and actual tool of American neo-colonial hold on Filipinos; another criticism of the MBA is how it was approved only as an international executive agreement on the American side, not having been ratified by the U.S. legislature. 

1917 - The Petrograd Soviet (Council of of Worker's and Soldier's Deputies) of Russia' provisional government of the issues Order No. 1 which deprived the officers of all authority except for strategic operations, with the view of entrusting the army's administration to elected members of committees; the order, prompted by Soviet suspicion that the generals have counterrevolutionary tendencies will virtually be ignored and the Soviet will subsequently be more openly antagonistic towards the government.

1960 - The British radio telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire sets a new space record when it makes contact with the NASA's  Pioneer V satellite at a distance of some 407,000 miles; the Soviet Union's Lunik III has held the previous record with its photograph of the back of the Earth's Moon a year earlier.

1978 - Israel invades Lebanon in the bid to push the Palestinian Liberation Forces out of South Lebanon; codenamed Operation Litani by Israel,  it would be a military success but the Lebanese government's objections would lead to the creation of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force and a partial Israeli withdrawal.

Friday, March 12, 2010

13 MARCH

1899 - Some 200 Filipino soldiers are killed by American imperialist forces led by Brig. Gen. Loyd Wheaton during the Battle of Guadalupe Church in what is now known as Makati City, with official US report only listing 3 Americans killed and 26 wounded; a year later on the same day (March 13, 1900) in Abra, Captain Villareal writes to Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo Informing him that the forces under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Villamor captured 200 Americans in the Pial settlement of Abra province.

1848 - Vienna students marching to the Landhaus to present a petition to the Diet in Hofburg (Imperial Palace) are fired on when they grew large in size; in the next few days, the Emperor and the Diet wil consider a constitution and within two months, a new constitution providing for a bicameral legislature will be published.

1881 - Russia's Tsar Alexander II is assassinated by the People's Will that has employed murders and terrorism in the bid to overthrow the autocracy; Alexander II has considerably liberalized and modernized Russia but when his authority was challenged he turned repressive.

1979 - The leader of Grenada, Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy, has been ousted in a coup while he was at the United Nations in New York; Gairy has met criticisms of human rights violations and coup leader Maurice Bishop will take over his position of Prime Minister for the next four years.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

12 MARCH

1900 - During the Philippine-American War, Gen. Manuel Tinio instructs commanders of the flying columns under his jurisdiction to intensify their guerrilla operations against enemy [American] forces; the youngest general of the fledgling Philippine Republic, Tinio is one of the most efficient military leaders during the guerrilla warfare phase of the war as he has turned the whole Ilocos region and its population into an espionage network marked by a warning system apprising the patriots of approaching imperialist forces.

1610 - Galileo Galilei publishes The Starry Messenger, which recounts the astronomical discoveries he made using his telescope; the book that includes discovery of Jupiter's four largest satellites [providing] evidence that not all objects in the heavens orbited the Earth, will serve to be an important resource for future mathematics and physics great, Isaac Newton.

1917 - A provisional government is formed by Russia's duma (council or parliament) despite an imperial order dissolving the body amidst much discontent and unrest against Tsarist rule; within three days, Nicholas II will abdicate in favor of his brother Michael, who [will shortly abdicate] in favor of the provisional government pending election by a constituent assembly.

1930 - Mahatma Gandhi of India begins the Salt March, his boldest act of civil disobedience against British rule; aiming to protest against British salt tax, the march will lead to the arrest of Gandhi and some 60,000 followers but will earn for Indian political and spiritual leader international support and respect for the cause of his non-violent civil disobedience methods.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

11 MARCH

1947 - Despite the granting of "independence" to the Philippines, the Parity Rights amendment to the 1935 Constitution is ratified, giving American citizens equal rights as Filipinos to exploit the natural resources of the Southeast Asian country; the administration of President Manuel Roxas actively campaigned for the ratification in what has been described as "persuasive harangue" and which will merit him a foiled assasination attempt by a disgruntled barber.

1426 - Thutmose III, Egypt's sixth Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, is believed to have died on this day; his reign has been marked with the the expansion of the Egypt empire, made possible by at least 17 military campaigns that conquered territories ranging from Niya in north Syria to the fourth waterfall of the Nile in Nubia.

1985 - Mikhail Gorbachev becomes premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics following the death of  his predecessor Konstantin Chernenko; Gorbachev will be responsible for a policy of openness or "glasnost" and ... of "perestroika" or deep political and economic reforms that will eventually lead to the dissolution of the communist state almost seven years later.

2006
-  Slobodan Milosevic, the former communist Yugoslav leader who orchestrated the Balkan wars of the 1990s and has been on trial for war crimes in Hague, is found dead inside his prison cell; Milosevic, who likened himself to Ayatollah Khomeini in terms of charisma and leadership, had exhibited uncanny political adroitness that he had always managed to survive serious mistakes and blows until about the time he failed to convince his people that he genuinely won in the 2000 polls.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

10 MARCH

1892 - The masonic lodge Nilad, established by future Filipino patriots Pedro Serrano Laktaw and Antonio Luna, is recognized and given the number 144 by the Gran Oriente Espanol, the Spanish mother lodge; freemasonry  in the Philippines began when Filipino intellectuals in foreign countries have noticed with misgivings the continued persecution and injustices committed by friars back in the Philippines.

1946 - Yugoslavia's General Drazha Mihailovich,  wartime resistance leader, was captured and will be tried for collaborating with the enemy; despite protests from Western countries, he will eventually be executed four months later; Mihailovich led during World War II the Chetnik movement which, though founded as a resistance force itself, increasingly provided assistance to the Axis powers in the bid to eliminate their main  rival, Marshal Broz Tito's Partisans.

1969 - Martin Luther King's killer, James Earl Ray, is sentenced to 99 years imprisonment by a Memphis, Tennessee court after admitting he murdered the American civil rights leader; the admission and verdict swiftly concluded the trial but which would be seen as a cover-up for a politically motivated conspiracy to silence the black activist leader.

1990 - The Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft has been convicted by an Iraqi court of spying for Israel, while working on a story about an explosion at a weapons complex south of the capital, although the British nurse who accompanied him to the site will eventually be released; the trial and execution of Bazoft, an Iranian who lived in Britain beginning the early 1980s, drew international condemnation.

Monday, March 8, 2010

9 MARCH

1900 - Detachment commanders of the Filipino forces are informed by Second Zone Secretary Potenciano Luna that Capt. Pedro Cadurales and several others had been killed, including patriotic soldiers who were shot after being captured by the enemy United States forces; writing in a circular during the Philippine-American War, Luna also cautions the Filipino soldiers to be wary of infiltrators and to "Take care of our guns, bury them under the earth so nobody shall know about it, except the officer and the sergeant."

1932 - Henry Pu Yi, the last emperor of the last of China's imperial dynasties is made Chief executive of Manzhouguo (Manchukuo) by Imperial Japan, months after earlier being named emperor or Kangde; he reigned until 1945, during which time Japan is said to have taken steps towards Japanizing Manchuria as it did in Korea and elsewhere.

1956 - Cyprus Archbishop Makarios, along with his allies, is deported by Britain to Seychelles in the bid to contain nationalist guerrilla activities in the crown colony; he will eventually be allowed back in 1959 and will soon become president of an independent Cyprus.

1967 - The daughter of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin,Svetlana, requests political asylum at the United States Embassy in India; she will become an American citizen, changing her name to Lana Peters following her marriage with architect William Peters but some time after their divorce, she will resettle in the USSR and later, in England.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

8 MARCH

1896 - The Supreme Council of the secret Philippine revolutionary society Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK) rules that Balangay Mahiganti, a KKK branch in Ermita, Manila, shall be elevated to the status of a Sangguniang Bayan (Sb.); Andres Bonifacio, as the Katipunan's Supreme President, discusses the duties of newly elected officers and then explains the decision made by the Katipunan's Supreme Assembly requiring all sections to remit to the Supreme Council the fees paid by members upon their admission to the Katipunan and upon their promotion to a higher grade.

1917 - The Russian Revolution, also known as the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia's use of the Julian calendar) begins when demonstrations of rioters clamoring for food, with support from some 90,000 strikers, erupt in the city of Petrograd; a week later, NIcholas II will abdicate, putting an end to centuries of czarist rule and the development will serve as precursor to the socialist October Revolution.

1949- The French forges an agreement with non-Communist nationalist forces under which Vietnam's independence (Cochin China included)  is recognized within the French Union, and  with former Annam emperor Bao Dai installed as head of state; made on the eve of the Communist victory in China, France hopes but will fail to stem the momentum of the socialist guerrilla forces of the Viet Minh.

1971 - Joe Frazier defeats Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight boxing championship; popular professional boxer and social activist Ali (Cassius Clay) had challenged Frazier who had become heavyweight champion during his absence from the ring while on conviction for refusing induction into the United States Army.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

7 MARCH

1919 - The Philippine Legislature during the American colonial period passes a Declaration of Purposes officially setting forth the position of the Filipino people on this vital problem. " The Philippine question, " said the representatives of the Filipino people, " has reached such a stage that a full and final exchange of views between the United States of America and the Philippine Islands has become necessary. We need not repeat the declarations respecting the national aspirations of the Filipino people.

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone, beating a similar claim made by Elisha Gray by a mere two hours; his Bell Company  will emerge as the massive American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) and form the foundation of the modern telecommunications industry.

1965 - State troopers and volunteer officers in the southern US state of Alabama break up a civil rights demonstration in protest of discriminatory voting practices against black Americans; after "Bloody Sunday," Dr. Martin Luther King will organize two more protest marches and by August 1965, American President Lyndon B Johnson will sign a new Voting Rights Act outlawing discrimination based on race or skin color.

1969 - Golda Meir becomes Israel's first female Prime Minister; a long-time foreign minister before emerging as compromise candidate, the septuagenarian politician will later win the general election in October of the same year.

Friday, March 5, 2010

6 MARCH

1901 - Apolinario Mabini, Prime Minister of the fledgling Philippine republic under siege by imperialist American forces, informs President Emilio Aguinaldo of William H. Taft's reply that the United States could not recognize Philippine independence; US President William Mckinley's policy to forcibly annex the Southeast Asian archipelago and start the blood Philippine-American War has been criticized by fellow Americans, including the members of the Anti-Imperialist League.

1836 - American defenders of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, are defeated by Mexican forces during what United States historians dub the Texas War for Independence; the siege at the Alamo will later become a rallying cry for United States forces, particularly Texan volunteers, in other battles and in 1845, the US will seize Texas from Mexico and  annex it as its 28th state.

1957 - The Ghanaian people celebrate the end of colonial rule and the dawn of their independence as Ghana becomes the first black African country to gain freedom; Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah will later declare Ghana a republic and make himself president for life but will be deposed in 1966.

1992 - Eduard Shevardnadze, former Soviet foreign minister and first secretary of the central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, returns to Georgia to lead the newly formed State Council that has been endowed with executive and legislative powers; three months earlier, nationalist President Aviad Gamsakhurdia fled following months of violent conflict between the forces of the Georgian government and opposition groups in Tbilsi.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

5 MARCH

1899 - A band of Filipinos fire on some crew members of the U.S.S. Bennington, giving the impression to Washington that the Americans are getting nervous and restless under the harassment of the guerrilla patriots of the people of the Southeast Asian archipelago; the Philippine-American War began months earlier on February 4, 1899 as the emerging turn-of-the-century imperialist power had decided to forcibly annex the Philippines (in context, along with Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guano islands,  American Samoa, etc.).

1933 - The Nazi Party wins 44 percent of the German vote in what will be the country's last democratic polls until after World War II; the victory will enable the party of future dictator Adolf Hitler to join with the Nationalists to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag, the German parliamentary body.

1953 - Josef Stalin, long-time dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, dies from what Communist officials will ascribe to natural illness; there will be rumors, however, that the 73-year-old leader responsible for mass killings during his campaigns of political purging was murdered in a conspiracy that aimed to prevent him from plunging the Soviet Union into a war its people were in no position to fight.

1956 - The United States Supreme Court declares that racial segregation in the university setting is illegal; the ruling, which upholds an earlier ruling that has quashed the "separate but equal" segregation principle practiced in US schools, colleges and universities for decades, marks a significant victory for the civil rights movement in America.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

4 MARCH

1879 - Rosa Sevilla Alvero, oustanding Filipina patriot and educator, is born in Tondo, Manila; Alvero will be one of the two women staffers of La Independencia, a wartime newspaper published by Gen. Antonio Luna in September 1898 during the second phase of the Revolution against Spanish colonial rule; during the height of the Philippine-American War, she will establish the Instituto de Mujeres, the first Filipino-run school for girls offering primary to collegiate courses.

1238 - The Battle of the Sit River is fought between the Rus' people and the Mongols during the full-scale Mongolian invasion of what are today's Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus; the forces of Grand Prince Yuri II will lose succumb to Batu Khan's hordes and the Mongol World Empire will dominate the region for some 200 years.

1915 - Negotiations for the Constantinople Agreement, the wartime secret arrangements among the Entente powers for the partition of the Ottoman Empire, begins; the part stating Russia will get control of Istanbul will never be implemented because the Dardanelles campaign during the First World War failed and because the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution led Russia to drop out of the agreement.

1980 - Robert Mugabe is elected prime minister of Zimbabwe (the former Rhodesia), becoming the first black leader in the African country's modern history; Mugabe is a left-left leaning nationalist who jointly led the Patriotic Front guerrillas' operations against the white-dominated government during the the 1975-1979 civil war.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

3 MARCH

1815 - The Kailianes (common people) of the Philippine northern town of Sarrat in Ilocos Norte begin a rebellion against the rule of the Spanish colonizers; soon spreading to other towns under the leadership of Simon Tomas, Mariano Espiritu, Vicente Santiago, and Andres Bugarin , the uprising will be one of the many unsuccessful revolts in the archipelago prior to the Revolution of 1896. 

1918 - The new Soviet Union and the Central Powers sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, concluding hostilities between those countries during the First World War; the terms of the treaty wherein Soviet Russia gives up Ukraine and territories in Poland and the Baltic region will later be nullified by the Armistice.

1924 - The caliphate, the office of the supreme spiritual leader for Sunni Muslims worldwide, is abolished as part of Turkey's initial step towards secularization of the government and society; the Ottoman Empire-era position of the chief religious official, Sheik ul-Islam, will be dissolved, religious schools will be closed, the Islamic law courts will be dismantled, and, later, Islam will be dropped as state religion.
  
1974 - A Turkish Airline crashes near Paris while on a regular flight from Ankara to London via the French capital; all the 346 passengers and crew members are killed, including many transfer passengers from  British Airways flights that had been canceled due to a London airport strike.

Monday, March 1, 2010

2 MARCH

1945 - The Philippine island fortress of Corregidor  is retaken by United States forces from Japan during World War II; the Japanese forces had seized the island on May 6, 1942 following their campaign to invade the Philippines and pound the main American military bases in the Southeast Asian archipelago, then a US colony.

1970 - Rhodesia's Prime Minister Ian Smith proclaims his African country a republic, cutting its last link with the British Crown; four years earlier, he declared Rhodesian independence and by 1977, will yield to British sanctions to negotiate a smooth transition to the rule of the black majority.

1972 - NASA's Pioneer 10 is launched, making it the first human-made object to exit the solar system after traversing the asteroid belt and flying by Jupiter; the spacecraft will allow astronomers to discover Jupiter's large magnetic tail, newly identify two moons and an additional ring around Saturn and radiation belts in its magnetosphere.

1992 - Following the dissolution of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan officially become members of the United Nations; the USSR had dissolved on December 25, 1991 and the seven states, along with other members of the former communist bloc, soon proclaimed their independence.