[MSFixR]

• 1603 – King James VI of Scotland acceded to the throne of England and Ireland, unifying the crowns of the three kingdoms for the first time.
• 1874 - Harry Houdini, (Weisz Erik), Hungarian-born magician born. (d. 1926)
  
  
  Harry Houdini
  
  
• 1882 – German physician Robert Koch announced the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a bacterium that causes tuberculosis.
• 1905 - Jules Verne, French author died. (b. 1828) ("Journey to the Center of the Earth", "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea", and "Around the World in Eighty Days")
• 1944 - In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 prisoners begin breaking out of Stalag Luft III.
• 1976 – Dirty War: President Isabel Perón of Argentina was kidnapped and deposed in a bloodless coup d'état.
• 1989 – The tanker Exxon Valdez spilled more than 10 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing one of the most devastating man-made environmental disaster at sea.
• 1999 – Kosovo War: NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.
  
  Picture of the Day
  
  
  
  The Emperor Tamarin (Saguinus imperator) is a tamarin native to the Amazon Basin and neighboring parts of South America. It was allegedly named for its similarity to William II, the last German Emperor. The name was first intended as a joke, but has become the official scientific name.
  
  On This Day (March 23)
  
  
• 1775 – American Revolution: Patrick Henry (pictured) made his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses, urging the legislature to take military action against the British Empire.
  
  
  Patrick Henry
  
  
• 1801 – Tsar Alexander I acceded to the Russian throne after his father Paul I was murdered in his bedroom at St. Michael's Castle.
• 1857 - Elisha Otis's first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway New York City.
• 1912 - Wernher von Braun, German-born physicist and engineer born. (d. 1977) (Von Braun was the second son of a German nobleman and high official in the Weimar government (who resigned when the Nazis took power). He became one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the United States. Wernher von Braun is sometimes said to be the preeminent rocket scientist of the 20th century.)
• 1933 – The Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving Chancellor Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers in Germany.
• 1937 - Robert Gallo, American physician born. (He is best known for his role in identifying the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) as the infectious agent responsible for the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).)
• 1940 – Pakistan Movement: The All India Muslim League adopted the Lahore Resolution, calling for greater autonomy in British India.
• 1996 – Lee Teng-hui was elected President of the Republic of China in the first direct presidential election in Taiwan.
  
  On This Day (March 22)
  
  
• 238 – Because of his advanced age, both Gordian I and his son Gordian II were proclaimed Roman Emperors.
• 1622 – The Powhatan Confederacy under Chief Opchanacanough killed almost 350 English settlers around Jamestown, a third of the Colony of Virginia's population.
• 1765 – The Parliament of Great Britain passed the Stamp Act, adding fuel to the growing separatist movement in the Thirteen Colonies in British North America.
• 1784 – The Emerald Buddha of Thailand was installed at the Wat Phra Kaew on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok.
• 1832 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer died. (b. 1749) (A German writer. George Eliot called him "Germany's greatest man of letters... and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism, and science. Goethe's magnum opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part drama Faust.)
• 1849 – First Italian War of Independence: After capturing the fortress town of Mortara, forces led by Austrian General Joseph Radetzky von Radetz routed Sardinian troops at the Battle of Novara.
• 1868 - Robert Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate born. (d. 1953) (An American experimental physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics for his measurement of the charge on the electron and for his work on the photoelectric effect.)
• 1930 - Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist born. (An American stage musical and film composer and lyricist, winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards (seven, more than any other composer), multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. He has been described by Frank Rich in the The New York Times as "the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theater." His most famous scores include (as composer/lyricist) "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", "Company", "Follies", "A Little Night Music", "Sweeney Todd", "Sunday in the Park with George", "Into the Woods", and "Assassins", as well as the lyrics for "West Side Story" and "Gypsy".)
• 1948 - Andrew Lloyd Webber, English theatre composer born. (A highly successful British composer of musical theatre, and also the elder brother of cellist Julian Lloyd Webber. Several of his songs, notably "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from Evita, "Memory" from Cats, and "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera have been widely recorded and were hits outside of their parent musicals.)
• 1963 – Please Please Me, the first album recorded by The Beatles, was released.
• 1978 - Karl Wallenda of the The Flying Wallendas dies after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
• 1993 - The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips (80586), featuring a 60 MHz clock speed, 100+ MIPS, and a 64 bit data path.
• 1994 - Walter Lantz, American cartoonist died. (b. 1900) (An American cartoonist and animator, best known for founding the Walter Lantz Studio and creating Woody Woodpecker.)