March 16, 2023 Holiday

Teachers' Day is celebrated in many countries around the world to praise hard work of teachers. For instance, this holiday exists in Syria and it's annually celebrated on the third Thursday in March.

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Book Smugglers Day is a Lithuanian cultural observance held on March 16. It honors the people who defied a ban on Lithuanian language publications printed in the Latin alphabet within the Russian Empire.

Latvian Legion Day, also referred to as Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires, is a controversial commemoration day observed in Latvia on March 16.

Halabja Remembrance Day, also referred to as simply Halabja Day, is a somber remembrance day observed in Iraqi Kurdistan on March 16. It honors of memory of thousands of people who died in the Halabja chemical attack carried out by Saddam Hussein’s troops in March 1988.

Saint Urho's Day is an informal celebration of Finnish culture that originated in America. Despite its name, it is not an official church holiday. It was invented in 1956 by Richard Mattson, a Finnish-American from Minnesota.

Although we refer to artichokes as to vegetables, they are actually the flower buds of the plant. They are so delicious that deserve their own holiday. By the way, March 16 is National Artichoke Hearts Day.

This Day in History

• 2014 A controversial referendum on the status of Crimea was held. According to the official results, more then 95% of voter supported integration of the region into the Russian Federation.
• 2013 Died: Jason Molina, American musician and singer-songwriter who came to prominence in the 1990s performing and recording as Songs: Ohia.
• 2013 Died: Frank Thornton, English actor best known for his role as Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and its sequel Grace & Favour.
• 2005 Died: Ralph Erskine, English-born Swedish architect and planner. He was responsible for the design of numerous innovative buildings in Sweden, England, and Canada.
• 1998 Died: Derek Barton, English organic chemist who was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Norwegian physical chemist Odd Hassel.
• 1995 Mississippi formally ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, becoming the last state to approve the slavery abolition.
• 1988 Between 3,200 and 5,000 people were killed in the Halabja chemical attack, a genocidal massacre against the Kurdish people in Southern Kurdistan.
• 1983 Died: Arthur Godfrey, nicknamed The Old Redhead, American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was extremely popular in the 1950s.
• 1978 Supertanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground on Portsall Rocks, split in three and sank. This resulted in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date.
• 1969 Viasa Flight 742 crashed in Maracaibo, Venezuela, killing 84 people on board and 74 on the ground. The crash was caused by faulty sensors and overload.
• 1967 Born: Lauren Graham, American actress, producer and writer who is best known for her role as Lorelai Gilmore on the comedy-drama series Gilmore Girls.
• 1964 Born: Gore Verbinski, American film director, producer, screenwriter, and musician. He is best known for directing the first three installments in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.
• 1955 Died: Nicolas de Staël, Russian-born French painter who was noted for his highly abstract landscape painting and his use of a thick impasto.
• 1941 Born: Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian film director and screenwriter whose best known works include Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor.
• 1936 Born: Raymond Vahan Damadian, American medical practitioner who is best known for having invented the first magnetic resonance scanner.
• 1935 Died: John James Rickard Macleod, Scottish biochemist and physiologist who was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Frederick Banting for their discovery of insulin.
• 1926 American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor Robert Hutchings Goddard successfully launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts.
• 1919 Germany's national defense force (Reichswehr) was reintroduced in the form of Wehrmacht. It of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe (air force).
• 1918 Born: Frederick Reines, American physicist who was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Clyde Cowan. They detected the neutrino.
• 1914 Died: Charles Albert Gobat, Swiss lawyer, politician, and educational administrator who was awarded the 1902 Nobel Peace Prize along with Élie Ducommun.
• 1859 Born: Alexander Popov, Russian physicist who is best known as one of the inventors of radio transmission along with Guglielmo Marconi.
• 1853 Born: Heinrich Kayser, German physicist and spectroscopist who is best known for having discovered the occurrence of helium in the atmosphere of Earth.
• 1851 Born: Martinus Beijerinck, Dutch botanist and microbiologist who is considered to be one of the founders of virology and microbial ecology.
• 1839 Born: Sully Prudhomme, French poet and essayist who was awarded the 1901 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the first ever winner of this prize.
• 1792 Swedish king Gustav III was shot during a masked ball at the Royal Opera House. The wound wasn't mortal, but it became infected. The king died on March 29.
• 1789 Born: Georg Ohm, German physicist and mathematician who is best known of his discovery of Ohm's law. The unit of electrical resistance was named after him.
• 1738 Died: George Bähr, German architect best known for designing the Frauenkirche in Dresden. Unfortunately, he did not live to see it completed.
• 1660 The Long Parliament of England voted for its own dissolution. It was succeeded by the Convention Parliament elected on April 25, 1660.
• 1621 Samoset, a sagamore of an Eastern Abenaki tribe, became the first Native American to make contact with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Bay Colony.
• 37 Died: Tiberius (born Tiberius Claudius Nero), Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. He is considered one of the Rome's greatest generals.