On this day, March 23
‘Give me liberty or give me death’, Potchefstroom siege ends with dinner, the man who fell from the sky and hobbles away, and a Sahara sandstorm turns Russian snow orange.
1752 Pope Stephen II is elected to succeed Zacharias, but dies two days later.
1775 American Revolutionary and Founding Father, Patrick Henry proclaims his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech in favour of Virginian troops joining the US Revolutionary War.
1801 Russia’s Tsar Paul I is struck with a sword, then strangled, and – just to make sure he’s really dead – trampled to death in his bedroom at St Michael’s Castle, Saint Petersburg.
1806 After travelling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark begin their arduous journey home.
1846 Henry Warden makes the first known reference to Bloemfontein when he writes to the governor about a farm between Philippolis and Thaba Nchu with the name “Bloem Fontein”, belonging to a JN Brits.
1857 Elisha Otis’s first lift is installed in New York City.
1881 The 3-month siege of British soldiers in the Old Fort in Potchefstroom ends amicably, with Boer leader Piet Cronje inviting the British officers to dinner at the Royal Hotel.
1888 In England, The Football League, the world’s oldest professional association football league, meets for the first time.
1918 Germany shells Paris, France, killing 256.
1921 Germany announces it will be unable to meet its Great War (World War I) reparation payments.
1944 Preferring to die by impact rather than burn to death, RAF gunner Flight-Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade bales out of his crippled Lancaster bomber from 5 500m over Germany without a parachute. His fall is broken by pine trees and soft snow and he hobbles away to captivity with only a sprained leg.
1956 Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world.
1972 US motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel breaks 93 bones after jumping over 35 cars.
2018 A Sahara sandstorm turns snow in Sochi, Russia, orange.
2021 One of the largest container ships in the world, the 400m-long Ever Given, carrying 18 300 containers, runs becomes wedged fast in the 200m-wide Suez Canal. The blockage in the strategically important waterway causes hundreds of ships to bunch up, unable to continue and costs billions of dollars, not least to Egypt as the canal is its biggest source of revenue.
