Today on March 23 1026 Konraad II crowned himself king of Italy. 1066 The 18th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet took place. 1490 The first dated edition of Maimonides "Mishna Torah" was published. 1657 France and England formed an alliance against Spain. 1794 Josiah G. Pierson patented a rivet machine. 1806 Explorers Lewis and Clark, reached the Pacific coast, and began their return journey to the east. 1808 Napoleon's brother Joseph took the throne of Spain. 1836 The coin press was invented by Franklin Beale. 1839 The first recorded printed use of "OK" [oll korrect] occurred in Boston's Morning Post. 1840 The first successful photo of the Moon was taken. 1848 Hungary proclaimed its independence of Austria. 1857 Elisha Otis installed the first modern passenger elevator in a public building. It was at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City. 1858 Eleazer A. Gardner patented the cable streetcar. 1861 London's first tramcars began operations. 1880 John Stevens patented the grain crushing mill. The mill increased flour production by 70 percent. 1881 A gas lamp caused a fire in an opera house in Nice, France. 70 people were killed. 1889 U.S. President Harrison opened Oklahoma for white colonization. 1901 Dame Nellie Melba, revealed the secret of her now famous toast. 1901 It was learned that Boers were starving in British concentration camps in South Africa. 1901 Shots were fired at Privy Councilor Pobyedonostzev, who was considered to be Russia's most hated man. 1902 In Italy, the minimum legal working age was raised from 9 to 12 for boys and from 11 to 15 for girls. 1903 The Wright brothers obtained an airplane patent. 1909 British Lt. Shackleton found the magnetic South Pole. 1912 The Dixie Cup was invented. 1917 Austrian Emperor Charles I made a peace proposal to French President Poincare. 1917 In the Midwest U.S., four tornadoes kill 211 people over a four day period. 1918 Lithuania proclaimed independence. 1919 Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy. 1921 Arthur G. Hamilton set a new parachute record when he safely jumped from 24,400 feet. 1925 The state of Tennessee enacted a law that made it a crime for a teacher in any state-supported public school to teach any theory that was in contradiction to the Bible's account of man's creation. 1932 In the U.S., the Norris-LaGuardia Act established workers' right to strike. 1933 The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act. The act effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers. 1934 The U.S. Congress accepted the independence of the Philippines in 1945. 1936 Italy, Austria & Hungary signed the Pact of Rome. 1937 The L.A. Railway Co. started using PCC streetcars. 1942 The Japanese occupy the Andaman Islands. 1942 During World War II, the U.S. government began evacuating Japanese-Americans from West Coast homes to concentration camps. 1951 U.S. paratroopers descended from flying boxcars in a surprise attack in Korea. 1956 Pakistan became the first Islamic republic. It was still within the British Commonwealth. 1956 Sudan became independent. 1957 The U.S. Army sold the last of its homing pigeons. 1967 Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. called the Vietnam War the biggest obstacle to the civil rights movement. 1970 Mafia "Boss" Carlo Gambino was arrested for plotting to steal $3 million. 1972 Evel Knievel broke 93 bones after successfully jumping 35 cars. 1980 The deposed shah of Iran, Muhammad Riza Pahlavi, left Panama for Egypt. 1981 U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law making statutory rape a crime for men but not women. 1983 U.S. President Reagan first proposed development of technology to intercept enemy missiles. The proposal became known as the Strategic Defense Initiative and "Star Wars." 1989 Joel Steinberg was sentenced to 25 years for killing his adopted daughter. 1989 Two electrochemists, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman, announced that they had created nuclear fusion in a test tube at room temperature. 1990 Former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Hazelwood was ordered to help clean up Prince William Sound and pay $50,000 in restitution for the 1989 oil spill. 1993 U.N. experts announced that record ozone lows had been registered over a large area of the Western Hemisphere. It was BS. 1996 Taiwan held its first democratic presidential elections. 1998 Germany's largest bank pledged $3.1 million to Jewish foundations as restitution for Nazi looting. 1998 Russian President Boris Yeltsin fired his Cabinet. 1998 The movie "Titanic" won 11 Oscars at the Academy Awards. 1998 The German company Bertelsmann AG agreed to purchase the American publisher Random House for $1.4 billion. The merger created the largest English-language book-publishing company in the world. 1999 NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana gave formal approval for air strikes against Serbian targets. 2001 Russia's orbiting Mir space station plunged into the South Pacific after its 15-years of use. 2016 Do smiled.