Monday, March 26

Today is Monday, March 26, the 86th day of 2012. There are 280 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1793 – Holy Roman Empire declares war on France.

1885 – The Eastman Dry Plate and Film Co. of Rochester, New York, forerunner of Eastman Kodak, manufactures the first commercial motion picture film.

1881 – Romania becomes a monarchy, and King Carol I, of the German house of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, is proclaimed king.

1895 – Japan occupies Pescadores Islands in Formosa Strait.

1913 – More than 1,400 people perish in floods in U.S. states of Ohio, Indiana and Texas.

1931 – Treaty of friendship is signed between Iraq and Transjordan.

1953 – American Dr. Jonas E. Salk announces new vaccine to immunize against polio.

1970 – Foreign ministers of Islamic countries decide at Jordan meeting to establish permanent secretariat.

1971 – East Pakistan proclaims its independence, taking the name Bangladesh.

1975 – South Vietnamese government announces arrest of several people for plotting to overthrow President Nguyen van Thieu.

1977 – A KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off, crashes into a Pan Am 747 on the Canary Island of Tenerife, killing 582 people.

1979 – Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat sign the Camp David peace treaty at the White House.

1981 – Groundbreaking ceremonies take place in Washington, D.C., for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

1986 – Libyan radio calls for Arab suicide squads to strike U.S. embassies and other interests “wherever they may be.”

1987 – Greece and Turkey come to brink of war when Turkey sends exploratory vessel into disputed waters in Aegean Sea.

1988 – Iran and Iraq battle for mastery over Kurdistan mountains, just east of Iraqi oil fields.

1990 – Police fire on demonstrators in Sebokeng, South Africa, killing 11 people and wounding hundreds.

1991 – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay sign Treaty of Asuncion in the Paraguayan capital, launching the Southern Cone Common Market; soldiers overthrow Mali’s military dictator after days of rioting and protests that left dozens dead.

1993 – U.N. Security Council votes to set up the largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation so far — 30,000 troops and civilians are to go to Somalia.

1994 – OPEC agrees to freeze oil production for the rest of the year after failing to find a formula to cut output and push prices up.

1995 – Tens of thousands in Manila line the funeral route of a 42-year-old housemaid executed in Singapore for murder, despite recent evidence that she was innocent.

1996 – The International Monetary Fund agrees to offer Russia new loans worth $10.2 billion over the next three years, nearly doubling what Russia owes to the organization.

1997 – The bodies of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate techno-religious cult who committed suicide are found inside a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California.

1998 – U.S. President Bill Clinton becomes the first American head of state to visit South Africa.

2000 – Pope John Paul II crowns his Holy Land sojourn with a stunning gesture to Jews at their holiest site: he places a plea for forgiveness in a nook in the Western Wall in Jerusalem, expressing sorrow for past errors of his church.

2001 – A boarding school fire in Kenya kills 58 boys and seriously injures 28 others.

2005 – A land mine explodes under a U.S. vehicle in Kabul, killing four soldiers in the deadliest incident for American troops in Afghanistan in almost 10 months.

2006 – Somali radical Islamic militiamen and rivals bury their dead and bring in more fighters during a lull after four days of combat on Mogadishu’s outskirts that witnesses say killed at least 93 people and wounded nearly 200.

2007 – Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, the leaders of Northern Ireland’s major Protestant and Catholic parties, open face-to-face relations after four decades of conflict and announce a stunning deal to create a power-sharing administration.

2008 – Italy temporarily shuts down production at more than 80 cow farms after detecting higher-than-permitted levels of dioxin — a dangerous toxin — in 25 mozzarella-making facilities out of the 130 it checked.

2009 – The prime minister of the Czech Republic, Mirek Topolanek formally resigns, two days after his three-party coalition government lost a vote of confidence in parliament.

2010 – A jubilant Ayad Allawi claims victory for his secular, anti-Iranian coalition as final parliamentary returns show him edging out the bloc of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who angrily vowed to fight the results.

2011 — More than 250,000 people take to London’s streets to protest the toughest spending cuts since World War II — one of the largest demonstrations since the Iraq war — as riot police clash with a small groups. More than 200 people are arrested.

Today’s Birthdays:

Robert Frost, U.S. poet (1874-1963); Syngman Rhee, South Korea’s founding president (1875-1965); Chips Rafferty, Australian actor (1909-1971); Tennessee Williams, U.S. playwright (1911-1983); Leonard Nimoy, U.S. actor (1931–); Erica Jong, U.S. writer (1942–); Diana Ross, U.S. singer (1944–); Steven Tyler, U.S. singer (1948–); Keira Knightley, British actress (1985–).

Thought For Today:

When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers — Kikuyu proverb.