BACK IN THE DAY

MARCH 22

1349 The folk of Fulda, Germany, massacre Jews, blaming them for the Black Death.

1858 After discussions fail between President Boshof of the Republic of the Orange Free State and Chief Moshesh and his sons, the Free State declares war on Basutoland, starting the first Basuto war.

1896 Charilaos Vasilakos wins the first modern marathon at the Panhellenic Games.

1907 The new Boer government of the Transvaal passes an Asiatic Registration Bill, restricting Indian immigration.

1914 The St Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line becomes the world’s first scheduled airline.

1916 The last Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicates.

1920 Azeri and Turkish soldiers, with the participation of Kurdish gangs, attack the Armenian inhabitants of the city of Shushi, in the disputed Nagorno Karabakh region.

1942 The Royal Navy confronts Italy’s Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte.

1945 The Arab League is founded in Cairo.

1992 With South Africa needing 22 runs off 13 balls, rain forces players from the field in the World Cup cricket semi-final against England in Durban. When they return, the target has been revised to 22 runs off 1 ball, robbing South Africa of victory and gifting England a path to the final, where they lose to Pakistan.

2017 A terrorist attack on London’s Westminster Bridge and Houses of Parliament kills 4 people and injures 40.

2018 The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” between Hawaii and California has 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and is increasing rapidly, according to new research.

2019 The “mind-blowing” discovery of a 518 million-year-old fossil site in China, with thousands of well preserved fossils of unknown species, is announced.

2020 India puts 1 billion people under a daytime curfew to curb Covid-19. | The Historian