Under Wednesday, March 8, the book of history records, among other things:
1898: The symphonic poem “Don Quixote – Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character” by Richard Strauss is premiered in Cologne.
1918: US President Woodrow Wilson’s response to Emperor Charles I’s letter is considered unsatisfactory in Vienna. (The Emperor had accepted Wilson’s “14 Points” with some reservations. The letter had been sent by King Alfonso XIII of Spain.)
1918: The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Ottokar Czernin, reacted negatively to British premonitions to resume the secret talks held in Geneva in December 1917.
1918: A German air raid on Nancy claims 20 lives.
1933: Negotiations between Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss and the top social democratic politician Robert Danneberg about a reconvening of the National Council fail. The government has imposed a ban on demonstrations and restrictions on freedom of the press.
1933: In Germany, the mandates of the Communist Reichstag deputies and Prussian Landtag deputies are abolished by the Hitler government. Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick announces the establishment of concentration camps.
1948: The SPÖ chairman, Vice-Chancellor Adolf Schärf, describes the action committees set up by the communists in various factories as illegal and speaks of an “obvious attempt at terrorism”.
1963: In Syria, the pan-Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party comes to power in a military coup.
1973: Referendum in Northern Ireland: Majority votes to remain with Great Britain.
1988: Vice President George Bush wins the primaries for the investiture of the presidential candidate of the American Republicans on “Super Tuesday” in 16 US states.
1993: The Afghan civil war factions sign a peace agreement in Islamabad and agree on the fundamentalist Pashtun leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as head of government.
2003: In Malta, voters voted in a referendum with 53.6 percent of the votes to join the European Union.
2018: The US imposes global import tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum. US President Donald Trump is thus heralding a trade dispute with China and the EU that will drag on throughout the year and cause the economy to cool down.
birthdays: Gian Carlo Passeroni, Italian poet (1713-1803); Walter Jens, German writer and literary scholar (1923-2013); Luca Ronconi, Italian director and actor (1933-2015); Vreni Spoerry, Swiss politician (1938); Lynn Redgrave, British actress (1943-2010); Peggy March (aka Margaret Batavio), US pop singer (1948).
days of death: Sultan Bayazid I, Ottoman. ruler (1347-1403); Archduke Franz Carl (brother of Emperor Ferdinand I and father of Emperor Franz Joseph I) (1802-1878); Johannes Diderik van der Waals, niedl. Physicist; Nobel Prize 1910 (1837-1923); Sir William Walton, British composer (1902-1983); Billy (William C. Eckstein) Eckstine, US-amer. Jazz musician (1914-1993).
name days: John of God, Eddo, Philemon, Michael, Warmund, Julian, Felix, Beatrix, Gerhard.