On This Day: March 23

This is the 82nd day of the year.

Fact of the Day: Dick Clark

Dick Clark retired from American Bandstand in 1989 after 33 years. Overnight, Clark became one of pop music's most important tastemakers as exposure on American Bandstand or his prime-time program, The Dick Clark Show, generated countless hits. The program's format was simple: singers mimed to their records, and the show's teenage audience danced.

Holidays

Pakistan: Pakistan Day / Republic Day.

Feast day of St. Gwinear, St. Turibius, St. Benedict the Hermit, St. Victorian, St. Ethelwald the Hermit, and St. Joseph Oriol.

Japan: Spring Imperial Festival or Shunki-Koreisan.

New Zealand, Otago, and Southland: Provincial Anniversary.

United Nations: World Metereological Day.

Events

1743 - George Frederic Handel's "Messiah" had its London premiere.

1775 - Patrick Henry made his famous call for America's independence from Britain, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" at a political convention.

1794 - Josiah G. Pierson patented a rivet machine.

1848 - Hungary proclaimed its independence of Austria.

1857 - Elisha Otis installed the first modern passenger elevator in a public building, in New York City.

1858 - Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patented the cable streetcar.

1880 - John Stevens patented the device called a grain crushing mill.

1903 - The Wright brothers obtained an airplane patent.

1909 - British Lt. Ernest Shackleton found the magnetic South Pole.

1919 - Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Italy. The name Fasci di Combattimento, came from the Italian peasant revolutionaries, or "Fighting Bands," from the 19th century.

1942 - The U.S. Army started moving Japanese-Americans to internment camps.

1950 - "Beat the Clock" premiered on TV.

1956 - Pakistan became an independent republic within the British Commonwealth.

1981 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teen-age girls seek abortions.

1989 - After 33 years, Dick Clark retired from hosting "American Bandstand."

2001 - Russia's orbiting Mir space station ended its 15-year trip with a fiery plunge into the South Pacific.

Births

1769 - William Smith, the "Father of English Geology."

1857 - Fannie Merritt Farmer, American cookbook author.

1900 - Erich Fromm, German psychologist.

1912 - Werner von Braun, German-born rocket pioneer.

1929 - Roger Bannister, British track star.

Deaths

1964 - Peter Lorre, Hungarian-born American film actor.