On March 23
No pivotal events are recorded on exactly March 23. The closest is Germ Theory of Disease Established by Pasteur and Koch on March 24, 1882 (1 day later).
This week in history (Mar 20 to Mar 26)
On 25 March 1807 the Slave Trade Act received royal assent, making it illegal for British subjects and British ships to engage in the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans; the ban took effect on 1 May 1807.
The germ theory of disease holds that specific microorganisms such as bacteria invade the body and cause specific infectious illnesses, overturning the long-dominant miasma theory that attributed disease to bad air.
Between 1600 and 1611 the institutional core of modern finance took shape in northwestern Europe.
On 21 March 1804 France promulgated the Civil Code of the French, soon known as the Code Napoléon.
On 25 March 1957 Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome, establishing the European Economic Community (EEC); a parallel treaty created the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).
On 21 March 1960 South African police opened fire on a crowd of several thousand unarmed Black protesters outside the police station in the township of Sharpeville, in the Transvaal.
The Bangladesh Liberation War arose from Bengali demands for self-determination in East Pakistan after the Pakistani military, under Yahya Khan, refused to honour the 1970 election won by the Awami League and launched Operation Searchlight…
On 20 March 2003 a US-led coalition including Britain, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq, opening with a 'shock and awe' bombing campaign aimed at the government of Saddam Hussein.
On 26 March 2015 a Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, intervening on behalf of the internationally recognised government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.