From Historynet: Today in History March 23

1657          France and England form an alliance against Spain.

1743          Handel's  Messiah is performed for the first time in London.

1775          American revolutionary hero 

Patrick Henry , while addressing the House of Burgesses, declares "give me liberty, or give me death!"

1791          Etta Palm , a Dutch champion of woman's rights, sets up a group of women's clubs called the Confederation of the Friends of Truth.

1848          Hungary proclaims its independence of Austria.

1857         Elisha Otis  installs the first modern passenger elevator in a public building, at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City.

1858          Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patents the cable street car, which runs on overhead cables.

1862          Confederate General 

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson  faces his only defeat at the Battle of Kernstown, Va.

1880          John Stevens  of Neenah, Wis., patents the grain crushing mill. This mill allows flour production to increase by 70 percent.

1901          A group of U.S. Army soldiers, led by Brigadier General Frederick Funston , capture 

Emilio Aguinaldo , the leader of the Philippine Insurrection of 1899.

1903          The Wright brothers  obtain an airplane patent.

1909          Theodore Roosevelt  begins an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.

1909          British Lt. Ernest Shackleton  finds the magnetic South Pole.

1917          Austrian Emperor Charles I  makes a peace proposal to French President Poincare .

1920          Great Britain denounces the United States because of its delay in joining the League of Nations.

1921          Arthur G. Hamilton  sets a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.

1927          Captain Hawthorne Gray  sets a new balloon record soaring to 28,510 feet.

1933          The Reichstag gives Adolf Hitler  the power to rule by decree.

1942          The Japanese occupy the Anadaman Islands in the Indian Ocean.

1951          U.S. paratroopers descend from flying boxcars in a surprise attack in Korea.

1956          Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic, although it is still within the British Commonwealth.

1967          Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.  calls the Vietnam War the biggest obstacle to the civil rights movement.

1970          Mafia boss Carlo Gambino  is arrested for plotting to steal $3 million.

1972          The United States calls a halt to the peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris.

1981          U.S. Supreme Court upholds a law making statutory rape a crime for men but not women.