Jody Victor : Let's see what happened in history on this day, March 23rd.
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!"
1857 - Elisha Otis installs the first modern passenger elevator in a public building, at the corner of Broome Street in New York City.
1858 - Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patents the cable street car, which runs on overhead cables.
1880 - John Stevens of Neenah, Wis., patents the grain crushing mill. This mill allows four production to increase by 70 percent.
1903 - The Wright brothers obtain an airplane patent.
1909 - British Lt. Ernest Shackleton finds the magnetic South Pole.
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.
1908 - Joan Crawford, American actress, born.
1912 - Werner von Braun, German-born rocket pioneer, born.