In this April 1989 file photo, an oil covered bird is examined on an island in Prince William Sound, Alaska. (AP Photo/Jack Smith)
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 23, 2025
Today in history:
On March 24, 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil.
In 1882, German scientist Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis.
In 1921, the Women’s Olympiad, the first international women’s sporting event, began in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
In 1980, Catholic Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador was shot to death by a sniper as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador.
In 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it had ever attacked a sovereign country.
In 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525, an Airbus A320, crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board; investigators said the jetliner was deliberately downed by the 27-year-old co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz.
In 2016, a U.N. war crimes court convicted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić of genocide and nine other charges for orchestrating a campaign of terror that left 100,000 people dead during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia; Karadžić was sentenced to 40 years in prison. (The sentence was later increased to life in prison.)