Category: Today

On March 29, 1990, the Czechoslovak parliament proved unable to reach an agreement on what to call the country after the “Velvet Revolution” — in which the Communist Party was booted from sole power. This sparked the “Hyphen War,” a tongue-​in-​cheek moniker for the dispute between Czechs and Slovaks about official recognition of the two nations’ equal status. (The Slovak representatives wanted to insert a hyphen into the name, to make the Slovak part stand out.) Eventually, the dispute was resolved with the “Velvet Divorce,” in which the two countries split up, on New Year’s Day, 1993, the two countries now being named:

Czech Republic, also known as Czechia;

Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic (Slovak: Slovenská republika).

On March 28, 1936, Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa was born. This recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature ran, in 1990, for the presidency of Peru, but lost to Alberto Fujimori. His novels include La casa verde (The Green House), La guerra del fin del mundo (The War of the End of the World), La fiesta del chivo (The Feast of the Goat), and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which was filmed as Tune in Tomorrow.

On March 27, 1901, American illustrator Carl Barks was born. After much struggles as an artist, he found a place within the Disney empire, creating the Donald Duck comic books and characters such as Scrooge McDuck. But he worked anonymously for most his career, with fans dubbing him The Duck Man and The Good Duck Artist before his identity was discovered.

He died in 2001.

On March 26, 1991, local self-​government in South Korea was restored after three decades of centralized control.

On March 25, 1965, civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr., successfully completed their four-​day, 50-​mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.

On March 24, 1765, the Kingdom of Great Britain passed the Quartering Act, which required the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops.

On the same date in 1855, slavery was abolished in Venezuela.