This Day in History: Iskander Mirza sworn in as first president of Pakistan

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on March 23:

1956 – Major-General Iskander Mirza sworn in as first provisional president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

1966 – The Archbishop of Canterbury met the Pope in Rome, the first meeting between the heads of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches for 400 years.

1996 – Lee Teng-hui was sworn in as Taiwan’s first democratically elected president.

1998 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin dismissed Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and his entire cabinet.

2001 – Remnants of Russia’s Mir space station plunged into the Pacific Ocean, after engineers ended the laboratory’s 15-year mission in space.

2002 – An Egyptian engineer was found guilty of spying for Israel and sentenced to 15 years in jail with hard labour after President Hosni Mubarak overturned a previous acquittal.

2004 – Mijailo Mijailovic, the self-confessed killer of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, was sentenced to life in prison.

2004 – Seventy suspected mercenaries made their first court appearance in Zimbabwe, charged with conspiracy to overthrow the leader of Equatorial Guinea.

2008 – Sophie Edington sets new world record in women’s 50m backstroke.

2013 – Earth hour event in Shanghai attempts world record for blowing out most candles.

2014 – Spain’s former Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez dies.

(Reuters)