March

March 1, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis, 2014 Ukrainian revolution: Russian President Vladimir Putin formally asks the Federation Council of the Russian Parliament for approval to use armed forces in Ukraine. He receives unanimous support. The Council also demands for President Putin to recall the Russian Federation ambassador to the United States. (Russia Today)

 -US President Barack Obama warns Russia, saying that any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be "deeply destabilizing," and that "the United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine." (CNN) 

 -De facto Prime Minister of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov claims control of all military, police and other forces in Crimea and asks the President of Russia Vladimir Putin for assistance. (AP) 

 -Russian Federation ambassador to the United Kingdom is summoned by the British Secretary of State William Hague. (BBC)

March 1, 2014, Kunming station massacre A group of knife-wielding terrorist suspects attacks people at the Kunming Railway Station in the city of Kunming in Yunnan province, south-western China. At least 29 people are killed and 130 others injured. (xinhuanet.com)

March 1, 2014, An entry on the documentary film Fuck causes offence after the Wikipedia website features it prominently on its home page. (The Houstonian)

March 1, 2014, 2014 Venezuelan protests: Clashes continue between anti-government protesters and security forces after 41 people are arrested. (Al Jazeera)

March 1, 2014, In U.S. college basketball, Wichita State becomes the first NCAA Division I men's team to complete an undefeated regular season since Saint Joseph's in 2003–04. (AP via ESPN)

March 2, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis, 2014 Ukrainian revolution: Ukraine's Navy commander-in-chief, Denis Berezovsky who was appointed only March 1, defects to the Russia-backed Crimea government. (Ria Novosty via inSerbia) 

 

 

-Ukraine's acting president Oleksandr Turchynov says Ukraine's airspace has been closed to any non-civilian aircraft. (Reuters)

March 2, 2014,

 

 March 3, 2014, Release of Pharrell Williams album Girl

March 3, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis: The commander of the Ukrainian frigate Hetman Sahaydachniy reportedly confirms that the ship never defected to Russia as reported in Russian media. (Ministry of Defence of Ukraine) 

-Ireland's deputy leader Eamon Gilmore responds by summoning his Russian ambassador for talks. (The Irish Times) 

 -The Lithuanian and Polish presidents call for NATO treaty Article 4 consultations on the basis that Russia is executing military maneuvers in Kaliningrad, close to the borders with Lithuania and Poland. (Lithuania Tribune) 

 -Reuters reports that armed men have seized a ferry checkpoint between Crimea and Russia. (Fox News)

March 3, 2014, 86th Academy Awards: 

-12 Years a Slave wins three Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. (Los Angeles Times) 

 -Italian film The Great Beauty wins the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. (Reuters) 

 -Alfonso Cuarón wins the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Gravity, which earned the most Awards during the ceremony, a total of seven. (euronews) 

 -Matthew McConaughey wins the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club. (Reuters) 

-Cate Blanchett wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Blue Jasmine. (Los Angeles Times) 

Frozen wins two Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. (LA Times)

March 3, 2014,

 

March 3, 2014, Frozen becomes the eighteenth film and second animated film to cross the $1 billion mark in worldwide box office grosses. (Variety)

March 3, 2014, Microsoft founder Bill Gates regains the top spot as the world's richest person, according to Forbes magazine's annual ranking of global billionaires. (BBC)

March 3, 2014, The trial of Oscar Pistorius begins in Pretoria. (New York Daily News)

March 3, 2014, Scientists announce the discovery of pithovirus, the largest giant virus yet known, from a 30,000 year old sample of frozen tundra. (Nature)

 

March 4, 2014, Release of Ashanti album Braveheart

March 4, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis:Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a press conference, saying that “force isn’t needed right now” after deploying roughly 16,000 troops to Crimea. (Reuters) 

-Swedish foreign secretary Carl Bildt compares the ousted Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych to Norwegian traitor Vidkun Quisling after Yanukovych asked Russia to intervene to restore "law and order" in the country. (Dagens Næringsliv) 

-Russia's UN ambassador says to the UN Security Council that Ukraine's fugitive former President Viktor Yanukovych requested Russian soldiers in the strategic Crimea region "to establish legitimacy, peace, law and order," contradicting the president's own comments last week. (Times of India) 

-Vladimir Putin orders troops near the Ukraine border to return to their bases with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling the military exercises a "success". (Telegraph)

March 4, 2014,

 

March 4, 2014, Italy releases 2m euros to save the ancient city of Pompeii after flooding causes walls to collapse. (BBC)

March 5, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis: UN Envoy Robert Serry is ordered to leave Crimea at gunpoint after being threatened by 10 - 15 armed men. (AP)

-Saying she cannot be part of a network that "whitewashes the actions of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," Washington-based anchor Liz Wahl resigns on-air from the Russian government-backed news channel RT. (The Guardian)

March 6, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis: The European Union freezes the assets of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich, two of his sons, and dozens of his advisers. (Los Angeles Times)

-The European Union and UN Security Council both hold emergency meetings to talk about the current crisis in Ukraine. (AFP via Times of India)
-President Barack Obama signs an executive order placing sanctions and visa bans on people that contributed to the current crisis in Crimea. (New York Times)

March 6, 2014, Series Premiere of Chicagoland
 

March 6, 2014, Series Premiere of Saint George
 

 

March 6, 2014, Series Premiere of Sirens

 

March 6, 2014, Pope Francis acknowledge that civil unions for LGBT people is a governmental move for economic and health management. (TIME)

March 6, 2014, Getty Images allows the free use of 35 million photos. (BBC)

March 6, 2014, Two members of the protest band Pussy Riot are left with chemical burns and head injuries after being attacked by a group of youths in a McDonald's. (AFP via Google News)

March 6, 2014, President of Tunisia Moncef Marzouki lifts a state of emergency that was put in place after the 2011 Tunisian Revolution. (BBC)

March 6, 2014, Prince Harry launches the Invictus Games, a Paralympic-style sporting championship for wounded soldiers. (BBC)

March 7, 2014, Release of 300: Rise of an Empire

March 7, 2014, Mr. Peabody & Sherman

 

March 7, 2014, The Grand Budapest Hotel

 

March 7, 2014, 2014 Winter Paralympics: The Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Russia officially opens. (CBC)

March 7, 2014, A statue of Iset, daughter of King Amenhotep III who was the grandfather of Tutankhamun and ruler of Ancient Egypt around 3,350 years ago, has been unearthed by a team of Egyptian and European archaeologists. The statue, which depicts Iset alone without her father, is the first of its kind ever discovered. (GMA News)

March 7, 2014, Staples Inc. plans to close 225 store locations and cut $500 million from its budget, citing low sales and internet competition. (Boston Globe)

March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Malaysia Airlines loses contact with a Boeing 777-200ER passenger plane carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, China. (BBC)

March 8, 2014, United States Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul wins the annual CPAC presidential straw poll with 31% of the vote. (Real Clear Politics)

March 9, 2014, Series Premiere of Resurrection

March 9, 2014, Series Premiere of Cosmos: Spacetime Odyssey

 

March 9, 2014,

March 9, 2014, In U.S. college basketball, Wichita State defeats Indiana State 83–69 to win the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, becoming the first Division I men's team to enter the NCAA Tournament unbeaten since UNLV in 1991. (Sports Illustrated)

March 10, 2014, Series Premiere of Believe

March 10, 2014,

March 10, 2014,

 
March 10, 2014, Irish fruit firm Fyffes and U.S. rival Chiquita agree to combine, creating the world's largest banana company in an all-stock deal valued at about $1.07 billion. (BBC)
March 10, 2014, Pizza chain Sbarro files for chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in 3 years. (Reuters)

March 11, 2014, Series Premiere of From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series

March 11, 2014,

March 11, 2014,

 
March 11, 2014, Colorado says it has collected $2 million in taxes from marijuana sales in the month of January. (The Washington Post)
March 11, 2014, Men's Wearhouse buys rival JoS. A. Bank Clothiers for $1.8 billion. (Reuters)
March 11, 2014, Fourteen Caribbean nations file a lawsuit against the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands for damages caused during the Atlantic slave trade. (TIME)

March 12, 2014, An explosion in the New York City neighbourhood of East Harlem kills 8 and injures over 70. (Pix 11)

March 12, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: China requests activation of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters meaning international space agencies join an "unprecedented" search for the Malaysian airliner which disappeared over an ocean Saturday. (Al Jazeera)

-A crowdsourcing search effort after the vanished airliner finds a silhouette in the water of similar size and shape to the lost plane. Also, a Chinese satellite sights sizable pieces of debris. (CNN)
March 12, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis: Russia says planned U.S. financial aid to Ukraine is illegal. (Reuters)
 March 12, 2014, Sir Tim Berners-Lee calls for a World Wide Web equivalent of the Magna Carta, on the 25th anniversary of his proposal for the World Wide Web. (BBC)

March 13, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis: Leaders in the Ukrainian Kherson Oblast threaten to shut off all power and water to Crimea if the referendum goes forward.(FOX)

-Russia masses its military near the Ukrainian border again as new military operations are announced. (New York Times)

March 13, 2014, An intoxicated hit-and-run driver in Austin, Texas, United States, drives into a nighttime crowd at the South by Southwest festival, killing two and injuring 23 (USA Today)
March 13, 2014, A U.S. newspaper report claims Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 flew for hours after vanishing from radars Saturday. (Al Jazeera)
March 13, 2014, A magnitude 6.3 earthquake occurs near Japan's Kyushu Island. (Chicago Tribune)

 March 14, 2014, Release of Veronica Mars

March 14, 2014, Release of Need for Speed

March 14, 2014, Release of Better Living Through Chemistry

 
March 14, 2014, Release of The Single Moms Club

March 14, 2014, The United States announces plans to relinquish remaining controls of the Internet following revelations of National Security Agency surveillance last year. (Washington Post)
March 14, 2014, American sandwich shop chain Quiznos files for bankruptcy. (Businessweek)
March 14, 2014, United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov meet in London, United Kingdom, to discuss the current Crimean crisis. (New York Times)
 March 15, 2014, The Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak states that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was deliberately steered off course for reasons unknown and then flew for almost seven hours more. (AsiaOne)

March 16, 2014, Series Premiere of Crisis

March 16, 2014, Crimean referendum, 2014: Voters in Crimea vote overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia. Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States condemn the referendum, which did not give voters the option of the status quo. (BBC)

March 16, 2014, 2014 Winter Paralympics: The Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Russia officially concludes. (CBC)
March 16, 2014, In U.S. men's college basketball, the field for the NCAA Division I Tournament is set. Florida is the #1 overall seed, with the other top seeds being Arizona, Virginia, and unbeaten Wichita State. (AP via ESPN)

March 17, 2014, Evidence of cosmic inflation from the BICEP2 experiment is announced by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. (BBC)

March 17, 2014, The US Geological Survey records a 4.4 magnitude earthquake in Los Angeles, California. (BBC)

March 17, 2014, President of the United States Barack Obama announces that the United States will sanction Russian officials that contributed to the current Crimean crisis. (Voice of America)
March 17, 2014, A 6.7 magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of Chile with officials issuing precautionary tsunami warnings for the nation's coast. (CNN)
March 17, 2014, Model and fashion designer L'Wren Scott is found dead in her New York apartment. (BBC)

March 18, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis - Simferopol Incident: Japan announces it will fall in line with American sanctions against Russia for its role in promoting the secession of Crimea from Ukraine. (AP via Fox News)

-The parliaments of Russia and Crimea sign an accession treaty. (Washington Post)
-Transnistria formally requests to join the Russian Federation. (Vestnik Kavkaza)

March 18, 2014, President of the United States Barack Obama presents the Medal of Honor to 24 veterans, all of whom served in the Vietnam War, World War II and the Korean War. (AP via ABC)
March 18, 2014, At least two people are dead and one is in critical condition after a KOMO-TV news helicopter crashes near the Seattle Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. (AP via Washington Times)

March 19, 2014, Series Premiere of The 100

March 19, 2014, Series Premiere of Doll & Em
 

March 19, 2014,

March 19, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis Russian forces overrun the Ukrainian Navy headquarters in Sevastopol and another naval base. (AFP via Google)

 March 20, 2014,

March 20, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis: The Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, announces the possibility of further sanctions from the European Union against Russia for the invasion and annexation of Crimea. (BBC)

-The President of the United States, Barack Obama, announces further sanctions against Russia in response to the annexation of Crimea.(Reuters)
 March 21, 2014, Release of Muppet's Most Wanted

March 21, 2014, Release of Bad Words

March 21, 2014, Release of Divergent

March 21, 2014, Release of God's Not Dead

March 21, 2014, Release of Jorodowsky's Dune

March 21, 2014, 2014 Crimean Crisis: The Russian Federation Council, the upper house of the Federal Assembly, approves the annexation of Crimea. (AP via Yahoo! News)

-The President of Russia Vladimir Putin signs the legislation completing the annexation of Crimea. (Reuters)
-Ukraine signs an association accord with the European Union in defiance of Russia. (AFP via Google News)

March 21, 2014, American judge Bernard A. Friedman of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan overturns Michigan's ban on same-sex marriages. (AP via Washington Post)

March 22, 2014, Series 2 Premiere of Da Vinci's Demons

March 22, 2014, 2014 Oso mudslide: A landslide kills two people, and injures six in Oso, Washington, United States. (CNN)

March 22, 2014, 2014 Galveston Bay fuel oil spill: A barge carrying nearly a million gallons of oil collides with a ship in Galveston Bay on the coast of the US state of Texas causing an oil spill. (AP)

March 22, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis: Russian troops capture Novofedorivka, an airbase of the Ukrainian Navy in the western region of the Crimean Peninsula. (BBC)

March 23, 2014, 2014 Oso mudslide: Eighteen people are still missing after a landslide Saturday in Oso, Snohomish County, in America's Washington state that has claimed at least three lives. (Yahoo News)
March 23, 2014, The United Nations Children's Fund reports that an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus that has so far claimed the lives of 59 victims has spread from southern Guinea to the capital Conakry. (AAP via News Limited)
 March 24, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Chinese aircrew report seeing "suspicious objects" in the southern Indian Ocean while searching for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane. (Courier Mail)

-Najib Razak, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, announces that with information from the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch, flight MH370 went down over the southern Indian Ocean with "all lives lost." (CNN)

March 24, 2014, 2014 Crimean crisis: The interim President of Ukraine Olexander Turchynov orders Ukrainian forces to withdraw from Crimea. (BBC)

-UK Prime Minister David Cameron says the planned 40th G8 summit scheduled to be held in the Russian city of Sochi will not take place because of Russia's actions in Crimea. (BBC)
-The 2014 Nuclear Security Summit commences in The Hague, Netherlands. (Al Jazeera)
-The death toll from the Oso mudslide in the US state of Washington rises to fourteen with dozens of people unaccounted for. (AP via Yahoo! News)

March 24, 2014, The death toll from the Lake Albert boat disaster on March 22 rises to 107. (CNN)
March 24, 2014, A train overruns the buffers at Chicago O'Hare Airport station, injuring 33 people.(Chicago Tribune)
March 24, 2014, Islamist unrest in Egypt (2013–present): A court in Minya, Egypt, sentences 528 supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi to death for a range of offenses including murdering a policeman and attacks on people and property. It is the largest mass death sentence handed down in recent history anywhere in the world. (BBC)

March 25, 2014, Garda phone tapping scandal: Martin Callinan resigns as Commissioner of Ireland's Garda Síochána (national police) over his "disgusting" comment about whistleblowers made to a parliamentary committee. Callinan had also been involved in controversy over the recent surveillance/bugging of GSOC. (BBC)

 -As Callinan goes, details emerge that the national police have been involved in phone tapping since the 1980s: the Irish Government establishes an inquiry into the matter. (BBC)
 -A former Garda is found to have perverted the course of justice on two occasions and admits having cocaine for sale or supply. (RTÉ News)
-A letter titled “Recordings of Telephone Conversations made and retained in Garda Stations” is leaked revealing that Callinan mentioned the telephone tapping to the Department of Justice more than two weeks ago and that the Attorney General knew on 11 November 2013. (The Journal)

March 25, 2014, 2014 Oso mudslide: The death toll has risen to 16 with an additional 8 bodies located and scores missing. (AP via Washington Post)
 March 25, 2014, The World Health Organisation estimates that air pollution contributed to seven million deaths in 2012. (The Telegraph)
March 25, 2014, Four men are arrested after BASE jumping from the top of the World Trade Center in New York City. (CNN)

March 26, 2014,

March 26, 2014, Garda phone tapping scandal in the Republic of Ireland: Alan Shatter fights for his political survival in front of the Republic's parliament when he faces questions about yesterday's revelations of decades-long nationwide bugging. (The Guardian)
March 26, 2014, The Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson confirms that British law enforcement agencies have threatened to close the newspaper over its role in publishing global surveillance information obtained from U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden. (The Irish Times)
March 26, 2014, A massive fire breaks out in Back Bay, Boston killing 2 firefighters and injuring at least 16 people. (New York Daily News)
March 26, 2014, Social games developer King completes its initial public offering, valuing the company at US$7 billion. (Forbes)
March 26, 2014, Three U.S. Secret Service agents are sent home due to a "drunken incident" ahead of U.S. president Barack Obama's arrival in the Netherlands. (The Guardian)
March 26, 2014, North Korea fires two mid-range ballistic missiles as the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea meet to discuss the security threat it poses to the region. (Al Jazeera)
March 26, 2014, A Turkish court lifts the ban on Twitter imposed by the government after a user spread allegations of corruption. (BBC)
March 26, 2014, California State Senator Leland Yee is arrested in a raid involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the California Highway Patrol for alleged firearms trafficking, bribery, and corruption. (KRON)
 March 26, 2014, The first-known ringed asteroid, 10199 Chariklo, is discovered. (ESO)

March 27, 2014, Series Premiere of Surviving Jack
 

March 27, 2014, Holy See-United States relations: President of the United States Barack Obama meets Pope Francis for the first time since Francis' inauguration. (Los Angeles Times)

 
March 27, 2014,  Turkey blocks access to YouTube after a high-level intelligence leak. (Business Insider)
March 27, 2014, The first synthetic chromosome is created for integration into a yeast cell. (BBC)
March 27, 2014, A study finds that Cuvier's beaked whale is capable of diving to a depth of 3.2km and staying under water for 137 minutes, both records for a mammal.(News.com.au)
March 28, 2014, Release of Noah

March 28, 2014, Release of Sabotage

March 28, 2014, Release of Cesar Chavez

March 28, 2014, Release of The Raid 2: Berandal

March 29, 2014, 

March 29, 2014, 

March 29, 2014, The first same-sex marriages take place in the United Kingdom after they were given the legal authority to proceed in England and Wales from midnight UTC. (BBC)
 
March 30, 2014,

March 31, 2014, Series Premiere of Friends With Better Lives