Today in History: March 20

2004: The U.S. Army announced that charges were being brought against six American soldiers in connection with the reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war being held in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during the Iraq War.

1995: Top leaders of AUM Shinrikyo (Japanese: “AUM Supreme Truth”), a Japanese Buddhist sect founded in 1987 by Asahara Shoko, released nerve gas into a Tokyo subway this day in 1995, killing 12 people and injuring thousands.

1990: Namibia becomes an independent nation

1987: AZT (azidothymidine) became the first drug to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of AIDS.

1854: A meeting of Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats, and Free-Soilers in Ripon, Wisconsin, proposed the formation of what became the Republican Party in the United States.

1852: American author Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in book form.

1828: Playwright Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien, Norway.

1815: The Hundred Days—during which Napoleon, having ended his exile by escaping the island of Elba, would try to recapture his empire in France—began with Napoleon's arrival in Paris.

1770: German lyric poet Friedrich Hölderlin was born in Lauffen am Neckar, Württemberg.

1727: English physicist/astronomer Sir Isaac Newton died in London at age 84.

43: Roman poet Ovid was born in what is now Sulmona, Italy.