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Trial of Soghomon Tehlirian

On 15 March 1921, Armenian student Soghomon Tehlirian assassinated Talaat Pasha, a leading Ottoman politician and the main architect of the Armenian genocide, in Berlin. About a million Armenians died in the genocide, including most of Tehlirian's family. He joined a clandestine assassination campaign seeking revenge. Tehlirian's trial (pictured) was held on 2 and 3 June 1921, and the defense strategy was to put Talaat on trial for the Armenian genocide. Several eyewitnesses to the genocide testified, resulting in "one of the most spectacular trials of the twentieth century". Tehlirian claimed he had acted alone, telling a dramatic, but untrue, story of witnessing the deaths of his family members. He argued: "I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer", and the jury acquitted him. International news coverage brought attention to the facts of the Armenian genocide. The coverage inspired Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to coin the term genocide and help codify it as a crime in international law. (Full article...)

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On this day

March 15: Ides of March

Michael III

856 – Byzantine emperor Michael III (pictured) overthrew his mother Theodora's regency to assume power for himself.
1147 – Reconquista: Portuguese troops under King Afonso I captured the city of Santarém from the Almoravids.
1875 – John McCloskey, Archbishop of New York, was created the first cardinal from the United States.
1972 – The Godfather, a gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on the novel of the same name by Mario Puzo, was released.
1990 – Iraqi authorities hanged Iranian freelance reporter Farzad Bazoft on charges of spying for Israel.

Daniele Comboni (b. 1831)
Grace Chisholm Young (b. 1868)
Arthur Compton (d. 1962)

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Today's featured picture

Gateway Generating Station is a combined-cycle, natural-gas-fired power station in Contra Costa County, California, on the southern shore of the San Joaquin River in Antioch. Built in 2001, and owned and operated by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the facility includes two gas turbines paired with heat recovery steam generators that power a steam turbine, seen on the left in this photograph, and an air-cooled condenser system and generator step-up transformers, seen on the right. The facility has a peak capacity of 580 megawatts.

Photograph credit: JPxG

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