Today in History: March 20, sarin gas attack in Tokyo subway

Today is Thursday, March 20, the 79th day of 2025. There are 286 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 20, 1995, in Tokyo, packages containing the deadly chemical sarin were opened on five separate subway trains in a domestic terror attack by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, causing 14 deaths and injuring more than 1,000.

Also on this date:

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte returned to Paris after escaping his exile on Elba, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule.

In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel about slavery, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was first published in book form after being serialized in the abolitionist newspaper The National Era; it would become the best-selling novel of the 19th century.

In 1854, the Republican Party of the United States was founded by opponents of slavery at a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin.

In 1976, kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was convicted of armed robbery for her part in a San Francisco bank holdup carried out by the Symbionese Liberation Army. (Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison; she was released after serving 22 months and was pardoned in 2001 by President Bill Clinton.)

In 1987, azidothymidine (AZT) became the first medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat HIV/AIDS.

In 1996, a jury in Los Angeles convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez of first-degree murder in the shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents. (They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.)

In 2014, President Barack Obama ordered economic sanctions against nearly two dozen members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and a major bank that provided them support, raising the stakes in an East-West showdown over Ukraine.

In 2018, in a phone call to Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump offered congratulations on Putin’s re-election victory; a senior official said Trump had been warned in briefing materials that he should not congratulate Putin.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Hal Linden is 94. Basketball Hall of Fame coach Pat Riley is 80. Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Orr is 77. Guitarist Jimmie Vaughan is 74. Film director Spike Lee is 68. Actor Holly Hunter is 67. Model-entrepreneur Kathy Ireland is 62. Actor David Thewlis is 62. Actor Michael Rapaport is 55. MMA commentator and former champion Daniel Cormier is 46. Actor-singer Christy Carlson Romano is 41. Tennis player Sloane Stephens is 32.

By The Associated Press