On This Day: Exxon Valdez spills oil in Gulf of Alaska

March 24 (UPI) --

In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England died after 44 years of rule. She was succeeded by King James VI of Scotland, uniting England and Scotland under a single British monarch.

In 1934, the United States granted independence to the Philippine Islands, effective July 4, 1946.

In 1975, the beaver became the official symbol of Canada.

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in the Gulf of Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil in the largest oil tanker spill in U.S. history.

In 1998, four girls and a teacher at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., were killed by bullets fired from a nearby wooded area. The shooters were two boys, ages 11 and 13, who were convicted as juveniles and served prison time.

In 1999, NATO airstrikes hit military targets across the Yugoslav union of Serbia-Montenegro after ethnic cleansing launched by Serbian forces against Kosovar Albanians.

In 2004, the European Commission fined software giant Microsoft $613 million for EU antitrust violations.

In 2012, former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, 71, underwent heart transplant surgery at a hospital in Falls Church, Va.

In 2014, a court in Minya, Egypt, sentenced 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death on charges including murder and attempted murder. Most of the suspects were tried in absentia.

In 2015, a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people, including German high school students, crashed in the French Alps in southern France. Everyone on board died.

In 2018, student activists pushed for an end to gun violence in the March for Our Lives protests across the country less than two months after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 people dead.