Typhoon Maemi was the most powerful typhoon to strike South Korea since records began in 1904. Maemi formed on September 4, 2003 in the western Pacific and became a typhoon on September 8. Passing over the Japanese island of Miyako-jima on September 10, it left 95 percent of residents without power and caused 58.5 mm (2.30 in) of rainfall in an hour and 402.5 mm (15.85 in) in 24 hours. Maintaining much of its intensity, it made landfall west of Busan, South Korea, on September 12, where winds reached 154 km/h (96 mph). The port sustained heavy damage, restricting exports for months. On Jeju Island, it produced a peak wind gust of 216 km/h (134 mph) and a minimum pressure of 950 mbar (28 inHg), both records for the country. Nationwide, high winds destroyed about 5,000 houses and damaged 13,000 buildings, leaving 25,000 people homeless. Crop damage resulted in the poorest rice harvest in 23 years. Across South Korea, Maemi killed 117 people, and damage totaled 5.52 trillion won (US$4.8 billion). (Full article...)

Gengoroh Tagame

• ... that a 1994 manga series by artist Gengoroh Tagame (pictured) was the first gay comic in Japan to turn a profit?


• ... that 23-year-old Michael Oliver refereed the 2009 Football League One play-off Final at Wembley Stadium the day after his father had officiated the 2009 Football League Two play-off Final?


• ... that anti-vaccine activist Simone Gold participated in the storming of the U.S. Capitol?


• ... that when Big Red Envelope was released, nearly half of its audience came from fourth-tier Chinese cities?


• ... that Joachim Herz was the stage director of an unconventional production of the Ring cycle at the Leipzig Opera, completed in 1976, and of the opening performance of the restored Semperoper in 1985?


• ... that Littledale's whistling rat can be distinguished from Brants's whistling rat by the pitch and length of its calls?


• ... that Candace Brightman was the Grateful Dead's longtime lighting engineer?


• ... that John Rennie the Elder built Ken Bridge twice?

Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic

• A series of explosions in Bata, Equatorial Guinea, leaves at least 105 people dead and more than 600 others injured.


• In Zamfara, Nigeria, 279 girls who had been kidnapped from a secondary school by armed bandits are released.


• In tennis, Naomi Osaka wins the women's singles and Novak Djokovic wins the men's singles at the Australian Open (both winners pictured).


• Porfirije is enthroned as the 46th Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

March 11

Aftermath of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami at Sendai Airport

• 222 – Disaffected with Roman emperor Elagabalus's disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos, the Praetorian Guard assassinated him and his mother, throwing his mutilated body into the Tiber.


• 1851 – Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto premiered at La Fenice in Venice.


• 1946 – Rudolf Höss, the first commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, was captured by British troops.


• 1978 – After hijacking a bus north of Tel Aviv, Israel, members of the Palestine Liberation Organization faction Fatah engaged in a shootout with police, resulting in the deaths of 38 civilians and most of the perpetrators.


• 2011 – A massive earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan (damage pictured) and triggered a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.