site.btaToday’s Observances: March 9-10

March 9

Bulgaria:

- The Church marks the Day of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste.

The world:

- World DJ Day. 

On this date in Bulgarian history:

1230: Tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria and his army defeat  Theodore Comnenus Ducas, Ruler of Despotate of Epirus (one of Byzantine successor states), in Battle of Klokotnitsa (near Haskovo). Theodore is captured and later blinded. After Klokotnitsa, Bulgaria becomes the biggest Balkan state,  stretching between Black, Aegean and Adriatic Seas.

1933: Georgi Dimitrov is arrested in Berlin on charges of  setting Reichstag on fire.

1985: Ethnic Turkish terrorists stage bomb attack on board train near Bounovo Station. Seven people, including two children, are killed.

2004: German-Bulgarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce is 

inaugurated.

March 10 

Bulgaria:

- Day of Rescue of Bulgarian Jews and of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust and of the Crimes against Humanity.

On this date in Bulgarian history:

1870: Sultan Abdulaziz signs a royal decree for the establishment of an independent Bulgarian church under the name Bulgarian Exarchate.  

1943: Bowing to massive public pressure, the Bulgarian Government decides to revoke its decision on the deportation of all 48,600 Bulgarian Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp. 

1964: Diplomatic relations are established with Nigeria.     

1998: A monument is unveiled in Plovdiv, commemorating the 55th anniversary of the rescue of local Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps during World War II.

2004: The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) launches a news service called Bulgaria and the European Union, on its website www.bta.bg.

2005: A Bulgarian Culture and Information Centre is opened in North Macedonia's capital of Skopje by the two countries' presidents, Georgi Purvanov of Bulgaria and Branko Crvenkovski of the then Republic of Macedonia.