site.btaObservances: March 1-2

March 1

Bulgaria:

- Baba Marta. Traditional Bulgarian festival celebrating spring.

On this date in Bulgarian history:

1881: Supreme Audit Office is inaugurated (closed down in 1947, succeeded by Bulgarian National Audit Office in 1995).

1912: Act establishing Military Academy is adopted (endorsed by royal decree on April 20, 1912). Now G.S. Rakovski National Defence College.

1936: First issue of the Trud daily comes out.

1941: Bulgaria joins Tripartite Pact, ending its neutrality and effectively becoming Germany's satellite.

2001: 16th Population, Housing and Farm Census in Bulgaria begins (until March 14, 2001).

2001: European Parliament reaffirms visa-free travel for Bulgarians. 

2007: Twenty-eight administrative courts, established under Administrative Procedure Code (passed March 29, 2006), go into operation.

March 2

The world:

Belarus: Day of Remembrance of Holocaust Victims.

On this date in Bulgarian history:

1923: Settlement of Bulgarian reparations with Allied Powers gets under way.

1951: State Savings Bank (DSK) is established.

1982: Zhelyu Zhelev publishes his groundbreaking book Fascism: The Totalitarian State. Book banned from sale soon afterwards. Brings great credit to Zhelev, who is later President of Bulgaria (1990-1997).

1984: First representative display of National History Museum opens at Sofia's Palace of Justice for 1,300th anniversary of Bulgarian State.

1993: Representative Office of German Economy in Bulgaria opens (succeeded by German-Bulgarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in March 2004). 

2007: Notariats of Bulgaria and Romania join Brussels-based Council of the Notariats of the European Union. 

2007: Parliament votes, 163-60 with one abstention, to defeat a motion of no confidence in Sergei Stanishev Cabinet.