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Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa is a 2005 non-fiction book written by Stephen Lewis (pictured) for the Massey Lectures. Lewis was the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. His criticism of the United Nations, international organizations, and other diplomats, including naming specific people, was called undiplomatic and led to speculations that he would be removed from his UN position. In the book and the lectures, Lewis argues that significant changes are required to meet the Millennium Development Goals in Africa by their 2015 deadline. He explains the historical context of Africa since the 1980s, citing a succession of disastrous economic policies by international financial institutions that contributed to, rather than reduced, poverty. He connects the structural adjustment loans, with conditions of limited public spending on health and education infrastructure, to the uncontrolled spread of AIDS and subsequent food shortages. To help alleviate problems, he ends with potential solutions which mainly require increased funding by G8 countries to levels beyond what they promise. Book reviewers found the criticisms constructive and the writing sincere. His style focuses less on numbers and statistics, and more on connecting decisions by UN officials and western diplomats to consequences on the ground in Africa. (more...)

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• A fire destroys the Kasubi Tombs (main building pictured), a World Heritage Site in Uganda where the Bugandan kings are buried.
• As much as ninety percent of Chile's population loses power in a massive blackout.
• A series of bomb attacks kills at least 72 people in Lahore, Pakistan.
• The Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Paralympics is held in Vancouver, Canada.
• In Kazakhstan, at least 40 people are killed and more than 1,000 evacuated after the Kyzyl-Agash dam bursts.
• Mykola Azarov is appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine, following the resignation of Yulia Tymoshenko.
• Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, dies at the age of 81 during a visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• Carlos Slim becomes the first non-U.S. citizen to top Forbes' list of billionaires since 1994.
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March 19: Saint Joseph's Day in Western Christianity; Father's Day in various countries

• 1279 – The Song Dynasty in Imperial China ended with a victory by the Yuan Dynasty at the Battle of Yamen off the coast of Xinhui, Guangdong Province.
• 1687 – The search for the mouth of the Mississippi River led by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle ended with a mutiny and his murder in present-day Texas.
• 1915 – Pluto was photographed for the first time, 15 years before it was officially discovered by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory.
• 1945 – World War II: A single Japanese aircraft bombed the American aircraft carrier USS Franklin (pictured), killing over 700 of her crew and crippling the ship.
• 1978 – In response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the United Nations called on Israel to immediately withdraw its forces from Lebanon, and established the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

More anniversaries: March 18 – March 19 – March 20