March 20, 2013 (Wednesday)
Arts and culture
- British horror writer James Herbert dies at the age of 69 in Sussex, England. (BBC) (The Bookseller) (The Guardian)
- The last surviving member of the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition George Lowe dies at the age of 89 after a long illness. (The Guardian) (Voice of America)[permanent dead link] (Huffington Post)
Business and economy
- 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis: President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades presents a new bailout package for Cypriot banks as Cyprus is hit with a liquidity crisis. (BBC) (ABC News Australia)
Disasters and accidents
- 19 miners, who were trapped underground, are rescued from the Rudna mine after a small earthquake hits the heavily industrialized region of Silesia, Poland. (BBC) (The Guardian)
International relations
- President of the United States Barack Obama begins a four-day visit to the Middle East, visiting Palestine and Israel. (BBC) (New York Daily News) (The Guardian)
- Venezuela cuts off an informal channel of communication with the United States because of comments by a US State Department official about next month's presidential election. (Reuters)
Law and crime
- South Korea is suspected to be the target of recent cyberattacks as major TV stations and bank's computer systems infrastructures experience disruptions followed by shutdown. Recent reports indicate that the systems were brought down by a computer virus. (BBC) (AP via Fox News)
Politics and elections
- President of Bangladesh Zillur Rahman dies in office at the age of 84 after a long illness at a hospital in Singapore. (BBC) (AP via ABC News)[permanent dead link]
Science and technology
- Scientists debate the possibility that the Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in September 1977, may have left the Solar System. (BBC) (AGU)
- Belgium's Pierre Deligne wins the 2013 Abel Prize in mathematics for seminal contributions to algebraic geometry. (Abel Prize) (The Hindu) (AP via The Washington Post)
Sport
- Leigh Nugent resigns as the head coach of the Australian swimming team following negative reports into the culture of the team. (ABC News Australia) (The Australian)