forming Time Warner. (Now Warner Bros. Discovery) The Purley station rail crash in London leaves five people dead and 94 injured. The first Australian Capital Territory elections are held. March 7 – Iran breaks off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. March 9 – Revolutions of 1989: The Soviet Union submits to the jurisdiction of the World Court. March 12 – Tim Berners-Lee produces the proposal document that will become the blueprint for the World Wide Web. March 13 – A geomagnetic storm causes the collapse of the Hydro-Québec power grid. 6,000,000 people are left without power for nine hours. Some areas in the northeastern U.S. and in Sweden also lose power, and aurorae are seen as far as Texas. March 14 Gun control: U.S. President George H. W. Bush bans the importation of certain guns deemed assault weapons into the United States. General Michel Aoun declares a "War of Liberation" to rid Lebanon of Syrian forces and their allies. March 15 Israel hands over Taba to Egypt, ending a seven-year territorial dispute. Mass demonstrations in Hungary, demanding democracy. March 16 – The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union approves agricultural reforms allowing farmers the right to lease state-owned farms for life. March 17 The Civic Tower of Pavia, built in the eleventh century, collapses. Alfredo Cristiani is elected as President of El Salvador. March 20 – Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke weeps on national television as he admits marital infidelity. March 22 Clint Malarchuk of the NHL Buffalo Sabres suffers a near-fatal injury when another player accidentally slits his throat. Asteroid 4581 Asclepius approaches the Earth at a distance of . March 23 – Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce that they have achieved cold fusion at the University of Utah. March 23–28 – The Socialist Republic of Serbia passes constitutional changes revoking the autonomy of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, triggering six days of rioting by the Albanian majority, during which at least 29 people are killed. March 24 – Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Alaska's Prince William Sound, the Exxon Valdez spills of oil after running aground. March 26 – 1989 Soviet Union legislative election: The first (and last) contested elections for the Soviet parliament, Congress of People's Deputies, result in losses for the Communist Party; the first session of the new Congress opens in late