Today in History
Today is Sunday, March 13, the 72nd day of 2022. There are 293 days left in the year. Daylight saving time returns Sunday at 2 a.m. local time.
Today’s Highlight in History:
In 1925, the Tennessee General Assembly approved a bill prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution. (Gov. Austin Peay (pee) signed the measure on March 21; Tennessee repealed the law in 1967.)
On this date:
In 1781, the seventh planet of the solar system, Uranus, was discovered by Sir William Herschel.
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a measure prohibiting Union military officers from returning fugitive slaves to their owners.
In 1933, banks in the U.S. began to reopen after a “holiday” declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 1938, famed attorney Clarence S. Darrow died in Chicago.
In 1943, financier and philanthropist J.P. Morgan Jr., 75, died in Boca Grande, Florida.
In 1946, U.S. Army Pfc. Sadao Munemori was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for sacrificing himself to save fellow soldiers from a grenade explosion in Seravezza, Italy; he was the only Japanese-American service member so recognized in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
In 1954, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu began during the First Indochina War as Viet Minh forces attacked French troops, who were defeated nearly two months later.
In 1995, two Americans working for U.S. defense contractors in Kuwait, David Daliberti and William Barloon, were seized by Iraq after they strayed across the border; sentenced to eight years in prison, both were freed later the same year.
In 1996, a gunman burst into an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and opened fire, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.
In 2011, the estimated death toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami climbed past 10,000 as authorities raced to combat the threat of multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns while hundreds of thousands of people struggled to find food and water.
In 2013, Jorge Bergoglio (HOHR’-hay behr-GOHG’-lee-oh) of Argentina was elected pope, choosing the name Francis; he was the first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.
In 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot in her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, during a botched raid by plainclothes narcotics detectives; no drugs were found, and the warrant used to enter by force was later found to be flawed. (A grand jury brought no charges against officers in her death, and prosecutors said two officers who fired at her were justified because her boyfriend shot at them; one officer was found not guilty of endangering Taylor’s neighbors by firing into the side of her apartment during the raid.)
Ten years ago: A resurgent Rick Santorum swept to victory in Republican presidential primaries in Alabama and Mississippi. Twenty-two young people returning from a ski holiday and six adults died when their bus crashed inside a tunnel in southern Switzerland. A ferry carrying more than 200 people collided with a cargo boat and sank just short of Dhaka, Bangladesh; most on board died. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. said it would stop publishing print editions of its flagship encyclopedia.
Five years ago: Once the world’s most-wanted fugitive, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the man known as “Carlos the Jackal,” appeared in a French court for a deadly 1974 attack on a Paris shopping arcade that killed two people. (He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the third time.)
One year ago: Marvelous Marvin Hagler, the middleweight boxing great whose title reign and career ended with a split-decision loss to “Sugar” Ray Leonard in 1987, died at age 66 at his New Hampshire home.
Today’s Birthdays: Jazz musician Roy Haynes is 97. Songwriter Mike Stoller (STOH’-ler) is 89. Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka is 83. R&B/gospel singer Candi Staton is 82. Opera singer Julia Migenes is 73. Actor William H. Macy is 72. Comedian Robin Duke is 68. Actor Dana Delany is 66. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., is 65. Rock musician Adam Clayton (U2) is 62. Jazz musician Terence Blanchard is 60. Actor Christopher Collet is 54. Rock musician Matt McDonough (Mudvayne) is 53. Actor Annabeth Gish is 51. Actor Tracy Wells is 51. Rapper-actor Common is 50. Rapper Khujo (Goodie Mob, The Lumberjacks) is 50. Singer Glenn Lewis is 47. Actor Danny Masterson is 46. Actor Noel Fisher is 38. Singers Natalie and Nicole Albino (Nina Sky) are 38. Actor Emile Hirsch is 37. U.S. Olympic gold medal skier Mikaela Shiffrin is 27. Tennis star Coco Gauff is 18.
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