TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, MARCH 2, the 61st day of 2017. There are 304 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY: On this date in 1867, Howard University, a historically black school of higher learning in Washington, D.C., was founded as it received a congressional charter.
In 1793, the first president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, was born near Lexington, Va.
In 1836, the Republic of Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico.
In 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.
In 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship as President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act. Also in 1917, actor, producer, director and bandleader Desi Arnaz was born in Santiago de Cuba.
In 1939, Roman Catholic Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected pope at age 63; he took the name Pius XII.
In 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks’ famous act of defiance, Claudette Colvin, a black high school student in Montgomery, Ala., was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger.
In 1965, the movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music,” starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, had its world premiere in New York.
In 1989, representatives from the 12 European Community nations agreed to ban all production of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), the synthetic compounds blamed for destroying the Earth’s ozone layer, by the end of the 20th century.
In 2005, the number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war reached at least 1,500, according to an Associated Press count.
Ten years ago: A charter bus carrying a college baseball team from Bluffton University in Ohio plunged off an Atlanta highway ramp and slammed into the pavement below, killing seven people, including the driver. Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey resigned following a scandal over substandard conditions for wounded Iraq soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Anna Nicole Smith was buried in the Bahamas following a lavish memorial service.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor John Cullum and author Tom Wolfe are 87. Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev is 86. Actress Barbara Luna is 78. Author John Irving is 75. Actress Cassie Yates is 66. Actress Laraine Newman is 65. Former Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., is 64. Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and singer Jay Osmond are 62. Tennis player Kevin Curren is 59. Country singer Larry Stewart (Restless Heart) is 58. Rock singer Jon Bon Jovi is 55. Blues singer-musician Alvin Youngblood Hart is 54. Actor Daniel Craig is 49. Actor Richard Ruccolo is 45. Rock musician Casey (Jimmie’s Chicken Shack) is 41. Rock singer Chris Martin (Coldplay) and actress Heather McComb are 40. Actress Bryce Dallas Howard is 36. NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is 35. Actor Robert Iler is 32. Actress Nathalie Emmanuel is 28. Singer-rapper-actress Becky G is 20.