TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, MARCH 13,
the 72nd day of 2017. There are 293 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1947, the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical “Brigadoon,” about a Scottish village that magically reappears once every hundred years, opened on Broadway. “The Best Years of Our Lives” won the Academy Award for best picture of 1946; Oscars also went to its director, William Wyler, lead actor Fredric March and supporting actor Harold Russell; Olivia De Havilland won best actress for “To Each His Own”; Anne Baxter won best supporting actress for “The Razor’s Edge.”
In 1865,
Confederate President Jefferson Davis signed a measure allowing slaves to enlist in the Confederate States Army with the promise they would be set free.
I In 1925,
the Tennessee General Assembly approved a bill prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution. Gov. Austin Peay signed the measure on March 21.
In 1980,
Ford Motor Co. Chairman Henry Ford II announced that he was stepping down, the same day a jury in Winamac, Ind., found the company not guilty of reckless homicide in the fiery deaths of three young women in a Ford Pinto.
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 1997,
a Jordanian soldier fired on Israeli junior high school girls on a field trip, killing seven of them. The soldier, Cpl. Ahmed Daqamseh, was later sentenced by a military court to life in prison.
In 2013,
Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope, choosing the name Francis.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Jazz musician Roy Haynes is 92. Country singer Jan Howard is 87. Songwriter Mike Stoller is 84. Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka is 78. Opera singer Julia Migenes is 68. Actor William H. Macy is 67. Comedian Robin Duke is 63. Actress Glenne Headly is 62. Actress Dana Delany is 61. Rock musician Adam Clayton (U2) is 57. Jazz musician Terence Blanchard is 55. Actor Christopher Collet is 49. Rock musician Matt McDonough (Mudvayne) is 48. Actresses Annabeth Gish and Tracy Wells are 46. Actor Noel Fisher, and singers Natalie and Nicole Albino (Nina Sky) are 33. Actor Emile Hirsch is 32.