TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SATURDAY, MARCH 18, the 77th day of 2017. There are 288 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1937, in America’s worst school disaster, nearly 300 people, most of them children, were killed in a natural gas explosion at the New London Consolidated School in Rusk County, Texas.
In 1925, the Tri-State Tornado struck southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana, resulting in some 700 deaths.
In 1940, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agreed to join Germany’s war against France and Britain.
In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the War Relocation Authority, which was put in charge of evacuating “persons whose removal is necessary in the interests of national security,” with Milton S. Eisenhower, the youngest brother of Dwight D. Eisenhower, as its director.
In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill. Hawaii became a state on Aug. 21, 1959.
In 1965, the first spacewalk took place when Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule,
secured by a tether.
In 1990, thieves made off with 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The crime remains unsolved.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Country singer Charley Pride is 83. Country singer Margie Bowes is 76. Actor Kevin Dobson is 74. Jazz musician Bill Frisell is 66. Actor Geoffrey Owens is 56. Actor Thomas Ian Griffith, singersongwriter James McMurtry and TV personality Mike Rowe are 55. Singer-actress Vanessa L. Williams is 54. Olympic gold medal speedskater Bonnie Blair and country musician Scott Saunders (Sons of the Desert) are 53. Actor David Cubitt is 52. Rock musician Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) is 51. Rock singer-musician Miki Berenyi is 50. Actor Michael Bergin is 48. Rapper-actress-talk show host Queen Latifah is 47. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is are 45. Actress-singer-dancer Sutton Foster is 42. Singer Devin Lima (LFO) is 40. Rock singer Adam Levine (Maroon 5) is 38. Rock musician Daren Taylor (Airborne Toxic Event) and Olympic gold medal figure skater Alexei Yagudin are 37. Actress Lily Collins is 28. Actress-dancer Julia Goldani Telles is 22. Actress Ciara Bravo is 20. Actor Blake Garrett Rosenthal is 13.