TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS TUESDAY, MARCH 21, the 80th day of 2017. There are 285 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1952, the Moondog Coronation Ball, considered the first rock ’n’ roll concert, took place at Cleveland Arena.
In 1556, Thomas Cranmer, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was burned at the stake for heresy. In 1685, composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.
In 1925, Tennessee Gov. Austin Peay signed the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of the Theory of Evolution in public schools. (Tennessee repealed the law in 1967.)
In 1946, the recently created United Nations Security Council set up temporary headquarters at Hunter College in The Bronx, N.Y.
In 1963, the Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates and closed at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
In 1981, Michael Donald, a black teenager in Mobile, Ala., was abducted, tortured and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. (A lawsuit brought by Donald’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, later resulted in a landmark judgment that bankrupted one Klan organization.)
In 1997, President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their summit in Helsinki, Finland, still deadlocked over NATO expansion, but able to agree on slashing nuclear weapons arsenals.
In 2006, the social media website Twitter was established with the sending of the first “tweet” by co-founder Jack Dorsey, who wrote: “just setting up my twttr.”
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actress Kathleen Widdoes is 78. Songwriter Chip Taylor (“Wild Thing”) is 77. Folk-pop singer/musician Keith Potger (The Seekers) is 76. Singer-musician Rose Stone (Sly and the Family Stone) is 72. Actor Timothy Dalton and singer Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry) are 71. Singer Eddie Money is 68. Rock singer-musician Roger Hodgson (Supertramp) is 67. Rhythm-and-blues singer Russell Thompkins Jr. (The Stylistics) is 66. Actor Gary Oldman is 59. Actress Kassie Depaiva (“Days of Our Lives”) is 56. Actor Matthew Broderick and comedian-talk show host Rosie O’Donnell are 55. Rock musicians Jonas “Joker” Berggren (Ace of Base) and MC Maxim (Prodigy) are 50. Actor Scott Eastwood is 31. Actor Forrest Wheeler is 13.