TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SATURDAY, MARCH 3, the 62nd day of 2018. There are 303 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1931, “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the national anthem of the United States when President Herbert Hoover signed a congressional resolution.
In 1791, Congress passed a measure taxing distilled spirits; it was the first internal revenue act in U.S. history.
In 1845, Florida became the 27th state.
In 1849, the U.S. Department of the Interior was established.
In 1918, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Russia signed the Treaty of BrestLitovsk, which ended Russian participation in World War I. The treaty was rendered moot by the November 1918 armistice.
In 1923, Time magazine, founded by Briton Hadden and Henry R. Luce, made its debut.
In 1943, in London’s East End, 173 people died in a crush of bodies at the Bethnal Green tube station, which was being used as a wartime air raid shelter.
In 1959, the United States launched the Pioneer 4 spacecraft, which flew by the moon. Comedian Lou Costello died in East Los Angeles three days before his 53rd birthday.
In 1960, Lucille Ball filed for divorce from her husband, Desi Arnaz, a day after they finished filming “Lucy Meets the Mustache,” the last episode of “The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show,” on Arnaz’s 43rd birthday.
In 1974, a Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed shortly after takeoff from Orly Airport in Paris, killing all 346 people on board.
In 1985, coal miners in Britain voted to end a yearlong strike that proved to be the longest and most violent walkout in British history.
In 1991, motorist Rodney King was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers in a scene captured on amateur video. Twenty-five people were killed when a United Airlines Boeing 737-200 crashed while approaching the Colorado Springs airport.
In 2002, voters in Switzerland approved joining the United Nations, abandoning almost 200 years of formal neutrality.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Socialite Lee Radziwill is 85. Singer-musician Mike Pender (The Searchers) is 77. Movie producer-director George Miller and actress Hattie Winston are 73. Singer Jennifer Warnes is 71. Actor-director Tim Kazurinsky is 68. Singer-musician Robyn Hitchcock is 65. Actor Robert Gossett and rock musician John Lilley are 64. Actress Miranda Richardson is 60. Rock musician John Bigham and radio personality Ira Glass are 59. Actress Mary Page Keller is 57. Olympic track and field gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee and former NFL player and College Football Hall-of-Famer Herschel Walker are 56. Actress Laura Harring and contemporary Christian musician Duncan Phillips (Newsboys) are 54. Actress Julie Bowen is 48. Country singer Brett Warren (The Warren Brothers) is 47. Actor David Faustino is 44. Gospel singer Jason Crabb and singer Ronan Keating (Boyzone) are 41. Actress Jessica Biel is 36.