TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SATURDAY, MARCH 24, the 83rd day of 2018. There are 282 days left in the year.
On inducted this date into in the 1958, U.S. Elvis Army Presley at the was draft boarding board a bus in Memphis, for Fort Chaffee, Tenn., before Ark. (Presley Hood, Texas, underwent before basic being training shipped at off Fort to Germany.)
In 1765, Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers. In 1832, a mob in Hiram, Ohio, attacked, tarred and feathered Mormon leaders Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon.
In 1913, New York’s Palace Theatre, the legendary home of vaudeville, opened on Broadway. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill granting future independence to the Philippines.
In 1944, in occupied Rome, the Nazis executed more than 300 civilians in reprisal for an attack by Italian partisans the day before that killed 32 German soldiers.
In 1965, Ranger 9, a lunar probe launched three days earlier by NASA, crashed into the moon (as planned) after sending back more than 5,800 video images.
In 1976, the president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by her country’s military. British war hero Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, 88, died in Alton, Hampshire, England.
In 1988, former national security aides Oliver L. North and John M. Poindexter and businessmen Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the IranContra affair. (North and Poindexter were convicted, but had their verdicts thrown out; Secord and Hakim received probation after each pleaded guilty to a single count under a plea bargain.)
In 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil. In 1998, two students, ages 13 and 11, opened fire outside Jonesboro Westside Middle School in Arkansas, killing four classmates and a teacher. (The gunmen were imprisoned by Arkansas until age 18, then by federal authorities until age 21.)
In 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it had ever attacked a sovereign country. Thirty-nine people were killed when fire erupted in the Mont Blanc tunnel in France and burned for two days.
In 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525, an Airbus A320, crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board; investigators said the jetliner was deliberately downed by the 27-year-old co-pilot.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti is 99. Actor William Smith is 85. Fashion and costume designer Bob Mackie is 79. Actor R. Lee Ermey is 74. Former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire is 71. Rock musician Lee Oskar is 70. Singer Nick Lowe is 69. Rock musician Dougie Thomson (Supertramp) and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger are 67. Comedian Louie Anderson is 65. Actress Donna Pescow and actor Robert Carradine are 64. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is 62. Actress Kelly LeBrock is 58. Rhythm-and-blues DJ Rodney “Kool Kollie” Terry (Ghostown DJs) is 57. TV personality Star Jones is 56. Countryrock musician Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers) is 54. Actor Peter Jacobson is 53. Rock singer-musician Sharon Corr (The Corrs), actresses Lauren Bowles and Lara Flynn Boyle, and rapper Maceo (AKA P.A. Pasemaster Mase) are 48. Actress Megyn Price is 47. Actor Jim Parsons is 45. Christian rock musician Chad Butler (Switchfoot) and actress Alyson Hannigan are 44. NFL quarterback Peyton Manning is 42. Actresses Amanda Brugel (TV: “The Handmaid’s Tale”), Olivia Burnette and Jessica Chastain are 41. Actor Amir Arison is 40. Actress Lake Bell is 39. Rock musician Benj Gershman (O.A.R.) and neo-soul musician Jesse Phillips (St. Paul & the Broken Bones) are 38. Actor Philip Winchester (TV: “Strike Back”) is 37. Actress Keisha CastleHughes is 28.