TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, MARCH 20, the 79th day of 2023. There are 286 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1996, a jury in Los Angeles convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez of first-degree murder in the shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents. (They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.) In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte returned to Paris after escaping his exile on Elba, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule. In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel about slavery, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was first published in book form after being serialized. In 1854, the Republican Party of the United States was founded by slavery opponents at a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. In 1952, the U.S. Senate ratified, 66-10, a Security Treaty with Japan. In 1969, John Lennon married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar. In 1995, in Tokyo, 12 people were killed and more than 5,500 others sickened when packages containing the deadly chemical sarin were leaked on five separate subway trains by Aum Shinrikyo cult members.
In 2020, the governor of Illinois ordered residents to remain in their homes except for essential needs, joining similar efforts in California and New York to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Stocks tumbled again on Wall Street, ending their worst week since the 2008 financial crisis; the Dow fell more than 900 points to end the week with a 17% loss. TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor Hal Linden is 92. Hockey Hall-of-Famer Bobby Orr is 75. Blues singer-musician Marcia Ball is 74. Rock musician Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) is 73. Rock musician Jimmie Vaughan is 72. Actor Amy Aquino, movie director Spike Lee, and actors Theresa Russell and Vanessa Bell Calloway are 66. Actor Holly Hunter is 65. Rock musician Slim Jim Phantom (The Stray Cats) is 62. Actor-model-designer Kathy Ireland and actor David Thewlis are 60. Actor Paula Garcés is 49. Actor Bianca Lawson is 44. Comedian-actor Mikey Day is 43. Actor Nick Blood (TV: “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) and rock musician Nick Wheeler (The All-American Rejects) are 41. Actor Michael Cassidy is 40. Actorsinger Christy Carlson Romano is 39. Actor Ruby Rose is 37.