This Day in History
On March 6, 1944, U.S. heavy bombers staged the first full-scale American raid on Berlin during World War II.
On this date:
In 1475, Italian artist and poet Michelangelo was born in Caprese in the Republic of Florence.
In 1834, the city of York in Upper Canada was incorporated as Toronto.
In 1836, the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, fell as Mexican forces led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna stormed the fortress after a 13-day siege; the battle claimed the lives of all the Texan defenders, nearly 200 strong, including William Travis, James Bowie and Davy Crockett.
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, ruled 7-2 that Scott, a slave, was not an American citizen and therefore could not sue for his freedom in federal court.
In 1933, a national bank holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt aimed at calming panicked depositors went into effect. Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, wounded in an attempt on Roosevelt’s life the previous month, died at a Miami hospital at age 59.
In 1935, retired Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., died in Washington two days before his 94th birthday.
In 1964, heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay officially changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
In 1970, a bomb being built inside a Greenwich Village townhouse by the radical Weathermen accidentally went off, destroying the house and killing three group members.
In 1973, Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck, 80, died in Danby, Vt.
In 1981, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as principal anchorman of “The CBS Evening News.”
In 2002, Independent Counsel Robert Ray issued his final report in which he wrote that former President Bill Clinton could have been indicted and probably would have been convicted in the scandal involving former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
In 2008, a Palestinian killed eight students at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem before he was slain; Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip praised the operation in a statement, and thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate.