Today In History

Today is Wednesday, March 15, the 74th day of 2017. There are 291 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

› 1937: America’s first hospital blood bank was opened at Cook County Hospital in Illinois.

ON THIS DATE

› 44 B.C.: Roman dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of nobles that included Brutus and Cassius.

› 1820: Maine became the 23rd state.

› 1956: The Lerner and Loewe musical play “My Fair Lady,” based on Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” opened on Broadway.

› 1964: Actress Elizabeth Taylor married actor Richard Burton in Montreal; it was her fifth marriage, his second. (They divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, then divorced again in 1976.)

› 1977: The U.S. House of Representatives began a 90-day closed-circuit test to determine the feasibility of showing its sessions on television. The situation comedy “Three’s Company,” starring John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt and Suzanne Somers, premiered on ABC-TV.

› 1985: The first internet domain name, symbolics.com, was registered by the Symbolics Computer Corp. of Massachusetts.

› 2011: The Syrian civil war had its beginnings with Arab Spring protests across the region that turned into an armed insurgency and eventually became a full-blown conflict.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Musician DJ Fontana is 86. Former astronaut Alan L. Bean is 85. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84. Singer Mike Love (The Beach Boys) is 76. Rock singer-musician Sly Stone is 74. Rock singer-musician Howard Scott (War; Lowrider Band) is 71. Rock singer Ry Cooder is 70. Actor Craig Wasson is 63. Rock singer Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) is 62. Model Fabio is 56. Singer Terence Trent D’Arby (AKA Sananda Maitreya) is 55. Rock singer Bret Michaels (Poison) is 54. Rhythm and blues singer Rockwell is 53. Actor Chris Bruno is 51. Rock musician Mark Hoppus is 45. Actress Eva Longoria is 42. Rapper-musician will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas) is 42. Rock DJ Joseph Hahn (Linkin Park) is 40. Rapper Young Buck is 36. Actor Sean Biggerstaff is 34. Rock musician Ethan Mentzer is 34. Actor Kellan Lutz is 32. Actress Caitlin Wachs is 28.