Today In History

Today is Tuesday, March 13, the 72nd day of 2018. There are 293 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

› 1928: At least 400 people died when the San Francisquito Canyon in Southern California was inundated with water after the nearly two-year-old St. Francis Dam collapsed just before midnight the evening of March 12.

ON THIS DATE

› 1639: New College was renamed Harvard College for clergyman John Harvard.

› 1781: The seventh planet of the solar system, Uranus, was discovered by Sir William Herschel.

› 1865: Confederate President Jefferson Davis signed a measure allowing black slaves to enlist in the Confederate States Army with the promise they would be set free.

› 1901: The 23rd President of the United States, Benjamin Harrison, died in Indianapolis at age 67.

› 1925: The Tennessee General Assembly approved a bill prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution. (Gov. Austin Peay signed the measure on March 21.)

› 1933: Banks in the U.S. began to reopen after a “holiday” declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

› 1947: The Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical “Brigadoon,” about a Scottish village which magically reappears once every hundred years, opened on Broadway.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Jazz musician Roy Haynes is 93. Country singer Jan Howard is 88. Songwriter Mike Stoller is 85. Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka is 79. Opera singer Julia Migenes is 69. Actor William H. Macy is

68. Political commentator Charles Krauthammer is 68. Comedian Robin Duke is 64. Actress Dana Delany is 62. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., is 61. Rock musician Adam Clayton (U2) is 58. Jazz musician Terence Blanchard is 56. Actor Christopher Collet is

50. Rock musician Matt McDonough (Mudvayne) is 49. Actress Annabeth Gish is 47. Actress Tracy Wells is 47. Rapper-actor Common is 46. Rapper Khujo (Goodie Mob, The Lumberjacks) is 46. Singer Glenn Lewis is 43. Bluegrass musician Clayton Campbell (The Gibson Brothers) is 37. Actor Noel Fisher is 34. Singers Natalie and Nicole Albino (Nina Sky) are 34. Actor Emile Hirsch is 33. Olympic gold medal skier Mikaela Shiffrin is 23.