Today In History

Today is Wednesday, March 18, the 78th day of 2020. There are 288 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

› 1940: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agreed to join Germany’s war against France and Britain.

ON THIS DATE

› 1766: Britain repealed the Stamp Act of 1765.

› 1925: The Tri-State Tornado struck southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana, resulting in some 700 deaths.

› 1963: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Gideon v. Wainwright, ruled unanimously that state courts were required to provide legal counsel to criminal defendants who could not afford to hire an attorney on their own.

› 1965: The first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether.

› 2005: Doctors in Florida, acting on orders of a state judge, removed Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. (Despite the efforts of congressional Republicans to intervene and repeated court appeals by Schiavo’s parents, the brain-damaged woman died on March 31, 2005, at age 41.)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Composer John Kander is 93. Country singer Charley Pride is

86. Actor Kevin Dobson is 77. Actor Brad Dourif is 70. Jazz musician Bill Frisell is 69. Singer Irene Cara is 61. Alt-country musician Karen Grotberg (The Jayhawks) is 61. Movie writer-director Luc Besson is 61. Actor Geoffrey Owens is 59. Actor Thomas Ian Griffith is 58. Olympic gold medal speedskater Bonnie Blair is 56. Country musician Scott Saunders (Sons of the Desert) is

56. Actor David Cubitt is

55. Rock musician Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) is 54. Rock singer-musician Miki Berenyi is 53. Actor Michael Bergin is

51. Rapper-actress-talk show host Queen Latifah is 50. Rock musician Stuart Zender is 46. Singers Evan and Jaron Lowenstein are 46. Actress-singer-dancer Sutton Foster is 45. Rock singer Adam Levine is 41. Rock musician Daren Taylor (Airborne Toxic Event) is 40. Olympic gold medal figure skater Alexei Yagudin is 40. Actress Lily Collins is 31. Actress-dancer Julia Goldani Telles is 25. Actress Ciara Bravo is

23. Actor Blake Garrett Rosenthal is 16.