Today in History
Today is Wednesday, March 24, the 83rd day of 2021. There are 282 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On March 24, 1976, the president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by her country’s military.
On this date:
In 1765, Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers.
In 1882, German scientist Robert Koch (kohk) announced in Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis.
In 1913, New York’s Palace Theatre, the legendary home of vaudeville, opened on Broadway.
In 1958, Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Army at the draft board in Memphis, Tennessee, before boarding a bus for Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. (Presley underwent basic training at Fort Hood, Texas, before being shipped off to Germany.)
In 1965, Ranger 9, a lunar probe launched three days earlier by NASA, crashed into the moon (as planned) after sending back more than 5,800 video images.
In 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez (vahl-DEEZ’) ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil.
In 1995, after 20 years, British soldiers stopped routine patrols in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
In 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it had ever attacked a sovereign country. Thirty-nine people were killed when fire erupted in the Mont Blanc tunnel in France and burned for two days.
In 2002, at the 74th Academy Awards, Halle Berry became the first Black performer to win a Best Actress Oscar for her work in “Monster’s Ball,” while Denzel Washington became the second Black actor, after Sidney Poitier, to win in the best actor category for “Training Day.” “A Beautiful Mind” won four Oscars, including best picture and best director for
In 2010, keeping a promise he’d made to anti-abortion Democratic lawmakers to assure passage of his historic health care legislation, President Barack Obama signed an executive order against using federal funds to pay for elective abortions covered by private insurance.
In 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525, an Airbus A320, crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board; investigators said the jetliner was deliberately downed by the 27-year-old co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz.
In 2019, Attorney General William Barr reported that special counsel Robert Mueller did not find evidence that President Donald Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election, but reached no conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. Democrats pointed out that Mueller had found evidence for and against obstruction, and they demanded to see his full report. (The report would be released in April.)