On this date
In 1639, New College was renamed Harvard College for clergyman John Harvard.
In 1781, the seventh planet of the solar system, Uranus, was discovered by Sir William Herschel.
In 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.)
In 1954, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu began during the First Indochina War as Viet Minh forces attacked French troops, who were defeated nearly two months later.
In 1964, bar manager Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, 28, was stabbed to death near her Queens, N.Y., home; the case gained notoriety over the supposed reluctance of Genovese’s neighbors to respond to her cries for help.
In 1980, Ford Motor Co. Chairman Henry Ford II announced he was stepping down, the same day a jury in Winamac, Ind., found the company not guilty of reckless homicide in the fiery deaths of three young women in a Ford Pinto.
In 1996, a gunman burst into an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and opened fire, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.
Ten years ago: Gold hit a record, rising to $1,000 an ounce for the first time.
Five years ago: Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope, choosing the name Francis; he was the first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.
One year ago: The Congressional Budget Office said that 14 million Americans would lose coverage the next year under House Republican legislation remaking the nation’s health care system, and that number would balloon to 24 million by 2026.