TODAY IN HISTORY
On March 20, 1854, the Republican Party of the United States was founded by slavery opponents at a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin.
Also on this date
In 1815,
Napoleon Bonaparte returned to Paris after escaping his exile on Elba, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule.
In 1852,
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel about slavery, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was first published in book form after being serialized.
In 1952,
the U.S. Senate ratified a Security Treaty with Japan.
In 1969,
John Lennon married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.
In 1976,
kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was convicted of armed robbery for her part in a San Francisco bank holdup carried out by the Symbionese Liberation Army. (Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison; she was released after serving 22 months, and was pardoned in 2001 by President Bill Clinton.)
In 1995,
in Tokyo, 12 people were killed and more than 5,500 others sickened when packages containing the deadly chemical sarin were leaked on five subway trains by Aum Shinrikyo cult members.
In 1996,
a jury in Los Angeles convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez of first-degree murder of their wealthy parents. (They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.)
In 2014,
President Barack Obama ordered economic sanctions against nearly two dozen members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and a major bank that provided them support, raising the stakes in an East-West showdown over Ukraine.
In 2020,
the governor of Illinois ordered residents to remain in their homes except for essential needs, joining similar efforts in California and New York to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Ten years ago:
Five former elected officials of Bell, California, were convicted of misappropriating public funds by paying themselves huge salaries while raising taxes on residents; one defendant was acquitted.
Five years ago:
In a phone call to Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump offered congratulations on Putin’s re-election victory; a senior official said Trump had been warned in briefing materials that he should not congratulate Putin.
One year ago:
Ukrainian authorities said Russia’s military bombed an art school sheltering about 400 people in the port city of Mariupol.