TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Thursday, March 30, the 89th day of 2017. There are 276 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On March 30, 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million (the rough equivalent of $125 million today), a deal ridiculed by critics as “Seward’s Folly.”
On this date
1822 — Florida became a United States territory. 1870 — The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying citizens the right to vote and hold office on the basis of race, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. 1923 — The Cunard liner RMS Laconia became the first passenger ship to circle the globe as it arrived in New York. 1945 — During World War II, the Soviet Union invaded Austria with the goal of taking Vienna, which it accomplished two weeks later. 1959 — A narrowly divided U.S. Supreme Court, in Bartkus v. Illinois, ruled that a conviction in state court following an acquittal in federal court for the same crime did not constitute double jeopardy. 1991 — Patricia Bowman of Jupiter, Florida, told authorities she’d been raped hours earlier by William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Sen. Edward Kennedy, at the family’s Palm Beach estate. (Smith was acquitted at trial.) 2002 — Britain’s Queen Mother Elizabeth died at Royal Lodge, Windsor, outside London; she was 101 years old. 2006 — American reporter Jill Carroll, a freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor, was released after 82 days as a hostage in Iraq.
One year ago
President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentences of 61 drug offenders, including more than a third serving life sentences.
Today’s Birthdays
Game show host Peter Marshall is 91. Actor John Astin is 87. Actor-director Warren Beatty is 80. Rock musician Graeme Edge (The Moody Blues) is 76. Rock musician Eric Clapton is 72. Actor Justin Deas is 69. Actor Paul Reiser is 60. Rap artist MC Hammer is 54. Singer Tracy Chapman is 53. Actor Ian Ziering is 53. TV personality Piers Morgan is 52. Actress Donna D’Errico is 49. Singer Celine Dion is 49. Actor Mark Consuelos is 46. Etowah Landing Genesis employee Leslie D. Foster, of Rome, is 43. Actress Bahar Soomekh is 42.