TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Saturday, March 25, the 84th day of 2023. There are 281 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history

On March 25, 1931, in the so-called “Scottsboro Boys” case, nine young Black men were taken off a train in Alabama, accused of raping two White women; after years of convictions, death sentences and imprisonment, the nine were eventually vindicated.

On this date

In 1634, English colonists sent by Lord Baltimore arrived in present-day Maryland.

In 1894, Jacob S. Coxey began

leading an “army” of unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., to demand help from the federal government.

In 1911,

146 people, mostly young female immigrants, were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York.

In 1947,

a coal-dust explosion inside the Centralia Coal Co. Mine No. 5 in Washington County, Ill., claimed 111 lives; 31 men survived.

In 1954, RCA announced it had begun producing color television sets at its plant in Bloomington, Ind.

In 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 people to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery after a five-day march from Selma to protest the denial of voting rights to

Blacks. Later that day, civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, a white Detroit homemaker, was shot and killed by Ku Klux Klansmen.

Today’s birthdays

Film critic Gene Shalit is 97. Former astronaut James Lovell is 95. Feminist activist and author Gloria Steinem is 89. Singer Anita Bryant is 83. Actor Paul Michael Glaser is 80. Sir Elton John is 76. Actor Bonnie Bedelia is 75. Actorcomedian Mary Gross is 70. Actor James McDaniel is 65. Actor Brenda Strong is 63. Actor Marcia Cross is 61. Actor Lisa Gay Hamilton is 59. Actor Sarah Jessica Parker is 58. Figure skater Debi Thomas is 56. Former auto racer Danica Patrick is 41. Actor-singer Katharine McPhee is 39.