TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Monday, March 29.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On March 29, 1974, eight Ohio National Guardsmen were indicted on federal charges stemming from the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University. (The charges were later dismissed.)
ON THIS DATE
In 1638, Swedish colonists settled in present-day Delaware.
In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln ordered plans for a relief expedition to sail to South Carolina’s Fort Sumter, which was still in the hands of Union forces despite repeated demands by the Confederacy that it be turned over.
In 1867, Britain’s Parliament passed, and Queen Victoria signed, the British North America Act creating the Dominion of Canada, which came into being the following July.
In 1936, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler claimed overwhelming victory in a plebiscite on his policies.
In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted in New York of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union. (They were executed in June 1953.)
In 1971, Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was convicted of murdering 22 Vietnamese civilians in the 1968 My Lai (mee ly) massacre. (Calley ended up serving three years under house arrest.) A jury in Los Angeles recommended the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers for the 1969 TateLa Bianca murders. (The sentences were commuted when the California state Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972.)
In 1973, the last United States combat troops left South
Vietnam, ending America’s direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.
In 2002, Israeli troops stormed Yasser Arafat’s headquarters complex in the West Bank in a raid that was launched in response to antiIsraeli attacks that had killed 30 people in three days.
In 2010, two female suicide bombers blew themselves up in twin attacks on Moscow subway stations jam-packed with rush-hour passengers, killing at least 40 people and wounding more than 100.
In 2017, Britain filed for divorce from the European Union as Prime Minister Theresa May sent a six-page letter to EU Council President Donald Tusk. Two former aides to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were sentenced to prison for creating a colossal traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge for political revenge, a scandal that sank Christie’s White House hopes.
Ten years ago: Gunmen held an Iraqi government center in Tikrit hostage in a grisly siege that ended with the deaths of at least 56 people, including three councilmen, plus the attackers, who blew themselves up.
Five years ago: Oscarwinning actor Patty Duke, 69, died in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. One year ago: President Donald Trump extended restrictive social distancing guidelines through April, bracing the nation for a coronavirus death toll that he acknowledged could exceed 100,000 people; Trump just days earlier had spoken about the country reopening in a few weeks. Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that the coronavirus could kill 100,000 to 200,000 Americans and that millions of Americans could become infected.