TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Saturday, March 18, the 77th day of 2017. There are 288 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 18, 1937, in America’s worst school disaster, nearly 300 people, most of them children, were killed in a natural gas explosion at the New London Consolidated School in Rusk County, Texas. On this date:

n In 1766, Britain repealed the Stamp Act of 1765.

n In 1837, the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, was born in Caldwell, New Jersey.

n In 1917, the Mexican newspaper Excelsior published its first edition.

n In 1925, the Tri-State Tornado struck southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana, resulting in some 700 deaths.

n In 1940, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agreed to join Germany’s war against France and Britain.

n In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the War Relocation Authority, which was put in charge of evacuating “persons whose removal is necessary in the interests of national security,” with Milton S. Eisenhower (the youngest brother of Dwight D. Eisenhower) as its director.

n In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill. (Hawaii became a state on Aug. 21, 1959.)

n In 1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether. Farouk I, the former king of Egypt, died in exile in Rome.

n In 1980, Frank Gotti, the 12-yearold youngest son of mobster John Gotti, was struck and killed by a car driven by John Favara, a neighbor in Queens, New York. (The following July, Favara vanished, the apparent victim of a gang hit.)

Today’s Birthdays: Composer John Kander is 90. Country singer Charley Pride is 83. Nobel peace laureate and former South African president F.W. de Klerk is 81. Country singer Margie Bowes is 76. Actor Kevin Dobson is 74. Actor Brad Dourif is 67. Jazz musician Bill Frisell is 66. Singer Irene Cara is 58. Movie writer-director Luc Besson is 58. Actor Geoffrey Owens is 56. Singer-songwriter James McMurtry is 55. TV personality Mike Rowe is 55. Singer-actress Vanessa L. Williams is 54. Olympic gold medal speedskater Bonnie Blair is 53. Country musician Scott Saunders (Sons of the Desert) is 53. Rock musician Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) is 51. Actor-comedian Dane Cook is 45. Country singer Philip Sweet (Little Big Town) is 43.

Thought for Today: “To start is easy, to persist is an art.”—German proverb.