TODAY IN HISTORY

On March 14, 1794, Eli Whitney received a patent for his cotton gin, an invention that revolutionized America’s cotton industry.

In 1883, Karl Marx died in London at age 64.

In 1900, Congress ratified the Gold Standard Act.

In 1951, during the Korean War, United Nations forces recaptured Seoul.

In 1962, Democrat Edward M. Kennedy officially launched in Boston his successful candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts once held by his brother, President John F. Kennedy. (Edward Kennedy served in the Senate for nearly 47 years.)

In 1964, a jury in Dallas found Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, and sentenced him to death.

In 1965, Israel’s cabinet formally approved diplomatic relations with West Germany.

In 1967, the body of President John F. Kennedy was moved to a permanent memorial site at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

In 1990, the Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies elected Mikhail S. Gorbachev to a new, powerful presidency.

In 1991, a British court overturned the convictions of the “Birmingham Six,” who had spent 16 years in prison for a 1974 Irish Republican Army bombing, and ordered them released.

In 2001, inspectors tightened U.S. defenses against foot-and-mouth disease a day after a case was confirmed in France.

In 2015, Robert Durst, a wealthy eccentric linked to two killings and his wife’s disappearance, was arrested by the FBI in New Orleans on a murder warrant a day before HBO aired the final episode of a serial documentary about his life. (Durst’s murder trial in Los Angeles was paused in July 2020 because of the coronavirus; it has yet to resume.)