TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT March 2, 1943

The three-day Battle of the Bismarck Sea began in the southwest Pacific during World War II; U.S. and Australian warplanes were able to inflict heavy damage on an Imperial Japanese convoy.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1793

The first president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, was born near Lexington, Virginia.

1836

The Republic of Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico.

1867

Howard University, a historically black school of higher learning in Washington, D.C., was founded. Congress passed, over President Andrew Johnson’s veto, the first of four Reconstruction Acts.

1877

Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.

1917

Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship as President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act.

1933

The motion picture “King Kong” had its world premiere at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy.

1965

The movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music,” starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, had its world premiere in New York.