TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

March 5, 1963

Country music performers Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins died in the crash of their plane, a Piper Comanche, near Camden, Tennessee, along with pilot Randy Hughes.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1770

The Boston Massacre took place as British soldiers who’d been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people.

1868

The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the U.S. Senate, with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presiding. Johnson, the first U.S. president to be impeached, was accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” stemming from his attempt to fire Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; the trial ended on May 26with Johnson’s acquittal.

1946

Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in which he said: “From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the continent, allowing police governments to rule Eastern Europe.”

1953

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died after three decades in power.

1955

Elvis Presley made his television debut on “Louisiana Hayride” carried by KSLA-TV Shreveport.

1982

Comedian John Belushi was found dead of a drug overdose in a rented bungalow in Hollywood; he was 33.

1998

NASA scientists said enough water was frozen in the loose soil of the moon to support a lunar base and perhaps, one day, a human colony.

2003

In a blunt warning to the United States and Britain, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Russia said they would block any attempt to get U.N. approval for war against Iraq.