TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1685

Composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1871

Journalist Henry M. Stanley began his famous expedition in Africa to locate the missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone.

1918

During World War I, Germany launched its Spring Offensive on the Western Front, hoping to break through the Allied lines before American reinforcements could arrive.

1945

During World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.

1963

The Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates and closed at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

1972

The Supreme Court, in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may not require at least a year’s residency for voting eligibility.

1976

Champion skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich was shot and killed by his girlfriend, actresssinger Claudine Longet, in the home they had shared in Aspen, Colorado; Longet, who maintained the shooting was an accident, served 30days in jail for negligent homicide.

1981

Michael Donald, a black teenager in Mobile, Alabama, was abducted, tortured and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

1990

Namibia became an independent nation as the former colony marked the end of 75 years of South African rule.

1997

President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their summit in Helsinki, Finland, still deadlocked over NATO expansion, but able to agree on slashing nuclear weapons arsenals.