TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1948

The Supreme Court, in Shelley v. Kraemer, ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to Blacks or members of other racial groups were legally unenforceable.

ALSO ON THIS DATE

1765

The first school of medicine in the American colonies, the Medical School of the College of Philadelphia, was founded.

1802

Washington, D.C. was incorporated as a city.

1916

Irish nationalists Padraic Pearse, Thomas Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh were executed by a British firing squad; they were among 16 people put to death for their roles in the Easter Rising.

1937

Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, “Gone with the Wind.”

1979

Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher was chosen to become Britain’s first female prime minister as the Tories ousted the incumbent Labour government in parliamentary elections.

1984

Michael Dell founded Dell Computer Corp. while a student at the University of Texas in Austin.

1987

The Miami Herald said its reporters had observed a young woman spending “Friday night and most of Saturday” at a Washington townhouse belonging to Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart.

1999

Some 70tornadoes roared across Oklahoma and Kansas, killing 46 people.

2006

A federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, rejected the death penalty for al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, deciding he should spend life in prison for his role in 9⁄11; as he was led from the courtroom, Moussaoui taunted, “America, you lost.”