THURSDAY IN HISTORY

Today is Thursday, March 30, the 89th day of 2017. There are 276 days left in the year.

Highlight in History:

On March 30, 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million (the rough equivalent of $125 million today), a deal ridiculed by critics as “Seward’s Folly.”

On this date:

In 1822, Florida became a United States territory.

In 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying citizens the right to vote and hold office on the basis of race, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish. Texas was readmitted to the Union.

In 1945, during World War II, the Soviet Union invaded Austria with the goal of taking Vienna, which it accomplished two weeks later.

In 1959, a narrowly divided U.S. Supreme Court, in Bartkus v. Illinois, ruled that a conviction in state court following an acquittal in federal court for the same crime did not constitute double jeopardy.

In 1975, as the Vietnam War neared its end, Communist forces occupied the city of Da Nang.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John W. Hinckley, Jr.

In 2002, Britain’s Queen Mother Elizabeth died at Royal Lodge, Windsor, outside London; she was 101 years old.

In 2006, American reporter Jill Carroll, a freelancer for The Christian Science Monitor, was released after 82 days as a hostage in Iraq.

Ten years ago: President George W. Bush visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he personally apologized to troops for shoddy conditions there.

Five years ago: President Barack Obama said he was plowing ahead with potential sanctions against countries that kept buying oil from Iran, including allies of the United States, in a deepening campaign to starve Tehran of money for its disputed nuclear program.

One year ago: President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentences of 61 drug offenders, including more than a third serving life sentences.

Today’s Birthdays: Game showhost Peter Marshall is 91. Actor-director Warren Beatty is 80. Rock musician Eric Clapton is 72. Rap artist MC Hammer is 54. Singer Tracy Chapmanis53. TV personality Piers Morgan is 52. Singer Celine Dion is 49. Country singer Thomas Rhett is 27.

Thought for Today: “Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.” — Benjamin N. Cardozo, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1870-1938).