TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

March 6, 1836

The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, fell as Mexican forces led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna stormed the fortress after a 13-day siege; the battle claimed the lives of all the Texan defenders, nearly 200strong, including William Travis, James Bowie and Davy Crockett.

ALSO ON THIS DATE:

1475

Italian artist and poet Michelangelo was born in Caprese in the Republic of Florence.

1857

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, ruled 7-2that Scott, a slave, was not an American citizen and therefore could not sue for his freedom in federal court.

1944

U.S. heavy bombers staged the first full-scale American raid on Berlin during World War II.

1953

Georgy Malenkov was named premier of the Soviet Union a day after the death of Josef Stalin.

1967

The daughter of Josef Stalin, Svetlana Alliluyeva, appeared at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and declared her intention to defect to the West.

1970

A bomb being built inside a Greenwich Village townhouse by the radical Weathermen accidentally went off, destroying the house and killing three group members.

1998

The U.S. Army honored three Americans who risked their lives and turned their weapons on fellow soldiers to stop the slaughter of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968.

2017

Without fanfare, President Donald Trump signed a scaledback version of his controversial ban on many foreign travelers, one that still barred new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries and temporarily shut down America’s refugee program.