TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1971

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.

1912

Boston’s Fenway Park hosted its first professional baseball game while Navin Field opened in Detroit.

1914

The Ludlow Massacre took place when the Colorado National Guard opened fire on a tent colony of striking miners; about 20 strikers, women and children died.

1972

Apollo 16’s lunar module, carrying astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke Jr., landed on the moon.

1977

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Wooley v. Maynard, ruled 6-3 that car owners could refuse to display state mottoes on license plates, such as New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die.”

1988

Gunmen who had hijacked a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet were allowed safe passage out of Algeria under an agreement that freed the remaining 31 hostages and ended a 15-day siege in which two passengers were slain.

1999

The Columbine High School massacre took place in Colorado as two students shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives.

2003

U.S. Army forces took control of Baghdad from the Marines in a changing of the guard that thinned the military presence in the capital.

2005

President George W. Bush signed a bill making it harder for debt-ridden people to wipe clean their financial slates by declaring bankruptcy.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Actor George Takei is 83. Actor Ryan O’neal is 79. Actress Jessica Lange is 71. Actor Clint Howard is 61. Actor Crispin Glover is 56. Actor Shemar Moore is 50. Actress Carmen Electra is 48. Actor Joey Lawrence is 44. Actor Clayne Crawford is 42. Actor Tim Jo is 36. Actor Carlos Valdes (TV: “The Flash”) is 31.