TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1965

A march by civil rights demonstrators was violently broken up at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, by state troopers and a sheriff’s posse in what came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

1875

Composer Maurice Ravel was born in Ciboure, France.

1876

Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. patent for his telephone.

1911

President William Howard Taft ordered 20,000 troops to patrol the U.s.-mexico border in response to the Mexican Revolution.

1912

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen arrived in Hobart, Australia, where he dispatched telegrams announcing his success in leading the first expedition to the South Pole the previous December.

1926

The first successful transatlantic radio-telephone conversations took place between New York and London.

1936

Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact.

1945

During World War II, U.S. forces crossed the Rhine at Remagen, Germany, using the damaged but still usable Ludendorff Bridge.

1975

The U.S. Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required twothirds of senators present.

1994

The U.S. Navy issued its first permanent orders assigning women to regular duty on a combat ship — in this case, the USS Eisenhower.

2001

Ariel Sharon was sworn in as Israel’s prime minister, serving until he suffered a stroke in 2006.

2010

The Iraq war thriller “The Hurt Locker” received six Academy Awards including best picture, with Kathryn Bigelow accepting the first directing Oscar awarded to a woman.