NEA DATEBOOK

Today is the 84th day of 2023 and the sixth day of spring.

TODAY’S HISTORY: In 1634, the first English colonists arrived at St. Clement’s Island in Maryland to establish the settlement of St. Mary’s.

In 1807, the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.

In 1965, a 50-mile civil rights march led by Martin Luther King Jr., which began four days earlier in Selma, Alabama, ended in Montgomery.

In 1994, the United States withdrew its last troops from Somalia.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Bela Bartok (1881-1945), composer; Howard Cosell (1918-1995), journalist/sportscaster; Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), author; Jim Lovell (1928- ), astronaut; Gloria Steinem (1934- ), writer/activist; Aretha Franklin (1942-2018), singer-songwriter; Elton John (1947- ), singersongwriter/musician; Sarah Jessica Parker (1965- ), actress; Sheryl Swoopes (1971- ), basketball player; Wladimir Klitschko (1976- ), boxer; Danica Patrick (1982- ), race car driver; Ryan Lewis (1988- ), rapper/producer.

TODAY’S FACT: Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from the University of Oxford on this day in 1811 for publishing a pamphlet in favor of atheism.

TODAY’S SPORTS: In 1958, Sugar Ray Robinson defeated Carmen Basilio in a rematch, regaining the middleweight title and becoming the first boxer to win a title five times.

TODAY’S QUOTE: “Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.” — Flannery O’Connor, “Mystery and Manners”

TODAY’S NUMBER: 40 — height (in feet) of the stone cross erected on St. Clement’s Island in 1934 in celebration of Maryland’s 300th anniversary.