Today in history
On March 22, 1894, hockey’s first Stanley Cup championship game was played; home team Montreal defeated Ottawa, 3-1.
In 1929, a U.S. Coast Guard vessel sank a Canadian-registered schooner, the I’m Alone, which was suspected of carrying bootleg liquor, in the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1933, during Prohibition, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure to make wine and beer containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol legal.
In 1941, the Grand Coulee hydroelectric dam in Washington state officially went into operation.
In 1978, Karl Wallenda, the 73-year-old patriarch of “The Flying Wallendas” high-wire act, fell to his death while attempting to walk a cable strung between two hotel towers in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
In 1987, a garbage barge, carrying 3,200 tons of refuse, left Islip, New York, on a six-month journey in search of a place to unload. (The barge was turned away by several states and three other countries until space was found back in Islip.)
In 1991, high school instructor Pamela Smart, accused of recruiting her teenage lover and his friends to kill her husband, Gregory, was convicted in Exeter, New Hampshire, of murder-conspiracy and being an accomplice to murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In 1997, Tara Lipinski, at age 14 years and 10 months, became the youngest ladies’ world figure skating champion in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Ten years ago: John and Elizabeth Edwards announced that her cancer had returned, but that the North Carolina Democrat planned to continue his presidential campaign. A rocket exploded 50 yards from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during a news conference in Baghdad’s Green Zone just minutes after Iraq’s prime minister said the visit showed the city was “on the road to stability.”
Five years ago: Coroner’s officials ruled singer Whitney Houston died by drowning the previous February, but that heart disease and cocaine use were contributing factors.
One year ago: Capping a remarkable visit to Cuba, President Barack Obama sat beside President Raul Castro at a baseball game between Cuba’s national team and the Tampa Bay Rays (the Rays won, 4-1); Obama left the game early to fly to Argentina for a state visit there.
“Kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.”