TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, March 10, the 69th day of 2021. There are 296 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On March 10, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln assigned
Ulysses S. Grant, who had just received his commission as lieutenant-general, to the command of the Armies of the United States.
On this date:
• In 1785, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America’s minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.
• In 1848, the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War.
• In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant, Thomas Watson, heard Bell say over his experimental telephone: “Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you” from the next room of Bell’s Boston laboratory.
• In 1906, about 1,100 miners in northern France were killed by a coal-dust explosion.
• In 1913, former slave, abolitionist and Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriet Tubman died in Auburn, New York; she was in her 90s.
• In 1914, the Rokeby Venus, a 17th-century painting by Diego Velazquez on display at the National Gallery in London, was slashed multiple times by Mary Richardson, who was protesting the arrest of fellow suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst. (The painting was repaired.)
• In 1927, the Sinclair Lewis novel “Elmer Gantry” was published by Harcourt, Brace & Co.
• In 1969, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis,
Tennessee (on his 41st birthday) to assassinating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (Ray later repudiated that plea, maintaining his innocence until his death.)
• In 1985, Konstantin U. Chernenko, who was the Soviet Union’s leader for 13 months, died at age 73; he was succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev.
• In 1988, pop singer Andy Gibb died in Oxford, England, at age 30 of heart inflammation.
• In 2000, Pope John Paul II approved sainthood for Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia socialite who had taken a vow of poverty and devoted her fortune to helping poor Blacks and American Indians. (Drexel, who died in 1955, was canonized in October 2000.)
• In 2015, breaking her silence in the face of a growing controversy over her use of a private email address and server, Hillary Rodham Clinton conceded that she should have used government email as secretary of state but insisted she had not violated any federal laws or Obama administration rules.
Ten years ago: The House Homeland Security Committee examined Muslim extremism in America during a hearing punctuated by tearful testimony and angry recriminations. (Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., accused U.S. Muslims of doing too little to help fight terror in America; Democrats warned of inflaming anti-Muslim sentiment.)
Five years ago: Donald Trump and his Republican rivals turned their presidential debate in Miami into a mostly respectful but still pointed discussion of Social Security, Islam, trade and more. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an official visit to the White House.
One year ago: Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden canceled primary-night rallies in Cleveland amid concerns over the spread of the coronavirus. Biden won primaries in the battleground state of Michigan and three other states, dealing a serious blow to Sanders. Clusters of the coronavirus swelled on both U.S. coasts, with more than 70 cases linked to a biotech conference in Boston and infections turning up at 10 nursing homes in the Seattle area. Infections in Italy topped the 10,000 mark, as authorities enforced a sweeping nationwide lockdown.