TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS TUESDAY, MARCH 13, the 72nd day of 2018. There are 293 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1928, at least 400 people died when the San Francisquito Canyon in Southern California was inundated with water after the nearly two-year-old St. Francis Dam collapsed just before midnight the evening of March 12.
In 1639, New College was renamed Harvard College for clergyman John Harvard.
In 1781, the seventh planet of the solar system, Uranus, was discovered by Sir William Herschel.
In 1925, the Tennessee General Assembly approved a bill prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution. (Gov. Austin Peay signed the measure on March 21.)
In 1933, banks in the U.S. began to reopen after a “holiday” declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 1954, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu began during the First Indochina War as Viet Minh forces attacked French troops, who were defeated nearly two months later.
In 1964, bar manager Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, 28, was stabbed to death near her Queens, N.Y., home; the case gained notoriety over the supposed reluctance of Genovese’s neighbors to respond to her cries for help.
In 1980, Ford Motor Co. Chairman Henry Ford II announced he was stepping down, the same day a jury in Winamac, Ind., found the company not guilty of reckless homicide in the fiery deaths of three young women in a Ford Pinto.
In 1996, a gunman burst into an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and opened fire, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Jazz musician Roy Haynes is 93. Country singer Jan Howard is 88. Songwriter Mike Stoller is 85. Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka is 79. Opera singer Julia Migenes is 69. Actor William H. Macy and political commentator Charles Krauthammer are 68. Actress Dana Delany is 62. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., is 61. Rock musician Adam Clayton (U2) is 58. Jazz musician Terence Blanchard is 56. Rock musician Matt McDonough (Mudvayne) is 49. Actresses Annabeth Gish and Tracy Wells are 47. Rapperactor Common and rapper Khujo (Goodie Mob, The Lumberjacks) are 46. Singer Glenn Lewis is 43. Bluegrass musician Clayton Campbell (The Gibson Brothers) is 37. Actor Noel Fisher and singers Natalie and Nicole Albino (Nina Sky) are 34. Actor Emile Hirsch is 33. Olympic gold medal skier Mikaela Shiffrin is 23.