TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, March 24, the 84th day of 2024. There are 282 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On March 24, 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil.
On this date:
In 1765, Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers.
In 1882, German scientist Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis.
In 1980, one of El Salvador’s most respected Roman Catholic Church leaders, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, was shot to death by a sniper as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador.
In 1995, after 20 years, British soldiers stopped routine patrols in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
In 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it had ever attacked a sovereign country.
In 2010, keeping a promise he’d made to anti-abortion Democratic lawmakers to assure passage of his historic health care legislation, President Barack Obama signed an executive order against using federal funds to pay for elective abortions covered by private insurance.
In 2018, in the streets of the nation’s capital and in cities across the country, hundreds of thousands of teenagers and their supporters rallied against gun violence, spurred by a call to action from student survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead.
Today’s Birthdays: Fashion and costume designer Bob Mackie is 85. Singer Nick Lowe is 75. Fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger is 73. Actor Robert Carradine is 70. Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is 68. Actor Kelly LeBrock is 64. TV personality Star Jones is 62. Actor Lara Flynn Boyle is 54. Actor Megyn Price is 53. Actor Jim Parsons is 51. Former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning is 48. Actor Jessica Chastain is 47. Neo-soul musician Jesse Phillips (St. Paul & the Broken Bones) is 44. Actor Philip Winchester (TV: “Strike Back”) is 43. Dancer Val Chmerkovskiy is 38. Actor Keisha Castle-Hughes is 34.