TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, March 13, the 74th day of 2024. There are 293 days left in the year.
ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY
On March 13, 2013, Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope, choosing the name Francis. He was the first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.
1781 — The seventh planet of the solar system, Uranus, was discovered by Sir William Herschel.
1862 — President Abraham Lincoln signed a measure prohibiting Union military officers from returning fugitive slaves to their owners.
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 Austin Peay signed the measure on March 21; Tennessee repealed the law in 1967.)
1933 — Banks in the US began to reopen after a “holiday” declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1946 — US Army Pfc. Sadao Munemori was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for sacrificing himself to save fellow soldiers from a grenade explosion in Seravezza, Italy; he was the only Japanese-American service member so recognized in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
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.
1995 — Two Americans working for US defense contractors in Kuwait, David Daliberti and William Barloon, were seized by Iraq after they strayed across the border; sentenced to eight years in prison, both were freed later the same year.
1996 — A gunman burst into an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and opened fire, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself.
2011 — The estimated death toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami climbed past 10,000 as authorities raced to combat the threat of multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns while hundreds of thousands of people struggled to find food and water.
2020 — Breonna Taylor, a 26-yearold Black woman, was fatally shot in her apartment in Louisville, Ky., during a botched raid by plainclothes narcotics detectives; no drugs were found, and the “no-knock” warrant used to enter by force was later found to be flawed.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Jazz musician Roy Haynes is 99.
Songwriter Mike Stoller is 91. Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka is 85. R&B/ gospel singer Candi Staton is 84. Opera singer Julia Migenes is 75. Actor William H. Macy is 74. Comedian Robin Duke is 70. Actor Dana Delany is 68. Sen. John Hoeven, R-ND, is 67. Rock musician Adam Clayton (U2) is 64. Jazz musician Terence Blanchard is 62. Actor Christopher Collet is 56. Rock musician Matt McDonough (Mudvayne) is 55. Actor Annabeth Gish is 53. Actor Tracy Wells is 53. Rapper-actor Common is 52. Rapper Khujo (Goodie Mob, The Lumberjacks) is 52. Singer Glenn Lewis is 49. Actor Noel Fisher is 40. Singers Natalie and Nicole Albino (Nina Sky) are 40. Actor Emile Hirsch is 39. US Olympic gold medal skier Mikaela Shiffrin is 29. Tennis star Coco Gauff is 20.