On this day, March 7
1876 Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. patent for his telephone. 1916 Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) had its beginnings in Munich, Germany, as an airplane engine manufacturer.
1965 A march by civil rights demonstrators was violently broken up at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., by state troopers and a sheriff’s posse in what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
1975 The U.S. Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present.
1994 The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a parody that pokes fun at an original work can be considered “fair use.” (The ruling concerned a parody of the Roy Orbison song “Oh, Pretty Woman” by the rap group 2 Live Crew.)
1999 Movie director Stanley Kubrick, whose films included “Dr. Strangelove,” “A Clockwork Orange” and “2001: A Space Odyssey,” died in Hertfordshire, England, at age 70, having just finished editing “Eyes Wide Shut.”
2005 President George W. Bush nominated John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, an appointment that ran into Democratic opposition, prompting Bush to make a recess appointment.
2013 The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously for tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test; a furious Pyongyang threatened a nuclear strike against the United States.
2020 Health officials in Florida said two people who had tested positive for the new coronavirus had died; the deaths were the first on the East Coast attributed to the outbreak.
2022 The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine deepened as Russian forces intensified their shelling and food, water, heat and medicine grew increasingly scarce in what the country condemned as a medievalstyle siege by Moscow to batter it into submission.
Today’s birthdays: International Motorsports Hall of Famer Janet Guthrie, 86. Actor Daniel J. Travanti, 84. Entertainment executive Michael Eisner, 82. Rock musician Chris White (The Zombies), 81. Rock singer Peter Wolf, 78. Former Steelers wide receiver Lynn Swann, 72. R&B singer-musician Ernie Isley (The Isley Brothers), 72. Rock musician Kenny Aronoff (BoDeans, John Mellencamp), 71. Actor Bryan Cranston, 68. International Tennis Hall of Famer Ivan Lendl, 64. Singer-actor Taylor Dayne, 62. Author Bret Easton Ellis, 60. Opera singer Denyce Graves, 60. Comedian Wanda Sykes, 60. Actor Rachel Weisz, 54. Actor Peter Sarsgaard, 53. Actor Jay Duplass, 51. Actor Jenna Fischer, 50.