TODAY IN HISTORY
1775: Patrick Henry delivered an address to the Virginia Provincial Convention in which he is said to have declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”
1806: Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, having reached the Pacific coast, began their journey back east.
1919: Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.
1933: The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers.
1942: The first Japanese Americans interned by the U.S. Army during World War II arrived at the camp in Manzanar, Calif.
1965: America’s first two-person space mission took place as Gemini 3 blasted off with astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom and John W. Young aboard for a nearly five-hour flight.
1981: The U.S. Supreme Court, in H.L. v. Matheson, ruled that states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teenage girls seek abortions.
1998: “Titanic” tied an Academy Awards record by winning 11 Oscars, including best picture, best director for James Cameron and best original song for “My Heart Will Go On.”
2003: During the Iraq War, a U.S. Army maintenance convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah; 11 soldiers were killed, including Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa; six were captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued on April 1, 2003.
2010: Claiming a historic triumph, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, a $938 billion health care overhaul.
2018: President Donald Trump released an order banning most transgender troops from serving in the military except under “limited circumstances.”
2020: President Donald Trump said he wanted to reopen the country for business in weeks, not months; he asserted that continued closures could result in more deaths than the coronavirus itself. Britain became the latest European country to go into effective lockdown, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered the closure of most retail stores and banned public gatherings.
2021: A cargo ship the size of a skyscraper ran aground and became wedged in the Suez Canal; hundreds of ships would be prevented from passing through the canal until the vessel was freed six days later.