This day in history

Today is Monday, March 4, the 64th day of 2024. There are 302 days left in the year.

Birthdays: Actor Paula Prentiss is 86. Author James Ellroy is 76. Former Energy Secretary Rick Perry is 74. Musician Emilio Estefan is 71. Actor Steven Weber is 63. Rock musician Jason Newsted is 61. Actor Stacy Edwards is 59. Actor Patsy Kensit is 56. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., is 56. Gay rights activist Chaz Bono is 55. Actor Andrea Bendewald is 54. Actor Nick Stabile is 54. Country singer Jason Sellers is 53. TV personality Whitney Port is 39. Actor Audrey Esparza is 38. Actor Josh Bowman is 36. Actor Jenna Boyd is 31.

► In 1789, the Constitution of the United States went into effect as the first Federal Congress met in New York. (The lawmakers then adjourned for lack of a quorum.)

► In 1917, Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the US House of Representatives, the same day President Woodrow Wilson took his oath of office for a second term (it being a Sunday, a private ceremony was held inside the US Capitol; a second, public swearing-in took place the next day).

► In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as America’s 32nd president.

► In 1966, John Lennon of The Beatles was quoted in the London Evening Standard as saying, “We’re more popular than Jesus now,” a comment that caused an angry backlash in the US.

► In 1987, President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation on the Iran-Contra affair, acknowledging that his overtures to Iran had “deteriorated” into an armsfor-hostages deal.

► In 1994, in New York, four extremists were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than a thousand.

► In 1998, the US Supreme Court ruled that sexual harassment at work can be illegal even when the offender and victim are of the same gender.

► In 2012, Vladimir Putin scored a decisive victory in Russia’s presidential election to return to the Kremlin and extend his hold on power.

► In 2015, the Justice Department cleared Darren Wilson, a white former Ferguson, Mo., police officer, in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a Black 18-year-old, but also issued a scathing report calling for sweeping changes in city law enforcement practices.

► In 2018, “The Shape of Water” won four Oscars, including best picture, an award announced by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway a year after they were caught up in the erroneous announcement that “La La Land” and not “Moonlight” had won best picture.

► In 2020, federal health officials investigated a suburban Seattle nursing home at the center of a coronavirus outbreak.

► In 2022, Russian troops seized the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe after a middleof-the-night attack that set it on fire and briefly raised worldwide fears of a catastrophe in the most chilling turn in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine to that point.