TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

March 13, 1928

At least 400people died when the San Francisquito Canyon in Southern California was inundated with water after the nearly twoyear-old St. Francis Dam collapsed just before midnight the evening of March 12.

ALSO ON THIS DATE

1639

New College was renamed Harvard College for clergyman John Harvard.

1781

The seventh planet of the solar system, Uranus, was discovered by Sir William Herschel.

1865

Confederate President Jefferson Davis signed a measure allowing black slaves to enlist in the Confederate States Army with the promise they would be set free.

1925

The Tennessee General Assembly approved a bill prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution.

1964

Bar manager Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, 28, was stabbed to death near her Queens, New York, home; the case gained notoriety over the supposed reluctance of Genovese’s neighbors to respond to her cries for help.

1996

A gunman burst into an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and opened fire, killing 16children and one teacher before killing himself.

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.

2017

The Congressional Budget Office said that 14million Americans would lose coverage the next year under House Republican legislation remaking the nation’s health care system, and that number would balloon to 24 million by 2026.