TODAY IN HISTORY TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1911

146 people, mostly young female immigrants, were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York.

1634

English colonists sent by Lord Baltimore arrived in present-day Maryland.

1776

Gen. George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, was awarded the first Congressional Gold Medal by the Continental Congress.

1915

The U.S. Navy lost its first commissioned submarine as the USS F-4 sank off Hawaii, claiming the lives of all 21 crew members.

1931

In the so-called “Scottsboro Boys” case, nine young Black men were taken off a train in Alabama, accused of raping two white women; after years of convictions, death sentences and imprisonment, the nine were eventually vindicated.

1947

A coal-dust explosion inside the Centralia Coal Co. Mine No. 5 in Washington County, Illinois, claimed 111 lives; 31 men survived.

1954

RCA announced it had begun producing color television sets at its plant in Bloomington, Indiana.

1963

Private pilot Ralph Flores and his 21-year-old passenger, Helen Klaben, were rescued after being stranded for seven weeks in brutally cold conditions in the Yukon after their plane crashed.

1965

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 people to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery after a five-day march from Selma to protest the denial of voting rights to Blacks. Later that day, civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, a white Detroit homemaker, was shot and killed by Ku Klux Klansmen.

1985

“Amadeus” won eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best director for Milos Forman and best actor for F. Murray Abraham.

1987

The Supreme Court, in Johnson v. Transportation Agency, ruled 6-3 that an employer could promote a woman over an arguably more-qualified man to help get women into higher-ranking jobs. Film critic Gene Shalit is 95. Former astronaut James Lovell is 93. Feminist activist and author Gloria Steinem is 87. Singer Sir Elton John is 74. Actor Marcia Cross is 59. Actor Sarah Jessica Parker is 56.