Today in History

Today is Sunday, March 5, the 64th day of 2023. There are 301 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history:

On March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre took place as British soldiers who’d been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people.

On this date:

In 1849, Zachary Taylor was inaugurated as the 12th president of the United States. (The swearing-in was delayed by a day because March 4 fell on a Sunday.)

In 1868, the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the U.S. Senate, with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presiding. Johnson, the first U.S. president to be impeached, was accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” stemming from his attempt to fire Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; the trial ended on May 26 with Johnson’s acquittal.

In 1933, in German parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote; the Nazis joined with a conservative nationalist party to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag.

In 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in which he said: “From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the continent, allowing police governments to rule Eastern Europe.”

In 1953, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died after three decades in power.

In 1963, country music performers Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins died in the crash of their plane, a Piper Comanche, near Camden, Tennessee, along with pilot Randy Hughes (Cline’s manager).

In 1970, the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons went into effect after 43 nations ratified it.

In 1979, NASA’S Voyager 1 space probe flew past Jupiter, sending back photographs of the planet and its moons.

In 1982, comedian John Belushi was found dead of a drug overdose in a rented bungalow in Hollywood; he was 33.

In 1998, NASA scientists said enough water was frozen in the loose soil of the moon to support a lunar base and perhaps, one day, a human colony.

In 2004, Martha Stewart was convicted in New York of obstructing justice and lying to the government about why she’d unloaded her Imclone stock just before the price plummeted; her ex-stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, also was found guilty in the stock scandal. (Each later received a fivemonth prison sentence.)

In 2020, Palestinian officials closed the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem over fears of the coronavirus. Officials ordered a cruise ship with 3,500 people aboard to stay back from the California coast until passengers and crew could be tested; a traveler from its previous voyage died of the coronavirus.

Ten years ago: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Latin America’s most vocal and controversial leader, died in Caracas at age 58 after a struggle with cancer. Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole announced that airline passengers would be able to carry small knives, souvenir baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes (the plan was dropped three months later amid fierce congressional and industry opposition).

Five years ago: House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican allies of President Donald Trump pleaded with him to back away from his threatened tariffs, but Trump responded, “We’re not backing down.” Los Angeles police arrested Terry Bryant, 47, on charges that he stole Frances Mcdormand’s Oscar trophy after the Academy Awards a night earlier; the award was returned to the actress. (Charges against Bryant would later be dismissed.) The Nielsen company announced that the Academy Awards viewership had plunged to a record low of 26.5 million, down 20 percent from a year earlier.

One year ago: A promised cease-fire in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol collapsed amid scenes of terror in the besieged town. The number of people fleeing the country reached 1.4 million just 10 days after Russian forces invaded. Officials in Russia revealed that WNBA All-star Brittney Griner had been arrested at a Moscow airport weeks earlier when a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis. (Nine months later, Griner would be released in a prisoner swap with the U.S.)

Today’s birthdays: Actor Paul Sand is 91. Actor James B. Sikking is 89. Actor Fred Williamson is 85. Actor Samantha Eggar is 84. Actor Michael Warren is 77. Singer Eddy Grant is 75. Rock musician Alan Clark (Dire Straits) is 71. Actorcomedian Marsha Warfield is 69. Magician Penn Jillette is 68. Actor Adriana Barraza is 67. Actor Talia Balsam is 64. Rock singers Charlie and Craig Reid (The Proclaimers) are 61. Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Irvin is 57. Actor Paul Blackthorne is 54. Rock musician John Frusciante is 53. Singer Rome is 53. Actor Kevin Connolly is 49. Actor Eva Mendes is 49. Actor Jill Ritchie is 49. Actor Jolene Blalock is 48. Model Niki Taylor is 48. Actor Kimberly Mccullough is 45. Actor Karolina Wydra is 42. Singer-songwriter Amanda Shires is 41. Actor Dominique Mcelligott is 37. Actor Sterling Knight is 34. Actor Jake Lloyd is 34. Actor Micah Fowler is 25.

Today is Monday, March 6, the 65th day of 2023. There are 300 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history:

On March 6, 1944, U.S. heavy bombers staged the first full-scale American raid on Berlin during World War II.

On this date:

In 1834, the city of York in Upper Canada was incorporated as Toronto.

In 1836, the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, fell as Mexican forces led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna stormed the fortress after a 13-day siege; the battle claimed the lives of all the Texan defenders, nearly 200 strong, including William Travis, James Bowie and Davy Crockett.

In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, ruled 7-2 that Scott, a slave, was not an American citizen and therefore could not sue for his freedom in federal court.

In 1912, Oreo sandwich cookies were first introduced by the National Biscuit Co.

In 1933, a national bank holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, aimed at calming panicked depositors, went into effect.

In 1964, heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay officially changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

In 1970, a bomb being built inside a Greenwich Village townhouse in New York by the radical Weathermen accidentally went off, destroying the house and killing three group members.

In 1973, Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck, 80, died in Danby, Vermont.

In 1981, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as principal anchorman of “The CBS Evening News.”

In 1998, the Army honored three Americans who’d risked their lives and turned their weapons on fellow soldiers to stop the slaughter of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai (mee ly) in 1968.

In 2002, Independent Counsel Robert Ray issued his final report in which he wrote that former President Bill Clinton could have been indicted and probably would have been convicted in the scandal involving former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

In 2016, former first lady Nancy Reagan died in Los Angeles at age 94.

Ten years ago: Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY., a critic of the Obama administration’s drone policy, launched an old-style filibuster to block Senate confirmation of John Brennan’s nomination to be CIA director; Paul lasted nearly 13 hours before yielding the floor. Syria’s accelerating humanitarian crisis hit a grim milestone as the number of U.n.-registered refugees topped 1 million, half of them children.

Five years ago: Top economic adviser Gary Cohn announced that he was leaving the White House after breaking with President Donald Trump on trade policy. Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, a one-time rising star in the Democratic Party, resigned after pleading guilty to cheating the city out of thousands of dollars to carry on an affair with her bodyguard. Schoolteachers in West Virginia announced an end to a nine-day walkout after state lawmakers approved a 5 percent pay raise.

One year ago: A second attempt to evacuate Ukrainians from the besieged city of Mariupol collapsed as Russian attacks made it impossible to create a humanitarian corridor, according to a Ukrainian official. In his first public remarks since resigning over multiple sexual harassment allegations, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo assailed the “cancel culture” he says was behind politically motivated efforts to remove him. A massive brawl broke out among fans of clubs in Mexico’s top-division soccer league, leaving 14 hospitalized, two of them in critical condition.

Today’s birthdays: Former FBI and CIA director William Webster is 99. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is 97. Dancer-actor Carmen de Lavallade is 92. Former Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova is 86. Former Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-MO., is 84. Actorwriter Joanna Miles is 83. Actor Ben Murphy is 81. Opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is 79. Rock musician Hugh Grundy (The Zombies) is 78. Rock singermusician David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) is 77. Actor Anna Maria Horsford is 76. Actor-director Rob Reiner is 76. Singer Kiki Dee is 76. TV consumer reporter John Stossel is 76. Composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz is 75. Rock singer-musician Phil Alvin (The Blasters) is 70. Sports correspondent Armen Keteyian is 70. Actor Tom Arnold is 64. Actor D.L. Hughley is 60. Country songwriter Skip Ewing is 59. Actor Shuler Hensley is 56. Actor Connie Britton is 56. Actor Moira Kelly is 55. Actor Amy Pietz is 54. Rock musician Chris Broderick (Megadeth) is 53. Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’neal is 51. Country singer Trent Willmon is 50. Rapper Beanie Sigel is 49. Rapper Bubba Sparxxx is 46. Actor Shaun Evans is 43. Rock musician Chris Tomson (Vampire Weekend) is 39. Former MLB pitcher Jake Arrieta is 37. Actor Eli Marienthal is 37. Rapper/producer Tyler, the Creator is 32. Actor Dillon Freasier is 27. Actor Savannah Stehlin is 27. Actor Millicent Simmonds (Film: “Wonderstruck”) is 20.

Today is Tuesday, March 7, the 66th day of 2023. There are 299 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history:

On March 7, 1965, a march by civil rights demonstrators was violently broken up at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, by state troopers and a sheriff’s posse in what came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

On this date:

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. patent for his telephone.

In 1911, President William Howard Taft ordered 20,000 troops to patrol the U.s.-mexico border in response to the Mexican Revolution.

In 1916, Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) had its beginnings in Munich, Germany, as an airplane engine manufacturer.

In 1926, the first successful trans-atlantic radio-telephone conversations took place between New York and London.

In 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact.

In 1945, during World War II, U.S. forces crossed the Rhine at Remagen, Germany, using the damaged but still usable Ludendorff Bridge.

In 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.

In 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.)

In 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.”

In 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.

In 2016, Peyton Manning announced his retirement after 18 seasons in the National Football League.

In 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.

Ten years ago: 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. The Senate confirmed John Brennan to be CIA director, 63-34, after the Obama administration bowed to demands from Republicans blocking the nomination and stated explicitly there were limits to the president’s power to use drones against U.S. terror suspects on American soil. Sybil Christopher, 83, the wife Richard Burton left in 1963 to marry Elizabeth Taylor, and who became a theater producer and nightclub founder, died in New York.

Five years ago: The White House said Mexico, Canada and other countries could be spared from President Donald Trump’s planned steel and aluminum tariffs under national security “carve-outs.” For the second time in less than a week, a storm rolled into the Northeast with as much as two feet of wet, heavy snow that grounded flights, closed schools and knocked out power.

One year ago: 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 medieval-style siege by Moscow to batter it into submission. The Supreme Court says it would not take up the sexual assault case against comedian Bill Cosby, leaving in place a decision by Pennsylvania’s highest court to throw out his conviction and set him free from prison.

Today’s birthdays: International Motorsports Hall of Famer Janet Guthrie is 85. Actor Daniel J. Travanti is 83. Entertainment executive Michael Eisner is 81. Rock musician Chris White (The Zombies) is 80. Rock singer Peter Wolf is 77. Rock musician Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum) is 77. Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Lynn Swann is 71. R&B singermusician Ernie Isley (The Isley Brothers) is 71. Rock musician Kenny Aronoff (Bodeans, John Mellencamp) is 70.