Today in History

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Today is Tuesday, March 21, the 80th day of 2023. There are 285days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 21, 1965, civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their third, successful march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

On this date:

In 1685, composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.

In 1935, Persia officially changed its name to Iran. In 1945, during World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany. In 1952, the Moondog Coronation Ball, considered the first rock and roll concert, took place at Cleveland Arena.

In 1972, the Supreme Court, in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may not require at least a year’s residency for voting eligibility.

In 1990, Namibia became an independent nation as the former colony marked the end of 75 years of South African rule.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their summit in Helsinki, Finland, still deadlocked over NATO expansion, but able to agree on slashing nuclear weapons arsenals.

In 2006, the social media website Twitter was established with the sending of the first “tweet” by cofounder Jack Dorsey, who wrote: “just setting up my twttr.”

In 2007, former Vice President Al Gore made an emotional return to Congress as he pleaded with House and Senate committees to fight global warming; skeptical Republicans questioned the science behind his climatechange documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In 2016, laying bare a half-century of tensions, President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro prodded each other over human rights and the longstanding U.S. economic embargo during an unprecedented joint news conference in Havana.

In 2019, President Donald Trump abruptly declared that the U.S. would recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, a major shift in American policy.

In 2020 during a White House briefing, President Donald Trump doubled down on his support for the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for the coronavirus, while Dr. Anthony Fauci said the evidence was “anecdotal.”

Ten years ago: On his second day in the Middle East, President Barack Obama insisted “peace is possible” as he prodded both Israelis and Palestinians to return to long-stalled negotiations with few, if any, pre-conditions, softening his earlier demands that Israel stop building settlements in disputed territory.

Five years ago: As a SWAT team moved in on his SUV, Mark Conditt, the suspect in the deadly bombings that had terrorized Austin, Texas for three weeks, used one of his own devices to take his own life. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for a “major breach of trust;” the apology came after it was revealed that the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, whose clients included the Trump campaign, may have used data improperly obtained from Facebook users to try to sway elections. The fourth nor’easter in three weeks dumped more than a foot of snow on some parts of the East Coast.

One year ago: A China Eastern Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in a mountainous area of southern China, setting off a forest fire visible from space in the country’s worst air disaster in nearly a decade. (All 123passengers and nine crew members would later be confirmed dead.) In her first day of public hearings, Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson pledged to decide cases “without fear or favor” if the Senate confirmed her historic nomination as the first Black woman on the high court. Veteran talk show host Maury Povich announced he was calling it quits, saying he would stop making original episodes of “Maury” after being a daytime mainstay for 31years. Today’s Birthdays: Actor Kathleen Widdoes is 84. Songwriter Chip Taylor (“Wild Thing”) is 83. Folkpop singer-musician Keith Potger (The Seekers) is 82. Actor Marie-christine Barrault is 79. Singer-musician Rose Stone (Sly and the Family Stone) is 78. Actor Timothy Dalton is 77. Singer Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry) is 77. Rock singer-musician Roger Hodgson (Supertramp) is 73. Rock musician Conrad Lozano (Los Lobos) is 72. R&B singer Russell Thompkins Jr. is 72. Comedy writer-performer Brad Hall is

65. Actor Sabrina Lebeauf is 65. Actor Gary Oldman is

65. Actor Kassie Depaiva is

62. Actor Matthew Broderick is 61. Comedian-actor Rosie O’donnell is 61. Actor Cynthia Geary is 58. Hip-hop DJ Premier (Gang Starr) is 57. Rock musician Jonas “Joker” Berggren (Ace of Base) is 56. Rock MC Maxim (Prodigy) is

56. Rock musician Andrew Copeland (Sister Hazel) is 55. Actor Laura Allen is

49. Rapper-tv personality Kevin Federline is 45. Actor Sonequa Martin-green (TV: “The Walking Dead”) is 38. Actor Scott Eastwood is

37. Tennis player Karolina Pliskova is 31. Actor Jasmin Savoy Brown is 29. Actor Forrest Wheeler is 19.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Today is Wednesday, March 22, the 81st day of 2023. There are 284days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights in History:

On March 22, 1894, hockey’s first Stanley Cup championship game was played; home team Montreal defeated Ottawa, 3-1.

On this date:

In 1765, the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act to raise money from the American colonies, which fiercely resisted the tax. (The Stamp Act was repealed a year later.) In 1882, President Chester Alan Arthur signed a measure outlawing polygamy. In 1941, the Grand Coulee hydroelectric dam in Washington state officially went into operation.

In 1945, the Arab League was formed with the adoption of a charter in Cairo, Egypt.

In 1963, The Beatles’ debut album, “Please Please Me,” was released in the United Kingdom by Parlophone. In 1978, Karl Wallenda, the 73-year-old patriarch of “The Flying Wallendas” high-wire act, fell to his death while attempting to walk a cable strung between two hotel towers in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In 1988, both houses of Congress overrode President Ronald Reagan’s veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act. In 1993, Intel Corp. unveiled

the original Pentium computer chip. In 1997, Tara Lipinski, at age 14 years and 10 months, became the youngest ladies’ world figure skating champion in Lausanne, Switzerland.

In 2010, Google Inc. stopped censoring the internet for China by shifting its search engine off the mainland to Hong Kong.

In 2019, special counsel Robert Mueller closed his Russia investigation with no new charges, delivering his final report to Justice Department officials. Former President Jimmy Carter became the longest-living chief executive in American history; at 94years and 172 days, he exceeded the lifespan of the late former President George H.W. Bush.

In 2020, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered all nonessential businesses in the state to close and nonessential workers to stay home. Kentucky Republican Rand Paul became the first member of the U.S. Senate to report testing positive for the coronavirus; his announcement led Utah senators Mike Lee and Mitt Romney to place themselves in quarantine.

Ten years ago: Anxious to keep Syria’s civil war from spiraling into even worse problems, President Barack Obama said during a visit to Jordan that he worried about the country becoming a haven for extremists when — not if — President Bashar Assad was ousted from power. The Internal Revenue Service said it was a mistake for employees to have made a $60,000 six-minute training video spoofing “Star Trek” and “Gilligan’s Island.”

Five years ago: President Donald Trump announced that he would replace national security adviser H.R. Mcmaster with former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton; Mcmaster became the sixth close Trump adviser or aide to depart in a turbulent six weeks. Trump set in motion tariffs on as much as $60 billion in Chinese imports, and China threatened retaliation; the heightening trade tensions brought a selloff on Wall Street, where the Dow industrials plunged more than 700 points. H. Wayne Huizenga, a college dropout who built a business empire that included Blockbuster Entertainment and three professional sports franchises, died at his Florida home at the age of 80.

One year ago: Ukrainian forces fought off continuing Russian efforts to occupy Mariupol and claimed to have retaken a strategic suburb of Kyiv, mounting a defense so dogged that stoked fears Russia’s Vladimir Putin would escalate the war to new heights. Facing Republican senators’ pointed questions in her confirmation hearings, Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson forcefully defended her record as a federal judge and declared she would rule “from a position of neutrality” if confirmed as the first Black woman on the high court. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party reached an agreement with the leftist opposition New Democratic Party to keep his party in power until 2025. Actor Amanda Bynes was released from a court conservatorship that put her life and financial decisions in her parents’ control for nearly nine years.

Today’s Birthdays: Evangelist broadcaster Pat Robertson is 93. Actor William Shatner is 92. Actor M. Emmet Walsh is

88. Actor-singer Jeremy Clyde is 82. Singer-guitarist George Benson is 80. Writer James Patterson is 76. CNN newscaster Wolf Blitzer is

75. Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is 75. Actor Fanny Ardant is 74. Sportscaster Bob Costas is 71. Country singer James House is 68. Actor Lena Olin is 68. Singer-actor Stephanie Mills is

66. Actor Matthew Modine is

64. Actor-comedian Keeganmichael Key is 52. Actor Will Yun Lee is 52. Olympic silver medal figure skater Elvis Stojko (STOY’-KOH) is 51. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-calif., is 50. Actor Guillermo Diaz is 48. Actor Anne Dudek is

47. Actor Cole Hauser is 48. Actor Kellie Williams is 47. Actor Reese Witherspoon is

47. Rock musician John Otto (Limp Bizkit) is 46. Actor Tiffany Dupont is 42. Rapper Mims is 42. Actor Constance Wu is 41. Actor James Wolk is 38.