Today in History

Today is Saturday, March 7, the 67th day of 2020. 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 1793, during the French Revolutionary Wars, France declared war on Spain.

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 1912, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen arrived in Hobart, Australia, where he dispatched telegrams announcing his success in leading the first expedition to the South Pole the previous December.

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. Navy issued its first permanent orders assigning women to regular duty on a combat ship -- in this case, the USS Eisenhower.

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 2001, Ariel Sharon was sworn in as Israel's prime minister, serving until he suffered a stroke in 2006.

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.

Ten years ago: The Iraq war thriller "The Hurt Locker" received six Academy Awards including best picture, with Kathryn Bigelow accepting the first directing Oscar awarded to a woman. Iraq held an election in which neither the Sunni-backed coalition nor the Shiite political bloc won a majority, spawning an eight-month deadlock and stalling formation of a new government.

Five years ago: President Barack Obama joined tens of thousands of people in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" march of 1965, saying that America's racial history "still casts its long shadow upon us." Nigeria's home-grown Boko Haram Islamic extremists pledged formal allegiance to the Islamic State group as they battled a multinational force that had dislodged them from a number of towns in the north. Izola Ware Curry, who had stabbed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the chest with a letter opener at a Harlem book signing in 1958, died at a nursing home in Queens, New York, at age 98.

One year ago: Longtime Colombo crime family boss Carmine "The Snake" Persico died at the age of 85 at the Duke University Medical Center; he'd been serving what was effectively a life sentence at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced in Virginia to nearly four years in prison for tax and bank fraud related to his work advising Ukrainian politicians; a federal judge in Washington a week later added three and a-half years to that sentence.

Today's Birthdays: TV personality Willard Scott is 86. International Motorsports Hall of Famer Janet Guthrie is 82. Actor Daniel J. Travanti is 80. Entertainment executive Michael Eisner is 78. Rock musician Chris White (The Zombies) is 77. Rock singer Peter Wolf is 74. Rock musician Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum) is 74. Pro Football Hall of Famer Franco Harris is 70. Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Lynn Swann is 68. Rhythm-and-blues singer-musician Ernie Isley (The Isley Brothers) is 68. Rock musician Kenny Aronoff (BoDeans, John Mellencamp) is 67. Actor Bryan Cranston is 64. Actress Donna Murphy is 61. Actor Nick Searcy is 61. Golfer Tom Lehman is 61. International Tennis Hall of Famer Ivan Lendl is 60. Actress Mary Beth Evans is 59. Singer-actress Taylor Dayne is 58. Actor Bill Brochtrup is 57. Author E.L. James is 57. Author Bret Easton Ellis is 56. Opera singer Denyce Graves is 56. Comedian Wanda Sykes is 56. Actor Jonathan Del Arco is 54. Rock musician Randy Guss (Toad the Wet Sprocket) is 53. Actress Rachel Weisz is 50. Actor Peter Sarsgaard is 49. Actor Jay Duplass is 47. Classical singer Sebastien Izambard (Il Divo) is 47. Rock singer Hugo Ferreira (Tantric) is 46. Actress Jenna Fischer is 46. Actor Tobias Menzies is 46. Actress Sarayu Blue is 45. Actress Audrey Marie Anderson is 45. Actor TJ Thyne is 45. Bluegrass singer-musician Frank Solivan is 43. Actress Laura Prepon is 40. Actress Bel Powley is 28. Actress Giselle Eisenberg (TV: "Life in Pieces") is 13.

Thought for Today: "In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects." -- J. William Fulbright, U.S. senator (1905-1995).

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