TODAY IN HISTORY

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Today is Wednesday, March 11, the 71st day of 2020. There are 295 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami struck Japan’s northeastern coast, killing nearly 20,000 people and severely damaging the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station.

On this date:

In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln removed Gen. George B. McClellan as general-in-chief of the Union armies, leaving him in command of the Army of the Potomac, a post McClellan also ended up losing.

In 1918, what are believed to be the first confirmed U.S. cases of a deadly global flu pandemic were reported among U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas; 46 would die. (The worldwide outbreak of influenza claimed an estimated 20 to 40 million lives.)

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis.

In 1942, as Japanese forces continued to advance in the Pacific during World War II, U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia, where he vowed on March 20, “I shall return” — a promise he kept more than 2½ years later.

In 1954, the U.S. Army charged that Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., and his subcommittee’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, had exerted pressure to obtain favored treatment for Pvt. G. David Schine, a former consultant to the subcommittee. (The confrontation culminated in the famous Senate Army-McCarthy hearings.)

In 2005, a judge, court reporter and sheriff’s deputy were shot to death at an Atlanta courthouse; Brian Nichols, who killed them as well as a federal agent, surrendered a day later at the apartment of Ashley Smith, a woman he’d taken hostage. (Nichols was later convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.)

Today’s Birthdays: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is 89. Former ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson is 86. Actress Tricia O’Neil is 75. Actor Mark Metcalf is 74. Rock singer-musician Mark Stein (Vanilla Fudge) is 73. Singer Bobby McFerrin is 70. Movie director Jerry Zucker is 70. Singer Cheryl Lynn is 69. Actress Susan Richardson is 68. Recording executive Jimmy Iovine is 67. Singer Nina Hagen is 65. Country singer Jimmy Fortune (The Statler Brothers) is 65. Actor Elias Koteas is 59. Actor-director Peter Berg is 58. Singer Mary Gauthier (GOH’-shay) is 58. Actor Jeffrey Nordling is 58. Actress Alex Kingston is 57. Country musician David Talbot is 57.

Thought for Today: “It’s all right to hesitate if you then go ahead.” — Bertholt Brecht, German poet and dramatist (1898-1956).

By The Associated Press

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