Today is Tuesday, March 23, the 82nd day of 2021. There are 283 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry delivered an address to the Virginia Provincial Convention in which he is said to have declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”

On this date:

In 1792, Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 in G Major (the “Surprise” symphony) had its first public performance in London.

In 1806, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, having reached the Pacific coast, began their journey back east.

In 1933, the German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers.

In 1942, the first Japanese-Americans evacuated by the U.S. Army during World War II arrived at the internment camp in Manzanar, California.

In 1965, America’s first two-person space mission took place as Gemini 3 blasted off with astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom and John W. Young aboard for a nearly 5-hour flight.

In 1973, before sentencing a group of Watergate break-in defendants, Chief U.S. District Judge John J. Sirica read aloud a letter he’d received from James W. McCord Jr. which said there was “political pressure” to “plead guilty and remain silent.”

In 1993, scientists announced they’d found the renegade gene that causes Huntington’s disease.

In 2003, during the Iraq War, a U.S. Army maintenance convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah ; 11 soldiers were killed, including Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa; six were captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued on April 1, 2003.

In 2010, claiming a historic triumph, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, a $938 billion health care overhaul.

Today’s Birthdays: Movie director Mark Rydell is 92. International Motorsports Hall of Famer Craig Breedlove is 84. Singer Chaka Khan is 68. Actor Richard Grieco is 56. Bandleader Reggie Watts (TV: “The Late Late Show With James Corden”) is 49. Gossip columnist-blogger Perez Hilton is 43. NBA point guard Kyrie Irving is 29.