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 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.
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.
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).
