Today is Thursday, March 10, the 69th day of 2022. There are 296 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 10, 1969, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tennessee, to assassinating civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (Ray later repudiated that plea, maintaining his innocence until his death.

On this date:

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America’s minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.

In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln assigned Ulysses S. Grant, who had just received his commission as lieutenant-general, to the command of the Armies of the United States.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant, Thomas Watson, heard Bell say over his experimental telephone: “Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you” from the next room of Bell’s Boston laboratory.

In 1913, former slave, abolitionist and Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriet Tubman died in Auburn, New York; she was in her 90s.

In 1985, Konstantin U. Chernenko, who was the Soviet Union’s leader for 13 months, died at age 73; he was succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev.

In 1988, pop singer Andy Gibb died in Oxford, England, at age 30 of heart inflammation.

In 2019, a Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed shortly after taking off from the capital, Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Chuck Norris is 82. Singer Dean Torrence (Jan and Dean) is 82. Actor Katharine Houghton (Film: “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”) is 80. Rock musician Tom Scholz (Boston) is 75. TV personality/businesswoman Barbara Corcoran (TV: “Shark Tank”) is 73. Actor Shannon Tweed is 65. Actor Sharon Stone is 64. Magician Lance Burton is 62. Britain’s Prince Edward is 58. Rock singer Edie Brickell is 56. Actor Jon Hamm is 51. Singer Robin Thicke is 45. Country singer Carrie Underwood is 39.