Category: Today

On March 7, 1965, Alabama state troopers and local sheriff’s deputies attacked a group of 600 civil rights marchers with tear gas and billy clubs as they reach Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge. Two weeks after Selma’s “Bloody Sunday,” 3,200 citizens marched for four days to Montgomery where 25,000 people protested at the capitol.

On March 7, 1945, American troops seize the strategic Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, the last remaining bridge over the Rhine River into Germany’s heartland. The bridge allowed the Allies to immediately move tanks and supply trucks across the Rhine.

On March 7, 1936, Hitler sent military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I.

On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.

On March 6, 1836, the Alamo falls after a thirteen day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops. The 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and Colonel Jim Bowie are killed. “Remember the Alamo” becomes the rallying cry of those who successfully win an independent Republic of Texas.

On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court delivered perhaps its most infamous decision in Dred Scott case, affirming the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, thereby negating the doctrine of popular sovereignty in deciding whether new states will be free or slave states.

On March 6, 1947, John Stossel, author and television reporter and commentator, is born in Chicago Heights, Illinois.

On March 6, 1967, Joseph Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defected to the United States.

On March 6, 1970, a bomb blast at a house in Greenwich Village killed three members of the Weather Underground.

On Monday, March 5, 1770, a small number of British soldiers fired on a crowd of angry colonists, killing five, in what came to be known as “The Boston Massacre.” The occupation of Boston by British soldiers was fiercely opposed and a crowd gathered outside the Customs House began to pelt soldiers with snowballs and rocks. Many believe the initial shot was fired by accident, but the incident inflamed public opinion against the British.

On March 5, 1963, the Hula Hoop was patented.

On March 4, 1789, the first session of the U.S. Congress held under the newly ratified U.S. Constitution began in New York City. But of the 22 senators and 59 representatives from the 11 states that had ratified the document, only nine senators and 13 representatives showed up.

On March 3, 1836, Texans signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, officially breaking from Mexico to establish the Republic of Texas.

On March 3, 1863, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil War conscription act, the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history. The act required registration of all males between 20 and 45 years of age. Exemptions could be purchased for $300 or by finding a substitute. Only 18 percent of those registered and drafted actually entered the Union army. The law was fiercely opposed. Protests of the draft law in New York City led to bloody riots, in which estimates of deaths range from 120 to 2,000 and 2,000 to 8,000 people injured.

On March 3, 1945, American and Filipino troops recaptured Manila in the Philippines from the Empire of Japan.

On March 2, 1807, the U.S. Congress passed an act to “prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States…from any foreign kingdom, place, or country.”

On Feb. 29, 1972, Hank Aaron signed a three-year deal with the Atlanta Braves that paid him $200,000 per year, making him the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball at the time. Two years later, Aaron became baseball’s career home run king when he broke Babe Ruth’s long-standing record.

On Feb. 29, 1988, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu was arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.

On Feb. 28, 1993, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, with media in tow, raided the Waco, Texas, compound of the Branch Davidian religious group, prompting a gun battle in which four agents and six Davidians were killed. The federal agents were attempting to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on information that the religious sect was stockpiling weapons. A nearly two-month standoff after the unsuccessful raid ended with an assault on the compound on April 19, 1993, and a fire that burned the compound to the ground killing 76 Davidians, including Koresh and 20 children.

On Feb. 27, 1854, the Republican Party of the United States was organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.

On Feb. 25, 1986, President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of repressively ruling the nation and Corazon Aquino became the Philippines’ first woman president in a peaceful revolution sometimes called the “Yellow Revolution” because of the yellow ribbons used during street demonstrations.

On Feb. 24, 1803, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of William Marbury vs. James Madison, Secretary of State of the United States, confirming the legal principle of judicial review — the ability of the Supreme Court to limit congressional power by declaring legislation unconstitutional.

On Feb. 24, 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. Later, he was acquitted by the Senate.