Today is Wednesday, March 7, the 66th day of 2007. There are 299 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On March 7, 1965, a march by civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, Ala., by state troopers and a sheriff’s posse.
On this date:
In 1849, horticulturist Luther Burbank was born in Lancaster, Mass.
In 1850, in a three-hour speech to the U.S. Senate, Daniel Webster endorsed the Compromise of 1850 as a means of preserving the Union.
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for his telephone.
In 1911, the United States sent 20,000 troops to the Mexican border as a precaution in the wake of the Mexican Revolution.
In 1926, the first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversations took place, between New York and London.
In 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact.
In 1945, during World War II, U.S. forces crossed the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany, using the damaged but still usable Ludendorff Bridge.
In 1975, the Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present.
In 1981, anti-government guerrillas in Colombia executed kidnapped American Bible translator Chester Allen Bitterman, whom they accused of being a CIA agent.
In 1994, the Supreme Court ruled that a parody that pokes fun at an original work can be considered “fair use” that doesn’t require permission from the copyright holder.
Ten years ago: After a week of embarrassing disclosures about White House fundraising, President Clinton told a news conference, “I’m not sure, frankly” whether he’d also made calls for campaign cash. But he insisted that nothing had undercut his pledge to have the highest ethical standards ever.
Five years ago: The House passed 417-3 a bill cutting taxes and extending unemployment benefits. By a razor-thin margin, voters in Ireland rejected a government plan to further toughen the country’s already strict anti-abortion laws.
One year ago: The Bush administration drew a hard line on Iran, warning of “meaningful consequences” if the Islamic government did not back away from an international confrontation over its disputed nuclear program. Nobel Peace laureate Oscar Arias was declared Costa Rica’s president-elect. Photographer and movie director Gordon Parks died in New York at age 93.
Today’s Birthdays: Comedian Alan Sues is 81. Photographer Lord Snowdon is 77. TV personality Willard Scott is 73. Auto racer Janet Guthrie is 69. Actor Daniel J. Travanti is 67. Former Walt Disney Company chief executive officer Michael Eisner is 65. Rock musician Chris White (The Zombies) is 64. Actor John Heard is 61. Rock singer Peter Wolf is 61. Rock musician Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum) is 61. Football Hall-of-Famer Franco Harris is 57. Football Hall-of-Famer Lynn Swann is 55. Rhythm-and-blues singer-musician Ernie Isley (The Isley Brothers) is 55. Actor Bryan Cranston is 51. Actress Donna Murphy is 48. Tennis Hall-of-Famer Ivan Lendl is 47. Actor Bill Brochtrup is 44. Opera singer Denyce Graves is 43. Comedian Wanda Sykes is 43. Singer-actress Taylor Dayne is 42. Rock musician Randy Guss (Toad the Wet Sprocket) is 40. Actor Peter Sarsgaard is 36. Actress Rachel Weisz is 36. Classical singer Sebastien Izambard (Il Divo) is 34. Rock singer Hugo Ferreira (Tantric) is 33. Actress Jenna Fischer is 33. Actress Laura Prepon is 27.
Thought for Today: “If you’re not feeling good about you, what you’re wearing outside doesn’t mean a thing.” — Leontyne Price, American opera singer.