Today in History
Today is Monday, March 4, the 64th day of 2024. There are 302 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history:
On March 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated for a second term of office; with the end of the Civil War in sight, Lincoln declared:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the fight as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan (tilde) to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
On this date:
In 1789, the Constitution of the United States went into effect as the first Federal Congress met in New York. (The lawmakers then adjourned for lack of a quorum.)
In 1863, the Idaho Territory was created.
In 1917, Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, the same day President Woodrow Wilson took his oath of office for a second term (it being a Sunday, a private ceremony was held inside the U.S. Capitol; a second, public swearing-in took place the next day).
In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as America’s 32nd president.
In 1966, John Lennon of The Beatles was quoted in the London Evening Standard as saying, “We’re more popular than Jesus now,” a comment that caused an angry backlash in the United States.
In 1981, a jury in Salt Lake City convicted Joseph Paul Franklin, an avowed racist and serial killer, of violating the civil rights of two Black men, Ted Fields and David Martin, who’d been shot to death. (Franklin received two life sentences for this crime; he was executed in 2013 for the 1977 murder of a Jewish man, Gerald Gordon.)
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation on the Iran-Contra affair, acknowledging that his overtures to Iran had “deteriorated” into an arms-for-hostages deal.
In 1994, in New York, four extremists were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than a thousand. Actor-comedian John Candy died in Durango, Mexico, at age 43.
In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sexual harassment at work can be illegal even when the offender and victim are of the same gender.
In 2012, Vladimir Putin scored a decisive victory in Russia’s presidential election to return to the Kremlin and extend his hold on power.
In 2015, the Justice Department cleared Darren Wilson, a white former Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a Black 18-year-old, but also issued a scathing report calling for sweeping changes in city law enforcement practices.
In 2017, President Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his telephones during the 2016 election; an Obama spokesman declared that the assertion was “simply false.”
In 2018, “The Shape of Water” won four Oscars including best picture, an award announced by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway a year after they were caught up in the erroneous announcement that “La La Land” and not “Moonlight” had won for best picture.
In 2020, federal health officials investigated a suburban Seattle nursing home at the center of a coronavirus outbreak.
In 2022, Russian troops seized the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe after a middle-of-the-night attack that set it on fire and briefly raised worldwide fears of a catastrophe in the most chilling turn in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine to that point.
Today’s birthdays: Actor Paula Prentiss is 86. Movie director Adrian Lyne is 83. Singer Shakin’ Stevens is 76. Author James Ellroy is 76. Former Energy Secretary Rick Perry is 74. Singer Chris Rea is 73. Actor/rock singer-musician Ronn Moss is 72. Actor Kay Lenz is 71. Musician Emilio Estefan is 71. Movie director Scott Hicks is 71. Actor Catherine O’Hara is 70. Actor Mykelti (MY’-kul-tee) Williamson is 67. Actor Patricia Heaton is 66. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., is 66. Actor Steven Weber is 63. Rock musician Jason Newsted is 61. Actor Stacy Edwards is 59. Rapper Grand Puba is 58. Rock singer Evan Dando (Lemonheads) is 57. Actor Patsy Kensit is 56. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., is 56. Gay rights activist Chaz Bono is 55. Actor Andrea Bendewald is 54. Actor Nick Stabile (stah-BEEL’) is 54. Country singer Jason Sellers is 53. Jazz musician Jason Marsalis is 47. Actor Jessica Heap is 41. Actor Scott Michael Foster is 39. TV personality Whitney Port is 39. Actor Audrey Esparza is 38. Actor Margo Harshman is 38. Actor Josh Bowman is 36. Actor Andrea Bowen is 34. Actor Jenna Boyd is 31.
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