Today in History
Today is Saturday, March 18, the 77th day of 2017. There are 288 days
left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On March 18, 1937, in
America's worst school disaster, nearly 300 people, most of them
children, were killed in a natural gas explosion at the New London
Consolidated School in Rusk County, Texas. On this date: In 1766,
Britain repealed the Stamp Act of 1765. In 1837, the 22nd and 24th
president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, was born in Caldwell,
New Jersey. In 1917, the Mexican newspaper Excelsior published its
first edition. In 1925, the Tri-State Tornado struck southeastern
Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana, resulting in some
700 deaths. In 1940, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met at the
Brenner Pass, where the Italian dictator agreed to join Germany's war
against France and Britain. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
signed an executive order authorizing the War Relocation Authority,
which was put in charge of evacuating "persons whose removal is
necessary in the interests of national security," with Milton S.
Eisenhower (the youngest brother of Dwight D. Eisenhower) as its
director. In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii
statehood bill. (Hawaii became a state on Aug. 21, 1959.) In 1962,
France and Algerian rebels signed the Evian Accords, a cease-fire
agreement which took effect the next day, ending the Algerian War. In
1965, the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov
went outside his Voskhod 2 capsule, secured by a tether. Farouk I, the
former king of Egypt, died in exile in Rome. In 1974, most of the Arab
oil-producing nations ended their 5-month-old embargo against the
United States that had been sparked by American support for Israel in
the Yom Kippur War. In 1980, Frank Gotti, the 12-year-old youngest son
of mobster John Gotti, was struck and killed by a car driven by John
Favara, a neighbor in Queens, New York. (The following July, Favara
vanished, the apparent victim of a gang hit.) In 1990, thieves made off
with 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston
(the crime remains unsolved). Ten years ago: Pakistan's national
cricket team coach, Bob Woolmer, 58, was found dead in his hotel room
in Kingston, Jamaica, during cricket's World Cup tournament. (An
inquest into Woolmer's death ended with the Jamaican jury unable to
reach a ruling on the cause.) Five years ago: Mitt Romney scored an
overwhelming win in Puerto Rico's Republican presidential primary,
trouncing chief rival Rick Santorum. One year ago: A jury in St.
Petersburg, Florida, sided with ex-pro wrestler Hulk Hogan, awarding
him $115 million in compensatory damages in his sex tape lawsuit
against Gawker Media. (Three days later, the jury awarded $25 million
in punitive damages; Gawker, which ended up going bankrupt, finally
settled with Hogan for $31 million.) Police in Brussels captured
Europe's most wanted fugitive, Salah Abdeslam, who was the prime
suspect in the deadly 2015 Paris attacks. North Korea ignored U.N.
resolutions by firing a medium-range ballistic missile into the sea.
Today's Birthdays: Composer John Kander is 90. Country singer Charley
Pride is 83. Nobel peace laureate and former South African president
F.W. de Klerk is 81. Country singer Margie Bowes is 76. Actor Kevin
Dobson is 74. Actor Brad Dourif is 67. Jazz musician Bill Frisell is
66. Singer Irene Cara is 58. Alt-country musician Karen Grotberg (The
Jayhawks) is 58. Movie writer-director Luc Besson is 58. Actor Geoffrey
Owens is 56. Actor Thomas Ian Griffith is 55. Singer-songwriter James
McMurtry is 55. TV personality Mike Rowe is 55. Singer-actress Vanessa
L. Williams is 54. Olympic gold medal speedskater Bonnie Blair is 53.
Country musician Scott Saunders (Sons of the Desert) is 53. Actor David
Cubitt is 52. Rock musician Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) is 51.
Rock singer-musician Miki Berenyi (ber-EN'-ee) is 50. Actor Michael
Bergin is 48. Rapper-actress-talk show host Queen Latifah is 47. White
House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus (ryns PREE'-bus) is 45.
Actor-comedian Dane Cook is 45. Country singer Philip Sweet (Little Big
Town) is 43. Rock musician Stuart Zender is 43. Singers Jaron and Evan
Lowenstein are 43. Actress-singer-dancer Sutton Foster is 42. Singer
Devin Lima (LFO) is 40. Rock singer Adam Levine (Maroon 5) is 38. Rock
musician Daren Taylor (Airborne Toxic Event) is 37. Olympic gold medal
figure skater Alexei Yagudin is 37. Actor Adam Pally is 35. Actor
Cornelius Smith Jr. is 35. Actress Lily Collins is 28. Actress-dancer
Julia Goldani Telles is 22. Actress Ciara Bravo is 20. Actor Blake
Garrett Rosenthal is 13. Thought for Today: "To start is easy, to
persist is an art. German proverb.
