Today in History
Today is Tuesday, March 21, the 80th day of 2017. There are 285 days
left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On March 21, 1952, the
Moondog Coronation Ball, considered the first rock and roll concert,
took place at Cleveland Arena. On this date: In 1556, Thomas Cranmer,
the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was burned at the stake for
heresy. In 1685, composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach,
Germany. In 1804, the French civil code, or the "Code Napoleon" as it
was later called, was adopted. In 1925, Tennessee Gov. Austin Peay
(pee) signed the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of the
Theory of Evolution in public schools. (Tennessee repealed the law in
1967.) In 1935, Persia officially changed its name to Iran. In 1946,
the recently created United Nations Security Council set up temporary
headquarters at Hunter College in The Bronx, New York. In 1957,
President Dwight D. Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold
Macmillan began a four-day conference in Bermuda. In 1963, the Alcatraz
federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last
inmates and closed at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
In 1972, the Supreme Court, in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may
not require at least a year's residency for voting eligibility. In
1981, Michael Donald, a black teenager in Mobile, Alabama, was
abducted, tortured and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. (A
lawsuit brought by Donald's mother, Beulah Mae Donald, later resulted
in a landmark judgment that bankrupted one Klan organization.) In 1997,
President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrapped up
their summit in Helsinki, Finland, still deadlocked over NATO
expansion, but able to agree on slashing nuclear weapons arsenals. In
2006, the social media website Twitter was established with the sending
of the first "tweet" by co-founder Jack Dorsey, who wrote: "just
setting up my twttr. Ten years ago: Former Vice President Al Gore made
an emotional return to Congress as he pleaded with House and Senate
committees to fight global warming; skeptical Republicans questioned
the science behind his climate-change documentary, "An Inconvenient
Truth. Five years ago: A previously divided U.N. Security Council sent
a strong and united message to the Syrian government and opposition to
immediately implement proposals by international envoy Kofi Annan to
end Syria's yearlong bloodshed. Meting out unprecedented punishment for
a bounty system that targeted key opposing players, the NFL suspended
New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton without pay for the coming
season and indefinitely banned the team's former defensive coordinator;
in addition to other sanctions, Commissioner Roger Goodell fined the
Saints $500,000 and took away their second-round draft picks for the
current year and the next. One year ago: Laying bare a half-century of
tensions, President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro
prodded each other over human rights and the longstanding U.S. economic
embargo during an unprecedented joint news conference in Havana. A
former U.S. State Department employee who had used his
government-issued computer to prey on vulnerable young women and
manipulate them into sharing nude photos was sentenced in Atlanta to
five years in federal prison. Today's Birthdays: Actress Kathleen
Widdoes is 78. Songwriter Chip Taylor ("Wild Thing") is 77. Folk-pop
singer/musician Keith Potger (The Seekers) is 76. Actress
Marie-Christine Barrault is 73. Singer-musician Rose Stone (Sly and the
Family Stone) is 72. Actor Timothy Dalton is 71. Singer Ray Dorset
(Mungo Jerry) is 71.Singer Eddie Money is 68. Rock singer-musician
Roger Hodgson (Supertramp) is 67. Rock musician Conrad Lozano (Los
Lobos) is 66. Rhythm-and-blues singer Russell Thompkins Jr. (The
Stylistics) is 66. Comedy writer-performer Brad Hall is 59. Actress
Sabrina LeBeauf is 59. Actor Gary Oldman is 59. Actress Kassie Depaiva
("Days of Our Lives") is 56. Actor Matthew Broderick is 55.
Comedian-talk show host Rosie O'Donnell is 55. Rock musician Jonas
"Joker" Berggren (Ace of Base) is 50. Rock MC Maxim (Prodigy) is 50.
Rock musician Andrew Copeland (Sister Hazel) is 49. Hip-hop DJ Premier
(Gang Starr) is 48. Actress Laura Allen is 43. Rapper-TV personality
Kevin Federline is 39. Actor Scott Eastwood is 31. Actor Forrest
Wheeler is 13. Thought for Today: "History is principally the
inaccurate narration of events which ought not to have happened. Ernest
Albert Hooten, American anthropologist (1887-1954).
