Today in history

Published 12:01 am Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Today’s highlight:

On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John W. Hinckley Jr. Also wounded were White House press secretary James Brady; Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and District of Columbia police officer Thoma

s Delahanty.

On this date:

In 1861, the element thallium was discovered by English chemist William Crookes.

In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million.

In 1909, the Queensboro Bridge, linking the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Queens, opened.

In 1945, the Soviet Union invaded Austria during World War II.

In 1959, a narrowly divided U.S. Supreme Court, in Bartkus v. Illinois, ruled that a conviction in state court following an acquittal in federal court for the same crime did not constitute double jeopardy.

In 1964, John Glenn withdrew from the Ohio race for the U.S. Senate because of injuries suffered in a fall.

In 1970, the musical “Applause,” based on the movie “All About Eve,” opened on Broadway.

In 1986, actor James Cagney died at his farm in Stanfordville, N.Y., at age 86.

In 1991, Patricia Bowman of Jupiter, Fla., told authorities she’d been raped hours earlier by William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Sen. Edward Kennedy, at the family’s Palm Beach estate. (Smith was acquitted at trial.)

In 2002, Britain’s Queen Mother Elizabeth died in her sleep at Royal Lodge, Windsor, outside London; she was 101 years old.

Associated Press