Today is Wednesday, March 28, the 88th day of 2012. There are 278 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On March 28, 1942, during World War II, British naval forces staged a successful raid on the Nazi-occupied French port of St. Nazaire in Operation Chariot, destroying the only dry dock on the Atlantic coast capable of repairing the German battleship Tirpitz.
On this date:
In 1834, the U.S. Senate voted to censure President Andrew Jackson for the removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States.
In 1854, during the Crimean War, Britain and France declared war on Russia.
In 1898, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ruled that a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen.
In 1930, the names of the Turkish cities of Constantinople and Angora were changed to Istanbul and Ankara.
In 1935, the notorious Nazi propaganda film “Triumph des Willens” (“Triumph of the Will”), directed by Leni Riefenstahl, premiered in Berlin with Adolf Hitler present.
In 1939, the Spanish Civil War effectively ended as Madrid fell to the forces of Francisco Franco.
In 1941, novelist and critic Virginia Woolf, 59, drowned herself near her home in Lewes, East Sussex, England.
In 1969, the 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, died in Washington, D.C., at age 78.
In 1978, in Stump v. Sparkman, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld, 5-3, the judicial immunity of an Indiana judge against a lawsuit brought by a young woman who’d been ordered sterilized by the judge when she was a teenager.
In 1979, America’s worst commercial nuclear accident occurred inside the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pa.
In 1987, Maria von Trapp, whose life story inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music,” died in Morrisville, Vt., at age 82.
In 1990, President George H.W. Bush presented the Congressional Gold Medal to the widow of U.S. Olympic legend Jesse Owens, who was honored for his “humanitarian contributions in the race of life.”
Ten years ago: The Arab League, meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, agreed on a peace plan that offered Israel normal relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from war-won lands and a Palestinian state. Archbishop Juliusz Paetz of Poznan, Poland, announced his resignation, but also protested his innocence, following accusations he’d made sexual advances toward young clerics. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Timothy Woodland was convicted in a Japanese court and sentenced to nearly three years in prison for raping a woman on the southern island of Okinawa.
Five years ago: Iran aired a video of 15 captured British sailors and marines; the lone female captive, shown in a white tunic and a black head scarf, said the British boats had “trespassed.” (The crew members were released April 4, 2007.) In the Philippines, dozens of children were taken hostage on a bus by a day-care center owner armed with grenades and guns; the crisis ended peacefully 10 hours later with the hostage-taker’s surrender.
One year ago: Vigorously defending American attacks in Libya, President Barack Obama declared in a nationally broadcast address that the United States intervened to prevent a slaughter of civilians. Yet he ruled out targeting Moammar Gadhafi, warning that trying to oust him militarily would be a mistake as costly as the war in Iraq.
Associated Press
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