Today is Saturday, March 5, the 64th day of 2011. There are 301 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.
On this date:
In 1770, the Boston Massacre took place as British soldiers who’d been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people.
In 1868, the Senate was organized into a Court of Impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson, who was later acquitted.
In 1933, in German parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote; the Nazis joined with a conservative nationalist party to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag.
In 1953, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died after three decades in power.
In 1959, a fire at the Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville, Ark., claimed the lives of 21 teenagers trapped inside a locked dormitory room.
In 1960, Cuban newspaper photographer Alberto Korda took the now- famous picture of guerrilla leader Che Guevara during a memorial service in Havana for victims of a ship explosion. Elvis Presley was discharged from the U.S. Army.
In 1963, country music performers Patsy Cline, “Cowboy” Copas and “Hawkshaw” Hawkins died in a plane crash near Camden, Tenn., that also claimed the life of pilot Randy Hughes (Cline’s manager).
In 1970, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons went into effect after 43 nations ratified it.
In 1979, NASA’s Voyager 1 space probe flew past Jupiter, sending back photographs of the planet and its moons.
In 1982, comedian John Belushi was found dead of a drug overdose in a rented bungalow in Hollywood; he was 33.
Ten years ago: Vice President Dick Cheney underwent an angioplasty for a partially blocked artery after going to a hospital with chest pains. Two students at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., were shot to death, 13 other people were wounded; student shooter Charles “Andy” Williams was later sentenced to 50 years to life in prison. A stampede broke out during the annual hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Saudi Arabia, killing 35 Muslims.
Five years ago: AT&T announced it was buying BellSouth Corp., a big step toward resurrecting the old Ma Bell telephone system. “Crash” won the Best Picture Academy Award in an upset over “Brokeback Mountain”; Philip Seymour Hoffman won Best Actor for “Capote” and Reese Witherspoon won Best Actress for “Walk the Line.”
One year ago: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, visiting Guatemala, told reporters that demand for narcotics in the United States was fueling drug violence in Central America as she acknowledged a measure of U.S. responsibility for what she called “a terrible criminal scourge.” New York Democratic Rep. Eric Massa, facing a harassment complaint by a male staffer, said he was stepping down from his seat with “a profound sense of failure.” Andree Peel, 105, a member of the World War II Resistance, died in Bristol, England.
Associated Press
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