Today is Tuesday, March 24, the 84th day of 2020. There are 282 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight:

On March 24, 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil.

On this date:

In 1882, German scientist Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis.

In 1958, Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Army at the draft board in Memphis, Tennessee, before boarding a bus for Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. (Presley underwent basic training at Fort Hood, Texas, before being shipped off to Germany.)

In 1975, Muhammad Ali defeated Chuck Wepner with a technical knockout in the 15th round of a fight in Richfield, Ohio.

In 1976, the president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by her country’s military. British war hero Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, 88, died in Alton, Hampshire, England.

In 1980, one of El Salvador’s most respected Roman Catholic Church leaders, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, was shot to death by a sniper as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador.

Today’s birthdays: Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti is 101. Actor William Smith is 87. Fashion and costume designer Bob Mackie is 81. Former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire is 73. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is 64.

Thought for today: “Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, American author (1896-1940)

Associated Press