Flashback
Today is Saturday, March 25, the 84th day of 2006. There are 281 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history: On March 25, 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala., to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.
Ten years ago: An 81-day standoff by the anti-government Freemen began at a ranch near Jordan, Mont. “Braveheart” won Academy Awards for best picture and best director Mel Gibson; Nicolas Cage won best actor for “Leaving Las Vegas,” Susan Sarandon won best actress for “Dead Man Walking.” The redesigned $100 bill went into circulation.
Five years ago: At the 73rd Academy Awards, “Gladiator” won best picture; its star, Russell Crowe, won best actor; Julia Roberts won best actress for “Erin Brockovich”; Steven Soderbergh won best director for “Traffic.”
One year ago: Losing still more legal appeals, Terri Schiavo’s father, Bob Schindler, said his severely brain-damaged daughter was “down to her last hours” as she entered her second week without the feeding tube that had sustained her life for 15 years. An ailing, silent Pope John Paul appeared to the faithful via video for Good Friday services at the Vatican.
On this date:
In 1634, Maryland was founded by English colonists sent by the second Lord Baltimore.
In 1865, during the Civil War, Confederate forces captured Fort Stedman in Virginia.
In 1894, Jacob S. Coxey began leading an “army” of unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., to demand help from the federal government.
In 1911, 146 immigrant workers were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York.
In 1913, the home of vaudeville, the Palace Theatre, opened in New York City.
In 1918, French composer Claude Debussy died in Paris.
In 1947, a coal mine explosion in Centralia, Ill., claimed 111 lives.
In 1957, the Treaty of Rome established the European Economic Community.
In 1975, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a nephew with a history of mental illness. (The nephew was beheaded in June 1975.)
In 1990, 87 people, most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants, were killed when fire raced through an illegal social club in New York City.