
Photo Credit: Top left: Alabama police attack Selma to Montgomery marchers, known as “Bloody Sunday,” in 1965 Top right: Marchers carrying banner “We march with Selma!” on street in Harlem, New York City, New York in 1965 Bottom left: Participants in the Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama during 1965 Bottom right: Dr. Martin Luther King, Dr. Ralph David Abernathy, their families, and others leading the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.
On March 7, 1965, a march by over 500 civil rights demonstrators was violently broken up at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; state troopers and a sheriff’s posse fired tear gas and beat marchers with batons in what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. patent for his telephone.
In 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties.
In 1975, the U.S. Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present.
In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a parody that pokes fun at an original work can be considered “fair use.” (The ruling concerned a parody of the Roy Orbison song “Oh, Pretty Woman” by the rap group 2 Live Crew.)
In 2010, filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director, taking the prize for directing the film “The Hurt Locker.”
In 2024, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting incident on the set of the film “Rust” in 2021, which killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. (Gutierrez-Reed was later sentenced to 18 months in prison.)
Today’s birthdays: Hall of Fame auto racer Janet Guthrie is 87. Actor Daniel J. Travanti is 85. Entertainment executive Michael Eisner is 83. Peter Wolf, lead vocalist for the J. Geils Band, is 79.Football Hall of Famer Lynn Swann is 73. R&B musician Ernie Isley (The Isley Brothers) is 73. Actor Bryan Cranston is 69. Tennis Hall of Famer Ivan Lendl is 65. Singer Taylor Dayne is 63. Author E.L. James is 62. Author Bret Easton Ellis is 61. Comedian Wanda Sykes is 61. Actor Rachel Weisz is 55. Actor Peter Sarsgaard is 54. Actor Jenna Fischer is 51. Actor Tobias Menzies is 51. Actor Laura Prepon is 45. Poet Amanda Gorman is 27.