Today in History

Today in History Today is Monday, March 28, the 87th day of 2022. There are 278 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On March 28, 1979, America’s worst commercial nuclear accident occurred with a partial meltdown inside the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania. On this date: In 1797, Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire received a patent for a washing machine. In 1854, during the Crimean War, Britain and France declared war on Russia. In 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ruled 6-2 that Wong, who was born in the United States to Chinese immigrants, was an American citizen. In 1935, the notorious Nazi propaganda film ‘œTriumph des Willens’� (Triumph of the Will), directed by Leni Riefenstahl, premiered in Berlin with Adolf Hitler present. In 1939, the Spanish Civil War neared its end 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 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. In 1969, the 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, died in Washington, D.C., at age 78. In 1977, ‘œRocky’� won best picture at the 49th Academy Awards; Peter Finch was honored posthumously as best actor for ‘œNetwork’� while his co-star, Faye Dunaway, was recognized as best actress. In 1987, Maria von Trapp, whose life story inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ‘œThe Sound of Music,’� died in Morrisville, Vermont, at age 82. In 1999, NATO broadened its attacks on Yugoslavia to target Serb military forces in Kosovo in the fifth straight night of airstrikes; thousands of refugees flooded into Albania and Macedonia from Kosovo. In 2000, in a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court, in Florida v. J.L., sharply curtailed police power in relying on anonymous tips to stop and search people. Ten years ago: The U.S. Supreme Court wrapped up three days of public arguments on President Barack Obama’s historic health care law. (In June 2012, the court would uphold almost all of the law, including the mandate that virtually all Americans have health insurance or pay a penalty.) On the last day of his visit, Pope Benedict XVI demanded more freedom for the Roman Catholic Church in communist-run Cuba and preached against ‘œfanaticism’� in an unusually political sermon before hundreds of thousands at Revolution Plaza. Bluegrass legend and banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs, 88, died in Nashville, Tennessee. Five years ago: President Donald Trump proposed immediate budget cuts of $18 billion from programs like medical research, infrastructure and community grants so that U.S. taxpayers, not Mexico, could cover the down payment on the border wall. Wells Fargo said it would pay $110 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over up to 2 million accounts its employees opened for customers without getting their permission. One year ago: Local media in Myanmar reported that security forces opened fire on a crowd attending the funeral of a student who was killed along with more than 100 others a day earlier in a crackdown on protests against the February coup there. Four bodies were found in Tennessee in the aftermath of flooding caused by heavy rains. Two additional tugboats were deployed to Egypt’s Suez Canal to help free a giant container ship that had been wedged for days across the crucial waterway.