Today is Tuesday, March 22, the 81st day of 2011. There are 284 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On March 22, 1765, Britain enacted the Stamp Act of 1765 to raise money from the American colonies. (The Act was repealed the following year.)

On this date

In 1638, religious dissident Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for defying Puritan orthodoxy.

In 1820, U.S. naval hero Stephen Decatur was killed in a duel with Commodore James Barron near Washington, D.C.

In 1882, President Chester Alan Arthur signed a measure outlawing polygamy.

In 1929, a U.S. Coast Guard vessel sank a Canadian-registered schooner, the I’m Alone, in the Gulf of Mexico. (The schooner was suspected of carrying bootleg liquor.)

In 1933, during Prohibition, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure to make wine and beer containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol legal.

In 1941, the Grand Coulee hydroelectric dam in Washington state went into operation.

In 1958, movie producer Mike Todd, the husband of actress Elizabeth Taylor, and three other people were killed in the crash of Todd’s private plane near Grants, N.M.

In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson named Gen. William Westmoreland to be the Army’s new chief of staff.

In 1978, Karl Wallenda, the 73-year-old patriarch of “The Flying Wallendas” high-wire act, fell to his death while attempting to walk a cable strung between two hotel towers in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In 1991, high school instructor Pamela Smart, accused of recruiting her teenage lover and his friends to kill her husband, Gregory, was convicted in Exeter, N.H., of murder-conspiracy and being an accomplice to murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Ten years ago

An 18-year-old student opened fire at Granite Hills High School in El Cajon, Calif., wounding three classmates and two teachers before he was shot by a police officer. (Jason Hoffman later hanged himself in jail.) Yevgeny Plushchenko captured the World Figure Skating Championships crown in Vancouver, British Columbia. Animation pioneer William Hanna died in Los Angeles at age 90.

Five years ago

More than 125,000 hourly workers of General Motors Corp. and auto supplier Delphi Corp. were offered buyouts to help cut the companies’ huge labor costs. The Basque separatist group ETA announced a permanent cease-fire with Spain. A Gabon-bound ferry sank off the coast of Cameroon; more than 120 people are believed to have died. A bus carrying cruise ship tourists plunged off a highway in northern Chile and tumbled down a mountainside, killing 12 Americans.

One year ago

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton toured the quake-devastated capital of Haiti — a visit intended to remind donors of the immense needs facing the recovery effort. Google announced it would stop censoring search results on its site in China by shifting it from the mainland to Hong Kong.

Today’s Birthdays

USA Today founder Allen Neuharth is 87. Composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim is 81. Evangelist broadcaster Pat Robertson is 81. Actor William Shatner is 80. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is 77. Actor Emmet Walsh is 76. Actor-singer Jeremy Clyde is 70. Singer-guitarist George Benson is 68. Writer James Patterson is 64. CNN newscaster Wolf Blitzer is 63. Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is 63. Actress Fanny Ardant is 62. Sportscaster Bob Costas is 59. Country singer James House is 56. Actress Lena Olin is 56. Singer-actress Stephanie Mills is 54. Actor Matthew Modine is 52. Country musician Tim Beeler (Flynnville Train) is 43. Actress Anne Dudek is 36. Actor Cole Hauser is 36. Actress Kellie Williams is 35. Actress Reese Witherspoon is 35. Rock musician John Otto (Limp Bizkit) is 34. Rapper Mims is 30.

Thought for Today

“Better to be alone than with a bad companion.”

— Spanish expression