HISTORY

Highlight: In 1965, a march by civil rights demonstrators was violently broken up at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, by state troopers and a sheriff’s posse in what came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

In 1793, during the French Revolutionary Wars, France declared war on Spain.

In 1850, in a three-hour speech to the U.S. Senate, Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, endorsed the Compromise of 1850 as a means of preserving the Union.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for his telephone.

In 1912, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen arrived in Hobart, Australia, where he dispatched telegrams announcing his success in leading the first expedition to the South Pole the previous December.

In 1926, the first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversations took place between New York and London.

In 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact.

In 1945, during World War II, U.S. forces crossed the Rhine at Remagen, Germany, using the damaged but still usable Ludendorff Bridge.

In 1955, the first TV production of the musical “Peter Pan” starring Mary Martin aired on NBC.

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 1999, movie director Stanley Kubrick, whose films included “Dr. Strangelove,” “A Clockwork Orange” and “2001: A Space Odyssey,” died in Hertfordshire, England, at age 70, having just finished editing “Eyes Wide Shut.”

Ten years ago: President George W. Bush nominated John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, an appointment which ran into Democratic opposition, prompting Bush to make a recess appointment.

Five years ago: The Iraq war thriller “The Hurt Locker” received six Academy Awards including best picture, with Kathryn Bigelow accepting the first directing Oscar awarded to a woman.

One year ago: Russia was swept up in patriotic fervor in anticipation of bringing Crimea back into its territory, with tens of thousands of people thronging Red Square in Moscow chanting, “Crimea is Russia!”

BIRTHDAYS

Photographer Lord Snowdon is 85. TV personality Willard Scott is 81. International Motorsports Hall of Famer Janet Guthrie is 77. Actor John Heard is 69. Rock singer Peter Wolf is 69. Rhythm-and-blues singer-musician Ernie Isley (The Isley Brothers) is 63. Actor Bryan Cranston is 59. Actress Donna Murphy is 56. Actor Nick Searcy is 56. Singer-actress Taylor Dayne is 53. Actor Bill Brochtrup is 52. Opera singer Denyce Graves is 51. Comedian Wanda Sykes is 51. Rock musician Randy Guss (Toad the Wet Sprocket) is 48. Actor Peter Sarsgaard is 44. Actress Rachel Weisz is 44. Actress Jenna Fischer is 41.