Today in Your History
A look at the people, events and popular culture that shaped our lives
AARP Members Only Access, March 2023
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PHOTO BY: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Mar. 19: The Mary Tyler Moore Show airs its emotional series finale (1977)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show broke new boundaries in its depiction of strong, independent women in the workplace. But Mary Richards’ time at the fictional Minneapolis station WJM-TV came to an unceremonious end during the 1977 series finale: In this all-time-great episode, new station owner Frank Coleman (Vincent Gardenia) decides to shake things up by firing the entire news staff — except for the bumbling, pompous anchor Ted Baxter (Ted Knight). Titled “The Last Show,” the episode saw the returns of Valerie Harper’s Rhoda and Cloris Leachman’s Phyllis, both of whom had left the series to star in successful spin-offs. But it’s best remembered for the final moments, in which Mary, Ted, Lou Grant (Ed Asner), Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod), Georgette Baxter (Georgia Engel) and Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White) gather for a tear-filled group hug and then, when no one wants to be the first to break from the group, wriggle over to a box of tissues on Mary’s desk. According to Moore, the huddle and the tears were unscripted and very real, and the episode went on to win the Emmy for outstanding writing in a comedy series. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images
Mar. 18: Michael Jordan announces he’s ending his brief retirement with a fax that reads simply “I’m back” (1995)
In October 1993, after winning three consecutive NBA championships and gold medals at both the 1984 and 1992 Olympic Games, Michael Jordan shocked the basketball world when he held a press conference and abruptly announced his retirement, saying that he didn’t have “anything else to prove.” After briefly pursuing a career as a minor league baseball player, His Airness decided to return to the NBA. But instead of planning a traditional press conference to launch his comeback, he made the announcement with his usual swagger: He simply wrote the words “I’m back” on a piece of paper and sent it out via fax. The media barely had time to process the news before MJ was back on the court the following day, joining the Chicago Bulls in a game against the Indiana Pacers. He donned jersey number 45 — the same one he wore during his short-lived baseball career — and as he later explained on ESPN’s The Last Dance, “I didn’t want to wear 23 because I knew my father wasn’t there to watch me, and I felt it was a new beginning, and 45 was my first number when I was playing in high school.” Jordan made the switch back to his iconic 23 during Game 2 of the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals against the Orlando Magic. “I just felt like 45 wasn’t natural,” he said. “I wanted to go back with the feeling I had with 23.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Sal Veder/AP
Mar. 17: Slava “Sal” Veder snaps the Pulitzer-winning photo titled “Burst of Joy,” depicting a POW reuniting with his family (1973)
Even if you don’t know the image by name or by photographer, you’d probably recognize the iconic “Burst of Joy,” a powerfully uplifting shot of a family sprinting across a tarmac to reunite with a recently released prisoner of war. The picture was taken on this date 50 years ago by Associated Press photographer Slava “Sal” Veder, at California’s Travis Air Force Base, and it depicts the homecoming of Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm, an Air Force fighter pilot who had been shot down over Vietnam and kept as a POW for six years. Throughout the war, Veder had covered anti-war demonstrations in San Francisco and Berkeley, so this scene of pure happiness proved a major tonal shift from his usual work. After taking the shot, Veder set up a darkroom in a women’s bathroom on the base, and the image was sent out over the newswires. It won the Pulitzer Prize for photography the following year. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Vinyls/Alamy
Mar. 16: Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” becomes the first posthumous number 1 hit (1968)
On Dec. 10, 1967, Otis Redding — dubbed “the crown prince of soul” by Rolling Stone cofounder Jann Wenner — died in a plane crash outside of Madison, Wisconsin. He was only 26. He had been working on a song called “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” which was inspired by a stay at a friend’s houseboat in Sausalito, California, in the summer of 1967, but at the time of his death, he considered it incomplete; for a time, he even considered adding backing vocals from the Staples Singers. Following his tragic death, guitarist and cowriter Steve Cropper finalized the mix we know and love, adding in the sounds of seagulls and crashing waves that have become so iconic. As Cropper told Rolling Stone, “I got to thinking about Otis clowning around on some of the outtakes. He was trying to make seagull sounds but he sounded like a dying crow.” The song was released less than a month after his death, on Jan. 8, and it quickly became a bonafide sensation. On March 16, the single topped the charts, selling an eventual 3 million copies, and in the process it became the first posthumous number 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: William Lovelace/Evening Standard/Getty Images
Mar. 15: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton get married in Montreal (1964)
After meeting on the set of Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton reportedly fell madly in love at first sight. The catch? They were both married to other people — Taylor to her fourth husband, singer Eddie Fisher; Burton to actress Sybil (Williams) Burton. Their whirlwind romance kicked off such a tabloid scandal that the Vatican newspaper even weighed in, condemning Taylor for “erotic vagrancy.” After both finalized divorces with their respective spouses, they tied the knot on March 15, 1964, in a ceremony in Montreal. She wore a yellow dress, created by Cleopatra costume designer Irene Sharaff; her hair was done up in a dramatic ponytail, woven with hyacinths and lilies of the valley, and she topped off her look with a Bulgari brooch made of emerald and diamonds that stood in as a replacement for an engagement ring. Speaking of diamonds, five years into their marriage, Dick would give Liz a $1.1 million diamond, cut by the legendary Harry Winston, that was dubbed the Taylor-Burton diamond. The marriage lasted for a decade, before the couple divorced in 1974, but their separation wasn’t exactly long-lived: They married for a second time in Botswana on Oct. 10, 1975 — only to call it quits again, this time for good, nine months later. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Mar. 14: Beyoncé officially becomes the most-awarded woman in Grammy history after taking home her 28th trophy (2021)
At the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony on this day in 2021, Beyoncé took home four trophies, for best R&B performance (“Black Parade”), best rap performance and song (“Savage,” shared with Megan Thee Stallion), and best short-form music video (“Brown Skin Girl,” which she shared with her daughter Blue Ivy Carter). By the end of the night, counting her three wins with Destiny’s Child, she had taken home a grand total of 28 Grammys — a milestone that meant she had officially surpassed Alison Krauss and her 27 wins to become the most-awarded female in Grammy history. “As an artist, I believe it’s my job and all of our jobs to reflect the times,” she said in her heartfelt acceptance speech. “It has been such a difficult time, so I wanted to uplift, encourage and celebrate all of the beautiful Black queens and kings that continue to inspire me and inspire the whole world. This is so overwhelming. I’ve been working for my whole life, since 9 years old, and I can’t believe this happened. This is such a magical night.” Win number 28 tied her with producer extraordinaire Quincy Jones, and it would be another two years before she achieved an even more impressive honor: Following her 32nd win at this year’s Grammys, she became the most-decorated artist in history, breaking the record set by the late Hungarian-British conductor Georg Solti, who had picked up 31 wins during his decades-long career. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Mar. 13: Encyclopedia Britannica announces that it will cease production of its print version (2012)
On this date in 2012, Encyclopedia Britannica shocked the academic world when the company announced it would be ceasing production of its print edition, which had first been published in Edinburgh in 1768. The 32-volume 2010 installment, it turned out, would be the last version you could line up on your bookshelf to show off how erudite you are to your friends. The company would instead be focusing on its digital version and education tools. President Jorge Cauz said at the time: “Everyone will want to call this the end of an era, and I understand that. But there’s no sad moment for us. I think outsiders are more nostalgic about books than I am.” Indeed, as he explained it, the print copies accounted for only 1 percent of total sales, with a whopping 85 percent coming from online learning tools, curriculum products and other education products. To honor the end of the print run, employees celebrated with champagne and a cake that depicted the 32-volume, 129-pound encyclopedia set surrounded by 244 balloons — one for each year Encyclopedia Britannica had been in print. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Gene Lester/Getty Images
Mar. 12: Dr. Seuss publishes his beloved children’s book The Cat in the Hat (1957)
In 1954, writer John Hersey published an article in Life about children’s primers, which featured characters like Dick and Jane. They were so boring and unimaginative, he explained, that they actually impeded learning. “Why should they not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate,” he argued, “drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, ‘Dr. Seuss,’ Walt Disney?” The director of Houghton Mifflin’s education division, William Spaulding, approached author and illustrator Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) and challenged him to “write me a story that first-graders can’t put down!” For a year and a half, he toiled to make a book that was both entertaining and simple to understand for young children, and the result was The Cat in the Hat, which was published on this date in 1957. His publisher had given him a list of 223 easy-to-understand words, and Dr. Seuss ended up expanding the vocabulary only slightly, using 236 different words across the span of his 1,626-word book. The resulting story was unlike anything you’d find in the Dick and Jane books: Two kids are home alone on a rainy day, and a giant talking feline shows up with two friends, Thing 1 and Thing 2, and proceeds to wreak havoc and create an enormous mess — which he promptly cleans up with a machine before their mom comes home. Kids, of course, haven’t been able to put it down since. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Archive PL/Alamy
Mar. 11: Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun becomes the first play by a Black woman produced on Broadway (1959)
On this date in 1959, 29-year-old playwright Lorraine Hansberry became the first Black woman to have one of her works produced on Broadway when A Raisin in the Sun opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Taking its title from a Langston Hughes poem, the drama follows the aspirations of a working-class Chicago family. The original cast comprised an all-star lineup that included Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Glynn Turman and Louis Gossett Jr. It was a crowd-pleasing blockbuster from the first performance. Kenneth Tynan wrote in his review for The New Yorker, “The cast is flawless, and the teamwork on the first night was as effortless and exuberant as if the play had been running for a hundred performances.” In addition to being nominated for four Tony Awards, A Raisin in the Sun earned Hansberry the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for best American play, making her the youngest American playwright up to that point to receive such an honor. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Mar. 10: The dot-com bubble reaches its peak when the Nasdaq index hits 5,048 (2000)
Throughout the late 1990s, as the internet started to pick up steam in a major way, start-ups received insanely high valuations. The result was a stock market bubble the likes of which hadn’t been seen in years. The trend finally came to a head on March 10, 2000, when the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite index reached the dizzying high of 5,132.52, before ending the day at 5,048.62. That number represented almost sevenfold growth since the pre-bubble days. From October of the previous year, in fact, the index had ballooned by almost 90 percent in under six months. As a sign of the times, 17 internet brands (including epidemic.com, ourbeginning.com and pets.com) had bought ads during the 2000 Super Bowl, compared to just two the year before. And what happens with balloons? They pop. In the next two years, most of the publicly traded dot-coms shut down, and the Nasdaq plummeted to 1,139, erasing nearly all the gains made during the boom times. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: John P. Filo/CBS Photo Archives/Getty Images
Mar. 9: Dan Rather hosts his last CBS Evening News, exactly 24 years to the day after he succeeded Walter Cronkite (2005)
On this date in 2005, Dan Rather signed off for the final time as anchor of the CBS Evening News — 24 years to the day after he took on the prestigious role from his predecessor, Walter Cronkite. He had been with the network for 44 years, and over the decades, he had become one of the three most trusted men in American journalism, alongside Tom Brokaw at NBC and Peter Jennings at ABC. Rather’s final years at the helm had not been without their controversies, however: A report about President George W. Bush’s National Guard service relied on documents that hadn’t been properly authenticated, which led directly to his abrupt departure from the network. For his final sign-off, Rather addressed the American people as follows: “To a nation still nursing a broken heart for what happened here in 2001 and especially those who found themselves closest to the events of Sept. 11; to our soldiers in dangerous places; to those who have endured the tsunami and to all who have suffered natural disasters and who must find the will to rebuild; to the oppressed and to those whose lot it is to struggle, in financial hardship or in failing health; to my fellow journalists in places where reporting the truth means risking all; and to each of you. Courage. For the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather reporting. Good night.” In the wake of his departure, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer stepped in temporarily, before Katie Couric made history the following September as the first female solo anchor of a weekday network evening news broadcast. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Space Frontiers/Getty Images
Mar. 8: “Happy Birthday” becomes the first tune sung — in English! — in outer space (1969)
On March 8, 1969, the astronauts aboard the Apollo 9 mission sang “Happy Birthday” to Christopher C. Kraft Jr., the director of flight operations at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston. It was actually a belated birthday wish, as he had already turned 45 on Feb. 28, the planned launch date before the mission had to be delayed. Some sources have cited this as the first song ever performed in outer space, but that has been disputed. In fact, this is another Space Race milestone that the Soviets may have gotten to first. Way back in August 1962, cosmonaut Pavlo Popovych had performed the Ukrainian song “Watching the Sky and Thinking a Thought,” which includes lyrics written by romantic poet Mykhailo Petrenko. And if you count instrumental music, Americans played another song years before the 1969 “Happy Birthday” performance: Walter “Wally” Schirra and Thomas Stafford played harmonica and sleigh bells, respectively, on a December 1965 rendition of “Jingle Bells” aboard the Gemini VI mission. “We never considered singing,” Stafford said, “since I couldn’t carry a tune in a bushel basket.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Everett Collection
Mar. 7: “We Are the World” is released as a single (1985)
Following the success of the single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in 1984, Harry Belafonte devised an American response, with Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson teaming up to pen a new anthem that would help raise funds for famine relief in Africa. In late January 1985, Quincy Jones assembled 45 of the biggest stars of the day to form a supergroup called USA for Africa, including artists from all over the musical spectrum: Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Dionne Warwick, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Bob Dylan and many, many more. Jones famously posted a sign reading, “Please check your egos at the door” on the entrance of A&M Studios in Los Angeles, and indeed the singers had to be on their best behavior: They only had one night to make magic! The song proved to be a blazing commercial success, becoming the fastest-selling single in history; the 20 million copies sold raised more than $63 million for humanitarian aid. The undeniable star power led “We Are the World” to success at the Grammys as well, picking up trophies for record and song of the year, pop performance by a duo or group, and short form music video. During his acceptance speech for record of the year, Jones referenced the sign on the door: “It was never necessary.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Harry Benson/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Mar. 6: Cassius Clay changes his name to Muhammad Ali (1964)
About a week after he defeated Sonny Liston to become the world heavyweight champion, Cassius Clay shocked the sports world when his spiritual adviser, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, announced that the boxing great would change his name. On March 6, 1964, Muhammad said in a speech on the radio, “This Clay name has no meaning. I hope he will accept being called by a better name. Muhammad Ali is what I will give him as long as he believes in Allah and follows me.” Ali was adamant that people respect the name change, saying, “Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn’t choose it, and I don’t want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name — it means beloved of God, and I insist people use it when people speak to me and of me.” The media was very slow to accept the change: In 2016, New York Times writer Victor Mather combed the archives and found that, from 1964 to 1968, his newspaper had used the name “Cassius Clay” in more than 1,000 articles, while “Muhammad Ali” appeared only about 150 times. As former sports columnist Robert Lipsyte later explained, the Times wouldn’t honor the name change unless Ali filed official paperwork. “I found it very embarrassing,” Lipsyte said of the policy. “We did not ask what John Wayne and Rock Hudson’s real names were.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: GAB Archive/Redferns
Mar. 5: Patsy Cline dies in a plane crash at the age of 30 (1963)
Sixty years ago today, the country music world suffered a tragic loss when legend-in-the-making Patsy Cline died in a plane crash at the age of 30. The “Crazy” and “I Fall to Pieces” singer had been in Kansas City to perform at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building in a benefit concert for DJ Cactus Jack Call, who had recently died in a car crash. Excited to get home to her family, Cline refused an offer to ride back in a car with her friend, opting instead to catch a flight home with fellow Grand Ole Opry members Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas. Cline’s manager, Randy Hughes, was piloting the tiny Piper Comanche, and after stopping to refuel, he reportedly ignored warnings about high winds and low visibility. Ninety miles from Nashville, in a forest outside Camden, Tennessee, the plane crashed at 6:25 p.m., according to the time on Cline’s watch, which was recovered from the scene. Despite her relatively short career, Cline had an outsize impact on the future of country music, especially as a mentor to the young Loretta Lynn, and a decade after her untimely death, she became the first solo female artist inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Vaidas Bucys/Alamy
Mar. 4: People Weekly magazine releases its first issue (1974)
Do you know whose face graced the cover of the first issue of People magazine upon its release on this date in 1974? That great honor went to actress Mia Farrow, who appeared in costume as The Great Gatsby’s Daisy Buchanan, with dramatic eye makeup and a string of pearls between her teeth. The magazine, which was then called People Weekly, sold for 35 cents and had an initial press run of 1.4 million, and that first issue included stories about Gloria Vanderbilt, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Jim Croce and Richard Petty. Though it was part of the Time Inc. family, the magazine was envisioned as something completely different from its more hard-news-focused sister publication; as managing editor Richard Stolley described it, “We’re getting back to the people who are causing the news and who are caught up in it, or deserve to be in it. Our focus is on people, not issues.” Looking ahead, Farrow appeared on the cover of People’s 20th anniversary edition in March 1994, and two decades further into the future, Taylor Swift recreated her iconic pose — complete with a string of pearls — when the magazine celebrated its big 4-oh. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Mar. 3: “The Star-Spangled Banner” is officially adopted as America’s national anthem (1931)
Washington lawyer Francis Scott Key penned the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner” during the 1814 British siege of Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor, borrowing the melody from the 18th century anthem of a London amateur men’s music club called the Anacreontic Society. But it wasn’t used in any official capacity in the United States until 1889, when the U.S. Navy began playing the tune when sailors raised and lowered the flag. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson declared it the anthem of the American armed forces, but the country as a whole didn’t have an official song to call its own. By April 1929, Rep. John Linthicum (D-Md.) sought to change that by introducing a bill to make the Francis Scott Key song the national anthem, arguing that the country “needed a national song to give expression to its patriotism.” He gathered signatures from more than 5 million Americans, letters from 150 organizations and letters and telegrams from 25 governors to prove widespread support, but the song was not without its critics: Opponents railed against Linthicum for picking a song with such close ties to his home state and argued that it was just an old drinking song that was too hard to sing for most people. Nonetheless, Congress eventually passed the resolution, and on this date in 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed it into law. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Chris Hoffmann/picture alliance via Getty Images
Mar. 2: The first CD players make their debut in the United States (1983)
Forty years ago today, the digital music revolution started with the release of CD players in the U.S., a few months after the new technology hit store shelves in Japan. As The New York Times reported that spring, “The technological leap is indeed radical.” For starters, compact discs were less than 5 inches in diameter, much smaller than the 12-inch vinyl records; they could also play up to an hour of music on just one side without any of the distortions or extraneous noises that sometimes showed up in the analog recording process. In those early days, only 16 albums from CBS Records and 35 from Polygram were available for purchase, and soon consumers could buy music by the likes of ABBA, David Bowie, Billy Joel and Barbra Streisand. Like much new technology, the CD player was quite a luxury item: Sony and Magnavox versions went for about $900, discs cost up to $20 each, and you’d have to travel to one of the 75 stores that sold them to get your hands on one. “I’m excited by the CD, and we’ll turn to it more and more in the next years,” record producer Andrew Kazdin told the Times. “But the turntable is not about to become obsolete.” In a funny twist, he ended up being right: Though the CD has fallen in favor, vinyl records are seeing a remarkable resurgence. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Haynes Archive/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images
Mar. 1: The Hoover Dam is completed (1936)
One of the most impressive architectural feats in American history, the Hoover Dam was officially completed March 1, 1936, when the joint construction venture known as Six Companies Inc. handed over ownership of the dam to the U.S. Department of the Interior. Spanning the Colorado River in the Black Canyon, about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, the project — then known as the Boulder Dam — was an absolutely gargantuan undertaking, stretching 726 feet high and 1,244 feet across upon completion. At the time, it was the tallest dam ever built, and its 6.6 million tons of concrete could have paved a road across the country, from San Francisco to New York City. Devised by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the construction served many purposes: Sure, it provided water and hydroelectric power for the expanding population of the Southwestern United States, but it also created jobs during the Great Depression for about 21,000 men. In the years that followed, the project was called either the Hoover Dam or the Boulder Dam (usually by political opponents of former president Herbert Hoover, whose name was often associated with the Depression), but in 1947, President Harry S. Truman approved a resolution that officially memorialized Hoover’s contributions to the project — even though he was from the opposing political party. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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