FILE – State troopers swing billy clubs to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala., March 7, 1965. John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (in the foreground) is being beaten by a state trooper. Thursday’s Jan 12, 2023, storm inflicted heavy damage on Selma, cutting a wide path through the downtown area. Selma is a majority-Black working class city etched in the history of the civil rights movement and is now recovering from a natural disaster, in a region that has suffered for decades from economic depression and lacking public resources. (AP Photo, File)
Today is Friday, March 7, the 66th day of 2025. There are 299 days left in the year.
Today in history:
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.”
Also on this date:
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.
- 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.