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 Today's highlight in history:
On March 6, 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Scott, a slave, was not a U.S. citizen and could not sue for his freedom in federal court.
On this date:
In 1834, the city of York in Upper Canada was incorporated as Toronto.
In 1836, the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, fell to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege.
In 1853, Verdi's opera "La Traviata" premiered in Venice, Italy.
In 1933, a nationwide bank holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt went into effect.
In 1935, retired Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. died in Washington.
In 1944, U.S. heavy bombers staged the first full-scale American raid on Berlin during World War II.
In 1957, the former British African colonies of the Gold Coast and Togoland became the independent state of Ghana.
In 1967, the daughter of Josef Stalin, Svetlana Alliluyeva, appeared at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India, and declared her intention to defect to the West.
In 1983, in a case that drew much notoriety, a young woman was gang-raped atop a pool table in a tavern in New Bedford, Mass., called Big Dan's; four men were later convicted of the attack.
In 1988, the board of trustees at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., a liberal arts college for the deaf, selected Elisabeth Zinser, a hearing woman, to be school president. (Outraged students shut down the campus, forcing selection of a deaf president, I. King Jordan, instead.)
Ten years ago: The Army honored three Americans who'd risked their lives and turned their weapons on fellow soldiers to stop the slaughter of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968. A Connecticut state lottery accountant shot to death three supervisors and the lottery chief before killing himself.
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 Five years ago: A somber President Bush readied the nation for war against Saddam Hussein, hurling some of his harshest invectives yet at the Iraqi leader during a prime-time news conference. The United States ratified a treaty on cutting active U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear warheads by two-thirds. Democrats blocked President Bush's nomination of Miguel Estrada to a federal appeals court.
One year ago: Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of lying and obstructing an investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Hillah, Iraq, killing at least 120 people in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims. More than 70 people died in an earthquake on Sumatra island, Indonesia. Ernest Gallo, who built one of the world's largest winemaking empires, died in Modesto, Calif., at age 97.
Today's birthdays: Orchestra conductor Julius Rudel is 87. TV personality Ed McMahon is 85. Former FBI and CIA director William Webster is 84. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is 82. Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez is 81. Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova is 71. Country singer Doug Dillard is 71. Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., is 69. Actress-writer Joanna Miles is 68. Actor Ben Murphy is 66. Opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is 64. Singer Mary Wilson (The Supremes) is 64. Rock musician Hugh Grundy (The Zombies) is 63. Rock singer-musician David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) is 62. Actor-director Rob Reiner is 61. Singer Kiki Dee is 61. Rock singer-musician Phil Alvin (The Blasters) is 55. Actor Tom Arnold is 49. Actor D.L. Hughley is 44. Country songwriter Skip Ewing is 44. Actress Yvette Wilson is 44. Actor Shuler Hensley is 41. Actress Connie Britton is 40. Actress Moira Kelly is 40. Actress Amy Pietz is 39. Basketball player Shaquille O'Neal is 36. Country singer Trent Willmon is 35. Country musician Shan Farmer (Ricochet) is 34. Rapper Beanie Sigel is 34. Rapper Bubba Sparxxx is 31. Actor Eli Marienthal is 22. Actor Jimmy Galeota is 22. Actor Dillon Freasier (Film: "There Will Be Blood") is 12. Actress Savannah Stehlin is 12.
Thought for today: "To have doubted one's own first principles, is the mark of a civilized man."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court justice (1841-1935)
[Associated Press]
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