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 Today's highlight in history:
On March 27, 1977, 583 people were killed when a KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off, crashed into a Pan Am 747 on the Canary Island of Tenerife.
On this date:
In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sighted present-day Florida.
In 1625, Charles I acceded to the English throne upon the death of James I.
In 1794, Congress approved "An Act to provide a Naval Armament" of six armed ships.
In 1836, the first Mormon temple was dedicated, in Kirtland, Ohio.
In 1945, during World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower told reporters in Paris that German defenses on the Western Front had been broken.
In 1958, Nikita Khrushchev became Soviet premier in addition to First Secretary of the Communist Party.
In 1964, Alaska was hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunamis that killed about 130 people.
In 1968, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the earth, died in a plane crash.
In 1980, 123 workers died when a North Sea floating oil field platform, the Alexander Kielland, capsized during a storm.
In 1996, an Israeli court convicted Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's confessed assassin of murder, then sentenced former law student Yigal Amir to life in prison.
Ten years ago: The Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Viagra, made by Pfizer, saying it had helped about two-thirds of impotent men improve their sexual function. Ferdinand Porsche Jr., who founded the sports car firm that bears his name, died at age 88 in Zell am See, Austria.
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 Five years ago: Serbian police killed two major suspects in the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Russia's Evgeni Plushenko won his second World Figure Skating Championships title, edging American Tim Goebel. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Zindel died in New York at age 66.
One year ago: Truck bombs hit markets in Tal Afar, Iraq, killing at least 152 people and wounding more than 150. NFL owners voted 30-2 to make the video replay system a permanent officiating tool.
Today's birthdays: Former newspaper columnist Anthony Lewis is 81. Dance company director Arthur Mitchell is 74. Actor Julian Glover is 73. Actor Jerry Lacy is 72. Actor Austin Pendleton is 68. Actor Michael York is 66. Rock musician Tony Banks (Genesis) is 58. Actress Maria Schneider is 56. Rock musician Andrew Farriss (INXS) is 49. Movie director Quentin Tarantino is 45. Rock musician Derrick McKenzie (Jamiroquai) is 44. Actress Talisa Soto is 41. Actress Pauley Perrette is 39. Singer Mariah Carey is 38. Rock musician Brendan Hill (Blues Traveler) is 38. Actress Elizabeth Mitchell is 38. Actor Nathan Fillion is 37. Hip-hop singer Fergie (Black Eyed Peas) is 33. Actress Emily Ann Lloyd is 24. Actress Taylor Atelian is 13.
Thought for today: "Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live."
-- Dorothy Thompson, American journalist (1894-1961)
[Associated Press]
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