Moments in Time – February 21, 2024

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• On March 4, 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd U.S. president. He would later notably lead the country out of the Depression and to victory in World War II.
• On March 5, 1963, beloved American country western singer Patsy Cline, whose rich, soulful voice made her one of the genre’s classic performers of such ballads as “I Fall to Pieces” and “Crazy,” died in an airplane crash at age 30.
• On March 6, 2018, the world’s oldest known message in a bottle was discovered by Tonya Illman in Western Australia as she walked on the beach with her husband, Kym. The bottle had been thrown overboard from the German sailing ship Paula in 1886 as it crossed the Indian Ocean, and said only, “Could the finder please plot the coordinates it was found, and the date it was found, and send it back?”
• On March 7, 1965, up to 600 nonviolent activists marched to help African American citizens obtain the right to vote. Despite the peacefulness of their actions, the protesters were brutally attacked, with one woman, Amelia Boynton, beaten to the point of unconsciousness.
• On March 8, 1986, 29-year-old tennis star Martina Navratilova became the first in her sport to earn more than $10 million in prize money when she won the U.S. Women’s Indoor Championships in New Jersey.
• On March 9, 1611, Dutch astronomer Johannes Fabricius and his father, David, first observed sunspots, which are areas of reduced surface temperature. Johannes wrote and published a 22-page pamphlet on their findings, “Account of Spots Observed on the Sun and of Their Apparent Rotation with the Sun,” though his father initially disagreed with his son’s conclusion.
• On March 10, 1949, Mildred Gillars, aka “Axis Sally,” became the first woman in American history to be convicted of treason. Gillars worked for Nazi Germany’s state radio program during World War II, and from 1942 to the end of the war broadcasted Nazi propaganda in an effort to convince U.S. soldiers to give up the fight. Records of the broadcasts eventually convicted her when she was later arrested and returned to the States.

© 2024 King Features Synd., Inc.