Today is Thursday, March 20, the 79th day of 2025 with 286 to follow.
Today is the first day of spring.
The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter and Mars. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include poet Ovid in 43 B.C.; writer Henrik Ibsen in 1828; actor/musician Ozzie Nelson in 1906; actor Michael Redgrave in 1908; actor Vera Lynn in 1917; diplomat Pamela Harriman in 1920; actor/filmmaker Carl Reiner in 1922; TV personality Fred Rogers in 1928; actor Hal Linden in 1931 (age 94); writer Lois Lowry in 1937 (age 88); Basketball Hall of Fame member Pat Riley in 1945 (age 80); Hockey Hall of Fame member Bobby Orr in 1948 (age 77); actor William Hurt in 1950; musician Carl Palmer (Asia/Emerson, Lake and Palmer) in 1950 (age 75); actor Amy Aquino in 1957 (age 68); filmmaker Spike Lee in 1957 (age 68); actor Theresa Russell in 1957 (age 68); actor Holly Hunter in 1958 (age 67); actor David Thewlis in 1963 (age 62); model/actor Kathy Ireland in 1963 (age 62); musician Adrian Oxaal (James) in 1965 (age 60); comedian/actor Michael Rapaport in 1970 (age 55); actor Alexander Chaplin in 1971 (age 54); comedian/actor Cedric Yarbrough in 1973 (age 52); musician Chester Bennington (Linkin Park) in 1976; actor Bianca Lawson in 1979 (age 46); actor Freema Agyeman in 1979 (age 46); actor/comedian Mikey Day in 1980 (age 45); musician Nick Wheeler (All-American Rejects) in 1982 (age 43); model/actor Ruby Rose in 1986 (age 39); actor Justin H. Min in 1990 (age 35); tennis player Sloane Stephens in 1993 (age 32); musician Hyunjin (Stray Kids) in 2000 (age 25); NFL player Jahmyr Gibbs in 2002 (age 23); musician Ruka (Babymonster) in 2002 (age 23); Barron Trump, son of President Donald Trump, in 2006 (age 19).
On this date in history:
In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published.
In 1854, in what is considered the founding meeting of the Republican Party, former members of the Whig Party met in Ripon, Wis., to establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories.
In 1963, a volcano on the East Indies island of Bali began erupting. The death toll exceeded 1,500.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the Alabama National Guard to provide security at a planned civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery the next day. Earlier marches turned violent and deadly, but the third march was considered more of a success both in terms of safety and in spreading the message of the right to vote for black Americans.
In 1976, San Francisco newspaper heiress and kidnapping victim Patty Hearst was convicted of bank robbery. Hearst served 22 months in prison and eventually was granted a full pardon.
In 1987, the U.S. government approved the sale of AZT, a treatment, but not a cure, for AIDS.
In 1995, 12 people were killed, and more than 5,000 made ill in a nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. A 13th victim died a day later and a 14th in 2008. The perpetrators, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, were executed in 2018.
In 1996, the world learned of “mad cow” disease from a British government report questioning the safety of beef in Britain.
In 1997, the Liggett Group, fifth-largest U.S. tobacco company, agreed to admit that smoking was addictive and caused health problems and that the tobacco industry had sought for years to sell its products to children as young as 14.
In 2001, five days after explosions destroyed one of its support beams and killed 11 people, the largest oil rig in the world collapsed and sank off the coast of Brazil.
In 2003, U.S.-led coalition forces begin military operations in Iraq.
In 2004, after narrowly escaping assassination the day before, Chen Shui-bian was re-elected president of Taiwan with about 50 percent of the vote.
In 2007, former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was hanged in Baghdad for his part in the 1982 deaths of 148 Shiites.
In 2010, the first eruption of a volcano in southern Iceland since the 1820s forced the evacuation of 450 people, but there were no reports of injuries or major property damage.
In 2016, President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba since 1928 after normalizing relations between the two countries.
In 2019, the Walt Disney Co. officially completed its $71.3 billion purchase of a large chunk of 21st Century Fox.
In 2024, the Biden administration released a finalized new Environmental Protection Agency rule regulating vehicles that leans heavily on significant increase in electric and hybrid vehicles on the market in eight years. Less than a year later, the Trump administration announced a rollback of dozens of EPA regulations, including those seeking to reduce vehicle emissions.
A thought for the day: “Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!'” — American actor Robin Williams
