Argentinian Jorge Bergoglio becomes Pope Francis – Chicago Tribune

Today is Wednesday, March 13, the 74th day of 2024. There are 293 days left in the year.

Highlights of this day in history:

On March 13, 2013, Argentinian Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope, choosing the name Francis. he was the first pope from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in over a thousand years.

On this date:

In 1781, Uranus, the seventh planet of the solar system, was discovered by Sir William Herschel.

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a measure prohibiting Union military officers from returning fugitive slaves to their owners.

In 1925, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a bill banning the teaching of the theory of evolution. (Governor Austin Peay signed the measure on March 21; Tennessee repealed the law in 1967.

In 1933, banks in the USA began to reopen after the “holiday” declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1938, famous lawyer Clarence S. Darrow died in Chicago.

In 1943, financier and philanthropist JP Morgan Jr. (75), died in Boca Grande, Florida.

In 1946, U.S. Army Pfc. Sadao Munemori was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for sacrificing himself to save his fellow soldiers from a grenade explosion in Seravezza, Italy; he was the only Japanese-American service member recognized in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

In 1954, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu began when Viet Minh forces attacked French troops during the First Indochina War, and they were defeated about two months later.

In 1995, two Americans working for US defense contractors in Kuwait, David Daliberti and William Barloon, were captured by Iraq after crossing the border; He was sentenced to eight years in prison, both of which were released at the end of the same year.

In 1996, a gunman entered a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, opened fire, killing 16 children and a teacher, and then killed himself.

The estimated death toll from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan exceeded 10,000, while hundreds of thousands of people struggled to find food and water and authorities were grappling with the threat of multiple nuclear reactors melting down.

In 2012, a ferry carrying more than 200 people collided with a cargo boat and sank very close to Dhaka, Bangladesh; Most of those on board died.

In 2017, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, once the world’s most wanted fugitive and known as “Carlos the Jackal,” appeared in a French court for a deadly attack on a Paris shopping mall in 1974 that left two people dead. (He was convicted for the third time and sentenced to life imprisonment.)

In 2018, President Donald Trump abruptly fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via Twitter and moved CIA Director Mike Pompeo from his role as America’s espionage chief to top diplomat.

In 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot in her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, during a botched raid by plainclothes narcotics detectives; no drugs were found, and the “no-knock” warrant used to force entry was later found to be flawed.

Marvelous Marvin Hagler, the middleweight boxing great whose title and career ended with a split decision loss to “Sugar” Ray Leonard in 1987, died at the age of 66 at his home in New Hampshire in 2021.

Today’s Birthdays: Jazz musician Roy Haynes is 99. Songwriter Mike Stoller is 91. Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka is 85. R&B/gospel singer Candi Staton is 84. Opera singer Julia Migenes is 75. Actor William H. Macy is 74. Comedian Robin Duke is 70. . Actor Dana Delany is 68 years old. Senator John Hoeven, RN.D. He is 67 years old. Rock musician Adam Clayton (U2) is 64. Jazz musician Terence Blanchard is 62. Actor Christopher Collet is 56 years old. Rock musician Matt McDonough (Mudvayne) 55. Actor Annabeth Gish 53. Actor Tracy Wells 53. Rapper-actor Common 52. Rapper Khujo (Goodie Mob, The Lumberjacks) 52. Singer Glenn Lewis 49. Actor Noel Fisher 40. Singers Natalie and Nicole Albino (Nina Sky) is 40 years old. Actor Emile Hirsch is 39. US Olympic gold medalist skier Mikaela Shiffrin is 29. Tennis star Coco Gauff is 20.