Today is Sunday, March 1, the 60th day of 2026. There are 305 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps; since its inception, more than 240,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps volunteers.
And on this day:
In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act, making Yellowstone the first national park.
In 1932, Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, was kidnapped from the family home in New Jersey. (The remains identified as the child’s were found two months later; Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of murder in this case in 1935 and executed in 1936.)
In 1954, four Puerto Rican leaders opened fire from the audience gallery of the US House of Representatives, wounding five members of Congress.
In 1966, the Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashed on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet. However, Venera was unable to transmit any data to Earth because its communications system had failed.
In 1971, a bomb exploded in the men’s room of the US Capitol. The influential group Weather Underground claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn blast, which destroyed the building but caused no injuries.
In 1974, seven people, including Nixon White House aides HR Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman; former Attorney General John Mitchell; and former Assistant Attorney General Robert Mardian, were indicted by a grand jury on charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with the Watergate break-in. (These four defendants were convicted in January 1975, although Mardian’s conviction was later overturned.)
In 2005, Dennis Rader, a church-going family man accused of leading a double life as the BTK killer, was indicted in Wichita, Kansas, on ten counts of murder. (Rader later pleaded guilty and received multiple life sentences.)
In 2007, a tornado ripped through the Southeastern US killing at least 19 people across Alabama and Georgia. One of the tornadoes brought down a concrete wall at a high school in Enterprise, Alabama, killing eight students.
In 2014, a series of stabbings by men wielding knives and machetes at a train station in Kunming, southwest China, left at least 29 people dead and 130 others injured. Authorities blamed an independent terrorist group for the attack and said four suspects were shot dead.
In 2024, thousands of mourners bid farewell to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at a public funeral in Moscow, two weeks after his mysterious death in an Arctic penal colony. Navalny has been in custody since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow to face further arrest after recovering in Germany from an alleged nerve agent poisoning in the Kremlin.
Today’s birthdays:
- Rock singer Roger Daltrey is 82 years old.
- Actor Dirk Benedict is 81 years old.
- Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska is 75.
- Filmmaker Ron Howard is 72 years old.
- Actor Tim Daly is 70 years old.
- Hockey Hall of Famer Ron Francis is 63 years old.
- Filmmaker Zack Snyder is 60 years old.
- Actor Javier Bardem is 57 years old.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Yolanda Griffith is 56.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Chris Webber is 53.
- Actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar is 52 years old.
- Actor Jensen Ackles is 48 years old.
- Actress Lupita Nyong’o is 43 years old.
- Pop singer Kesha is 39 years old.
- Pop singer Justin Bieber is 32 years old.
- NFL wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase is 26 years old.
- Actress Isabella Alvarez is 22 years old.
- Actor Sawyer Sharbino is 20 years old.
