11 March: Good Day For Rampages & Bombs; Johnny Appleseed Dies; Traitors In Defense Of Slavery Adopt "Constitution"

Today is Thursday, March 11, the 70th day of 2010. There are 295 days left in the year. The UPI Almanac.
Today's Highlight in History:
On March 11, 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin U. Chernenko.
On this date:
In 1810, French Emperor Napoleon I was married by proxy to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.
In 1824, the U.S. War Department created the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
In 1845, John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, died in Allen County, Ind.
In 1861, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas adopted the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America during a convention in Montgomery, Ala.
In 1888, the famous Blizzard of '88 began inundating the northeastern United States, resulting in some 400 deaths.
In 1918, the first cases of "Spanish" influenza were reported in the United States. By 1920, the virus had killed as many as 22 million people worldwide, 500,000 in the United States.
In 1930, former President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft became the first former U.S. president to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis.
In 1942, as Japanese forces continued to advance in the Pacific, Gen. Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia. (MacArthur, who subsequently vowed, "I shall return," kept that promise more than 2 1/2 years later.)

In 1957, American explorer Richard E. Byrd died in Boston at age 68.
In 1965, the Reverend James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, died after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Ala.
In 1977, more than 130 hostages held in Washington, D.C., by Hanafi Muslims were freed after ambassadors from three Islamic nations joined the negotiations.
In 1978, Palestinian guerrillas went on a rampage on the Tel Aviv-Haifa highway, killing 34 Israelis.
In 1985, Mikhail S. Gorbachev was chosen to succeed the late Soviet President Konstantin Chernenko. Read the original AP story.
In 1990, the Lithuanian parliament voted to break away from the Soviet Union and restore its independence. Read the original AP story. Also in 1990, Gen. Augusto Pinochet stepped down as president of Chile, making way for an elected civilian leader for first time since the 1973 coup.
In 1993, Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be the nation's first female attorney general. North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In 1999, the House voted 219-191 to conditionally support President Bill Clinton's plan to send U.S. troops to Kosovo if a peace agreement were reached.
In 2000, Ricardo Lagos was sworn in as president of Chile, the second socialist to take the post since Salvador Allende was killed in a 1973 coup.
In 2001, one of the worst weeks in Wall Street history began with a 436.37-point -- 4.1 percent -- decline in the Dow Jones industrial average. By week's end, all the major indexes were down 6 percent.
In 2002, two columns of light soared skyward from ground zero in New York as a temporary memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

In 2003, published reports said a six-man Arab ministerial committee planned to travel to Baghdad to ask Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down and go into exile.
AP Highlight in History:
On March 11, 2004, 10 bombs hidden in backpacks exploded in quick succession across the commuter rail network in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 people and wounding more than 2,000 in an attack linked to al-Qaida-inspired Muslim militants, who said they were avenging the presence of Spanish peacekeepers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2005, a judge, court reporter and sheriff's deputy were shot and killed at an Atlanta courthouse by a man being escorted to court for trial who took a gun from a sheriff's deputy; Brian Nichols, suspected of killing them and a federal agent, surrendered a day later at the apartment of a woman he'd taken hostage, Ashley Smith. (Nichols was later convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.)
In 2006, former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead of a heart attack in his cell during his war crimes trial in The Hague. Also in 2006, more than 100,000 immigrants and supporters rallied in Chicago in opposition to a federal bill that would put a fence at Mexico's border. And, in France, proposed labor reform legislation sparked student riots across the nation.
In 2007, French President Jacques Chirac announced his retirement after more than 40 years in politics.
In 2008, the Federal Reserve outlined a $200 billion program that lets the biggest U.S. banks borrow Treasury securities at discount rates in an effort to avert a financial crisis. The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East resigned amid speculation about a rift over U.S. policy in Iran; Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Adm. William J. Fallon had asked for permission to retire and that Gates agreed. Democrat Barack Obama beat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Mississippi primary.
In 2009, President Barack Obama signed a $410 billion spending package to keep the government running through Sept. 2009, even as he called it "imperfect" because of the number of earmarks it contained. A German teenager, Tim Kretschmer, went on a shooting rampage starting at a school in Winnenden, killing 15 people before committing suicide. French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France, a founding member of NATO, would rejoin the alliance's military command structure after half a century.
Today's Birthdays: Actor Terence Alexander is 87. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is 79. ABC News correspondent Sam Donaldson is 76. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is 74. Musician Flaco Jimenez is 71. Actress Tricia O'Neil is 65. Actor Mark Metcalf is 64. Rock singer-musician Mark Stein (Vanilla Fudge) is 63. Singer Bobby McFerrin is 60. Movie director Jerry Zucker is 60. Actress Susan Richardson is 58. Recording executive Jimmy Iovine is 57. Singer Nina Hagen is 55. Country singer Jimmy Fortune (The Statler Brothers) is 55. Singer Cheryl Lynn is 53. Actor Jeffrey Nordling is 48. Actress Alex Kingston is 47. Country musician David Talbot is 47. Actor Wallace Langham is 45. Actor John Barrowman is 43. Singer Lisa Loeb is 42. Singer Pete Droge is 41. Actor Terrence Howard is 41. Rock musician Rami Jaffee is 41. Actor Johnny Knoxville is 39. Rock singer-musicians Benji and Joel Madden (Good Charlotte) are 31. Actor David Anders is 29. Singer LeToya is 29. Actress Thora Birch is 28. Actor Rob Brown is 26.
Also Born On This Date: Silent movie star Dorothy Gish (18980; bandleader Lawrence Welk (1903); former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson (1916); civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy (1926) & author Douglas Adams ("Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") (1952).
March 11 In Entertainment
In 1957, Charles Van Doren's 14-week run on the rigged NBC game show "Twenty One" ended as he lost to attorney Vivienne Nearing; Van Doren's take was $129,000.
In 1959, the Lorraine Hansberry drama "A Raisin in the Sun," starring Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier, opened at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater.
In 1968, Otis Redding was awarded a gold record for the single "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" three months after his death. A year later, the song won two Grammy Awards.
In 1970, "Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In" by the Fifth Dimension was named Record of the Year at the Grammys. The self-titled album by Blood, Sweat and Tears was named Album of the Year. Crosby, Stills and Nash won the Best New Artist Grammy. Their album, "Deja Vu," was also released on this date.
In 1993, actress Elizabeth Taylor received a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute.
In 1997, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Paul McCartney.
Thought for Today: "Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love." — David McCullough, American historian.