Today’s Highlights

On March 22, 1963, The Beatles’ debut album, “Please Please Me,” was released in the United Kingdom on the Parlophone record label.

On this date

1765: The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act to raise money from the American colonies, which fiercely resisted the tax. (The Stamp Act was repealed a year later.)

1941: The Grand Coulee hydroelectric dam in Washington state officially went into operation; it remains the largest capacity power station in the United States.

1972: In the Eisenstadt vs. Baird decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that unmarried people had the same right to possess and use contraception as did married people.

1978: Karl Wallenda, the 73-year-old patriarch of “The Flying Wallendas” high-wire act, fell to his death while attempting to walk a cable strung between two hotel towers in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

2019: Former President Jimmy Carter became the longest-living chief executive in American history; at 94 years and 172 days, he exceeded the lifespan of the late former President George H.W. Bush. (Carter would die at age 100 in December 2024.)

2021: 10 people were killed in a mass shooting at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colorado. (The shooter, Ahmad Alissa, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in September 2024.)

Today’s birthdays

Artist Yayoi Kusama is 96. Actor William Shatner is 94. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins is 84. Musician George Benson is 82. Writer James Patterson is 78.