Today in History: NATO launches airstrikes against Yugoslavia in 1999, Quartering Act ends in 1765
On March 24, 1976, the president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by her country’s military.
Also on this date:
In 1765, Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers.
In 1882, German scientist Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus responsible for tuberculosis.
In 1913, New York’s Palace Theatre, the legendary home of vaudeville, opened on Broadway.
In 1958, Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Army at the draft board in Memphis, Tennessee, before boarding a bus for Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. (Presley underwent basic training at Fort Hood, Texas, before being shipped off to Germany.)
In 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil.
In 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time in its 50-year existence that it had ever attacked a sovereign country. Thirty-nine people were killed when fire erupted in the Mont Blanc tunnel in France and burned for two days.
In 2002, at the 74th Academy Awards, Halle Berry became the first Black performer to win a Best Actress Oscar for her work in “Monster’s Ball,” while Denzel Washington became the second Black actor, after Sidney Poitier, to win in the best actor category for “Training Day.” “A Beautiful Mind” won four Oscars, including best picture and best director for Ron Howard.
