Today in History: March 7, ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Selma for civil rights movement

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Today is Saturday, March 7, the 66th day of 2026. There are 299 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 7, 1965, a march by over 500 civil rights demonstrators was violently broken up at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; state troopers and a sheriff’s posse fired tear gas and beat marchers with batons in what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Also on this date:

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. patent for his telephone.

In 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to march into the demilitarized Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties.

In 1975, the U.S. Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present.

In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a parody that pokes fun at an original work can be considered “fair use.” (The ruling concerned a parody of the Roy Orbison song “Oh, Pretty Woman” by the rap group 2 Live Crew.)

In 2010, filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director, taking the prize for “The Hurt Locker.”

In 2024, movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2021 fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin during a rehearsal on the set of the Western film “Rust.” (Gutierrez-Reed served an 18-month prison sentence and was released in 2025.)

Today’s birthdays: Hall of Fame auto racer Janet Guthrie is 88. Actor Daniel J. Travanti is 86. Entertainment executive Michael Eisner is 84. Football Hall of Famer Lynn Swann is 74. R&B musician Ernie Isley (The Isley Brothers) is 74. Actor Bryan Cranston is 70. Tennis Hall of Famer Ivan Lendl is 66. Singer Taylor Dayne is 64. Author Bret Easton Ellis is 62. Comedian Wanda Sykes is 62. Actor Rachel Weisz is 56. Actor Peter Sarsgaard is 55. Actor Jenna Fischer is 52. Actor Tobias Menzies is 52. Actor Laura Prepon is 46. Poet Amanda Gorman is 28.