Today is Sunday, March 29, the 88th day of 2026. There are 277 days left in the year.
Today in history: On March 29, 1943, World War II rationing of meat, fats, and cheese began, limiting American consumers to store purchases of an average of about two pounds a week for beef, pork, lamb, and mutton using a coupon system.
Also on this date: In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted in New York of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union. (They were executed in June 1953.)
In 1961, the 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential elections.
In 1971, Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was convicted of murdering 22 Vietnamese civilians in the 1968 My Lai massacre. (Initially sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor, Calley’s sentence would be commuted by President Richard Nixon to three years of house arrest.)
In 1971, a jury in Los Angeles recommended the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers for the 1969 Tate-La Bianca murders. (The sentences were commuted to life in prison when the California state Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972.)
In 1973, the last United States combat troops left South Vietnam, ending America’s direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.
In 1974, a group of Chinese farmers digging a well struck fragments of terra-cotta buried underground; archaeologists would ultimately discover terra-cotta sculptures of more than 8,000 soldiers and other figures. The “Terra-cotta Army” would become one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.
In 1984, under the cover of early morning darkness, the Baltimore Colts football team left its home city of three decades, sending the team’s equipment to Indianapolis in moving trucks without informing Baltimore city or Maryland state officials.
In 2004, President George W. Bush welcomed seven former Soviet-bloc nations (Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) into NATO during a White House ceremony.
In 2021, salvage teams using powerful tugboats set free an enormous container ship that was wedged across Egypt’s Suez Canal for nearly a week, blocking all ship traffic on the vital waterway and disrupting the global shipping system.
Today’s Birthdays: – Comedian Eric Idle is 83. – Former British Prime Minister John Major is 83. – Basketball Hall of Famer Walt Frazier is 81. – Football Hall of Famer Earl Campbell is 71. – Actor Brendan Gleeson is 71. – Actor Christopher Lambert is 69. – Actor Annabella Sciorra is 66. – Comedian-actor Amy Sedaris is 65. – Model Elle Macpherson is 62. – Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, is 62. – Actor Lucy Lawless is 58. – Tennis Hall of Famer Jennifer Capriati is 50. – Musician-author Michelle Zauner is 37. – Actor Alex Neustaedter is 28.
