Today is the 66th day of 2014 and the 77th day of winter.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received the patent for the telephone.

In 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered German troops to reoccupy the Rhineland, defying the Treaty of Versailles.

In 1965, state troopers forcefully broke up 600 civil rights protesters on "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Ala.

In 1985, the charity song "We Are the World" was released worldwide, with sales to benefit African famine relief.

In 2009, the Kepler space observatory, designed by NASA to discover Earthlike planets, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: John Herschel (1792-1871), mathematician/astronomer; Luther Burbank (1849-1926), botanist; Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), composer; Willard Scott (1934- ), TV personality; Bryan Cranston (1956- ), actor; Ivan Lendl (1960- ), tennis player; Rachel Weisz (1970- ), actress; Peter Sarsgaard (1971- ), actor; Jenna Fischer (1974- ), actress; Laura Prepon (1980- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics used data from the Kepler space observatory to estimate that at least 17 billion Earth-sized exoplanets exist in the Milky Way galaxy.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1987, Mike Tyson defeated James "Bonecrusher" Smith to unify the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council titles, becoming the youngest undisputed heavyweight champion in history.

TODAY'S QUOTE: " I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces." -- Maurice Ravel

TODAY'S NUMBER: 53,364 -- number of Americans who were 100 years or older in 2010, according to census data.

TODAY'S MOON: Between new moon (March 1) and first quarter moon (March 8).

Today is the 65th day of 2014 and the 76th day of winter.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1836, the Alamo mission and fortress compound in Texas fell to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege.

In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that slaves were property in Dred Scott v. Sandford.

In 1899, the German pharmaceutical company Friedrich Bayer & Co. registered the name "Aspirin" as a trademark.

In 1981, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as "CBS Evening News" anchor, a post he had held for 19 years.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Michelangelo (1475-1564), painter/sculptor/architect; Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655), soldier/writer; Lou Costello (1906-1959), actor/comedian; Will Eisner (1917-2005), cartoonist; Ed McMahon (1923-2009), TV personality; Alan Greenspan (1926- ), economist; Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927- ), author; Rob Reiner (1947- ), actor/director; D.L. Hughley (1963- ), actor/comedian; Connie Britton (1967- ), actress; Shaquille O'Neal (1972- ), basketball player.

TODAY'S FACT: The median age for an American man getting married for the first time in 2013 was 29 years old. The median age for women was 26.6.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1964, world heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay announced that his spiritual mentor, Elijah Muhammad, had given him the new name Muhammad Ali.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves." -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

TODAY'S NUMBER: $0.30 -- price for 1 pound of Oreo cookies in a novelty can when the cookie was introduced by the National Biscuit Co. (today known as Nabisco) on this day in 1912.

TODAY'S MOON: Between new moon (March 1) and first quarter moon (March 8).

Today is the 64th day of 2014 and the 75th day of winter.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1770, British troops fired into a crowd of Americans, killing five, in what became known as the Boston Massacre.

In 1946, Winston Churchill used the phrase "iron curtain" during a speech that is often regarded as marking the beginning of the Cold War.

In 1970, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect following ratification by 43 nations.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Rex Harrison (1908-1990), actor; James Tobin (1918-2002), economist; Daniel Kahneman (1934- ), economist; Dean Stockwell (1936- ), actor; Penn Jillette (1955- ), comedian/magician; Andy Gibb (1958-1988), singer; Joel Osteen (1963- ), televangelist; Michael Irvin (1966- ), football player; Lisa Robin Kelly (1970-2013), actress; Kevin Connolly (1974- ), actor; Eva Mendes (1974- ), actress.

TODAY'S FACT: John Adams, who would later be the second U.S. president, served as the attorney for the British soldiers who took part in the Boston Massacre and successfully defended them on murder charges.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1993, Canadian Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson received a lifetime ban from competition after testing positive a second time for performance-enhancing drugs.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance." -- Daniel Kahneman

TODAY'S NUMBER: 189 -- signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as of February 2014. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in January 2003; among U.N. member states, India, Israel, Pakistan and South Sudan have never signed the treaty.

TODAY'S MOON: Between new moon (March 1) and first quarter moon (March 8).