Today is the 68th day of 2014 and the 79th day of winter.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1847, the first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history was launched in the Mexican seaport of Veracruz.

In 1959, Mattel introduced the Barbie doll at the American International Toy Fair in New York City.

In 2004, a Virginia court sentenced the Washington, D.C.-area "Beltway Sniper" John Allen Muhammad to death.

In 2011, the space shuttle Discovery completed its 39th and final flight.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Samuel Barber (1910-1981), composer; Mickey Spillane (1918-2006), author; Walter Kohn (1923- ), physicist/Nobel Prize winner; Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968), cosmonaut/first person in space; Raul Julia (1940-1994), actor; Bobby Fischer (1943-2008), chess grandmaster; Charles Gibson (1943- ), TV journalist; Juliette Binoche (1964- ), actress; Clint Dempsey (1983- ), soccer player; Brittany Snow (1986- ), actress; Bow Wow (1987- ), actor/rapper.

TODAY'S FACT: Mattel Inc. reports that 90 percent of American girls between ages 3 and 10 own at least one Barbie doll.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1995, league owners unanimously approved the addition of major league baseball expansion franchises in Tampa Bay, Fla., and Arizona.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar ... If the public likes you, you're good." -- Mickey Spillane

TODAY'S NUMBER: 148,221,675 -- miles flown by the space shuttle Discovery during its 26 years of operation, the equivalent of 300 round trips to the moon.

TODAY'S MOON: Between first quarter moon (March 8) and full moon (March 16).

Today is the 67th day of 2014 and the 78th day of winter.

TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1782, Pennsylvania militiamen massacred 96 Christian Native Americans at the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhutten, Ohio.

In 1917, the so-called February Revolution in Russia began with food riots and strikes in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).

In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious education in public schools was unconstitutional.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" during a speech in Orlando, Fla.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935), Supreme Court justice/author; Cyd Charisse (1922-2008), actress/dancer; Lynn Redgrave (1943-2010), actress; Aidan Quinn (1959- ), actor; Freddie Prinze Jr. (1976- ), actor; James Van Der Beek (1977- ), actor.

TODAY'S FACT: Around 3 million Americans (roughly 1 percent of the U.S. population in 2010) have Russian ancestry.

TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1936, the first stock car race was held in Daytona Beach, Fla.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "The degree of civilization which a people has reached, no doubt, is marked by their anxiety to do as they would be done by." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

TODAY'S NUMBER: 4.8 million -- American children enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade private schools in the 2011-2012 school year.

TODAY'S MOON: First quarter moon (March 8).

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).