Today is the 68th day of 2015 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 1945, 334 B-29 bombers began Operation Meetinghouse, a firebombing campaign of the city of Tokyo that was the deadliest air raid of World War II.

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 Arizona and Tampa Bay, Florida.

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Guys like you can't escape the city. Hell, you got a blood contract with this place. You're married to the old girl." -- Mickey Spillane, "Kiss Her Goodbye"

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 full moon (March 5) and last quarter moon (March 13).

Today is the 67th day of 2015 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, Florida.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935), Supreme Court justice/author; Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932), author; Sam Jaffe (1891- 1984), actor; Alan Hale Jr. (1921-1990), actor; Cyd Charisse (1922-2008), actress/dancer; Lynn Redgrave (1943-2010), actress; Lester Holt (1959- ), journalist; 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 the 2010 census) have Russian ancestry.

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

TODAY'S QUOTE: "A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

TODAY'S NUMBER: 5.5 million -- American children enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade private schools in the 2013-2014 school year.

TODAY'S MOON: Between full moon (March 5) and last quarter moon (March 13).

Today is the 66th day of 2015 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, Alabama.

In 1985, the 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, Florida.

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, 20-year-old 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: "To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling. From the least of nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons." -- John Herschel

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

TODAY'S MOON: Between full moon (March 5) and last quarter moon (March 13).