Today in history—March 8

1702: William of Orange, Stadholder of the Netherlands and the only the second foreign prince to conquer England and assume the throne (as William III), dies as a result of a fall from a horse.

1841: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., the man who will go on to have the best moustaches of any American jurist, is born at Boston, Massachusetts.

1917: The U.S. Senate adopts a cloture rule to rein in filibuster abuse.

1930: The only man to serve as both President and Chief Justice of the United States, William Howard Taft (Cincinnati Law 1880), dies in Washington, D.C.

1936: The first stock-car race in U.S. history is held on the sand at Daytona Beach, Florida.

1972: Advertising goes to new heights, as the Goodyear blimp hits the skies for the first time.

1983: President Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”  A good many of your students aren’t really old enough to remember the Soviet Union.