Today in History: March 2, Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a game
Today is Saturday, March 2, the 62nd day of 2024. The year has 304 days remaining. Today’s Historical High Point:
On this date in 1861, the state of Texas was admitted to the Confederacy after seceding from the Union. On March 2, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks, setting an NBA record that is still in place. The Philadelphia Warriors won the game 169-147.
The 20th Amendment to the Constitution was approved by Congress in 1932 and sent to the states for ratification. It changed the date of the presidential inauguration from March 4 to January 20. John Wayne and Claire Trevor starred in John Ford’s iconic Western “Stagecoach,” which debuted in New York in 1939.
By the end of the 20th century, officials from the 12 European Community countries decided in 1989 to outlaw the manufacturing of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), the artificial substances that are thought to be responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer. Greyhound Lines Inc. was the target of a strike by over 6,000 drivers in 1990. (The strikers were sacked by the corporation after it announced that negotiations had reached a standstill.)
About 40 people were killed by tornadoes that struck Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio in 2012. The Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, in 2011, holding that a grieving father’s pain over mocking protests at his Marine son’s funeral had to give way to First Amendment protections for free speech.
The final remaining founding member of the renowned reggae group The Wailers, Bunny Wailer, passed away in his home country of Jamaica in 2021 at the age of 73. The first Black student to enroll at the University of Alabama, Autherine Lucy Foster, passed away in 2022 at the age of 92.
