10 years ago

From the Journal Tribune: “This semester, at Biddeford High School, four students are taking part in a classroom without walls. The unconventional online format of the new Virtual High School program works with traditional structure of a classroom, giving students the opportunity to meet and expand minds, which was once unheard of. Virtual High School is a program used by schools throughout the nation, and this is its pilot semester in Biddeford.”

50 years ago

From the Biddeford-Saco Journal: “Two auto blazes were extinguished yesterday by Biddeford Firefighters. Careless smoking was given as the cause of a car blaze yesterday on Alfred Street, Biddeford. Firemen used a booster line to quell the blaze. Owner of the vehicle is William Binette, 55 Paul St., Biddeford. Another vehicle blaze last night at Five Points, Biddeford, was fought with the aid of a booster line. Short circuited wires were listed as the cause of the blaze. Miss Diane Kimball of Biddeford is the owner.”

100 years ago

From the Biddeford Daily Journal: “The Saco campaign is now up to the voters for final decisions. It is for them to say whether or not they believe in financial integrity and economy in spite of hostile criticism; whether or not they believe in clean, open, aboveboard government with no secrets from the people; stability reliability and conservatism, or in uncertainty in finances, secrecy in action and radicalism in attitude, belief and performance.”

Today in History

Today is Friday, March 4, the 64th day of 2016. There are 302 days left in the year.

On this date: In 1791, Vermont became the 14th state. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated for a second term of office; with the end of the Civil War in sight, Lincoln declared: “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge’s inauguration was broadcast live on 21 radio stations coast-to-coast. In 1960, an explosives-laden French freighter, La Coubre, exploded in Havana’s harbor, killing at least 75 people. In 1981, a jury in Salt Lake City convicted Joseph Paul Franklin, an avowed racist and serial killer, of violating the civil rights of two black men, Ted Fields and David Martin, who’d been shot to death. (Franklin received two life sentences for this crime; he was executed in 2013 for the 1977 murder of a Jewish man, Gerald Gordon.) In 1996, comedian Minnie Pearl died in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 83.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 4, 1966, John Lennon of The Beatles was quoted in the London Evening Standard as saying, “We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.” (After his comments caused an angry backlash in the United States, Lennon sought to clarify his remarks, telling reporters, “If I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it.”)

Ten years ago President George W. Bush, visiting Islamabad, praised Pakistan’s fight against terrorism as unfaltering, but turned down an appeal for the same civilian nuclear help the United States intended to give India.

Five years ago NASA launched its Glory satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on what was supposed to have been a three-year mission to analyze how airborne particles affect Earth’s climate; however, the rocket carrying Glory plummeted into the southern Pacific several minutes after liftoff.

One year ago A House committee investigating the Benghazi, Libya, attacks issued subpoenas for the emails of Hillary Rodham Clinton; the subpoenas from the Republicanled Select Committee on Benghazi came the same day The Associated Press reported the existence of a personal email server traced back to the Chappaqua, New York, home of Clinton. — By The Associated Press