Today in History: March 7, ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Selma for civil rights movement

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Today is Friday, March 7, the 66th day of 2025. There are 299 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 7, 1965, a march by over 500 civil rights demonstrators was violently broken up at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; state troopers and a sheriff’s posse fired tear gas and beat marchers with batons in what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Also on this date:

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. patent for his telephone.

In 1936, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties.

In 1975, the U.S. Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present.

In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a parody that pokes fun at an original work can be considered “fair use.” (The ruling concerned a parody of the Roy Orbison song “Oh, Pretty Woman” by the rap group 2 Live Crew.)

In 2010, filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director, taking the prize for directing the film “The Hurt Locker.”

In 2024, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting incident on the set of the film “Rust” in 2021, which killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. (Gutierrez-Reed was later sentenced to 18 months in prison.)