Women Who Made History Today – March 29

1871        Mar 29, Queen Victoria opened Albert Hall in London. 1939Mar 29, Clark Gable (38) married Carole Lombard (29) in Arizona while filming “Gone With the Wind.”  1968Mar 29, In SF Linda Harmon (14) was raped and stabbed to death while babysitting for a neighbor in Visitacion Valley. In lat 2003 police matched DNA evidence to William Speer, who was undergoing therapy for sexually violent tendencies at an Arizona mental hospital.1981 Mar 29, In northern California Ellen Hansen (20), a UC Davis student, was shot to death after resisting a rape attempt at Henry Cowell Redwood State Park, near Santa Cruz. Her boyfriend was wounded but survived and later identified David Joseph Carpenter as the assailant. Carpenter was arrested in May 1981. In 1984 he was convicted of 2 murders in Santa Cruz and sentenced to death. In 1988 he was convicted of 4 killings in Marin County and again sentenced to death.1987        Mar 29, The N.C.A.A. Women’s Basketball Rules Committee adopted the 3-point field-goal shot from the same 19-feet-9-inch distance the men used.1997Mar 29, According to Monica Lewinsky she and Pres. Clinton had their last sexual encounter.1998Mar 29, The Lady Vols of Tennessee won a third straight NCAA basketball championship, defeating Louisiana Tech.2003        Mar 29, Michelle Kwan became only the third American to win five World Figure Skating Championships, after Dick Button and Carol Heiss.2004        Mar 29, MargaretMcCord Nixon (87), South-African-born author of “The Calling of Katie Makanya” (1997), died in Venice, Ca.2005Mar 29, As Terri Schiavo entered her 12th full day without food or water, the Rev. Jesse Jackson prayed with her parents and joined conservatives in calling for Florida lawmakers to order her feeding tube reinserted.2006Mar 29, In San Francisco Linda Woo was found inside a car in her garage with her 2 unconscious children. Her daughter 3 died in the attempted suicide. Her 4-year old son suffered brain injuries. In 2009 Woo was sentenced 25 years to life in prison.2007Mar 29, In Pakistan a woman kidnapped by female seminary students and accused of running a brothel was freed after a hard-line cleric forced her to repent in public. A suicide bomber blew himself up among troops resting near an army base in Kharian, killing a soldier.2008        Mar 29, In Brazil Isabella Nardoni (5) died after falling from her father’s sixth-floor Sao Paulo apartment. On April 18 Alexandre Nardoni (29) and his wife, Anna Carolina Jatoba (24), the father and stepmother of the 5-year-old girl, were arrested for allegedly throwing the girl from their apartment window.2010Mar 29, In Russia 2 female suicide bombers blew themselves up in twin attacks on Moscow subway stations jam-packed with rush-hour passengers, killing 39 people. Officials blamed the carnage on rebels from the Caucasus region. Five people remained in critical condition out of 71 hospitalized after the blasts. The death toll soon rose to 40 as one of the injured died in a hospital. 2011 Mar 29, In northern Mexico Gunmen killed the wife and 5-year-old daughter of a state governor’s bodyguard in Chihuahua city. In Nuevo Leon state Garica Mayor Jaime Rodriguez said he survived an assassination attempt. Four men were gunned down inside a home in San Marcos, a town in southwestern Guerrero state.