Today in history

March 6

1836
Mexican troops defeat foreign slaveholders and mercenaries at the Alamo.

1857
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision which declared that an escaped slave could not sue for his freedom in federal court. In his opinion Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, stated that the “unhappy Black Race” had never possessed “rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

Dredd Scott

1884
Susan B. Anthony & more than 100 other suffragists present President Chester Arthur with a demand that he support women’s right to vote

1967
Muhammad Ali was ordered by the Selective Service to be inducted into military service. He refused, citing his religious beliefs that precluded him from killing others.

Top Black athletes gather to hear Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) give his reasons for rejecting the draft, United States, June 4, 1967.

“I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.”

1982
The United Nations University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica was founded. The University had been chartered by a General Assembly in a resolution on December 5, 1980

The monument on campus sculpted by Cuban artist Thelvia Marín in 1987, is the world’s largest peace monument

1996
n Palestine, hundreds demonstrate for an end to all violence.