On March 15, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed a
joint session of Congress to urge the passage of legislation
guaranteeing voting rights for all.

Using the phrase “we shall overcome,” borrowed from African
American leaders struggling for equal rights, Johnson declares
that “every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.”

Johnson reminds the nation that the Fifteenth Amendment, which
was passed after the Civil War, gave all citizens the right to vote
regardless of race or color.

President Johnson (right) meeting with civil rights leaders.

President Lyndon Johnson signing the 1965
Civil Rights Bill, also known as The Voting
Rights Act.

On March 4, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd president of the
United States. In his famous inaugural address, delivered outside
the east wing of the U.S. Capitol, Roosevelt outlined his “New
Deal”—an expansion of the federal government as an instrument
of employment opportunity and welfare—and told Americans that
“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Although it was a
rainy day in Washington, and gusts of rain blew over Roosevelt
as he spoke, he delivered a speech that radiated optimism a
nd competence, and a broad majority of Americans united
behind  their new president and his radical economic proposals
to lead the nation out of the Great Depression.

Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple)  
(April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014)

On February 10, 2014, Shirley Temple Black, who as a child in
the 1930s became one of Hollywood’s most successful stars,
died at her Woodside, California, home at age 85. The plucky,
curly-haired performer sang, danced and acted in dozens of
films by the time she was a teen; as an adult, she gave up
making movies and served as a U.S. diplomat 

The cause of death, according to her death certificate released
on March 3, 2014, was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).Temple was a lifelong cigarette smoker but avoided
displaying her habit in public because she did not want to set
a bad example for her fans.

In post-revolutionary Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic
(USSR) was established, comprising a confederatio  of Russia,
Belorussia, Ukraine and the Transcaucasian Federation (divided
in 1936 into the Georgian, Azerbaijan and Armenian republics). Also
known as the Soviet Union, the new communist state was the
successor to the Russian Empire and the first country in the
world to be based on Marxist socialism.

Lenin Proclaims Soviet Power in Smolny Palace.

1989

Ceausescu and his wife.