President Trump (above) said he is directing the Bureau of
Prisons, Department of Justice, the FBI and Department
of Homeland Security to reopen a "substantially enlarged
and rebuilt" Alcatraz, "to house America’s most ruthless
and violent offenders."

The island was developed in the mid-19th century with
facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a
military prison. In 1934, the island was converted into
a federal prison, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.

Alcatraz ultimately closed in 1963 after its island operations
proved far more costly than mainland-based prisons.

   
CARLATA BRADLEY

At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, a woman’s
rights convention—the first ever held in the United States—
convened with almost 200 women in attendance.

The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-
Slavery Convention in London.

ROSS SIMPSON

In the name of African American voting rights, 3,200 civil rights demonstrators in Alabama, led by Martin Luther King Jr., began
an historic march from Selma to Montgomery, the state’s capital. Federalized Alabama National Guardsmen and FBI agents were
on hand to provide safe passage for the march, which twice had
been turned back by Alabama state police at Selma’s Edmund
Pettus Bridge.

SANDY KOZEL

FEEDING TUBE REMOVED ON THIS DAY IN 1990.

Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose condition sparked an epic legal, medical and political battle 
that gripped America, died 13 days after her feeding tube 
was removed by the wishes of her husband and the orders
of several courts.

CARLATA BRADLEY