Today in HistoryToday is Friday, March 30, the 89th day of 2007. There are 276 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE

In 1842, Dr. Crawford W. Long of Jefferson, Georgia, first used ether as an anaesthetic during a minor operation.

In 1945, the Soviet Union invaded Austria and captured the German Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdansk in Poland).

In 1979, an IRA car bomb killed Airey Neave, spokesman on Northern Ireland for Britain’s opposition Conservatives, in the car park of the House of Commons in London.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“If men could foresee the future, they would still behave as they do now.” — Russian proverb.