Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is March 30. An attempt on the life of President Reagan took place on this date in 1981. The president was shot and seriously wounded by John Hinckley Jr. outside a Washington hotel. White House news secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent and a Washington policeman also were wounded - Brady was left paralyzed and in a wheelchair by the incident. Hinckley, who was arrested at the scene, was later found NOT guilty by reason of insanity and was institutionalized in a Washington, D.C., hospital. Advertisement The United States grew a whole lot bigger on this date in 1867 when Secretary of State William Seward reached an agreement with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7,200,000 in gold. The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate in May, and the territory formally transferred to U.S. control that October. Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as "Seward's folly," "Seward's icebox," and President Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden." On this date in 1923, the Cunard liner "Laconia" arrived in New York City, becoming the first passenger ship to circumnavigate the world. It took 130 days. Advertisement And in 1993, after 43 years, the unthinkable happened on the comic pages -- Charlie Brown was a hero when he hit a home run and his "Peanuts" baseball team won for the first time. We now return you to the present, already in progress.
