Today is Friday, March 25, the 85th day of 2016. There are 281 days left in the year.

Today’s birthdays: Movie reviewer Gene Shalit is 90. Feminist activist and author Gloria Steinem is 82. Singer Aretha Franklin is 74. Actor Paul Michael Glaser is 73. Singer Elton John is 69. Actress Brenda Strong is 56. Actress Marcia Cross is 54. Actress Sarah Jessica Parker is 51. Baseball Hall of Famer Tom Glavine is 50. Auto racer Danica Patrick is 34. Actress-singer Katharine McPhee is 32.

In 1776, General George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, was awarded the first Congressional Gold Medal by the Continental Congress.

In 1911, 146 people, mostly young female immigrants, were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. in New York.

In 1954, RCA announced it had begun producing color television sets at its plant in Bloomington, Ind.

In 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 people to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery after a five-day march from Selma to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.

In 1975, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a nephew with a history of mental illness.

In 1990, 87 people, most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants, were killed when fire raced through an illegal social club in New York City.

In 1996, an 81-day standoff by the antigovernment Freemen began at a ranch near Jordan, Mont.