Today is Friday, March 11, the 71st day of 2016. There are 295 days left in the year.

On this date:

In 1861, the Constitution of the Confederate States of America was adopted by the Confederate Congress in Montgomery, Alabama.

In 1865, during the Civil War, Union forces under General William T. Sherman occupied Fayetteville, North Carolina.

In 1916, future British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England.

In 1935, the Bank of Canada began operations, issuing its first series of bank notes.

In 1942, as Japanese forces continued to advance in the Pacific during World War II, Gen. Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines for Australia. (MacArthur, who subsequently vowed, “I shall return,” kept that promise more than 2? years later.)

In 1954, the U.S. Army charged that Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., and his subcommittee’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, had exerted pressure to obtain favored treatment for Pvt. G. David Schine, a former consultant to the subcommittee. (The confrontation culminated in the famous Senate Army-McCarthy hearings.)

In 1965, the Rev. James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, died two days after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Alabama.

In 1977, more than 130 hostages held in Washington D.C. by Hanafi Muslims were freed after ambassadors from three Islamic nations joined the negotiations.

In 1986, the state of Georgia pardoned Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman who had been lynched in 1915 for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan.

In 1993, Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be attorney general.

In 2004, ten bombs exploded in quick succession across the commuter rail network in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 people in an attack linked to al-Qaida-inspired militants.

In 2012, sixteen Afghan villagers — mostly women and children — were shot dead as they slept by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Ten years ago: Former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead of a heart attack in his prison cell in the Netherlands, abruptly ending his four-year U.N. war crimes trial for orchestrating a decade of conflict that had killed a quarter of a million people; he was 64. Michelle Bacheletwas sworn in as Chile’s first female president.

Five years ago: A magnitude-9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami struck Japan’s northeastern coast, killing nearly 20,000 people and severely damaging the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a measure to eliminate most union rights for public employees, a proposal which had provoked three weeks of loud, relentless protests. NFL owners and players broke off labor negotiations hours before their contract expired; the union de-certified and the league imposed a lockout that lasted 4 1/2 months.

The Associated Press