Today
in History ~ March 21
Human Rights Day
A national holiday in South Africa. It commemorates a 1960 massacre
on this day at Sharpeville.
Events
1349 - 3,000 Jews killed in Black Death riots in Efurt Germany
1610 - King James I addresses English House of Commons
1697 - Czar Peter the Great begins tour through West Europe
1702 - Queen Anne Stuart addresses English parliament
1788 - Fire destroyed 856 buildings in New Orleans
1788 - Gustavus Vassa petitions Queen Charlotte, to free enslaved Africans
1790 - Thomas Jefferson reports to Pres Washington in NY as first U.S. secretary of state. He later was the third president of the United States.
1804 - French civil Code of Napoleon adopted
1826 - Beethoven's Quartet #13 in B flat major (Op 130) premiered in Vienna
1851 - Yosemite Valley discovered in California
1857 - Earthquake hits Tokyo; about 107,000 die
1859 - Scottish National Gallery opens in Edinburgh
1859 - Zoological Society of Philadelphia, 1st in US, incorporated
1864 - Battle at Henderson's Hill (Bayou Rapids) Louisiana
1865 - Battle of Bentonville ends, last Confederate effort to stop Sherman
1866 - Congress authorizes national soldiers' homes
1871 - Journalist Henry M. Stanley began his famous expedition to Africa to locate the missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone.
1888 - Arthur Pinero's "Sweet Lavender," premieres in London
1890 - Austrian Jewish communities are defined by law
1891 - A Hatfield marries a McCoy, ends long feud in West Virginia it started with an accusation of pig-stealing & lasted 20 years
1907 - US invades Honduras
1918 - American and German soldiers fought the key World War I battle of the Somme.
1927 - Guomindang Army conquerors Shanghai as British marines flee
1933 - Hitler, Goering, Prince Ruprecht, Bruning & top army commanders meet in Berlin
1934 - Babe Didrikson pitches an inning in an A's-Dodgers exhibition game Walks 1, hits the next guy, 3rd guy hits into triple-play
1935 - Persia officially renamed Iran
1937 - Ponce massacre, police kill 19 at Puerto Rican Nationalist parade
1939 - Nazi Germany demands Gdansk (Danzig) from Poland
1942 - Convoy QP9 departs Great Britain to Murmansk
1942 - Heavy German assault on Malta
1943 - Assassination attempt on Hitler fails
1943 - British 8th army opens assault on Mareth line, Tunisia
1945 - 1st Japanese flying bombs (ochas) attack Okinawa
1945 - Allied bombers begin 4-day raid over Germany
1945 - 7,000 Allied planes dropped more than 12,000 tons of explosives on Germany during a single World War II daytime bombing raid.
1945 - During World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.
1946 - The United Nations set up temporary headquarters at Hunter College in New York.
1947 - Pres Truman signs Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to swear allegiance to the United States
1951 - 2,900,000 US soldiers in Korea
1951 - Julius & Ethel Rosenberg convicted of espionage
1952 - 31 storms crosses 6 states killing 340 in South Central US
1955 - Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus desires Cyprus joining Greece
1956 - 28th Academy Awards - "Marty," Anna Magnani & Ernest Borgnine win
1957 - Tennessee Williams' "Orpheus Descending," premieres in NYC
1960 - Sharpeville Massacre: Police kill 72 in South Africa & outlaws ANC [H]
1962 - A bear becomes the 1st creature to be ejected at supersonic speeds
1962 - Dutch RC bishop Beckers declares himself in favor of birth control
1962 - Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pledged that Russia would cooperate with the United States in peaceful exploration of space. The joint American-Soviet Soyuz space mission was conducted in July 1975.
1963 - The Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
1964 - Beatles' "She Loves You," single goes #1 & stays #1 for 2 weeks
1965 - More than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., to demand federal protection of voting rights.
[H]
1966 - Supreme Court reverses Mass ruling that "Fanny Hill" is obscene
1972 - US Supreme Court rules states can't require 1-yr residency to vote
1972 - The Supreme Court ruled states may not require at least a year's residency for voting eligibility.
1975 - Ethiopia ends monarchy after 3000 years
1979 - Egyptian Parliament unanimously approve peace treaty with Israel
1980 -
President Carter tells U.S. athletes of Olympic boycott
[H]
1980 - On TV show "Dallas," J.R. is shot
1981 - Michael Donald, a black teen-ager in Mobile, Ala., was abducted, tortured and killed in what prosecutors charged was a Ku Klux Klan plot. A lawsuit brought by Donald's mother, Beulah Mae Donald, later resulted in a landmark judgment that bankrupted one Klan organization.
1982 - Movie "Annie" premieres
1984 - Part of Central Park is named Strawberry Fields honoring John Lennon
1984 - The U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk collided with a nuclear-powered Soviet submarine in the Sea of Japan.
1985 - Bloodbath at Langa (Uitenhage) South-Africa, 19 killed
1991 - 27 lost at sea when 2 US Navy anti-submarine planes collide
1991 - A U.N. Security Council panel decided to lift the food embargo on Iraq.
1991 - Test results released in Los Angeles showed that Rodney King, the motorist whose beating by police was videotaped by a bystander, had marijuana and alcohol in his system following his arrest. President Bush denounced King's beating as "sickening" and "outrageous."
1991 - L. William Seidman, chairman of the FDIC and Resolution Trust Corp., said his agency needed $70 billion to protect deposits from bank collapses.
1992 - During a debate in Buffalo, N.Y., Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton sought to turn the tables on rival Jerry Brown by accusing the former California governor of hypocrisy on the issue of campaign contributions.
1992 - President Bush and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl met at Camp David, Md.
1993 - Pope John Paul II declares Duns Scotus a saint
1993 - South Africa White Wolves kill 5 year old black girl
1993 - Nicaraguan rebels ended their 13-day seizure of the Nicaraguan Embassy, freeing the last 11 hostages under a deal that gave them asylum in the Dominican Republic.
1993 - Russia plunged into its deepest political crisis since the August 1991 coup attempt following President Yeltsin's declaration of special rule by decree.
1993 - Seven more adults left the besieged Branch Davidian compound as federal authorities continued negotiations with cult leader David Koresh to end the standoff.
1994 - 66th Academy Awards - "Schindler's List," Tom Hanks & Holly Hunter win
1994 - North Korea threatened to pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the United States reverses its decision to hold military exercises with South Korea.
1996 - General Motors and the United Auto Workers reached a settlement in a 17-day brake-factory strike that idled more than 177,000 employees and brought the automaker to a near standstill.
1996 - European nations began banning British beef.
1997 - A suicide bomber blew himself up in Tel Aviv, killing three Israeli women.
1997 - President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their summit in Helsinki, Finland, still deadlocked over NATO expansion, but able to agree on slashing nuclear weapons arsenals.
2000 - Pope John Paul II began the first official visit by a Roman Catholic pontiff to Israel.
2000 - A divided Supreme Court ruled the government lacked authority to regulate tobacco as an addictive drug, throwing out the Clinton administration's main anti-smoking initiative.
2001 - Space shuttle Discovery glided to a predawn touchdown, bringing home the first residents of the international space station.
2001 - The Supreme Court ruled that hospitals cannot test pregnant women for drug use without their consent.
2001 - The U.S. ordered 51 Russian diplomats to leave, in retaliation for Russia's use of an FBI spy, Robert
Hanssen.
Birthdays
Today
1474 - Angela Merici, Italian monastery founder/saint
1609 - Jan II Kazimierz, cardinal/King of Poland (1648-68)
1685 - Johann Sebastian Bach (composer: Gottes Zeit, Toccata and Fugue in d minor, Little Organ Book, Mass in B Minor,
Magnificat)
1768 - Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, mathematician/Egyptologist
1806 - Mexican statesman Benito Juarez was born in Oaxaca.
1813 - James Jesse Strang, King of Mormons on Beaver Is, MI (1850-56)
1816 - Charlotte Bronte, novelist/poet
1839 - Modest Mussorgsky, composer (Boris Gudunov, Night on Bald Mt)
1869 - Albert Kahn, architect, originated modern factory design
1869 - Florenz Ziegfeld (producer Ziegfeld Follies: annual variety shows famous for the Ziegfeld Girls [1907-1930s])
1900 - Paul Kletzki, Polish violinist/composer/conductor
1905 - Phyllis McGinley (Pulitzer prize-winning poet: Times Three: Selected Verses from Three Decades [1961]; The Horse Who Lived Upstairs, Sugar and Spice, Saint-Watching, Sixpence in her Shoe)
1906 - John D Rockefeller III, billionaire philanthropist (oil)
1912 - Peter Bull, actor/author (Executioner, Tom Jones, Dr Strangelove)
1918 - Howard Cosell, Winston-Salem NC, sportscaster (Monday Night Football)
1918 - Sir Charles Thompson (musician, composer)
1920 - Bruno Maderna, composer
1921 - Arthur Grumiaux, Belgian violinist
1921 - Fonty Flock (Truman Fontello)(auto racer: NASCAR Hall of Famer)
1923 - Mort Lindsey (bandleader: The Merv Griffin Show; composer of score: 40 Pounds of Trouble)
1925 - Peter Brook (director: Lord of the Flies, King Lear)
1929 - James Coco (actor: The Chair, Ensign Pulver, Man of La Mancha)
1932 - Joseph Silverstein, Detroit Mich, violinist (Denver Symphony Orch)
1939 - Tommy Davis (baseball: right-handed, hitting, outfielder: LA Dodgers: two consecutive batting titles [1962 & 1963])
1942 - Junior Lee Coffey (football)
1944 - Manny Sanguillen (baseball)
1945 - Charles Greene (sprinter)
1945 - Rosie Stone (musician: piano: group: Sly & the Family Stone; Sly's sister: Everyday People, Dance to the Music)
1946 - Timothy Dalton (actor: Centennial, Licence to Kill, The Lion in Winter, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Flash Gordon)
1947 - Bill Plummer (baseball)
1949 - Giles Gilbert (hockey)
1951 - John Hicks (football: lineman: Ohio State U.: Outland Trophy and Lombardi Trophy Winner; offensive rookie of the year: NY Giants [1974])
1952 - Kenny Marbury (football)
1958 - Gary Oldman, actor (Sid & Nancy, Criminal Law, State of Grace)
1962 - Matthew Broderick (actor: War Games, The Freshman, Family Business, Ladyhawke, Ferris Bueller's Day Off)
Famous
deaths
1556 - Thomas Cranmer, archbishop
of Canterbury, burned at stake at 66
1617 - Pocahontas died in England at about age 22. Three years earlier, she had converted to Christianity, taken the name Rebecca and married Englishman John
Rolfe.
1656 - Armagh James Ussher, Archbishop (said world began 4004 BC), dies at 76
1729 - John Law, Scottish financier, dies at about 57
1734 - Gunther Jacob Wenceslaus, composer, dies at 48
1801 - Andrea Lucchesi, composer, dies at 59
1921 - "Big Jim" Colisimo, US gangster, murdered by Al Capone
1936 - Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov, composer (Chopiniana), dies at 70
1952 - A J Pieters, SS-Untersturmfuhrer, executed
1952 - Wilhelm Albrecht, German SD-chief, executed
1987 - Robert Preston, actor (Harold Hill, Music Man), dies at 68
1991 - Rajiv Gandhi, former PM of India, killed by bomb at 46
1994 - Lili Damita, first wife of Errol Flynn (Bridge of San Luis Rey), dies at
89
If
you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please
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