Today in History

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Today in History

By Correspondent

YEARDAYEVENT
630Mar 21Heraclius restored the True Cross, which he had recaptured from the Persians.
1349Mar 21Some 3,000 Jews were killed in Black Death riots in Efurt, Germany.
1361Mar 21Grand duke Kestutis was captured by the Knights of the Cross.
1474Mar 21Angela Merici, Italian monastery founder, saint, was born.
1547Mar 21Matthew Stryjkovski (d.c1592), the 1st author of a printed history of Lithuania, was born in Strykov, Poland.
1556Mar 21Former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (66), scheduled to denounce his errors and be burned at the stake, denounced his own confessions and was hustled off to be burned. He then put forth his hand and declared: “Forasmuch as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be punished.”
1609Mar 21Jan II Kazimierz, cardinal, King of Poland (1648-68), was born.
1610Mar 21King James I addressed the English House of Commons.
1617Mar 21Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) died of either small pox or pneumonia while in England with her husband, John Rolfe. As Pocahontas and John Rolfe prepared to sail back to Virginia, she died reportedly from the wet English winter. She was buried at the parish church of St. George in Gravesend, England. In 2003 Paula Gunn Allen authored “Pocahontas “Medicine Woman, Spy, entrepreneur, Diplomat.”
1656Mar 21Armagh James Ussher (76), Archbishop (said world began 4004 BC), died.
1685Mar 21Composer Johann Sebastian Bach (d.1750) was born in Eisenach, Germany, the youngest of eight children. 2nd source says Mar 21. He composed cantatas, sonatas, preludes, fugues and chorale preludes, and whose works included “Brandenburg Concerto” and “Well-Tempered Clavier.”
1697Mar 21Czar Peter the Great began a tour through West Europe. [see Mar 9]
1702Mar 21Queen Anne Stuart addressed the English parliament.
1729Mar 21John Law, Scottish gambler and financier (57 or 58), died in Venice. An inventory of his wealth included 488 paintings with works by Titian, Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. His story was told in 2000 by Cynthia Crossen in “The Rich and How They got That Way.”
1734Mar 21Gunther Jacob Wenceslaus (48), composer, died.
1768Mar 21Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier (d.1830), French mathematician, physicist and Egyptologist, was born.
1780Mar 21The Marquis de Lafayette set sail for the US aboard the Hermione after persuading French King Louis XVI to provide military and financial aid to support George Washington’s troops.
1788Mar 21Almost the entire city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was destroyed by fire. 856 buildings were burned.
1790Mar 21Thomas Jefferson (46) reported to President Washington in New York as the new US Secretary of state.
1791Mar 21Captain Hopley Yeaton (1740-1812) of New Hampshire became the first commissioned officer of the US Revenue Cutter Service.
1801Mar 21Andrea Lucchesi (59), composer, died.
1804Mar 21The French civil code, later called the “Code Napoleon,” was adopted.
1806Mar 21Benito Juarez, President of Mexico, was born in Oaxaca. He was Mexico’s first president of Indian ancestry and fought against the French and their puppet emperor Maximilian.
1813Mar 21James Jesse Strang, King of Mormons on Beaver Is, MI. (1850-56), was born.
1826Mar 21Beethoven’s Quartet #13 in B flat major (Op 130) premiered in Vienna.
1839Mar 21Modest Mussorgsky, composer (Boris Godunov, Night on Bald Mt), was born.
1843Mar 21Robert W. Southey (b.1774), British poet laureate and historian, died. In 2006 W. A. Speck authored the biography “Robert Southey.”
1851Mar 21Emperor Tu Duc ordered that Christian priests be put to death.
1858Mar 21British forces in India lifted the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.
1859Mar 21The Scottish National Gallery opened in Edinburgh.
1864Mar 21Battle at Henderson’s Hill (Bayou Rapids), Louisiana.
1865Mar 21The Battle of Bentonville, N.C. ended, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop. Union General William Sherman considered Judson Kilpatrick, his cavalry chief, ‘a hell of a damn fool.’ At Monroe’s Cross Roads, N.C., his carelessness and disobedience of orders proved Sherman’s point.
1866Mar 21The US Congress authorized national soldiers’ homes.
1869Mar 21Albert Kahn, the architect who originated modern factory design, was born.
1871Mar 21Journalist Henry M. Stanley began his famous expedition to Africa to locate the missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone.
1885Mar 21Raoul Lufbery, French-born American fighter pilot of World War I, was born.
1888Mar 21Arthur Pinero’s “Sweet Lavender,” premiered in London.
1890Mar 21Austrian Jewish communities were defined by law.
1900Mar 21Paul Kletzki, Polish violinist, composer, conductor, was born.
1906Mar 21John D. Rockefeller III, billionaire philanthropist (oil), was born.
1907Mar 21US Marines arrived in Honduras to protect American lives and interests in the wake of political violence.
1908Mar 21Frenchman Henri Farman carried a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.
1910Mar 21The U.S. Senate granted ex-President Teddy Roosevelt a pension of $10,000 yearly.
1912Mar 21Peter Bull, actor, author (Executioner, Tom Jones, Dr. Strangelove), was born.
1918Mar 21During World War I, Germany launched the ‘Michael’ Offensive in France, hoping to break through the Allied line before American reinforcements could arrive. It is better remembered as the First Battle of the Somme.
1920Mar 21Bruno Maderna, composer, was born.
1921Mar 21“Big Jim” Colisimo, US gangster, was murdered by Al Capone.
1925Mar 21Tennessee passed an anti-evolution law, which prohibited the teaching of evolution
1927Mar 21Kuomintang Army conquered Shanghai as British marines fled.
1928Mar 21VU, France’s first illustrated magazine, was launched and continued to May 29, 1940 running over 600 issues. Hungarian-born photographer Andre Kertesz worked there until he left for NYC in 1936.
1932Mar 21Joseph Silverstein, violinist (Denver Symphony Orch), was born in Detroit, Mich.
1933Mar 21Hitler, Goering, Prince Ruprecht, Bruning and other top army commanders met in Berlin.
1936Mar 21Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov (70), composer (Chopiniana), died.
1937Mar 21Ponce massacre: police killed 19 at a Puerto Rican Nationalist parade.
1939Mar 21Nazi Germany demanded Gdansk (Danzig) from Poland.
1941Mar 21The last Italian post in East Libya fell to the British.
1942Mar 21There was a major German assault on Malta.
1943Mar 21British 8th army opened an assault on Mareth line, Tunisia.
1944Mar 21Charles Chaplin went on trial in Los Angeles, accused of transporting former protegee Joan Barry across state lines for immoral purposes. Chaplin was acquitted, but later lost a paternity suit despite tests showing he wasn’t the father of Barry’s child.
1945Mar 21During World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.
1946Mar 21The United Nations set up temporary headquarters at Hunter College in New York City.
1947Mar 21Pres. Truman signed Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to swear allegiance to the United States.
1951Mar 21Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall reports that the U.S. military has doubled to 2.9 million since the start of the Korean War.
1952Mar 21Wilhelm Albrecht, German SD-chief, was executed.
1954Mar 21Paul Selenyi (b.1884), Hungarian physicist, died in Budapest. He was the first to record images with an electrostatic marking process. This was the foundation for Chester Carlson’s Xerox copiers.
1955Mar 21Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus desired Cyprus joining Greece.
1956Mar 2150 years ago, “Marty” won best picture at the Academy Awards; its star, Ernest Borgnine, won best actor. Anna Magnani won best actress for “The Rose Tattoo.”
1957Mar 21Tennessee Williams’ “Orpheus Descending,” premiered in NYC.
1958Mar 21Gary Oldman, actor (Sid and Nancy, Criminal Law, State of Grace), was born.
1960Mar 21California state officials dumped radioactive waste from civilian installations into the ocean about 50 miles off of San Francisco at a site that the Navy and other Atomic Energy contractors have been using since 1946. The waste was mixed with concrete, sealed in 55-gallon steel drums and dumped in about 7,500 feet of water.
1962Mar 21Dutch RC Bishop Willem Bekkers declared himself in favor of birth control. The church in the Netherlands tried to promote a more liberal view of birth control. But their view did not prevail.
1963Mar 21The Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last 27 inmates at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
1964Mar 21Beatles’ “She Loves You,” single went #1 and stayed #1 for 2 weeks.
1965Mar 21The U.S. launched Ranger 9, last in a series of lunar explorations.
1966Mar 21Supreme Court reversed Massachusetts ruling that Fanny Hill” is obscene.
1968Mar 21Israeli forces attacked a Palestinian base belonging to Fatah in the village of Al-Karameh in Jordan. Israeli forces engage in a battle with Palestinian fighters for the first time. On 24 March 1968, the Security Council adopted resolution 248 (1968), condemning the large scale and premeditated military actions by Israel against Jordan. The Karameh mission failed. Muki Betser, Israeli commando, was wounded. He later became commander of the Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite counter-terrorist unit.
1970Mar 21Marlen Haushofer (b.1920), Austrian writer died. Her 1962 novel “The Wall” was her only work translated into English.
1971Mar 21Daniel Ellsberg obtained a copy of the Pentagon Papers, commissioned by then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, from his former pentagon colleagues and showed it to Neil Sheehan, a young New York Times reporter, at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1972Mar 21The US Supreme Court, in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may not require at least a year’s residency for voting eligibility.
1973Mar 21Dean told Nixon: “There is a cancer growing on the Presidency.”
1975Mar 21As North Vietnamese forces advanced, Hue and other northern towns in South Vietnam were evacuated.
1979Mar 21The Egyptian Parliament unanimously approved a peace treaty with Israel.
1980Mar 21President Carter announced to the U.S. Olympic Team that they would not participate in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
1983Mar 21The US signed the Strasbourg Treaty with European nations for the exchange of prisoners.
1984Mar 21A Soviet submarine crashed into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.
1985Mar 21Police in Langa (Uitenhage), South Africa, opened fire on blacks marching to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville shootings; the reported death toll varied between 29 and 43.
1987Mar 21Actor Robert Preston (68), best-known for his portrayal of conman Prof. Harold Hill in the musical “The Music Man,” died in Santa Barbara, Calif.
1989Mar 21Randall Dale Adams, whose conviction for killing a police officer was overturned after the documentary “The Thin Blue Line” challenged evidence, was released from a Texas prison.
1990Mar 21Secretary of State James Baker met black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela in Namibia.
1991Mar 21Two US Navy anti-submarine planes collided about 60 miles southwest of San Diego and 27 were lost at sea.
1992Mar 21Pres. Bush and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl met at Camp David, Md.
1993Mar 21Voters in France handed the Socialist government a devastating defeat in first-round parliamentary elections.
1994Mar 21“Schindler’s List” won best picture at the 66th Academy Awards; Holly Hunter was named best actress for “The Piano” while Tom Hanks was named best actor for “Philadelphia.”
1995Mar 21Thousands of Japanese police raided the offices of a secretive religious group, Aum Shinri Kyo, in connection with nerve-gas attacks on Tokyo subways that killed 12 people and sickened thousands. In ensuing weeks they found tons of chemicals used to make sarin nerve gas and evidence of biological weapons research.
1996Mar 21The US decided to proceed with plans to deliver weapons to the Islamabad government in Pakistan. $368 mil has already been paid for a naval Orion aircraft and two types of missiles.
1997Mar 21President 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.
1998Mar 21It was reported that Chinese researchers had discovered heavy industrial pollution in the snow around the North Pole.
1999Mar 21Balloonists Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones landed their Breitling Orbiter 3 north of Mut, Egypt, a day after setting their around the world record.
2000Mar 21Pres. Clinton began a 5 day stay in India. India rejected his call for further curbs in the nuclear program.
2001Mar 21The Supreme Court ruled that hospitals cannot test pregnant women for drug use without their consent.
2002Mar 21Alexei Yagudin won the men’s title at the World Figure Skating Championships in Nagano, Japan.
2003Mar 21The House approved a $2.2 trillion budget embracing President Bush’s tax-cutting plan
2004Mar 21Zaha Hadid (53), a Baghdad-born designer, became the third Briton to win the Pritzker Prize in Architecture, and the 1st woman to win the prize in its 25-year history.
2005Mar 21The US State Department said the US is suspending about $2 million in military assistance to Nicaragua because President Enrique Bolanos has not followed through on a promise to destroy surface-to-air-missiles.
2006Mar 21Sgt. Michael J. Smith, an Army dog handler at Abu Ghraib, was convicted at Fort Meade, Md., of abusing prisoners. Smith was later sentenced to 179 days in prison.
2007Mar 21In Texas investigators said Timothy Wayne Shepherd (27) confessed to strangling Tynesha Stewart (19) because he was angry she had begun a new relationship. Shepherd had dismembered and burned her body on a patio grill.
2008Mar 21Two companies that provide workers for the State Department said they fired or otherwise punished those who improperly accessed the passport records of the three major presidential candidates. The security breaches touched off demands for a congressional investigation.
2009Mar 21In Botswana Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone opened a development conference and warned that the global economic crisis would affect Africa for at least two years.
2010Mar 21In Argentina 2 teenagers died, apparently after police tried to stop them for riding a motorcycle without helmets. Hundreds of angry residents torched the Baradero city hall to protest the death of the teenagers in a police chase.
2011Mar 21US President Barack Obama flew to Chile to promote democracy and economic growth on the American continent on the second leg of his Latin American tour aimed at bolstering trade and investment. Obama said he’s ready to help Chile solve human rights crimes committed during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, but avoided agreeing to a US apology for meddling in the country’s affairs.
2012Mar 21World Poetry Day. It was declared by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999.
2012Mar 21The US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that defendants have a right to be told of plea deals by prosecutors and to competent advice from a lawyer on whether to accept and offer to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence.
2013Mar 21The California state Commission on Judicial Performance said Judge Paul Seeman (58), an Alameda County Superior Court Judge, has resigned following charges that he swindled a 97-year-old neighbor out of her life savings. On Oct 21 Seeman was sentenced to 5 years probation.
2014Mar 21US first lady Michelle Obama met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the first day of her weeklong visit to China, in a sign that the leaders of the world’s two largest economies are seeking to build stronger bonds.
   

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