TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2017

On this day in history:

1349 - 3000 Jews were killed in Black Death riots in Efurt Germany.

1556 - Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was burned at the stake at Oxford after retracting the last of seven recantations that same day.

1788 - Almost the entire city of New Orleans, LA, was destroyed by fire. 856 buildings were destroyed.

1804 - The French civil code, the Code Napoleon, was adopted.

1824 - A fire at a Cairo ammunitions dump killed 4000 horses.

1857 - An earthquake hit Tokyo killing about 107,000.

1895 - South Australia’s Suffrage Act is proclaimed after being passed by Queen Victoria.

1908 - A passenger was carried in a bi-plane for the first time by Henri Farman of France.

1918 - During the First World War, the Germans launched the Somme Offensive.

1934 - A fire destroyed Hakodate, Japan, killing about 1,500.

1941 - The last Italian post in East Libya, North Africa, fell to the British.

1945 - During the Second World War, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.

1946 - The United Nations set up a temporary headquarters at Hunter College in New York City.

1960 - About 70 people were killed in Sharpeville, South Africa, when police fired upon demonstrators.

1963 - Alcatraz Island, the federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, CA, closed.

1982 - The United States, UK and other Western countries condemned the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

1985 - Police in Langa, South Africa, opened fire on blacks marching to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville shootings. At least 21 demonstrators were killed.

1990 - Namibia became independent of South Africa.

1999 - Israel’s Supreme Court rejected the final effort to have American Samuel Sheinbein returned to the U.S. to face murder charges for killing Alfred Tello, Jr. Under a plea bargain Sheinbein was sentenced to 24 years in prison.