Today In History

Today is Thursday, March 21, the 81st day of 2024. There are 285 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On March 21, 1965, civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their third, successful march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

ON THIS DATE

› 1685: Composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.

› 1935: Persia officially changed its name to Iran.

› 1945: During World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.

› 1972: The Supreme Court, in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may not require at least a year’s residency for voting eligibility.

› 1997: President Bill 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.

› 2006: The social media website Twitter was established with the sending of the first “tweet” by co-founder Jack Dorsey, who wrote: “just setting up my twttr.”

› 2013: In the Middle East, President Barack Obama insisted “peace is possible” as he prodded both Israelis and Palestinians to return to longstalled negotiations with few, if any, pre-conditions.

› 2016: Laying bare a half-century of tensions, President Barack Obama and Cuban President

Raul Castro prodded each other over human rights and the longstanding U.S. economic embargo during an unprecedented joint news conference in Havana.

› 2022: A China Eastern Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in a mountainous area of southern China, setting off a forest fire visible from space in the country’s worst air disaster in nearly a decade.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Actor Kathleen Widdoes is 85. Songwriter Chip Taylor (“Wild Thing”) is 84. Folk-pop singer-musician Keith Potger (The Seekers) is

83. Actor Marie-Christine Barrault is 80. Singer-musician Rose Stone (Sly and the Family Stone) is

79. Actor Timothy Dalton is 78. Rock musician Conrad Lozano (Los Lobos) is 73. R&B singer Russell Thompkins Jr. is 73. Comedy writer-performer Brad Hall is 66. Actor Sabrina LeBeauf is 66. Actor Gary Oldman is 66. Actor Kassie Depaiva is

63. Actor Matthew Broderick is 62. Comedianactor Rosie O’Donnell is

62. Rock musician Jonas “Joker” Berggren (Ace of Base) is 57. Rock MC Maxim (Prodigy) is 57. Rock musician Andrew Copeland (Sister Hazel) is 56. Actor Laura Allen is 50. Rapper-TV personality Kevin Federline is 46. Actor Sonequa Martin-Green (TV: “The Walking Dead”) is 39. Actor Scott Eastwood is

38. Tennis player Karolina Pliskova is 32. Actor Jasmin Savoy Brown is 30. Actor Forrest Wheeler is 20.