ON MARCH 21 ...

In 1685, composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.

In 1790 Thomas Jefferson reported to President George Washington in New York as the new secretary of state.

In 1806 Mexican statesman Benito Juarez was born in Oaxaca.

In 1869 theater producer Florenz Ziegfeld was born in Chicago.

In 1871 journalist Henry Stanley began his famous expedition to Africa to find missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone.

In 1900 an agreement was signed to bring the Saint Paul Saints to Chicago’s South Side; the team would be renamed the Chicago White Stockings.

In 1944 Charles Chaplin went on trial in Los Angeles, accused of transporting former protege 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.)

In 1945, during World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.

In 1946 the United Nations set up temporary headquarters at Hunter College in New York.

In 1956 “Marty” won best picture at the Academy Awards; its star, Ernest Borgnine, won best actor; Anna Magnani won best actress for “The Rose Tattoo.”

In 1960 about 70 people were killed in Sharpeville, South Africa, when police fired on demonstrators.

In 1963 the Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates at the order of Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

In 1965 more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by Martin Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.

In 1972 the Supreme Court ruled that states may not require at least a year’s residency for voting eligibility.

In 1979 the Egyptian Parliament unanimously approved a peace treaty with Israel.

In 1985 police in Langa, South Africa, opened fire on blacks marching to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville shootings, killing at least 21 demonstrators.

In 1990 Namibia, formerly known as South West Africa, became independent after 75 years of South African rule.

In 1991 a U.N. Security Council panel decided to lift the food embargo on Iraq.

In 1995 thousands 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 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.

In 2000 Pope John Paul II began the first official visit by a Roman Catholic pontiff to Israel. Also in 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.

In 2002 former Georgia governor and U.S. Sen. Herman Talmadge died in Hampton, Ga.; he was 88.

In 2003 the House approved a $2.2 trillion budget embracing President George W. Bush’s tax-cutting plan.

In 2005 a high school student on the Red Lake Indian reservation in Minnesota killed five schoolmates, a teacher and an unarmed guard before taking his own life; Jeff Weise had earlier killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s companion. Also in 2005 cabaret singer Bobby Short died in New York; he was 80.

In 2010 the U.S. House approved landmark health care legislation in a partyline 219-212 vote, capping a yearlong effort by President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders.