On this day, March 21

1864 Ulysses S. Grant, en route to take command of the Army of the Potomac, was the guest of honor at a dinner in the Monongahela House.

1918 During World War I, Germany launched its Spring Offensive on the Western Front, hoping to break through the Allied lines before American reinforcements could arrive. (Although initially successful, the Spring Offensive ultimately failed.) 1965 Civil rights demonstrators led by Martin Luther King Jr. began their third march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. 1972 The Supreme Court, in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may not require at least a year’s residency for voting eligibility. 1981 Michael Donald, a Black teenager in Mobile, Ala., was abducted, tortured and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. (A lawsuit brought by Donald’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, later resulted in a landmark judgment that bankrupted one Klan organization.)

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.”

2016 Laying bare a half-century of tensions, President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro prodded each other over human rights and the long-standing U.S. economic embargo at an unprecedented joint news conference in Havana. 2019 President Donald Trump abruptly declared that the U.S. would recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, a major shift in American policy.

Some items are from Stefan Lorant’s “Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City” (digital.library.pitt.edu/chronology).

— Compiled by Alyssa Brown Today’s birthdays: Actor Kathleen Widdoes, 82. Singer-musician Rose Stone (Sly and the Family Stone), 76. Actor Timothy Dalton, 75. Singer Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry), 75. Rock singermusician Roger Hodgson (Supertramp), 71. R&B singer Russell Thompkins Jr., 70. Comedy writer-performer Brad Hall, 63. Actor Sabrina LeBeauf, 63. Actor Gary Oldman, 63. Actor Matthew Broderick, 59. Comedian-actor Rosie O’Donnell, 59. Rapper-TV personality Kevin Federline, 43. Actor Sonequa MartinGreen (“The Walking Dead”), 36. Actor Scott Eastwood, 35. Tennis player Karolina Pliskova, 29.

Thought for today: “History is principally the inaccurate narration of events which ought not to have happened.”

— Ernest Albert Hooten, American anthropologist (1887-1954)