On this day, March 21
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.
1952 The Moondog Coronation Ball, considered the first rock and roll concert, took place at Cleveland Arena.
1965 Civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their third, successful 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.
1990 Namibia became an independent nation as the former colony marked the end of 75 years of South African rule.
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.”
2007 Former Vice President Al Gore made an emotional return to Congress as he pleaded with House and Senate committees to fight global warming; skeptical Republicans questioned the science behind his climate-change documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
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 during an unprecedented joint news conference in Havana.
2018 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for a “major breach of trust;” the apology came after it was revealed that the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, whose clients included the Trump campaign, may have used data improperly obtained from Facebook users to try to sway elections.
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.
2020 During a White House briefing, President Donald Trump doubled down on his support for the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for the coronavirus, while Dr. Anthony Fauci said the evidence was “anecdotal.”
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Kathleen Widdoes, 84. Songwriter Chip Taylor (“Wild Thing”), 83. Folk-pop singer-musician Keith Potger (The Seekers), 82. Actor Marie-Christine Barrault, 79. Singer-musician Rose Stone (Sly and the Family Stone), 78. Actor Timothy Dalton, 77. Singer Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry), 77. Rock singer-musician Roger Hodgson (Supertramp), 73. Comedy writer-performer Brad Hall, 65. Actor Sabrina LeBeauf, 65. Actor Gary Oldman, 65. Actor Kassie Depaiva, 62. Actor Matthew Broderick, 61. Comedian-actor Rosie O’Donnell, 61. Actor Cynthia Geary, 58. Hip-hop DJ Premier (Gang Starr), 57. Rock musician Jonas “Joker” Berggren (Ace of Base), 56. Rock MC Maxim (Prodigy), 56. Rock musician Andrew Copeland (Sister Hazel), 55. Actor Laura Allen, 49. Rapper-TV personality Kevin Federline, 45. Actor Sonequa Martin-Green (TV: “The Walking Dead”), 38. Actor Scott Eastwood, 37. Tennis player Karolina Pliskova, 31. Actor Jasmin Savoy Brown, 29. Actor Forrest Wheeler, 19.