TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

March 21, 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.”

ALSO ON THIS DATE

1556

Thomas Cranmer, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was burned at the stake for heresy.

1685

Composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.

1788

Fire broke out in New Orleans on Good Friday, destroying 856out of more than 1,100 structures; one death was reported.

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.

1925

Tennessee Gov. Austin Peay signed the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of the Theory of Evolution in public schools.

1935

Persia officially changed its name to Iran.

1945

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

1963

The Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates and closed at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

1976

Champion skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich was shot and killed by his girlfriend, actresssinger Claudine Longet, in the home they had shared in Aspen, Colorado; Longet, who maintained the shooting was an accident, served 30days in jail for negligent homicide.

1981