This day in history
Today is Thursday, March 21, the 81st day of 2024. There are 285 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Actor Kathleen Widdoes is 85. Songwriter Chip Taylor is 84. Folk-pop singermusician Keith Potger of The Seekers is 83. Actor MarieChristine Barrault is 80. Singermusician Rose Stone of Sly and the Family Stone is 79. Actor Timothy Dalton is 78. Singer Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry is 78. Rock singer-musician Roger Hodgson of Supertramp is 74. Rock musician Conrad Lozano of Los Lobos is 73. R&B singer Russell Thompkins Jr. is 73. Comedy writer-performer Brad Hall is 66. Actor Gary Oldman is
66. Actor Matthew Broderick is
62. Comedian-actor Rosie O’Donnell is 62. Actor Cynthia Geary is 59. Rock MC Maxim (Prodigy) is 57. Actor Sonequa Martin-Green is 39. Actor Scott Eastwood is 38. Tennis player Karolina Pliskova is 32. Actor Jasmin Savoy Brown is 30.
ºIn 1685, composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.
ºIn 1935, Persia officially changed its name to Iran.
ºIn 1936, the worst flood in Massachusetts’ recorded history inundated the city of Springfield after an unusually snowy winter and a warm and rainy spell. In the state alone, 10 people were killed and 150,000 were made homeless.
▶In 1945, during World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.
▶In 1952, the Moondog Coronation Ball, considered the first rock and roll concert, took place at Cleveland Arena.
▶In 1965, civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their third successful march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.
▶In 1966, the US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, reversed a Massachusetts ruling that a book that had become known as “Fanny Hill” was obscene
▶In 1972, the Supreme Court, in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may not require at least a year’s residency for voting eligibility.
▶In 1990, Namibia became an independent nation as the former colony marked the end of 75 years of South African rule.
▶In 1997, President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their summit in Helsinki, still deadlocked over NATO expansion but able to agree on slashing nuclear weapons arsenals.
▶In 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.”
▶In 2012, meting out unprecedented punishment for a bounty system that targeted key opposing players, the NFL suspended New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton without pay for the coming season and indefinitely banned the team’s former defensive coordinator; Commissioner Roger Goodell fined the Saints $500,000 and took away two draft picks.
▶In 2013, in the Middle East, President Obama insisted “peace is possible” as he urged Israelis and Palestinians to return to long-stalled negotiations with few, if any, pre-conditions.
▶In 2016, laying bare a halfcentury of tensions, President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro prodded each other over human rights and the longstanding US economic embargo during an unprecedented joint news conference in Havana.
▶In 2019, President Trump abruptly declared that the US would recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, a major shift in American policy.
▶Last year, Willis Reed, who dramatically emerged from the locker room minutes before Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals to spark the New York Knicks to their first championship and create one of sports’ most enduring examples of playing through pain, died at age 80.