March 21 ::: Project ETERNITY

Software
Free
Download
Audio
Graphics
Utilities
Internet
Screen Savers
Games
Development Tools
Business
Audio
Home/Hobby
Education

March 21 is the 80th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (81st in leap years). There are 285 days remaining.

Events

1556 - In Oxford, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer is burned at the stake.

1788 - A fire destroys 856 buildings in New Orleans and leaves most of the town in ruins.

1800 - Pius VII becomes Pope

1804 - Code Napoléon adopted as French civil law.

1919 - The Chinese High School was established in Singapore by Tan Kah Kee.

1918 - World War I: Second Battle of the Somme begins

1928 - Charles Lindbergh is presented the Congressional Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.

1935 - Persia is renamed Iran

1940 - Paul Reynaud becomes Prime Minister of France

1945 - World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma

1952 - Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio

1960 - Apartheid: Massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180

1963 - Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.

1964 In Copenhagen, Denmark, Gigliola Cinquetti wins the ninth Eurovision Song Contest for Italy singing "Non ho l'età" (I'm not old enough).

1965 - Ranger program: NASA launches Ranger 9 which is the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes.

1970 - Vinko Bogataj crashes during a ski jumping championship in Germany; his image becomes that of the "agony of defeat guy" on ABC's Wide World of Sports.

1970 - In Amsterdam, Netherlands, Dana wins the fifteenth Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland singing "All Kinds of Everything".

1980 - President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.

1980 - On the season finale of the soap opera Dallas, the infamous character J.R. Ewing is shot by an unseen assailant, leading to the catchphrase "Who Shot JR?"

1985 -Canadian wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen begins his round the world journey in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.

1989 - Sports Illustrated reports allegations that tie Pete Rose to baseball gambling.

1990 - Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule.

1999 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.

2002 - In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh along with three other suspects are charged with murder for their part in the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

2004 - In Malaysia, The 11th Federal and State elections are held, returning the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional to power with an increased majority.