March 21

March 21 is the 80^th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (81^st 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 - With the church leadership driven out of the Vatican during an armed conflict, Pius VII was crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché.

1801 - The Battle of Alexandria was fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis in Egypt.

1804 - Code Napoléon was adopted as French civil law.

1857 - Earthquake in Tokyo, Japan kills over 100,000.

1919 - The Chinese High School is 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 - Shah Reza Pahlavi formally asked the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran, which means 'Land of the Aryans'.

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.

1965 - Martin Luther King Jr leads 3,200 people on the start of the 3'rd and finally successful Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery Alabama.

1970 - Vinko Bogataj crashes during a ski-jumping championship in Germany; his image becomes that of the "agony of defeat guy" in the opening credits of 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 paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.

1989 - Sports Illustrated reports allegations that tie baseball player 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.

2005 - In Red Lake, Minnesota, 10 are killed in a school shooting, the worst since the Columbine High School massacre.