Today in History - March 21
Return to home
Memory Day.
(HFA, '96, p.26)
630 Mar 21,
Heraclius restored the True Cross, which he had recaptured from the
Persians.
(HN, 3/21/99)
1349 Mar 21, Some 3,000 Jews were
killed in Black Death riots in Efurt, Germany.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1361 Mar 21, Grand duke Kestutis
was captured by the Knights of the Cross.
(LHC, 3/21/03)
1474 Mar 21, Angela Merici,
Italian monastery founder, saint, was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1547 Mar 21, Matthew Stryjkovski
(d.c1592), the 1st author of a printed history of Lithuania, was born
in Strykov, Poland.
(LHC, 3/21/03)
1556 Mar 21, Former Archbishop of
Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (66), scheduled to denounce his errors and be
burned at the stake, denounced his own confessions and was hustled off
to be burned. He then put forth his hand and declared: “Forasmuch as my
hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be
punished.”
(WSJ, 9/12/96, p.A14)(MC, 3/21/02)
1609 Mar 21, Jan II Kazimierz,
cardinal, King of Poland (1648-68), was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1610 Mar 21, King James I
addressed the English House of Commons.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1617 Mar 21, Pocahontas (Rebecca
Rolfe) died of either small pox or pneumonia while in England with her
husband, John Rolfe. As Pocahontas and John Rolfe prepared to sail back
to Virginia, she died reportedly from the wet English winter. She was
buried at the parish church of St. George in Gravesend, England. In
2003 Paula Gunn Allen authored "Pocahontas "Medicine Woman, Spy,
entrepreneur, Diplomat."
(AP, 4/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)(HN,
3/21/01)(SSFC, 10/19/03, p.M5)
1656 Mar 21, Armagh James Ussher
(76), Archbishop (said world began 4004 BC), died. [see Feb 20]
(MC, 3/21/02)
1685 Mar 21, Composer Johann
Sebastian Bach (d.1750) was born in Eisenach, Germany, the youngest of
eight children. 2nd source says Mar 21. He composed cantatas, sonatas,
preludes, fugues and chorale preludes, and whose works included
"Brandenburg Concerto" and "Well-Tempered Clavier."
(AP, 3/21/97)(LGC-HCS.p.17)(HN, 3/21/99)
1697 Mar 21, Czar Peter the Great
began a tour through West Europe. [see Mar 9]
(MC, 3/21/02)
1702 Mar 21, Queen Anne Stuart
addressed the English parliament.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1729 Mar 21, John Law, Scottish
gambler and financier (57 or 58), died in Venice. An inventory of his
wealth included 488 paintings with works by Titian, Raphael,
Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. His story was told in 2000 by
Cynthia Crossen in “The Rich and How They got That Way.”
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.B4)(MC, 3/21/02)
1734 Mar 21, Gunther Jacob
Wenceslaus (48), composer, died.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1768 Mar 21, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph
Fourier (d.1830), French mathematician, physicist and Egyptologist, was
born.
(HN, 3/21/98)(WUD, 1994, p.561)
1788 Mar 21, Almost the entire
city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was destroyed by fire. 856 buildings
were burned.
(HN, 3/21/99)(MC, 3/21/02)
1790 Mar 21, Thomas Jefferson
reported to President Washington in New York as the new secretary of
state.
(AP, 3/21/97)
1791 Mar 21, Captain Hopley Yeaton
(1740-1812) of New Hampshire became the first commissioned officer of
the US Revenue Cutter Service.
(www.uscg.mil/history/WEBCUTTERS/Scammel_1791.html)(http://tinyurl.com/goke5)
1801 Mar 21, Andrea Lucchesi (59),
composer, died.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1804 Mar 21, The French civil
code, later called the "Code Napoleon," was adopted.
(AP, 3/21/08)
1806 Mar 21, Lewis and Clark began
their trip home after an 8,000 mile trek of the Mississippi basin and
the Pacific Coast. [see Mar 23]
(HN, 3/21/01)
1806 Mar 21, Benito Juarez,
President of Mexico, was born in Oaxaca. He was Mexico's first
president of Indian ancestry and fought against the French and their
puppet emperor Maximilian.
(AP, 3/21/97)(HN, 3/21/99)
1813 Mar 21, James Jesse Strang,
King of Mormons on Beaver Is, MI. (1850-56), was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1826 Mar 21, Beethoven's Quartet
#13 in B flat major (Op 130) premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1839 Mar 21, Modest Mussorgsky,
composer (Boris Godunov, Night on Bald Mt), was born. [see Mar 9]
(MC, 3/21/02)
1843 Mar 21, Robert W. Southey
(b.1774), British poet laureate and historian, died. In 2006 W. A.
Speck authored the biography “Robert Southey.”
(WSJ, 8/12/06,
p.P8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southey)
1851 Mar 21, Yosemite Valley was
discovered (by non-natives) in California. The 58 men of the Mariposa
Battalion under Major James D. Savage were the first whites to enter
Yosemite Valley. Their first view of the valley was from the plateau
later named Mount Beatitude. They expelled Chief Tenaya and his band of
Ahwahneechee Indians. Dr. Bunnell, a physician in the battalion, named
the valley Yosemite to honor the local Indians. He did not realize that
the word “yohemeti” meant “some of them are killers” and was an insult
against the valley people.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.4)(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.1)(MC,
3/21/02)
1851 Mar 21, Emperor Tu Duc
ordered that Christian priests be put to death.
(HN, 3/21/99)
1857 Mar 21, An earthquake hit
Tokyo and about 107,000 died.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1858 Mar 21, British forces in
India lifted the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 3/21/99)
1859 Mar 21, Zoological Society of
Philadelphia, the 1st in US, was incorporated.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1859 Mar 21, The Scottish National
Gallery opened in Edinburgh.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1864 Mar 21, Battle at Henderson's
Hill (Bayou Rapids), Louisiana.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1865 Mar 21, The Battle of
Bentonville, N.C. ended, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop.
Union General William Sherman considered Judson Kilpatrick, his cavalry
chief, 'a hell of a damn fool.' At Monroe's Cross Roads, N.C., his
carelessness and disobedience of orders proved Sherman's point.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1866 Mar 21, The US Congress
authorized national soldiers' homes.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1869 Mar 21, Albert Kahn, the
architect who originated modern factory design, was born.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1869 Mar 21, Florenz Ziegfeld,
creator of the Ziegfeld Follies, was born. In 1974 Randolph Carter
(d.1998 at 90) authored “The World of Flo Ziegfeld.”
(HN, 3/21/98)(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A22)
1871 Mar 21, Journalist Henry M.
Stanley began his famous expedition to Africa to locate the missing
Scottish missionary David Livingstone.
(HNPD, 11/10/98)(AP, 3/21/02)
1885 Mar 21, Raoul Lufbery,
French-born American fighter pilot of World War I, was born.
(HN, 3/21/99)
1888 Mar 21, Arthur Pinero's
"Sweet Lavender," premiered in London.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1890 Mar 21, Austrian Jewish
communities were defined by law.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1900 Mar 21, Paul Kletzki, Polish
violinist, composer, conductor, was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1906 Mar 21, John D. Rockefeller
III, billionaire philanthropist (oil), was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1906 Mar 21, Ohio passed a law
that prohibited hazing by fraternities.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1907 Mar 21, US Marines arrived in
Honduras to protect American lives and interests in the wake of
political violence.
(SFC, 9/30/99, p.E5)(AP, 3/21/07)
1908 Mar 21, Frenchman Henri
Farman carried a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1910 Mar 21, The U.S. Senate
granted ex-President Teddy Roosevelt a pension of $10,000 yearly.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1912 Mar 21, Peter Bull, actor,
author (Executioner, Tom Jones, Dr. Strangelove), was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1918 Mar 21, During World War I,
Germany launched the 'Michael' Offensive in France, hoping to break
through the Allied line before American reinforcements could arrive. It
is better remembered as the First Battle of the Somme.
(WUD, 1994, p.1356)(AP, 3/21/97)(HN, 3/21/99)
1920 Mar 21, Bruno Maderna,
composer, was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1921 Mar 21, Arthur Grumiaux,
Belgian violinist, was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1921 Mar 21, Herbert Hoover, U.S.
Secretary of Commerce opposed all trade with Russia.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1921 Mar 21, "Big Jim" Colisimo,
US gangster, was murdered by Al Capone.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1921 Mar 21, Lenin’s New Economic
Policy (NEP) was promulgated by decree.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy)
1925 Mar 21, Peter Brook,
director, was born in west London. In 2005 Michael Kustow authored
“Peter Brook: A Biography.”
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.89)
1925 Mar 21, Tennessee passed an
anti-evolution law, which prohibited the teaching of evolution. [see
Mar 13,23]
(HNQ, 1/27/00)
1927 Mar 21, Kuomintang Army
conquered Shanghai as British marines fled.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1928 Mar 21, Coolidge gave the
Congressional Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh. The Medal of Honor
was not always awarded for "courage above and beyond" the call of duty.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1932 Mar 21, Joseph Silverstein,
violinist (Denver Symphony Orch), was born in Detroit, Mich.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1933 Mar 21, Hitler, Goering,
Prince Ruprecht, Bruning and other top army commanders met in Berlin.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1936 Mar 21, Alexander
Konstantinovich Glazunov (70), composer (Chopiniana), died.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1937 Mar 21, Ponce massacre:
police killed 19 at a Puerto Rican Nationalist parade.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1939 Mar 21, Singer Kate Smith
recorded “God Bless America” for Victor Records. She introduced the
song on her radio program in 1938.
(HN, 3/21/98)(SFC, 12/28/99, p.C5)
1939 Mar 21, In Egypt King Farouk
arrived at Tanis for the opening of the coffin of the 21st Dynasty King
Psusennes I, recently discovered by French archeologist Pierre Montet.
It turned out that this coffin actually belonged to Sheshonq II of the
22nd Dynasty.
(Arch, 5/05, p.21)
1939 Mar 21, Nazi Germany demanded
Gdansk (Danzig) from Poland.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1939 Mar 21, Ghandi called on the
world to disarm, thinking that Hitler would follow.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1941 Mar 21, The last Italian post
in East Libya fell to the British.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1942 Mar 21, Convoy QP9 departed
Great Britain to Murmansk.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1942 Mar 20-21, There was a major
German assault on Malta.
(MC, 3/20/02)(MC, 3/21/02)
1943 Mar 21, British 8th army
opened an assault on Mareth line, Tunisia.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1943 Mar 21, An assassination
attempt on Hitler failed.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1944 Mar 21, Charles Chaplin went
on trial in Los Angeles, accused of transporting former protegee Joan
Barry across state lines for immoral purposes. Chaplin was acquitted,
but later lost a paternity suit despite tests showing he wasn't the
father of Barry's child.
(AP, 3/21/04)
1944 Mar 21, Finland rejected a
Soviet armistice.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1945 Mar 21, During World War II,
Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.
(AP, 3/21/97)
1945 Mar 21, A British bombing
raid was made on Gestapo Headquarters in Denmark to thwart a planned
German arrest of the leadership of the banned Freedom Council. A 2nd
wave of bombers hit a school by mistake killing 86 students and 13
adults.
(SFC, 9/23/02, p.B5)
1946 Mar 21, The United Nations
set up temporary headquarters at Hunter College in New York City.
(AP, 3/21/97)
1947 Mar 21, Pres. Truman signed
Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to swear
allegiance to the United States.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1951 Mar 21, Chief of Staff
General George C. Marshall reports that the U.S. military has doubled
to 2.9 million since the start of the Korean War.
(HN, 3/21/00)
1952 Mar 21, The Moondog
Coronation Ball was held at the Cleveland Arena. It was promoted by
Alan Freed and was later cited as the 1st rock concert. The only band
to perform was one led by Paul Williams, before fire marshals
closed the show.
(SFC, 10/7/02, p.A19)
1952 Mar 21, Some 31 storms
crossed 6 states killing 340 in South Central US.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1952 Mar 21, A.J. Pieters,
SS-Untersturmfuhrer, was executed.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1952 Mar 21, Wilhelm Albrecht,
German SD-chief, was executed.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1954 Mar 21, Paul Selenyi
(b.1884), Hungarian physicist, died in Budapest. He was the first to
record images with an electrostatic marking process. This was the
foundation for Chester Carlson’s Xerox copiers.
(www.thehungarypage.com/sciencemathandtech.htm)
1955 Mar 21, Walter White
(b.1893), African American leader, died. As executive secretary
(1931-1955) he built the NAACP into America’s most influential civil
rights organization. In 2008 Thomas Dyja authored “Walter White: The
Dilemma of Black Identity in America.”
(WSJ, 10/18/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Francis_White)
1955 Mar 21, Archbishop Makarios
of Cyprus desired Cyprus joining Greece.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1956 Mar 21, 50 years ago, "Marty"
won best picture at the Academy Awards; its star, Ernest Borgnine, won
best actor. Anna Magnani won best actress for "The Rose Tattoo."
(AP, 3/21/06)
1957 Mar 21, Tennessee Williams'
"Orpheus Descending," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1957 Mar 21, US President
Eisenhower and British PM Harold Macmillan began a four-day conference
in Bermuda.
(AP, 3/21/07)
1957 Mar 21, Vice President Nixon
returned to the U.S. after spending three weeks on a tour of Africa.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1958 Mar 21, Gary Oldman, actor
(Sid and Nancy, Criminal Law, State of Grace), was born.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1960 Mar 21, Capt. John Eaheart
(32), a US Marine Corps Reserve pilot, crashed in his F9F Cougar
fighter jet and disappeared into Flathead Lake, Wyoming, near the home
of his fiancée’s parents. His remains were found in 2006.
(WSJ, 5/23/06, p.A1)
1960 Mar 21, A police massacre in
Sharpeville, South Africa, left some 70 black protestors dead. The ANC
was outlawed.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C2)(SFEC, 2/9/97, z1 p.7)(AP,
3/21/08)
1962 Mar 21, A female black
bear was taken aboard a B-58 bomber out of Edwards Air Force Base in
California, flown up to 35,000 feet at a supersonic speed of 850 miles
per hour, and ejected from the bomber in a specially made capsule. She
landed safely, and became the first living creature to survive a
parachute jump from a plane flying faster than sound.
(www.worldhop.com/Journals/J1/Bear1.html)
1962 Mar 21, Dutch RC Bishop
Willem Bekkers declared himself in favor of birth control. The church
in the Netherlands tried to promote a more liberal view of birth
control. But their view did not prevail.
(http://tinyurl.com/lpxof8)
1963 Mar 21, The Alcatraz federal
prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates at
the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
(SFC, 6/29/96, p.E4)(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide,
p.7)(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A12)(AP, 3/21/97)(HN, 3/21/98)
1964 Mar 21, Beatles' "She Loves
You," single went #1 and stayed #1 for 2 weeks.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1965 Mar 21, Martin Luther King
Jr. led more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators on the 50-mile march
from Selma to Montgomery.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, p.T1)(AP, 3/21/97)
1965 Mar 21, The U.S. launched
Ranger 9, last in a series of lunar explorations.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1966 Mar 21, Supreme Court
reversed Massachusetts ruling that Fanny Hill" is obscene.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1968 Mar 21, Israeli forces
attacked a Palestinian base belonging to Fatah in the
village of Al-Karameh in Jordan. Israeli forces engage in a
battle with Palestinian fighters for the first time. On 24 March 1968,
the Security Council adopted resolution 248 (1968), condemning the
large scale and premeditated military actions by Israel against
Jordan. The Karameh mission failed. Muki Betser, Israeli commando, was
wounded. He later became commander of the Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s
elite counter-terrorist unit.
(SFC, 7/16/96,
p.E5)(www.un.int/palestine/chron60.shtml)
1970 Mar 21, Marlen Haushofer
(b.1920), Austrian writer died. Her 1962 novel “The Wall” was her only
work translated into English.
(WSJ, 4/25/09,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlen_Haushofer)
1971 Mar 21, Daniel Ellsberg
obtained a copy of the Pentagon Papers, commissioned by then-Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara, from his former pentagon colleagues and
showed it to Neil Sheehan, a young New York Times reporter, at
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR
p.6)(www.topsecretplay.org/index.php/content/timeline)
1971 Mar 21, Two US platoons in
Vietnam refused their orders to advance.
(HN,
3/21/98)(www.isreview.org/issues/09/soldiers_revolt.shtml)
1971 Mar 21, In Laos South
Vietnamese Marines at FSB Delta, south of Route 9, came under intense
ground and artillery attacks. During an attempted extraction of the
force, seven helicopters were shot down and another 50 were damaged,
ending the evacuation attempt.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Lam_Son_719)
1971 Mar 21, Sheik Mujibur Rahman
(Mujeeb-ur Rehman), head of the Awami League, declared East Pakistan
(later Bangladesh) independent of Pakistan. Pakistani Pres. Yahya Khan
ordered the army in; several million East Bengali refugees fled to
India. Rahman was the father of later PM Hasina Wajid.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(SFC, 12/31/00,
p.B3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Pakistan)
1972 Mar 21, The US Supreme Court,
in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may not require at least a
year's residency for voting eligibility.
(AP, 3/21/08)
1973 Mar 21, Dean told Nixon:
"There is a cancer growing on the Presidency."
(http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/amia-l/2000/01/msg00043.html)
1975 Mar 21, Ethiopia ended its
monarchy after 3000 years. In May the monarchy was formally abolished,
and Marxism-Leninism was proclaimed the ideology of the state.
(www.worldstatesmen.org/Ethiopia.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derg)
1975 Mar 21, As North Vietnamese
forces advanced, Hue and other northern towns in South Vietnam were
evacuated.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1979 Mar 21, The Egyptian
Parliament unanimously approved a peace treaty with Israel.
(AP, 3/21/99)
1980 Mar 21, President Carter
announced to the U.S. Olympic Team that they would not participate in
the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet
intervention in Afghanistan.
(www.cnn.com/resources/video.almanac/1980/index.html)
1983 Mar 21, The US signed the
Strasbourg Treaty with European nations for the exchange of prisoners.
(SFC, 11/9/99,
p.A13)(http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/112.htm)
1984 Mar 21, A ground-breaking
ceremony was held as part of NYC’s Central Park was named Strawberry
Fields honoring John Lennon.
(www.centralpark.com/pages/attractions/strawberry-fields.html)
1984 Mar 21, A Soviet submarine
crashed into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1985 Mar 21, Michael Redgrave
(b.1908), English actor, died. His films included Alfred Hitchcock's
“The Lady Vanishes” (1938), “The Stars Look Down” (1939) and the film
of Robert Ardrey's play “Thunder Rock” (1943).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Redgrave)
1985 Mar 21, Police in Langa
(Uitenhage), South Africa, opened fire on blacks marching to mark the
25th anniversary of the Sharpeville shootings; the reported death toll
varied between 29 and 43.
(AP,
3/21/08)(www.un.org/av/photo/subjects/apartheid.htm)
1987 Mar 21, Dean Paul Martin
(Dino, b.1951), the son of singer Dean Martin, died when his National
Guard F-4 Phantom fighter jet crashed in a mountainous area of
California, killing him and his RIO (Radar Intercept Officer), Ramon
Ortiz. From then on the father became somewhat of a recluse until his
own death in 1995.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, DB
p.40)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Paul_Martin)
1987 Mar 21, Actor Robert Preston
(68), best-known for his portrayal of conman Prof. Harold Hill in the
musical "The Music Man," died in Santa Barbara, Calif.
(AP, 3/21/97)
1989 Mar 21, Randall Dale Adams,
whose conviction for killing a police officer was overturned after the
documentary "The Thin Blue Line" challenged evidence, was released from
a Texas prison.
(AP, 3/21/99)
1990 Mar 21, Secretary of State
James Baker met black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela in Namibia.
(AP, 3/21/00)
1990 Mar 21, Elkins, West
Virginia, reported a record national low of minus 16 degrees.
(SFC, 3/21/09, p.D10)
1990 Mar 21, Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev increased pressure on the breakaway republic of Lithuania,
ordering its citizens to turn in their guns.
(AP, 3/21/00)
1991 Mar 21, Test results released
in Los Angeles showed that Rodney King, the motorist whose beating by
police was videotaped by a bystander, had marijuana and alcohol in his
system following his arrest. President Bush denounced King’s beating as
“sickening” and “outrageous.”
(AP, 3/21/01)
1991 Mar 21, Two US Navy
anti-submarine planes collided about 60 miles southwest of San Diego
and 27 were lost at sea.
(AP, 3/21/91)(www.vpnavy.com/vp50mem_04dec98.html)
1991 Mar 21, A UN Security Council
panel decided to lift the food embargo on Iraq.
(AP, 3/21/01)
1992 Mar 21, During a debate in
Buffalo, N.Y., Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton sought
to turn the tables on rival Jerry Brown by accusing the former
California governor of hypocrisy on the issue of campaign
contributions.
(AP, 3/21/97)
1992 Mar 21, Pres. Bush and German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl met at Camp David, Md.
(AP, 3/21/97)
1993 Mar 21, Voters in France
handed the Socialist government a devastating defeat in first-round
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 3/21/03)
1994 Mar 21, "Schindler's List"
won best picture at the 66th Academy Awards; Holly Hunter was named
best actress for "The Piano" while Tom Hanks was named best actor for
"Philadelphia."
(AP, 3/21/99)
1994 Mar 21, Actor Macdonald Carey
died in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 81.
(AP, 3/21/99)
1994 Mar 21, Lili Damita (b.1904),
French-born actress and first wife of Errol Flynn (Bridge of San Luis
Rey), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Damita)
1994 Mar 21, Bolivia’s Congress
approved a new capitalization program.
(WSJ, 2/14/97, p.A8)
1995 Mar 21, Thousands of Japanese
police raided the offices of a secretive religious group, Aum Shinri
Kyo, in connection with nerve-gas attacks on Tokyo subways that killed
12 people and sickened thousands. In ensuing weeks they found tons of
chemicals used to make sarin nerve gas and evidence of biological
weapons research.
(SFC, 4/24/96, p.A-8)(AP, 3/21/00)
1996 Mar 21, The US decided to
proceed with plans to deliver weapons to the Islamabad government in
Pakistan. $368 mil has already been paid for a naval Orion aircraft and
two types of missiles.
(WSJ, 3/21/96, p.A-1)
1996 Mar 21, General Motors and
the United Auto Workers reached a settlement in a 17-day brake-factory
strike that idled more than 177,000 employees and brought the world's
top automaker to a near standstill.
(AP, 3/21/97)
1996 Mar 21, In Israel a suicide
bomber killed himself and 3 Israeli women in Tel Aviv.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A8)
1997 Mar 21, President 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.
(AP, 3/21/02)
1997 Mar 21, In Chicago 3
white teenagers attacked and severely injured a 13-year-old black boy.
Lenard Clark (13) was left brain damaged. The suspects, Frank Caruso
(18), Victor Jasas (17), and Michael Kwidzinski (19) were released on
bonds of $150,000 with charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery
and a hate crime. Caruso was convicted in 1998 and was sentenced to 8
years in prison. The other 2 pleaded guilty to reduced charges and were
let off with probation and community service.
(SFC, 3/25/97, p.A7)(SFC, 10/20/98, p.A6)
1997 Mar 21, In Columbia Gerardo
Bedoya, executive editor of El Pais, was assassinated in Cali. He was a
former congressman and Columbian representative to the EU.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A11)
1997 Mar 21, In Tel Aviv, Israel,
a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a terrace of an outdoor
restaurant and killed 3 Israeli women and injured 46.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A1)(AP, 3/21/02)
1997 Mar 21, Rebel leader John
Garang prepared to attack Juba and claimed that the entire southern
Sudan was under their control. Government information minister Tayeb
Ibrahim Mohamed Kheir claimed that Ugandan forces were involved with
the rebels.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.C1)
1998 Mar 21, Six members of the
SF-based Peaceworkers group were arrested and sentenced to 10 days in
jail in Kosovo for not reporting their presence to police. 3 were from
the Bay Area. They were released Mar 23.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A1)(SFC, 3/23/98, p.A11)(SFC,
3/24/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 21, It was reported that
Chinese researchers had discovered heavy industrial pollution in the
snow around the North Pole.
(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A9)
1998 Mar 21, In Germany Christina
Nytsch (11) was found raped and murdered in woods 8 miles from her home
in Struecklingen. In April Police began collecting saliva from 18,000
local men to test for a DNA match. Police found a match and arrested a
suspect in Elisabethfehn in May, 1998. The man, a father of 3 children,
confessed to another rape of an 11-year-old girl in Jan, 1996.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A18)(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A24)
1998 Mar 21, In Nigeria Pope John
Paul II arrived in Abuja and began urging the military government to
respect human rights and release political prisoners. He pressed the
military regime to release dozens of prisoners, including prominent
opposition figures and journalists.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A2)(AP, 3/21/99)
1998 Mar 21, Maciej Slomczynski,
Polish translator, died at age 77. He made Polish translations of
Shakespeare’s complete works, Joyce’s “Ulysses” and works by Faulkner,
Swift and Milton.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.B2)
1999 Mar 21, At the Academy Award
Oscar ceremonies "Shakespeare in Love" won 7 awards and "Saving Private
Ryan" won 5 with Steven Spielberg as best director. Roberto Benigni won
best actor for "Life Is Beautiful" and Gwyneth Paltrow won best actress
for "Shakespeare in Love." Steven Spielberg won best director for
"Saving Private Ryan."
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A1)(AP, 3/21/00)
1999 Mar 21, Balloonists Bertrand
Piccard and Brian Jones landed their Breitling Orbiter 3 north of Mut,
Egypt, a day after setting their around the world record.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, p.A21)
1999 Mar 21, It was reported that
the Space Laser Energy group, SELENE, proposed to transmit energy to
satellites by 2004.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, p.D1)
1999 Mar 21, In Alaska an
avalanche killed at least 4 snowmobilers at the Turnagain Pass in
Chugach National Forest.
(WSJ, 3/23/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 21, In Chechnya one
person was killed as a bomb exploded in the motorcade of Pres.
Maskhadov.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 21, On the 2nd day of
Serb attacks against Kosovo, envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Pres.
Milosevic with serious threats of NATO air strikes.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 21, In Finland the ruling
social Democrats under Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen lost 12 seats but
kept 51 in the 200-member Eduskunta. The Center Party gained 4 seats
with voter frustration over unemployment.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 21, In Indonesia at least
96 immigrant Madura were killed by ethnic Malay, Dayak and Bugis men on
the island of Borneo.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A11)
1999 Mar 21, Israel's Supreme
Court rejected a final effort to have American teen-ager Samuel
Sheinbein returned to the United States to face murder charges. Under a
plea agreement with Israeli prosecutors, Sheinbein was later sentenced
to 24 years in prison for the murder of Alfred Tello Jr.
(AP, 3/21/00)
1999 Mar 21, In Northern Ireland
masked men beat a 13-year-old boy with baseball bats at Newtownards.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 21, In Malaysia soldiers
began killing the pig population to control an outbreak of Japanese
encephalitis.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A11)
1999 Mar 21, In Turkey the Kurdish
New Year began with unrest and police arrested 1,500 people across the
country with the southeast under a virtual state of siege. A pipeline
explosion halted the flow of oil from Iraq.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/22/99, p.A1)
2000 Mar 21, Pres. Clinton began a
5 day stay in India. India rejected his call for further curbs in the
nuclear program.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A14)(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A11)
2000 Mar 21, A divided Supreme
Court ruled 5 to 4 that the FDA lacked authority to regulate tobacco as
an addictive drug, throwing out the Clinton administration’s main
anti-smoking initiative.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A1)(AP, 3/21/01)
2000 Mar 21, A US Federal Judge
ruled that Elian Gonzalez should be returned to his father in Cuba.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A3)
2000 Mar 21, The US Federal
Reserve raised short term interest to 6%.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 21, NATO acknowledged
that depleted uranium rounds were used during the 1999 Kosovo war
whenever American A-10 ground attack aircraft engaged armored vehicles.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A14)
2000 Mar 21, In Colombia rebel
bombings caused a blackout in most of Bogota and large portions of the
central and northeast regions.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 21, Croatia handed over
Mladen Naletilic, a Bosnian Croat indicted in 1998 on 17 counts of war
crimes, to the UN tribunal. Naletilic commanded a gang of convicts who
terrorized Muslims in southwestern Bosnia between 1993-1994.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 21, Holland announced
that it would give the Jewish community $180 million for injustices
suffered after returning from Nazi death camps. Another $114 million
was set for Dutch victims of Japanese WW II prison camps in Indonesia
and $14 million for Dutch Gypsies persecuted by the Nazis.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 21, In Iraq a mortar
attack on a Baghdad apartment building killed 4 people and injured 38.
Persian agents were blamed.
(SFC, 3/23/00, p.D2)
2000 Mar 21, Israel withdrew from
6.1% of the West Bank.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A10)
2000 Mar 21, Pope John Paul II
landed in Tel Aviv and began his official visit to Israel with a
welcome from Pres. Ezer Weizman. It was the first official visit by a
Roman Catholic pontiff to Israel.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A1)(AP, 3/21/01)
2000 Mar 21, In Taiwan the
Parliament ended a 51-year-old ban on direct trade, transport and
postal links between several of its offshore islands and mainland China.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A11)
2001 Mar 21, The US State Dept.
ordered the expulsion of 5 suspected Russian spies and informed Moscow
that as many as 50 intelligence officers using diplomatic cover would
have to leave over the next few months.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 21, The Supreme Court
ruled that hospitals cannot test pregnant women for drug use without
their consent.
(AP, 3/21/02)
2001 Mar 21, In Vermont a flock of
234 sheep were seized by federal agents over fears of infection with a
version of mad cow disease. The sheep had originated in Belgium in 1996.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A3)
2001 Mar 21, Space shuttle
Discovery glided to a predawn touchdown, bringing home the first
residents of the international space station.
(AP, 3/21/02)
2001 Mar 21, The Taiwan United
Daily News reported that a senior Chinese colonel had defected to the
US.
(SFC, 3/23/01, p.D4)
2001 Mar 21, In Guatemala the
highest court ordered former dictator Efraim Rios Montt and 5
ruling-party lawmakers to give up their congressional posts to face
impeachment charges.
(SFC, 3/23/01, p.D2)
2001 Mar 21, In Israel Yitzhak
Mordecai, a former defense minister, was convicted for sexual assault
and harassment of two women.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A12)
2001 Mar 21, Pres. Vicente Fox
arrived in California for his 1st foreign trip as President of Mexico.
He appealed to Gov. Davis to allow Mexicans in California greater
access to doors of opportunity.
(SFC, 3/21/01, p.A1)(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 21, In Macedonia the
government rejected a rebel cease-fire and planned to proceed with its
military offensive.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 21, In Pakistan the
military rulers arrested at least 20 opposition leaders. 1,600 people
have been jailed in the last 3 days.
(WSJ, 3/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 21, Russia’s Mission
Control took command of the Mir space station and prepared it for its
final descent into the South Pacific.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A10)
2002 Mar 21, Alexei Yagudin won
the men's title at the World Figure Skating Championships in Nagano,
Japan.
(AP, 3/21/03)
2002 Mar 21, President Bush began
a four-day trip to Latin America.
(AP, 3/21/03)
2002 Mar 21, Marjorie Knoller,
whose two huge dogs mauled neighbor Diane Whipple to death in their San
Francisco apartment building, was convicted in Los Angeles of murder
and involuntary manslaughter; her husband, Robert Noel, was found
guilty of involuntary manslaughter. A judge later threw out the murder
conviction against Knoller, replacing it with manslaughter, but the
murder conviction was reinstated by an appeals court.
(AP, 3/21/07)
2002 Mar 21, Herman Talmadge (88),
former Georgia governor and U.S. senator died in Hampton, Ga.
(AP, 3/21/03)
2002 Mar 21, It was reported that
Georgian fighters expected to use their US training against
secessionists in Abkhazia, which was unofficially protected by Russia.
(SFC, 3/21/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 21, In Jerusalem Mohammed
Hashaika (22) blew himself up on King George St. and killed 3 Israelis.
Truce talks were cancelled.
(SFC, 3/22/02, p.A9)(WSJ, 3/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 21, In Italy a tour bus
traveling from Lucca to Florence collided with a truck and at least 3
Americans were killed.
(SFC, 3/22/02, p.A10)
2002 Mar 21, A local Spanish
official was shot to death by gunmen in the Basque region. Police
suspected the ETA.
(WSJ, 3/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Mar 21, In Diyarbakir,
Turkey, thousands of Kurdish youths battled Turkish police after
authorities banned the celebration of Nowruz, the Zoroastrian New Year.
(SFC, 3/22/02, p.A10)
2002 Mar 21, A UN meeting on
poverty, despair and violence opened in Mexico City.
(SFC, 3/22/02, p.A13)
2003 Mar 21, The House approved a
$2.2 trillion budget embracing President Bush's tax-cutting plan.
(AP, 3/21/04)
2003 Mar 21, A young man from LA
visiting Las Vegas hit pay dirt, a world record $39 million on a slot
machine.
(AP, 3/22/03)
2003 Mar 21, A CH-46 Sea Knight
helicopter crashed in Kuwait and killed 12 British and 4 US soldiers.
US Marines captured the strategic port in the southern Iraqi city of
Umm Qasr.
(AP, 3/21/03)
2003 Mar 21, In the 3rd day of
Operation Iraqi Freedom the "shock and awe" air campaign began. 2 days
of US air attacks killed 4 civilians in Baghdad and left some 242
injured.
(SSFC, 3/23/03, p.W10)(SSFC, 3/30/03, p.W12)
2003 Mar 21, North Korea condemned
the US-led war on Iraq and said American war games in South Korea were
pushing the divided peninsula "to the brink of a nuclear war."
(AP, 3/21/03)
2003 Mar 21, A South African
commission that investigated the crimes of the era recommended
that the government pay compensation totaling $348 million to more than
21,000 victims of apartheid-era abuses.
(AP, 3/21/03)
2003 Mar 21, In Yemen police
clashed with anti-war demonstrators trying to storm the US Embassy,
leaving a policeman and protester dead.
(AP, 3/21/03)
2004 Mar 21, The White House
disputed assertions by President Bush's former counterterrorism
coordinator, Richard A. Clarke, that the administration had failed to
recognize the risk of an attack by al-Qaida in the months leading up to
Sept. 11. Clarke's assertions were contained in a new book, "Against
All Enemies," that went on sale the next day.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2004 Mar 21, Zaha Hadid (53), a
Baghdad-born designer, became the third Briton to win the Pritzker
Prize in Architecture, and the 1st woman to win the prize in its
25-year history.
(AP, 3/21/04)
2004 Mar 21, Robert Snyder (88),
documentary film maker and author, died. He was the son-in-law of
futurist Buckminster Fuller.
(SFC, 3/22/04, p.B4)
2004 Mar 21, Afghan aviation
minister Mirwais Sadiq was assassinated in the western city of Herat.
(AP, 3/21/04)
2004 Mar 21, Tony Saca, former
sportscaster and Arena Party candidate, easily won El Salvador's
presidential race, promising to continue the direction of one of the
most pro-U.S. governments in the hemisphere.
(AP, 3/22/04)(Econ, 3/27/04, p.38)
2004 Mar 21, French voters
delivered a rebuke to PM Jean-Pierre Raffarin's reform plans in the 1st
round of regional elections. The elections, held every six years, are
for regional leaders responsible for some infrastructure projects, job
training, school construction and other tasks.
(AP, 3/22/04)
2004 Mar 21, Ludmila Tcherina
(79), French ballerina and Oscar-winning actress, The Tales of Hoffman
(1950), died.
(AP, 3/22/04)
2004 Mar 21, In western Iraq
insurgents fired a rocket at U.S. troops, killing two soldiers, while
in Baghdad rockets fired toward the U.S.-led coalition headquarters
killed two Iraqi civilians and injured a U.S. soldier.
(AP, 3/21/04)
2004 Mar 21, Four Hamas militants
and a Palestinian woman were killed in fighting with Israeli troops,
the sixth day of Israel's new offensive in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 3/21/04)
2004 Mar 21, Elections were held
in Malaysia. An Islamic leader implied that those who backed government
candidates would go to hell. Malaysia's secular government won a
sweeping victory in two Muslim-dominated states and looked headed for a
nationwide rout of the fundamentalist Islamic opposition.
(WSJ, 3/8/04, p.A1)(AP, 3/21/04)
2004 Mar 21, Pakistani forces
agreed to allow a 25-member tribal council free passage into a battle
zone in an effort to negotiate a peace deal with local elders
sheltering hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters. Up to 6,000 Pakistani forces
were engaged with some 500 foreign militants, in the Wana area of South
Waziristan. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was suspected to
be involved.
(AP, 3/21/04)(SFC, 3/22/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 21, In the Republic of
Congo a train derailed 90 miles south of Brazzaville, killing 31 people
and injuring scores of others.
(AP, 3/23/04)
2004 Mar 21, Spain's incoming
Socialist government rejected an offer for dialogue from the Basque
separatist group ETA.
(AP, 3/21/04)
2005 Mar 21, Pres. Bush in the
early hours signed an emergency bill called the “Palm Sunday
Compromise” to permit the reinsertion of a feeding tube to keep Terri
Schiavo alive in Florida.
(SFC, 3/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 21, The US State
Department said the US is suspending about $2 million in military
assistance to Nicaragua because President Enrique Bolanos has not
followed through on a promise to destroy surface-to-air-missiles.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, Barry Diller's
electronic commerce company IAC/InterActiveCorp announced that it is
buying online search engine Ask Jeeves Inc. for $1.9 billion and taking
aim at the Internet's advertising market leaders.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.66)
2005 Mar 21, Justin Mendoza of
Daly City was shot and killed outside the Café Cocomo nightclub
in SF. In 2008 Gerry Phongboupha (25) was convicted of 1st degree
murder and other charges in connection to Mendoza’s murder.
(SFC, 4/16/08, p.B5)
2005 Mar 21, In northern Minnesota
Jeff Weise (17) gunned down five students, a teacher and a guard at Red
Lake High School. The teen's grandfather and his grandfather's wife
also were found dead, and the boy killed himself.
(AP, 3/22/05)(SFC, 3/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 21, Bobby Short (80),
Cabaret singer who embodied the NYC style and sophistication, died. He
was a fixture at his piano in the Carlyle Hotel for more than 35 years.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, The BBC announced
plans to cut almost 4,000 jobs to save hundreds of millions of pounds,
as the world's biggest public broadcaster undergoes a major shake-up.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, In Estonia PM Juhan
parts (38) resigned after lawmakers said they had no confidence in his
justice minister, Ken-Marti Vaher, due to an anti-corruption plan.
Pres. Arnold Ruutel had 2 weeks to nominate a new prime minister.
(SFC, 3/22/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 21, Iceland's Parliament
awarded citizenship to chess champion Bobby Fischer.
(AP, 3/23/05)
2005 Mar 21, India’s PM Manmohan
Singh vowed to do whatever is necessary to sustain economic growth of
between 7 and 8 percent to help the 260 million Indians living in
poverty.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, India’s foreign
ministry in New Delhi said very young and elderly Pakistanis visiting
India will receive visas on arrival from April 1.
(Reuters, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, A top security
official said Indonesia plans to formally outlaw the al-Qaida-linked
terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, a move that will make it easier for
authorities to arrest and prosecute militants in the world's most
populous Muslim nation.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, Insurgent attacks
across Iraq left seven civilians and three Iraqi soldiers dead.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, Iraqi officials at
the morgue in the southeastern city of Kut said the facility received
the bodies of six slain Iraqi army soldiers, five collected together,
one separately.
(AP, 3/22/05)
2005 Mar 21, Israeli and
Palestinian negotiators reached agreement on handing over control of
the West Bank town of Tulkarem to Palestinian security forces.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, South Korea news
reported that North Korea said it has increased its nuclear arsenal to
help prevent a US attack.
(AP, 3/21/05)
2005 Mar 21, It was reported that
measles in Nigeria had killed 529 people this year.
(WSJ, 3/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 21, UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan proposed a new Human Rights Council, a smaller body that
would meet year-round.
(http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm9772.doc.htm)
2006 Mar 21, Pres. Bush said that
the war in Iraq might outlast his presidency. Bush predicted American
forces would remain in Iraq for years and that it would be up to a
future president to decide when to bring them all home. But defying
critics and plunging polls, Bush declared, "I'm optimistic we'll
succeed."
(SFC, 3/22/06, p.A1)(AP, 3/21/07)
2006 Mar 21, President Bush
welcomed Liberia’s Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to the White House,
calling Africa's first democratically elected female head of state "a
pioneer."
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Sgt. Michael J.
Smith, an Army dog handler at Abu Ghraib, was convicted at Fort Meade,
Md., of abusing prisoners. Smith was later sentenced to 179 days in
prison.
(AP, 3/21/07)
2006 Mar 21, Afghan security
forces attacked a group of suspected Taliban rebels after they crossed
the border into Kandahar from neighboring Pakistan, killing at least 17
of them. 4 suspected Taliban rebels were killed by Afghan military
forces in neighboring Uruzgan province.
(AFP, 3/22/06)(SSFC, 7/30/06, p.A18)
2006 Mar 21, An earthquake hit the
northeast Algerian town of Laalam east of Algiers killing at least four
people and injuring 53.
(AFP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Argentina's naval
chief said he has ordered all in-country intelligence operations by the
navy to be temporarily suspended while officials probe reports of
spying at the southern Admiral Zar naval air base.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Troops began
delivering aid to an estimated 7,000 people who lost their homes to the
cyclone that battered Australia's northeastern coast.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, The WHO said 5 people
had died of bird flu in Azerbaijan, raising the worldwide death toll
from the H5N1 strain to 103.
(SFC, 3/22/06, p.A4)
2006 Mar 21, Royal Dutch Shell
said it paid $465 million Canadian dollars for the rights to explore
219,000 acres in Alberta’s oil sands.
(WSJ, 3/22/06, p.A14)
2006 Mar 21, In Chile 13 retired
army officers were indicted on homicide charges for their participation
in the Caravan of Death under the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto
Pinochet. The new warrants were issued against officers who were
serving at regiments visited by the Caravan and allegedly helped the
repression by participating in illegal executions and burials.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Chinese President Hu
Jintao and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on to
deepen energy cooperation, as Russian gas giant Gazprom said it would
look to meet some needs of oil and gas-hungry China.
(Reuters, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, The Ecuadorian
government declared a state of emergency in four provinces to curb nine
days of Indian protests against a proposed free-trade deal with the US.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, The EU said it would
pay for half of a 16 million euro ($19 million) international promotion
campaign to sell European-produced foods such as fruits, cheese and
wine in 11 countries, including the United States, China, Japan and
Canada.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Some 30% of French
people consider themselves at least somewhat racist, according to a
report submitted to the government, prompting concerns that racism is
becoming socially acceptable.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Insurgents stormed a
jail around dawn in the Sunni majority town of Muqdadiya, killing 19
police and a courthouse guard in a prison break that freed 33 prisoners
and left 10 attackers dead.
(AP, 3/21/06)(SFC, 3/22/06, p.A13)
2006 Mar 21, Israel reopened the
Gaza Strip's main cargo crossing to alleviate a food shortage in the
area.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Israel indicted two
West Bank Palestinians on charges of belonging to al-Qaida and plotting
to carry out a double bombing for the group in Jerusalem, the first
time Palestinians have been formally linked to the terror network.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Japanese police found
three bodies inside a parked van in what is believed to be the latest
example of a recent trend of group suicides.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, A Kadhafi Foundation
official said Libya is to return properties confiscated in the
mid-1970s and pay compensation to their former owners, under a cabinet
decree.
(AFP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Algimantas Dailide,
an 85-year-old man deported from Florida, went on trial in his native
Lithuania on charges of helping Nazis round up Jews during World War
II. Dailide was convicted on March 27 of helping Nazis murder Jews
during World War II, but the judge said the man was too frail to serve
prison time.
(AP, 3/21/06)(AP, 3/27/06)
2006 Mar 21, Nepalese soldiers
hunted down communist rebels in the northern mountains as insurgents,
some on motorbikes, attacked police stations. The day of violence left
at least 33 people dead.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Nigeria launched its
first census for 15 years. Residents remained indoors on government
orders on the first day of the controversial census.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, In Peru Victor Polay
(54), the leader of the Tupac Amaru guerrilla group, was sentenced to
32 years in prison in a civilian retrial. The group grabbed the world's
attention nearly 10 years ago with a takeover of the Japanese
ambassador's residence.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, The UN appealed for
nearly $327 million in aid to help starving people in southern Somalia,
which is suffering its worst drought in a decade.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, Sweden's foreign
minister resigned, accused of lying about shutting down a far-right Web
site that solicited cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, In Thailand
demonstrators seeking the resignation of PM Thaksin Shinawatra brought
their protests to Bangkok's commercial district.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, More than 100,000
Turkish Kurds celebrated the ancient spring festival of Newroz with
dancing, singing and calls for political reform and the release of
jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 21, An international
audit concluded there are tens of thousands of dead voters listed on
Venezuela's voter rolls, but the country's top electoral official said
that those errors are being fixed and do not amount to significant
flaws.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2008 Mar 21, 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."
(AP, 3/21/08)
2007 Mar 21, An industry trade
group said US mortgage applications fell last week for the first time
in four weeks, reflecting a drop in demand for home refinancing even as
interest rates hovered near recent lows.
(AP, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, In Texas
investigators said Timothy Wayne Shepherd (27) confessed to strangling
Tynesha Stewart (19) because he was angry she had begun a new
relationship. Shepherd had dismembered and burned her body on a patio
grill.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 21, In Afghanistan Dutch
ministers urged the Afghan government to step up its presence and
development in the troubled south, where Taliban insurgents are most
entrenched, saying NATO cannot do it alone.
(AFP, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, Sonia Falcone, former
Miss Bolivia (1988), was ordered to leave the United States after
pleading guilty to employing four illegal immigrants as household
servants at her $10.5 million mansion in Paradise Valley, Ariz.
(www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/86326?source=rss&dest=STY-86326)
2007 Mar 21, Britain's
leader-in-waiting Gordon Brown unexpectedly cut income tax along with
business taxes in his 11th and probably final budget before he takes
over from British PM Tony Blair as expected.
(AP, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, PM Tony Blair said
Britain would urge the EU to impose tougher sanctions on Zimbabwe,
describing the situation there as "appalling, disgraceful and utterly
tragic."
(AFP, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, The World Trade
Organization (WTO) said Canada should dismantle "significant" trade
barriers it uses to protect its wheat, dairy and other agricultural
producers.
(Reuters, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, The EU and the UN
eased their diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian government, holding
talks with non-Hamas ministers.
(Reuters, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, French President
Jacques Chirac endorsed the presidential bid of Interior Minister
Nicolas Sarkozy despite their long rivalry.
(AP, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, In Guatemala a top
human rights official said a newly created international council of
experts will oversee and protect extensive police archives exposing
atrocities committed during Guatemala's 36-year civil war.
(AP, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, In Indonesia 3
Islamic militants were found guilty of decapitating three Christian
schoolgirls in 2005 and dumping their bloodied heads in nearby
villages. They were sentenced to between 14 and 20 years.
(AP, 3/22/07)
2007 Mar 21, US troops killed five
insurgents and destroyed a bomb-making factory north of Baghdad. In
Sunni dominated west Baghdad they found arms caches including nitric
acid and chlorine. Dozens more were detained after fierce clashes in a
Sunni-dominated province west of the capital. Scattered violence killed
at least nine people. A claim by the US military that insurgents used
children in a weekend suicide attack raised concerns about new tactics
being adopted by insurgents. Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a
postgraduate female student at Basra University, Tuhfa Jaafar
al-Bachay. Two US soldiers and a Marine were killed in combat.
(AP, 3/21/07)(AP, 3/22/07)(WSJ, 3/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 21, Tens of thousands of
Israeli workers launched an open-ended general strike that crippled the
country's airports, seaports, railways, government offices, banks, the
stock exchange and many other services. The strike by public service
workers ended after just eight hours, when the Israeli government
agreed to pay back wages.
(AP, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, In southern Nepal a
fierce gunbattle near Gaur between former communist rebels and ethnic
rights activists, the Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF), left 29
dead, mostly Maoists, and 35 wounded.
(AP, 3/22/07)(Econ, 3/31/07, p.51)
2007 Mar 21, A Nigerian Senate
committee ruled that President Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy, Atiku
Abubakar, acted "illegally" in the management of a petroleum fund and
recommended them for prosecution. 5 people were killed in clashes over
land in Ikare-Akoka in the southwestern state of Ondo.
(AFP, 3/21/07)(AFP, 3/22/07)
2007 Mar 21, Thousands of
protesters urged President Pervez Musharraf to quit over his removal of
Pakistan's top judge, as the new acting chief justice flew back home
and into the eye of the storm. In northwestern Pakistan fighting
between local and Uzbek militants escalated, and the death toll from
three days of clashes rose to at least 70.
(AP, 3/21/07)(AFP, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 21, In Somalia masked men
believed to be Islamic militants dragged the corpses of two soldiers
through the streets of Mogadishu and set their bodies on fire during
fierce battles with government forces trying to consolidate their
control. Medical officials at Mogadishu's three hospitals said they had
recorded at least seven dead and 36 wounded by early afternoon. One
fire-fight left 15 people killed. Un estimates said 40,000 of
Mogadishu’s 2 million residents had fled the city.
(AP, 3/21/07)(Econ, 3/24/07, p.54)
2008 Mar 21, Two companies that
provide workers for the State Department said they fired or otherwise
punished those who improperly accessed the passport records of the
three major presidential candidates. The security breaches touched off
demands for a congressional investigation.
(AP, 3/22/08)
2008 Mar 21, The California
Academy of Science named David Mindell (55), a human evolutionary
researcher at the Univ. of Michigan as the institution’s new science
chief. The new academy building in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park was
due to open in 6 months.
(SFC, 3/22/08, p.B1)
2008 Mar 21, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide attacker blew himself up near a busy shrine in
Kandahar, killing two policemen. International forces helping the
Afghan government lost three soldiers in two separate bombings in the
south.
(AP, 3/21/08)(AP, 3/23/08)
2008 Mar 21, A regulator said
China will shut down or punish dozens of video-sharing Web sites for
carrying content deemed pornographic, violent or a threat to national
security under rules that tighten Internet controls. China’s government
stepped up its manhunt for protesters in last week's riots in the
capital of Tibet, as thousands of troops converged on foot, trucks and
helicopters to Tibetan areas of western China.
(AP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 21, The Democratic
Republic of Congo banned the ethnic-based religious and political sect
Bundu dia Kongo (BDK), a shadowy separatist sect, following a 3-week
police offensive against its western strongholds which UN investigators
say killed dozens of people.
(Reuters, 3/22/08)
2008 Mar 21, The Greek and Turkish
Cypriot leaders agreed to restart peace talks on reunifying their
ethnically split island, and to open a crossing in the heart of the
divided capital.
(AP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 21, President Nicolas
Sarkozy announced a modest cut in France's nuclear arsenal, to less
than 300 warheads, and urged China and the United States to commit to
no more weapons tests.
(AP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 21, Iraqi security forces
clashed with Shiite militia fighters southeast of Baghdad for a second
day. At least two police officers and two gunmen had died in the
fighting in the city of Kut when factions of the Mahdi Army militia
attacked security checkpoints.
(AP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 21, In Indian Kashmir two
boys, aged five and 14, were killed when a hand grenade they mistook
for a toy exploded.
(AP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 21, In Mali 5 civilians,
including a child, were reported killed, again when their vehicle hit a
mine near Tinzaouatene. 29 soldiers were taken prisoner when a convoy
of wounded soldiers heading for Kidal was intercepted by rebels.
(AFP, 3/23/08)
2008 Mar 21, In Myanmar a man set
himself on fire at Shwedagon pagoda, Yangon's most famous landmark in a
political protest against the military junta. He died of his injuries
in April.
(www.mysinchew.com/node/8895)(WSJ, 4/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 21, Pakistani troops shut
down three FM radio stations and arrested eight employees after the
stations aired a speech by a pro-Taliban cleric.
(AP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 21, In Moscow
firefighters found the body of Channel One correspondent Ilyas
Shurpayev (32) in his apartment with stab wounds and a belt around his
neck. He was a native of the mostly Muslim Dagestan province and had
worked in Russia's violence-ridden North Caucasus, which includes
Dagestan and war-scarred Chechnya. Dagestan. On March 31 officials said
that two men from Tajikistan have admitted robbing and killing
Shurpayev.
(AP, 3/21/08)(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Mar 21, In Spain a car bomb
exploded at a police barracks in the northern Rioja region following a
warning from the Basque separatist organization ETA, injuring one
person.
(AFP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 21, In Turkey unrest
erupted when celebrations marking Newroz day, or the Kurdish new year,
degenerated into demonstrations in favor of the armed separatist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara lists as a terrorist group.
(AFP, 3/22/08)
2008 Mar 21, In Venezuela a riot
broke out between prison gangs at the San Fernando de Apure lockup. 9
inmates were left dead and 20 more wounded.
(SSFC, 3/23/08, p.A3)
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