March 21st in History – Timespinner Press

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer is burned at the stake by Queen Mary I (1556)
The Great New Orleans Fire destroys 850 of the city’s 1,000 buildings (1788)
Pope Pius VII is crowned with a papier-mâché tiara because Napoléon Bonaparte had stolen the real one. Five subsequent popes wore the temporary tiara because it was lightweight and comfortable (1800)
The British beat the French for supremacy in Egypt in the Battle of Alexandria (1801)
The first modern legal code in Europe, the Code Napoléon, is adopted (1804)
The Tokyo Earthquake kills over 100,000 people (1857)
Persia becomes Iran (1935)
The US governor of Puerto Rico orders a police attack against a peaceful march of the Nationalist Party, killing 17 and wounding 235 in the Ponce Massacre. No charges were ever filed. (1943)
Kenneth “Kingfish” Washington becomes the first African-American in the NFL (1943)
The first rock and roll concert, the Moondog Coronation Ball, is held in Cleveland (1952)
Alcatraz Prison closes (1963)
The Selma to Montgomery March finally begins, after two previous attempts were violently stopped by police. It will reach Montgomery two days later. (1965)
President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will boycott the Moscow Summer Olympics (1980)
The Breitling Orbiter 3 achieves the first circumnavigation of the Earth by balloon (1999)

Kevin Federline, Britney husband (1978
Rosie O’Donnell, talk show host (1962)
Matthew Broderick, actor (1962)
Gary Oldman, actor (1958)
Eddie Money, singer (1949)
Timothy Dalton, actor (1944 or 1946)
Vivian Stanshall, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band founding member (1943)
Tom Flores, football player and coach (1937)
Michael Heseltine, British politician (1933)
Russ Meyer, filmmaker (1922)
Julio Gallo, winemaker (1910)
Phyllis McGinley, children’s book author and poet (1905)
Jock Sutherland, football player and coach (1889)
Modest Mussorgsky (Модéст Мýсоргский), composer (1881)
Maurice Farman, airplane designer (1877)
George Owen Squier, first military passenger on an airplane and founder of the Musak Corporation (1865)
Alexander Mozhaysky (лександр Фёдорович Можайский), Russian aviation pioneer, claimed by the Soviet Union as first to achieve powered flight (1825)
Benito Juárez, Mexican president — birthday is a Mexican patriotic holiday (1806)
Joseph Fourier, mathematician and physicist (1768)

Pinetop Perkins, blues pianist (2011)
Bobby Short, cabaret singer (2005)
Barney Martin, actor (2005)
Herman Talmadge, segregationist (2002)
Galina Ulanova (Галина Уланова), ballet dancer (1998)
William Awdry, creator of Thomas the Tank Engine (1997)
Dack Rambo, actor (1994)
Macdonald Carey, soap opera star (1994)
Leo Fender, guitar man (1991)
Robert Preston, music man (1987)
Dean Paul Martin, pop musician and fighter pilot (1987)
Angelo “The Gentle Don” Bruno, mobster (1980)
Joe “Ducky” Medwick, baseball player (1975)
Candy Darling, Warhol “superstar” (1974)
Cyril M. Kornbluth, science fiction writer (1958)
Frederick W. Taylor, “father of scientific management” (1915)
Nadar, photographer and caricaturist (1910)
Giovanni Arduino, geologist (1795)
Archbishop James Ussher, calculated that creation began on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BCE (1656)
Pocahontas, ancestor of Nancy Reagan (1617 — buried)