21 March History
- 630 - Heraclius restores the True Cross, which he has recaptured from the Persians.
- 1556 - Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake at Oxford after retracting the last of seven recantations that same day.
- 1617 - Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) dies of either small pox or pneumonia while in England with her husband, John Rolfe.
- 1788 - Almost the entire city of New Orleans, Louisiana, is destroyed by fire.
- 1806 - Lewis and Clark begin their trip home after an 8,000 mile trek of the Mississippi basin and the Pacific Coast.
- 1865 - The Battle of Bentonville, N.C. ends, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop Union General William Sherman.
- 1851 - Emperor Tu Duc orders that Christian priests are to put to death.
- 1858 - British forces in India lift the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.
- 1906 - Ohio passes a law that prohibits hazing by fraternities.
- 1908 - Frenchman Henri Farman carries a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.
- 1910 - The U.S. Senate grants ex-President Teddy Roosevelt an annual pension of $10,000.
- 1918 - The Germans launch the 'Michael' offensive, better remembered as the First Battle of the Somme.
- 1928 - President Calvin Coolidge gives the Congressional Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh for his first trans-Atlantic flight.
- 1939 - Singer Kate Smith records "God Bless America" for Victor Records.
- 1941 - The last Italian post in East Libya, North Africa, falls to the British.
- 1951 - 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.
- 1963 - Alcatraz Island, the federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, California, closes.
- 1965 - The United States launches Ranger 9, last in a series of unmanned lunar explorations.
- 1971 - Two U.S. platoons in Vietnam refuse their orders to advance.
- 1975 - As North Vietnamese forces advance, Hue and other northern towns in South Vietnam are evacuated.
- 1980 - President Jimmy Carter announces to the U.S. Olympic Team that they will not participate in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
- 1984 - A Soviet submarine crashes into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.
21 March Birthdays
- 1685 - Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer.
- 1806 - Benito Juarez, President of Mexico.
- 1869 - Albert Kahn, architect who originated modern factory design.
- 1869 - Florenz Ziegfeld, producer, creator of Ziegfeld Follies.
- 1885 - Raoul Lufbery, French-born American fighter pilot of World War I.