Today's Puzzle
Why are books on antigravity so popular?
Holidays
Feast Day of St. Benedict
Patriarch of Western monks, founded the Benedictine order, patron saint of cave explorers.
What Happened On
Lynching in the U.S.
March 21, 1981
Members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) beat and kill 19-year-old African-American Michael Donald and hanged his body from a tree.
He was the random victim of a retaliation killing by KKK members for the mistrial declared in the trial of a black man charged with killing a policeman in Birmingham, Alabama while committing a robbery. Frustrated at the outcome, KKK members burned a three-foot cross on the Mobile, Alabama County courthouse lawn. They then went in search of a black victim. They kidnapped Michael Donald at random. When he tried to escape, they beat him, strangled him with a rope, and slit his throat. They then hanged his body from a tree across from a house owned by Klan leader Bennie Jack Hays, father of one of the attackers Henry Hays. Henry Hays was executed in 1997 for the crime. It was the only execution of a KKK member during the 20th century for the murder of an African American. James Knowles testified against Hays and was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Knowles claimed the slaying was done "to show Klan strength in Alabama." Benjamin Franklin Cox, Jr. was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Donald's mother brought a wrongful death suit in 1984 against the United Klans of America. In 1987 the Klan was found civilly liable by an all-white jury and sentenced to damages of $7 million, bankrupting the United Klans of America. The United Klans was the same group that had beaten the Freedom Riders in 1961, murdered civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo in 1965, and bombed Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963.
Martin Luther King and march leaders
Martin Luther King and march leaders
March to Montgomery
March 21, 1965
Under the protection of federal troops, Martin Luther King, Jr. and 3,000 marchers begin a five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. More than 25,000 demonstrators gathered at the Montgomery Capitol building, where King delivered his famous lines, "How long will it take? I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long."
Why Do Boxing Rings Have Four Ropes?
March 21, 1963
Sugar Ramos knocks down defending World Featherweight Champion Davey Moore, with Moore hitting his head on the bottom ring. Although able to continue the fight, he lapsed into a coma in the dressing room and died four days later from the injuries he received. As a result, the bottom ring was loosened and a fourth rope was added to boxing rings to help catch the fighters. The event is memorialized in the Bob Dylan song 
Who Killed Davey Moore.
First Rock and Roll Concert
March 21, 1952
The "Moondog Coronation Ball" is held at the Cleveland Arena. Alan Freed was one of its organizers. This is considered the first major rock and roll concert.
Pocahontas saving the life of Smith
Pocahontas saving the life of Smith
Pocahontas' Funeral
March 21, 1617
American Indian Pocahontas is buried after dying during her trip to England. She is famous for the story told by Captain John Smith of how she risked her life to save his after his capture. After being falsely told that Smith had died, she married Capt. John Rolfe (1614) and traveled to England with him. Her exact cause of death is unknown, but theories range from pneumonia, smallpox, tuberculosis, or even to her having been poisoned.
First Ladies Nancy Reagan and Edith Wilson are both descendants of Pocahontas and Rolfe.
Iraq War - White House Declares They Have Evidence of WMD
March 21, 2003
"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly… All this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." Statement by White House spokesman Ari Fleisher.
The White House would later admit that their information was incorrect.
Watergate
March 21, 1973
U.S. President Richard Nixon and his counsel John Dean discuss offering clemency and hush money as part of the cover-up.
Alcatraz Closes
March 21, 1963
The San Francisco prison Alcatraz had been built in the 1830s. The federal prison, known as the Rock, housed such famous prisoners as, Al Capone, Robert Stroud, known as The Birdman of Alcatraz, and George "Machine Gun" Kelly.
In 1969, a group of Native Americans claimed ownership and began occupying the prison. Citing the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), they claimed abandoned or out-of-use federal land should be returned to the Native people from whom it was acquired. They were forcibly removed in 1971.
First Sylvanus Thayer Award
March 21, 1958
First Sylvanus Thayer Award is presented, to American physicist Ernest O. Lawrence.
Persia Becomes Iran
March 21, 1935
The Shah of Persia issues a decree requesting the use of the name "Iran" instead of the current name "Persia."
Monkey Trial
March 21, 1925
The teaching of evolution in public schools is outlawed by the state of Tennessee. This was the first law in the U.S. to ban the teaching of evolution. John Scopes was later convicted of violating this law in the celebrated Scopes Monkey Trial.
Birthdays
Harold von Braunhut (Harold Nathan Braunhut)
Born March 21, 1926 d. 2003
American inventor, mail-order entrepreneur. Harold von Braunhut is best known for selling Sea-Monkeys and X-Ray Specs via ads in comic books during the 1960s and 1970s. Astronaut John Glenn even took some "Amazing Sea-Monkeys" into space with him in 1998.
Items he marketed included:
• Amazing Sea-Monkeys: The advertisements showed humanized Sea-Monkeys enjoying life in their underwater fantasy world. They were actually brine shrimp eggs that "came to life" when food and water were added.
• X-Ray Specs: The advertisements claimed they enabled the wearer to see through clothing and flesh.
• Crazy Crabs: They were hermit crabs.
• Amazing Hair-Raising Monsters: A card with a printed monster that would grow "hair" (actually mineral crystals) when water was added.
• Invisible Goldfish: These imaginary fish were guaranteed to remain permanently invisible.
Braunhut held 195 patents.
Although Braunhut was raised Jewish, he later became associated with white supremacist groups, adding "von" to his name to make it sound more Germanic to distance himself from his Jewish heritage. He also provided firearms to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
Inventor of M&Ms
Forrest Edward Mars, Sr.
Born March 21, 1904 d. 1999
American candy maker. Inventor of M&M's. They were designed so that soldiers would not get their trigger fingers sticky.
Mars got the idea for M&Ms in the 1930s when he saw soldiers eating British-made Smarties during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Smarties were chocolate pellets with a colored shell of hardened sugar syrup, preventing them from melting. Mars received a patent for his process and began manufacturing them in 1941. During World War II, the candies were sold only to the military.
The M&M name represents the names of Mars and Bruce Murrie, who had a 20% share in the product and was the son of Hershey Chocolate's president William F. R. Murrie.
The slogan "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand" was introduced in 1949.
Mars also invented the Mars candy bar (1932) and established Uncle Ben's Rice products and the Pedigree pet food brand. He was the son of Frank C. Mars, founder of the Mars, Inc. candy company, which he took over upon the death of his father in 1934.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Born March 21, 1685 d. 1750
German composer and organist. One of the greatest composers in music history and one of the "Three Bs of Music" (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms).
Matthew Broderick
Born March 21, 1962
American Tony-winning actor. Stage: Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983, Tony). Film: WarGames (1983), Biloxi Blues (1985), and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).
Gary Oldman
Born March 21, 1958
English actor. Film: Sid and Nancy (1986, Sid Vicious), JFK (1991, Oswald), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1993, Dracula on a bad hair day).
Timothy Dalton
Born March 21, 1946
British actor, 4th James Bond for United Artists. Film: The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989).
Al Freeman Jr.
Born March 21, 1934 d. 2012
American Emmy-winning actor. TV: One Life to Live (Capt. Ed Hall, 1972-88), for which he became the first African American to win a Daytime Emmy Award for acting (1979).
G.M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson (Max Aronson)
Born March 21, 1880 d. 1971
American western actor and director. He became the first male movie star with The Great Train Robbery (1903). In 1957 he received a special Oscar "for his contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment."
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.
Born March 21, 1867 d. 1932
American theatrical producer. Creator of Ziegfeld Follies (1907). He was married to actress Billie Burke who played Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Henry Ossian Flipper
Born March 21, 1856 d. 1940
American soldier. First black to graduate from West Point (1877). He was the first nonwhite officer to lead buffalo soldiers of the 10th Cavalry. He was court-martialed and discharged from the Army (1882). His descendants applied for a review of Flipper's court-martial which led to a pardon from U.S. President Bill Clinton (1999).
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier
Born March 21, 1768 d. 1830
French mathematician. He developed the Fourier Series, one of the landmarks of mathematics.
Francis Lewis
Born March 21, 1713 d. 1802
American patriot, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Deaths
Lynching Victim
Michael Donald
Died March 21, 1981 b. 1961
American lynching victim. He was one of the last recorded lynching victims in the United States. Members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) beat and kill the 19-year-old African-American and hanged his body from a tree. He was the random victim of a retaliation killing by KKK members for the mistrial declared in the trial of a black man charged with killing a policeman in Birmingham, Alabama while committing a robbery. Frustrated at the outcome, KKK members burned a three-foot cross on the Mobile, Alabama County courthouse lawn. They then went in search of a black victim. They kidnapped Michael Donald at random. When he tried to escape, they beat him, strangled him with a rope, and slit his throat. They then hanged his body from a tree across from a house owned by Klan leader Bennie Jack Hays, father of one of the attackers Henry Hays. Henry Hays was executed in 1997 for the crime. It was the only execution of a KKK member during the 20th century for the murder of an African American. James Knowles testified against Hays and was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Knowles claimed the slaying was done "to show Klan strength in Alabama." Benjamin Franklin Cox, Jr. was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Donald's mother brought a wrongful death suit in 1984 against the United Klans of America. In 1987 the Klan was found civilly liable by an all-white jury and sentenced to damages of $7 million, bankrupting the United Klans of America. The United Klans was the same group that had beaten the Freedom Riders in 1961, murdered civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo in 1965, and bombed Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963.
James Ussher
Died March 21, 1656 b. 1581
Irish religious leader. Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland (1625-56). He formulated a Biblical chronology that placed the time and Day of Creation at around 6 pm on October 22, 4004 BC. He also calculated dates for Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark.
Chuck Barris
Died March 21, 2017 b. 1929
American television producer. TV: The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show.
Macdonald Carey
Died March 21, 1994 b. 1913
American Emmy-winning actor. TV: Days of Our Lives (Dr. Horton and narrator for the opening, "Like sands through the hourglass…") and Roots (1977, Squire James).
Dack Rambo (Norman Rambeau)
Died March 21, 1994 b. 1941
American actor. TV: All My Children (Steve Jacobi) and Dallas (Jack Ewing).
John Ireland
Died March 21, 1992 b. 1914
Canadian-born actor. Film: My Darling Clementine (1946) and All the King's Men (1949).
Samuel Sidney McClure
Died March 21, 1949 b. 1857
American publisher. Founder of McClure syndicate (1884) and McClure's Magazine (1893, which he ran from 1893-1911).
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Died March 21, 1915 b. 1856
America's first efficiency expert, called the father of scientific management.
Father of Meteorology
Luke Howard
Died March 21, 1864 b. 1772
British chemist, meteorologist, Father of Meteorology. He created the naming system for clouds (1802) which included: cumulus, stratus, and cirrus.
Johann Rudolf Wyss
Died March 21, 1830 b. 1782
Swiss folklorist. He wrote the words to the former Swiss national anthem Rufst Du, mein Vaterland (1811). He also edited his father's book The Swiss Family Robinson (1812).
William Blount
Died March 21, 1800 b. 1749
American statesman, signer of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Senator (Tennessee, 1796-97), Governor of the Southwest Territory (1790-96), Speaker of the Tennessee Senate (1798-99), the first federal official to face impeachment, and for whom Blount County, Tennessee is named. As a member of the North Carolina delegation at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he led efforts to have North Carolina ratify the U.S. Constitution. He served as the only governor of the Southwest Territory, and played a leading role in helping the territory gain admission to the Union as the State of Tennessee, and served as one of Tennessee's initial U.S. senators in 1796.
He had amassed large western land holdings. After France defeated Spain in the War of the Pyrenees (1795), he was worried that the French would gain control of Spanish-controlled Louisiana, and shut off American access to the Mississippi River, thus greatly devaluing his land. Blount conspired with others allow Britain to gain control of Florida and Louisiana, in return for giving free access to New Orleans and the Mississippi River to American merchants. The plan called for aiding the British fleet in attacking New Orleans, Pensacola, and New Madrid. When his plot was discovered, the U.S. Senate voted 25 to 1 to "sequester" Blount's senate seat, effectively expelling him. His reputation now ruined for national politics, he went on to become Speaker of the Tennessee Senate.
Saint Benedict of Nursia
Died March 21, 543 b. circa 480
Italian monk, founder of Western monasticism, known for his gift of prophecy, he correctly predicted the day and time of his own death.