Almanac
Today is Friday, March 21, the 80th day of 2025 with 285 to follow.
The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter and Mars. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Aries. They include musician Johann Sebastian Bach in 1685; Mexican revolutionary/President Benito Juarez in 1806; theatrical impresario Florenz Ziegfeld in 1867; theatrical director Peter Brook in 1925; actor Al Freeman Jr. in 1934; musician Rose Stone (Sly and the Family Stone) in 1945 (age 80); actor Timothy Dalton in 1946 (age 79); musician Eddie Money in 1949; musician Roger Hodgson (Supertramp/Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band) in 1950 (age 75); musician Conrad Lozano (Los Lobos) in 1951 (age 74); actor Gary Oldman in 1958 (age 67); comedian/actor Brad Hall in 1958 (age 67); actor Sabrina LeBeauf in 1958 (age 67); actor Kassie DePaiva in 1961 (age 64); actor Matthew Broderick in 1962 (age 63); actor Rosie O'Donnell in 1962 (age 63); actor Cynthia Geary in 1965 (age 60); musician Jonas "Joker" Berggren (Ace of Base) in 1967 (age 58); musician Maxim (Prodigy) in 1967 (age 58); musician Drew Copeland (Sister Hazel) in 1968 (age 57); actor Laura Allen in 1974 (age 51); musician Michale Graves (Misfits) in 1975 (age 50); actor Sonequa Martin-Green in 1985 (age 40); actor Scott Eastwood in 1986 (age 39); actor Jasmin Savoy Brown in 1994 (age 31); actor RJ Cyler in 1995 (age 30); musician Diggy Simmons in 1995 (age 30); actor Jace Norman in 2000 (age 25).
On this date in history:
In 1413, Henry V was crowned king of England.
In 1617, Pocahontas died in England at about age 22. Three years earlier, she converted to Christianity, took the name Rebecca and married Englishman John Rolfe.
In 1790, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia became the first U.S. secretary of state.
In 1857, 100,000 people were killed in an earthquake in Tokyo.
In 1945, 7,000 Allied planes dropped more than 12,000 tons of explosives on Germany during a single World War II daytime bombing raid.
In 1952, Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed organized the first rock 'n' roll concert -- the Moondog Coronation Ball.
In 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pledged that Russia would cooperate with the United States in the peaceful exploration of space.
In 1963, the U.S. prison on San Francisco Bay's Alcatraz Island was closed.
In 1965, more than 300 civil rights demonstrators, led by Martin Luther King Jr. and protected by Army and federalized National Guard troops, began a four-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., to demand federal protection of voting rights. This was the main Selma-Montgomery march. Two previous attempts had stopped in Selma -- one blocked by state troopers on March 7 ("Bloody Sunday"); the other halted voluntarily on March 9.
In 1984, a nuclear-powered Soviet submarine collided with the U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Kitty Hawk, in the Sea of Japan but no significant damage was reported.
In 1989, Dick Clark retired from hosting the TV show American Bandstand after 33 years.
In 1999, Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones landed near Cairo after becoming the first people to circle the globe by balloon.
In 2005, a 17-year-old boy at the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota killed nine people, injured several others and then killed himself.
In 2022, China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 crashed in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in South China, killing all 132 people on board.
In 2024, shares in the social media platform Reddit jumped 48% during their first day of trading.
A thought for the day: "We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference." -- U.S. President Joe Biden
