Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

The First Siege of Rome during the Gothic War lasted for a year and nine days, from 2 March 537 to 12 March 538. The city was besieged by the Ostrogothic army under their king Vitiges; the defending East Romans were commanded by Belisarius, one of the most famous and successful Roman generals. The siege was the first major encounter between the forces of the two opponents, and played a decisive role in the subsequent development of the war.

Siege of Rome: King Vitiges attempts to assault the northern and eastern city walls, but is repulsed at the Praenestine Gate, known as the Vivarium, by the defenders under the Byzantine generals Bessas and Peranius.

Heraclius was Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the Exarch of Africa, led a revolt against the unpopular emperor Phocas.

Emperor Heraclius returns the True Cross, one of the holiest Christian relics, to Jerusalem.

The Battle of Vincy was a battle of the Frankish civil war of 715–18 fought near Cambrai, in the modern département of Nord. It was a contest between Charles Martel and the Austrasians on one side and the king of the Franks, Chilperic II, and his mayor of the palace, Ragenfrid, on the other.

Battle of Vincy between Charles Martel and Ragenfrid.

Louis VII, called the Younger or the Young to differentiate him from his father Louis VI, was King of France from 1137 to 1180. His first marriage was to Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe. The marriage temporarily extended the Capetian lands to the Pyrenees.

Annulment of the marriage of King Louis VII of France and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Emperor Antoku was the 81st emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1180 through 1185. His death marked the end of the Heian period and the beginning of the Kamakura period.

Emperor Antoku accedes to the throne of Japan.

Oxford is a cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.

In Oxford, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer is burned at the stake.

The Great New Orleans Fire (1788) was a fire that destroyed 856 of the 1,100 structures in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 21, 1788, spanning the south central Vieux Carré from Burgundy to Chartres Street, almost to the Mississippi River front buildings. An additional 212 buildings were destroyed in a later citywide fire on December 8, 1794.

A fire in New Orleans leaves most of the town in ruins.

The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the Pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th century until the unification of Italy, which took place between 1859 and 1870, and culminated in their demise.

With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII is crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché.

Battle of Alexandria, Raid on Alexandria, or Siege of Alexandria may refer to one of these military operations fought in or near the city of Alexandria, Egypt:Siege of Alexandria, during the Syrian Wars Siege of Alexandria, during Caesar's Civil War Battle of Alexandria, fought between Roman forces during the Final War of the Roman Republic Siege of Alexandria (619), conducted by the Sassanid Empire against a Byzantine Empire garrison between 618 and 620 during the Sassanid conquest of Egypt Siege of Alexandria (641), conducted by the Rashidun army against the Byzantine capital during the Muslim Conquest of Egypt Siege of Alexandria (1167), Crusader attack on Saladin Siege of Alexandria (1174), Norman Sicilian attack Alexandrian Crusade (1365) Battle of Alexandria (1798), fought between French and Mamluk forces during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt Battle of Alexandria (1801), 21 March, a major battle fought between British and French forces during the French Revolutionary War Siege of Alexandria (1801), 17 August – 2 September, the subsequent British siege of the city and French surrender Greek raid on Alexandria (1825), a raid on Alexandria harbour during the Greek War of Independence Bombardment of Alexandria (1881), British naval bombardment of the city Raid on Alexandria (1941), an attack on British shipping by Italian special forces during the Second World War

The Battle of Alexandria is fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis in Egypt.

The Napoleonic Code, officially the Civil Code of the French, is the French civil code established during the French Consulate in 1804 and still in force in France, although heavily and frequently amended since its inception. Although Napoleon himself was not directly involved in the drafting of the Code, as it was drafted by a commission of four eminent jurists, he chaired many of the commission's plenary sessions, and his support was crucial to its enactment.

Code Napoléon is adopted as French civil law.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a global series of conflicts fought between the French First Republic (1803–1804)/First French Empire (1804–1815) under the First Consul and Emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte, against a fluctuating array of European coalitions. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.

Napoleonic Wars: Austrian forces repel French troops in the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube.

The Baháʼí calendar used in the Baháʼí Faith is a solar calendar consisting of nineteen months and four or five intercalary days, with new year at the moment of Northern spring equinox. Each month is named after a virtue, as are the days of the week. The first year is dated from 1844 CE, the year in which the Báb began teaching.

The Bahá'í calendar begins. This is the first day of the first year of the Bahá'í calendar. It is annually celebrated by members of the Bahá'í Faith as the Bahá'í New Year or Náw-Rúz.

Alexander Hamilton Stephens was an American politician who served as the first and only vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, and later as the 50th governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the state of Georgia in the United States House of Representatives before and after the Civil War.

Alexander Stephens gives the Cornerstone Speech.

Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as its first Chancellor from 1871 to 1890. Bismarck's Realpolitik and firm governance resulted in him being popularly known as the Iron Chancellor.

Otto von Bismarck is appointed Chancellor of the German Empire.

Sir Henry Morton Stanley was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author, and politician famous for his exploration of Central Africa and search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Besides his discovery of Livingstone, he is mainly known for his search for the sources of the Nile and Congo rivers, the work he undertook as an agent of King Leopold II of the Belgians that enabled the occupation of the Congo Basin region, and his command of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. He was knighted in 1897, and served in Parliament as a Liberal Unionist member for Lambeth North from 1895 to 1900.

Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.

The Great Dayton Flood of 1913, part of the Great Flood of 1913, resulted from flooding by the Great Miami River reaching Dayton, Ohio, and the surrounding area, causing the greatest natural disaster in Ohio history. In response, the General Assembly passed the Vonderheide Act to enable the formation of conservancy districts. The Miami Conservancy District, which included Dayton and the surrounding area, became one of the first major flood control districts in Ohio and the United States.

Over 360 are killed and 20,000 homes destroyed in the Great Dayton Flood in Dayton, Ohio.

World War I or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East, as well as in parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific, and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare; the widespread use of artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons (gas); and the introductions of tanks and aircraft. World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, resulting in an estimated 10 million military dead and more than 20 million wounded, plus some 10 million civilian dead from causes including genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

World War I: The first phase of the German Spring Offensive, Operation Michael, begins.

The Hungarian Soviet Republic, also known as the Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of Hungary was a short-lived communist state that existed from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919, succeeding the First Hungarian Republic. The Hungarian Soviet Republic was a small communist rump state which, at its time of establishment, controlled approximately only 23% of Hungary's historic territory. The head of government was Sándor Garbai, but the influence of the foreign minister Béla Kun of the Party of Communists in Hungary was much stronger. Unable to reach an agreement with the Triple Entente, which maintained an economic blockade of Hungary, in dispute with neighboring countries over territorial disputes, and beset by profound internal social changes, the Hungarian Soviet Republic failed in its objectives and was abolished a few months after its existence. Its main figure was the Communist Béla Kun, despite the fact that in the first days the majority of the new government consisted of radical Social Democrats. The new system effectively concentrated power in the governing councils, which exercised it in the name of the working class.

The Hungarian Soviet Republic is established becoming the first Communist government to be formed in Europe after the October Revolution in Russia.

The New Economic Policy (NEP) was an economic policy of the Soviet Union proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control", while socialized state enterprises would operate on "a profit basis".

The New Economic Policy is implemented by the Bolshevik Party in response to the economic failure as a result of war communism.

The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law prohibiting public school teachers from denying the book of Genesis account of humankind's origin. The law also prevented the teaching of the evolution of humans from what it referred to as lower orders of animals in place of the Biblical account. The law was introduced by Tennessee House of Representatives member John Washington Butler, from whom the law got its name. It was enacted as Tennessee Code Annotated Title 49 (Education) Section 1922, having been signed into law by Tennessee governor Austin Peay.

The Butler Act prohibits the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee.

Syngman Rhee, also known as Rhee Syng-man, or by his art name Unam, was a South Korean politician who served as the first president of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. Rhee was also the first and last president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea from 1919 to his impeachment in 1925 and from 1947 to 1948. As president of South Korea, Rhee's government was characterised by authoritarianism, limited economic development, and in the late 1950s growing political instability and public opposition to his rule.

Syngman Rhee is removed from office after being impeached as the President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military officer, and author. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles (5,800 km), flying alone for 33.5 hours. His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was built to compete for the $25,000 Orteig Prize for the first flight between the two cities. Although not the first transatlantic flight, it was the longest at the time by nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km), the first solo transatlantic flight, and set a new flight distance world record. The achievement garnered Lindbergh worldwide fame and stands as one of the most consequential flights in history, signalling a new era of air transportation between parts of the globe.

Charles Lindbergh is presented with the Medal of Honor for the first solo trans-Atlantic flight.

The monarchs of Iran were the rulers of the various states and civilizations in Iran (Persia) from antiquity until the abolition of the Iranian monarchy in the Iranian Revolution (1979).

Shah of Iran Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran.

The Ponce massacre was an event that took place on Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937, in Ponce, Puerto Rico, when a peaceful civilian march turned into a police shooting in which 17 civilians and two policemen were killed, and more than 200 civilians wounded. None of the civilians were armed and most of the dead were reportedly shot in their backs. The march had been organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to commemorate the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873, and to protest the U.S. government's imprisonment of the Party's leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, on sedition charges.

Ponce massacre: Nineteen people in Ponce, Puerto Rico are gunned down by police acting on orders of the US-appointed Governor, Blanton C. Winship.

The Wehrmacht were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe. The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the previously used term Reichswehr and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted.

Wehrmacht officer Rudolf von Gersdorff plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler by using a suicide bomb, but the plan falls through; von Gersdorff is able to defuse the bomb in time and avoid suspicion.

World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70 to 85 million deaths, more than half of which were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma.

Operation Carthage, on 21 March 1945, was a British air raid on Copenhagen, Denmark during the Second World War which caused significant collateral damage. The target of the raid was the Shellhus, used as Gestapo headquarters in the city centre. It was used for the storage of dossiers and the torture of Danish citizens during interrogations. The Danish Resistance had long asked the British to conduct a raid against the site. The building was destroyed, 18 prisoners were freed and Nazi anti-resistance activities were disrupted. Part of the raid was mistakenly directed against a nearby school; the raid caused 123 civilian deaths. The incident was dramatised in the 2021 Danish film The Shadow in My Eye. A similar raid against the Gestapo headquarters in Aarhus, on 31 October 1944, had succeeded.

World War II: Operation Carthage: Royal Air Force planes bomb Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. They also accidentally hit a school, killing 125 civilians.

The Tsardom of Bulgaria, also known as the Third Bulgarian Tsardom, sometimes translated as the Kingdom of Bulgaria, or simply Bulgaria, was a constitutional monarchy in Southeastern Europe, which was established on 5 October [O.S. 22 September] 1908, when the Bulgarian state was raised from a principality to a tsardom.

World War II: Bulgaria and the Soviet Union successfully complete their defense of the north bank of the Drava River as the Battle of the Transdanubian Hills concludes.

The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The team plays its home games at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, which it shares with the Los Angeles Chargers. They are headquartered at the Kroenke Warner Center complex in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Rams sign Kenny Washington, making him the first African American player in the American football since 1933.

Albert James "Alan" Freed was an American disc jockey. He also produced and promoted large traveling concerts with various acts, helping to spread the importance of rock and roll music throughout North America, including popularizing the term "rock and roll".

Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. Under this minoritarian system, white citizens held the highest status, followed by Indians, Coloureds and black Africans, in that order. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.

Apartheid: Sharpeville massacre, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180.

United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, also known simply as Alcatraz or The Rock, was a maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles off the coast of San Francisco, California, United States. The site of a fort since the 1850s, the main prison building was built in 1910–12 as a U.S. Army military prison.

Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary (in California) closes.

The Ranger program was a series of uncrewed space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar surface, transmitting those images to Earth until the spacecraft were destroyed upon impact. A series of mishaps, however, led to the failure of the first six flights. At one point, the program was called "shoot and hope". Congress launched an investigation into "problems of management" at NASA Headquarters and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. After two reorganizations of the agencies, Ranger 7 successfully returned images in July 1964, followed by two more successful missions.

Ranger program: NASA launches Ranger 9, the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

The Battle of Karameh was a 15-hour military engagement between Israel and the combined forces of Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the Jordanian border town of Karameh during the War of Attrition on 21 March 1968. It was planned by Israel as one of two concurrent raids on PLO camps, one in Karameh along the Jordan River and the other in the distant village of Ghor es-Safi south of the Dead Sea.

Battle of Karameh in Jordan between the Israel Defense Forces and the combined forces of the Jordanian Armed Forces and PLO.

Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally through earthday.org including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.

The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco.

James Earl Carter Jr. was an American politician and humanitarian who served from 1977 to 1981 as the 39th president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, Carter served from 1971 to 1975 as the 76th governor of Georgia and from 1963 to 1967 in the Georgia State Senate. He was the longest-lived president in U.S. history and the first to reach the age of 100.

US President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

In late March and early April 1983, large numbers of Palestinians in the West Bank complained of fainting and dizziness, the vast majority of whom were teenage girls and a smaller number of whom were female Israeli soldiers. The symptoms led to 943 hospitalizations. Investigators concluded in April 1983 that the wave of complaints was likely the result of mass psychogenic illness, even if some environmental irritant had originally been present. This conclusion was supported by a Palestinian health official, who said that 20% of the early cases may have been caused by the inhalation of some kind of gas, but the remaining 80% were psychosomatic.

The first cases of the 1983 West Bank fainting epidemic begin; Israelis and Palestinians accuse each other of poison gas, but the cause is later determined mostly to be psychosomatic.

Debra Janine Thomas is an American figure skater and physician. She is the 1986 World champion, the 1988 Olympic bronze medalist, and a two-time U.S. national champion. Her rivalry with East Germany's Katarina Witt at the 1988 Calgary Olympics was known as the Battle of the Carmens.

Debi Thomas became the first African American to win the World Figure Skating Championships

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the northeast, approximating a quadripoint, Zimbabwe lies less than 200 metres away along the Zambezi River near Kazungula, Zambia. Namibia's capital and largest city is Windhoek.

Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the UN process for negotiating an agreement to limit dangerous climate change. It is an international treaty among countries to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system". The main way to do this is limiting the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It was signed in 1992 by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro. The treaty entered into force on 21 March 1994. "UNFCCC" is also the name of the Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the convention, with offices on the UN Campus in Bonn, Germany.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change enters into force.

Bertrand Piccard FRSGS is a Swiss explorer, psychiatrist and environmentalist. Along with Brian Jones, he was the first to complete a non-stop balloon flight around the globe, in a balloon named Breitling Orbiter 3. He was the initiator, chairman, and pilot, with André Borschberg, of Solar Impulse, the first successful round-the-world solar-powered flight. In 2012 Piccard was awarded a Champions of the Earth award by the UN Environment Programme. He is the founder and chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation.

Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.

Pope John Paul II was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005.

Pope John Paul II makes his first ever pontifical visit to Israel.

Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content amongst virtual communities and networks. Common features include:Online platforms that enable users to create and share content and participate in social networking. User-generated content—such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through online interactions. Service-specific profiles that are designed and maintained by the social media organization. Social media helps the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.

The social media site Twitter is founded.

Four police officers in Oakland, California, were fatally shot on March 21, 2009, by Lovelle Mixon, a convicted felon wanted on a no-bail warrant for a parole violation. Mixon shot and killed two police officers of the Oakland Police Department during a routine traffic stop. After escaping on foot to the nearby apartment of his sister, Mixon shot and killed two police SWAT team officers attempting to apprehend him. Mixon was killed as other officers on the team returned fire.

Four police officers are shot and killed and a fifth is wounded in two shootings at Oakland, California.