Quick glance of 21 March in the pages of History

March 21: Here are the major events that occurred on 21 March….

• 21 March, 1610: King of Great Britain King James I of England and VI of Scotland addresses English House of Commons.
• 21 March, 1804: Napoleonic Code adopted in France, stresses clearly written and accessible law.
• 21 March, 1871: Welsh journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley begins his famous expedition to Africa.
• 21 March, 1887: Birth anniversary of Manabendra Nath Roy (M.N. Roy). He was an Indian revolutionary, radical activist and political theorist, as well as a noted philosopher in the 20th century. Roy was a founder of the Mexican Communist Party and the Communist Party of India.
• 21 March, 1916: Birth anniversary of Ustad Bismillah Khan who was born in Varanasi on tis day. He was a Shehnai Maestro and had a very important role in popularising the musical instrument in India. For his contribution towards Indian classical music, he was awarded India’s highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna by the Indian Government and he became the third musician to receive this award after MS Subbulakshmi and Ravi Shankar.
• 21 March, 1933: Day of Potsdam in Nazi Germany, a ceremony to open the new Reichstag after the fire in February; Dictator of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler and German President and WWI General, Paul von Hindenburg shake hands in public
• 21 March, 1971: World Forestry Day or International Day of Forests is celebrated every year on this day to raise public awareness about the values, significance and contributions of the forests to balance the life cycle on the earth. In 1971, World Forestry Day was 1st adopted at the 23rd General Assembly of the European Confederation of Agriculture.
• 21 March, 1971: Cricket legend great Sunil Gavaskar scores first of his 34 Test Cricket centuries; 116 in drawn 3rd Test at Georgetown, Guyana.
• 21 March, 1990: Namibia becomes independent of South Africa, Sam Nujoma becomes president.
• 21 March, 1994: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) enters into force after being ratified by the required number of nations.
• 21 March, 2002: In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh along with three other suspects are charged with murder for their part in the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
• 21 March, 2018: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg admits they “made mistakes” after data on 50 million users is harvested by Cambridge Analytica.