Today in history

March 21
International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, United Nations

1891
A Hatfield marries a McCoy, ends long feud in West Virginia.

1960
South African police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators in Sharpeville near Johannesburg. The demonstrators were protesting the establishment of apartheid pass laws which restricted movement of non-whites. In Sharpeville itself, 69 were killed and 176 wounded when police opened fire on the crowd, 63 of them shot in the back. In the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, protests broke out in Cape Town and elsewhere and there were further casualties. Overall, 13,000 were jailed.

1965
3,200 civil rights demonstrators, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and under protection of a federalized National Guard, began a week-long march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol at Montgomery in support of voting rights for black Americans.

1969
The newly wed John Lennon & Yoko Ono begin their famous “bed-in for peace” at the Amsterdam Hilton.

1977
Menomonee activists take over courthouse in Kenosha, Wisc., demanding authorities investigate the beating of two women.

1990
The Ploughshares Two disabled a U.S. F-111 bomber in Upper Heyford, England. The first plowshares action in Britain.