March 21, civil rights activists begin march from Selma to Montgomery

Today is Friday, March 21, the 80th day of 2025. There are 285 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 21, 1965, civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their third attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama — this time under the escort of U.S. Army and National Guard troops assigned by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Also on this date:

In 1952, the Moondog Coronation Ball, considered the first rock and roll concert, took place at Cleveland Arena.

In 1963, the United States closed Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary; over 1,500 inmates had been jailed at the island prison off the coast of San Francisco, California over its three decades of use.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would boycott the Summer Olympic games in Moscow because of the Soviet Union’s failure to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

In 1990, Namibia became an independent nation as the former colony marked the end of 75 years of South African rule.

In 2012, meting out unprecedented punishment for a bounty system that targeted key opposing players, the NFL suspended New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton without pay for the coming season and indefinitely banned the team’s former defensive coordinator; NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell fined the Saints $500,000 and took away two draft picks.

In 2019, President Donald Trump abruptly declared that the U.S. would recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights — the first country to do so — in a major shift in American policy.

In 2022, a China Eastern Boeing 737 aircraft with 132 people on board crashed in a mountainous area of southern China, setting off a forest fire visible from space in the country’s worst air disaster in decades. (All 123 passengers and nine crew members would later be confirmed dead.)