March 21

• March 21, 1421
  A Franco-Scots army beat British at the Battle of Bauge
• March 21, 1556
  Thomas Cranmer, an archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at stake at age 66
• March 21, 1617
  Pocahontas dies of either small pox or pneumonia during preparation to sail back to Virginia
• March 21, 1668
  Jean de La Fontaine, one of the most widely read French poets, publishes his Fables Choisies, a collection of 124 fables dividing into six books
• March 21, 1697
  Tsar Peter the Great begins a tour through West Europe
• March 21, 1801
  British expeditionary corps under Sir Ralph Abercrombie defeat the French army under General Menou in the Battle of Alexandria during Anglo-Ottoman land offensive
• March 21, 1804
  The French civil code, later called the Napoleonic Code, is adopted and which forbids privileges based on birth and allows freedom of religion
• March 21, 1858
  British forces in India lift the siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion
• March 21, 1865
  The Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina, ends, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop Union General William Sherman
• March 21, 1871
  Journalist Henry M. Stanley began his famous expedition to Africa to locate the missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone
• March 21, 1871
  Otto von Bismarck becomes the 1st Chancellor of the German Empire
• March 21, 1918
  German Army begins the Great March Offensive and drives the Allied army back 40 kilometers before losing momentum
• March 21, 1921
  James "Big Jim" Colosimo, United States gangster and boss of an Italian American crime syndicate, is murdered by Al Capone
• March 21, 1935
  Persia is officially renamed Iran
• March 21, 1960
  Police kill 72 in South Africa and outlaws African National Congress during Sharpeville massacre
• March 21, 1980
  U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan
• March 21, 1990
  After 75 years of South African rule, Namibia becomes independent, with Sam Nujoma as the first president
• March 21, 1991
  United Nations Security Council panel decides to lift the food embargo on Iraq
• March 21, 1999
  Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon
• March 21, 2014
  Russia formally annexes Crimea after President Vladimir Putin signed a bill finalizing the annexation process