On This Day:
Friday March 21, 2014 This is the 80th day of the year, with 285 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: tectonic plates There are nine major tectonic plates and a number of smaller ones. They fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, covering the whole of the earth's surface. Continental plates, such as the Eurasian, carry the continents, while oceanic plates such as the Pacific form most of the seafloor; the remaining plates make up the fringes of the continental plates, which lie underwater. Through satellite images, scientists have recently discovered that the Arabian and African plates are moving away from each other at a rate of about 0.8 inches or 2 centimeters per year, stretching the earth's crust and widening the southern end of the Red Sea.
Holidays Feast day of St. Benedict, St. Enda, St. Nicholas of Flue, St. Fanchea, and St. Serapion of Thmuis.
Namibia: Independence Day (from South Africa, 1990).
South Africa: Human Rights Day (commemorating the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, when a peaceful demonstration against apartheid was fired upon and 69 people killed).
United Nations: International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Iowa: Bird Day.
Iran: Iranian New Year / Noruz.
Lesotho: National Tree Planting Day.
Events 1804 - The French civil code, the Napoleonic Code, was adopted.
1806 - Lewis and Clark began their trip home after investigating Mississippi basin and the Pacific Coast.
1826 - The Rensselaer School in Troy, New York was incorporated. Known today as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, it was the first engineering college in the U.S.
1946 - The United Nations set up temporary headquarters at Hunter College in New York City.
1961 - The Beatles made their debut in an appearance at Liverpool's The Cavern.
1963 - The Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
1965 - More than 3,000 demonstrators led by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Births 1685 - Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer.
1806 - Benito Juarez, Mexican statesman.
1869 - Florenz Ziegfeld, producer Ziegfeld Follies.
1905 - Phyllis McGinley, American Pulitzer prize-winning poet.
1910 - Julio Gallo, American vintner.
Deaths 1843 - Robert Southey, English poet.
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