Today in History: March 21, civil rights activists begin march from Selma to Montgomery

Today is Saturday, March 21, the 80th day of 2026. 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 1873, the Spanish National Assembly abolished slavery in Puerto Rico, then a Spanish colony; enslaved people were required to work for three more years for their former owners.

In 1933, Germany's Nazi government established its first concentration camp in the town of Dachau, ostensibly for political prisoners; Dachau held more than 200,000 prisoners and more than 40,000 died there before American forces liberated the camp in April 1945.

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

In 1960, police in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire and killed at least 69 people at a demonstration against apartheid laws.

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 1972, Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment and sent it to the states for ratification by March 1979 (later extended to 1982); 35 of the required 38 states met the ratification deadline. With 38 states having since ratified, its status is in legal limbo

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...