Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March 21
March 21: Good Friday (Western Christianity, 2008); Purim ends at sundown (Judaism, 2008); Naw-Rúz in the Bahá'í calendar, Benito Juárez Day in Mexico, World Poetry Day.
- 1556 – Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (pictured), one of the founders of Anglicanism, was burnt at the stake in Oxford, England for heresy.
- 1800 – Pius VII was crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché.
- 1804 – The Napoleonic code, the French civil code established under Napoleon, entered into force.
- 1960 – Police in Sharpeville, South Africa opened fire on a group of unarmed black demonstrators who were protesting pass laws, killing almost 70 people and wounding about 180 others.
- 1980 – The United States announced the boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
- 1990 – Formerly known as South West Africa, Namibia gained independence from South Africa, with Sam Nujoma as its first President.