843 Icon veneration officially re-instated in Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople
1888 Samuel Zwemer preaches his first sermon—to a congregation of African-Americans in a small New Brunswick, New Jersey, church. He will go on to become a notable missionary to the Arab world.
1502 Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty, crowned Shah of Persia (rules till 1524)
1966 Military coup led by Indonesian General Suharto breaks out
1985 Mikhail Gorbachev replaces Konstantin Chernenko as Soviet leader
2011 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes 130 km (80 miles) east of Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami killing thousands of people and causing the second worst nuclear accident in history at Fukushima nuclear plant
2018 China’s National People’s Congress approves removal of term limits for a leader, will allow Xi Jinping presidency for life
2020 COVID-19 declared a pandemic by the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, with 121,564 cases worldwide and 4,373 deaths
HISTORICAL EVENTS TODAY
TODAY IN FILM & TV
1958 Charles Van Doren finally loses on US TV game show “Twenty-One” after winning $129,000 – later revealed to be fixed
TODAY IN MUSIC
1851 Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto” premieres in Venice
TODAY IN SPORT
1917 1st NHL championship game ever played, Toronto Arenas beats Montreal Canadiens 7-3 in 1st of 2 game set (second game on March 13)
DO YOU KNOW THIS FACT ABOUT TODAY?
1986 1 million days since the foundation of Rome on April 21st, 753 BC
WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?
2021 Digital art work “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” a digital college by Beeple, with a non-fungible token, sells for record $69.3 million in online auction by Christie’s
