2 Farvardin 1379

Events

• 1800 (226 years ago) With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII is crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché.
• 1801 (225 years ago) The Battle of Alexandria is fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis near Alexandria in Egypt.
• 1829 (197 years ago) The Wellington–Winchilsea duel takes place in London involving the Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington.
• 1935 (91 years ago) Shah of Iran Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran.
• 1980 (46 years ago) Cold War: American President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet–Afghan War.
• 1983 (43 years ago) The first cases of the 1983 West Bank fainting epidemic begin; Israelis and Palestinians accuse each other of poison gas, but the cause is later determined mostly to be psychosomatic.
• 1990 (36 years ago) Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule.
• 2000 (26 years ago) Pope John Paul II makes his first ever pontifical visit to Israel.

Births

• 1685 (341 years ago) Johann Sebastian Bach, German Baroque composer and musician (died 1750)
• 1768 (258 years ago) Joseph Fourier, French mathematician and physicist (died 1830)
• 1950 (76 years ago) Sergey Lavrov, Russian politician and diplomat, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs
• 1955 (71 years ago) Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian politician and retired military officer, 38th President of Brazil
• 1958 (68 years ago) Gary Oldman, English actor, filmmaker, musician, and author
• 1960 (66 years ago) Ayrton Senna, Brazilian race car driver (died 1994)
• 1980 (46 years ago) Ronaldinho, Brazilian footballer
• 1991 (35 years ago) Antoine Griezmann, French footballer

Deaths

• 1556 (470 years ago) Thomas Cranmer, English archbishop (born 1489)
• 1617 (409 years ago) Pocahontas, Algonquian Indigenous woman (born c. 1595)
• 1762 (264 years ago) Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, French priest, astronomer, and academic (born 1713)
• 1843 (183 years ago) Robert Southey, English poet, historian, and translator (born 1774)
• 1915 (111 years ago) Frederick Winslow Taylor, American golfer, tennis player, and engineer (born 1856)
• 2013 (13 years ago) Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic (born 1930)
• 2021 (5 years ago) Nawal El Saadawi, Egyptian secularist, feminist (born 1931)
• 2025 (a year ago) George Foreman, American boxer, actor, and businessman (born 1949)

All 471 events, births and deaths of March 21