From Historynet: Today in History March 21

630             Heraclius  restores the True Cross, which he has recaptured from the Persians.

1556          Thomas Cranmer , the Archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake at Oxford after retracting the last of seven recantations that same day.

1617          Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe)  dies of either small pox or pneumonia while in England with her husband, 

John Rolfe .

1788          Almost the entire city of New Orleans, Louisiana, is destroyed by fire.

1806          Lewis  and Clark  begin their trip home after an 8,000 mile trek of the Mississippi basin and the Pacific Coast.

1851          Emperor Tu Duc  orders that Christian priests are to put to death.

1858          British forces in India lift the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.

1865          The Battle of Bentonville, N.C. ends, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop 

Union General William Sherman .

1906          Ohio passes a law that prohibits hazing by fraternities.

1908          Frenchman Henri Farman  carries a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.

1910          The U.S. Senate grants 

ex-President Teddy Roosevelt  an annual pension of $10,000.

1918          The Germans launch the 'Michael' offensive, better remembered as the First Battle of the Somme.

1928          President Calvin Coolidge  presents the Congressional Medal of Honor to 

Charles Lindbergh , a captain in the US Army Air Corps Reserve, for making the first solo trans-Atlantic flight. On June 11, 1927, Lindbergh had received the first Distinguished Flying Cross ever awarded.

1939          Singer Kate Smith  records "God Bless America" for Victor Records.

1941          The last Italian post in East Libya, North Africa, falls to the British.

1951          Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall  reports that the U.S. military has doubled to 2.9 million since the start of the Korean War.

1963          Alcatraz Island, the federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, California, closes.

1965          The United States launches Ranger 9, last in a series of unmanned lunar explorations.

1971          Two U.S. platoons in Vietnam refuse their orders to advance.

1975          As North Vietnamese forces advance, Hue and other northern towns in South Vietnam are evacuated.

1980          President Jimmy Carter  announces to the U.S. Olympic Team that they will not participate in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

1984           A Soviet submarine crashes into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.