What happened on 21 March?

9 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1871 Bismarck's chancellorship Minister-President of Prussia from 1862 and then Chancellor of the Reich he had made: the Kulturkampf, social insurance and the alliance system.
2. 1804 Napoleonic Code Comprehensive civil code promulgated under Napoleon; basis of civil law in much of continental Europe and beyond.
3. 1918 Spring Offensive (Kaiserschlacht) Germany's last gamble — five massive offensives on the Western Front.
4. 1960 Sharpeville massacre South African police kill at least 91 unarmed protesters in Sharpeville (the police record gave 69); turning point in the international anti-apartheid movement.
5. 1806 Born: Benito Juarez Indigenous Mexican president who reformed the church-state relationship.
6. 1839 Born: Modest Mussorgsky Russian composer; member of The Five.
7. 1935 Persia renamed Iran Reza Shah asks the world to call his country Iran, its endonym, rather than the Greek-derived Persia.
8. 1858 Lucknow falls to the British Colin Campbell's army — Highlanders, Sikhs and Gurkhas behind the heaviest siege train yet seen in India — retakes the capital of Awadh, the rebellion's last great stronghold. The
9. 1556 Burning of Thomas Cranmer After signing recantations under Mary I, the former archbishop renounces them at the stake in Oxford and thrusts first into the fire the hand that signed them.