Otto von Bismarck is appointed as the first Chancellor of the German Empire.
Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) was a towering figure in 19th-century European politics, particularly known for his role in the unification of Germany and his adept diplomacy.

Early Life and Education: Bismarck was born on April 1, 1815, into an aristocratic family in the Kingdom of Prussia, which is now part of Germany. He studied law at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin.

Political Career: Bismarck began his political career in the Prussian civil service. He served as a diplomat in various capacities before being appointed as Prussian representative to the German Confederation in 1851.

Realpolitik: Bismarck was a master of Realpolitik, a political philosophy that prioritizes practical and realistic approaches over ideological or moral considerations. He famously stated that “Politics is the art of the possible.”

Unification of Germany: Bismarck’s most significant achievement was the unification of Germany. Through a series of carefully orchestrated wars and diplomatic maneuvers, he managed to unify the German states under Prussian leadership. Key conflicts include the Danish War (1864), Austro-Prussian War (1866), and Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).

Iron Chancellor: Bismarck served as Chancellor of the North German Confederation from 1867 and later as Chancellor of the German Empire from 1871 until 1890. He was known as the “Iron Chancellor” due to his authoritarian governing style and strong leadership.

Social Reforms: Despite his conservative leanings, Bismarck implemented several social reforms to counter the growing influence of socialism in Germany. These reforms included the introduction of health insurance, accident insurance, and old-age pensions, known as the “Bismarckian welfare state.”

Resignation and Legacy: Bismarck’s resignation in 1890 marked the end of an era in German politics. He had a profound impact on European politics and is often credited with shaping the balance of power that existed on the continent leading up to World War I.

Death and Rememberance: Bismarck died on July 30, 1898. He remains a controversial figure in history, admired for his political skill and criticized for his authoritarian methods. Nevertheless, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in modern German and European history.

World War I: The first phase of the German Spring Offensive, Operation Michael, begins.

Operation Michael, also known as the Spring Offensive, was a major German military campaign during World War I that took place from March to July 1918. It was the last attempt by the German army to achieve a decisive victory on the Western Front before the arrival of American troops and marked the high point of Germany’s military power during the war.

The operation began on March 21, 1918, with a massive artillery bombardment of the Allied lines. This was followed by an assault by three German armies, which succeeded in breaking through the Allied front and advancing towards the English Channel. However, the German advance was ultimately halted due to supply problems, the exhaustion of the troops, and the arrival of reinforcements from the Allied powers.

Despite early successes, Operation Michael was ultimately a failure for Germany, as it did not achieve its strategic objectives and resulted in heavy casualties on both sides. The operation marked the beginning of a series of offensives and counteroffensives that ultimately led to Germany’s defeat in the war.

Martin Luther King Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

The social media site Twitter is founded.

Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary (in California) closes.
[rdp-wiki-embed url=’https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcatraz_Federal_Penitentiary’]

The Butler Act prohibits the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee.

Evolution became a subject of bitter debate—and litigation—in the US as it slowly crept into science textbooks. By the 1920s, groups whose faith led them to understand the Bible as a literal account of events took their objections to Darwin’s theory to state legislatures in an effort to limit or ban school instruction in evolution. Traditionally, curriculum in the US was decided by each school district; there was no national requirement. Thus, teaching practices varied widely from state to state, as well as within state boundaries.

John Scopes in 1925.

In 1925, Tennessee became the first state to ban the teaching of evolution entirely from public school science classrooms. The Tennessee Anti-Evolution Act, also known as the Butler Act after the legislator who wrote it, proscribed teaching “any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and [teaching] instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” Eager to test the law’s constitutionality in court, the American Civil Liberties Union recruited a 24-year-old teacher named John Thomas Scopes to be indicted for violating the law. The trial of Tennessee v. John Scopes, which journalist H.L. Mencken famously dubbed the “Monkey Trial,” began in May 1925.

Defense lawyer Clarence Darrow hoped to convince the judge to find the Butler Act unconstitutional according to the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment, which stated that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Instead, a jury convicted Scopes of violating the Butler Act on July 21, 1925; Judge John Raulston fined him $100.

Other states meanwhile instituted similar bans on teaching evolution. The subject did not reappear in the courts for decades: Textbook publishers sidestepped the issue by leaving evolution mostly out of biology books. But a wave of court cases in the 1960s and ‘70s affirmed evolution’s place in public schools. In 1968, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Epperson v. Arkansas struck down evolution-banning statutes nationwide, declaring them “products of fundamentalist sectarian conviction.”

The 1970s saw the emergence of “creation science,” whose proponents claimed that scientific evidence supported the Bible’s account of creation. As a scientific theory that competed with evolution, they argued, creation science deserved a place alongside evolution in science curricula. Creation science advocates promoted laws mandating equal time in science classes for creation science and evolution—and were successful in at least 23 states. In 1987, the Supreme Court in the case Edwards v. Aguillard banned these laws, too, as an unconstitutional promotion of religion.

Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary closes.

On March 21, 1963, the Alcatraz Island federal prison in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its inmates and closed at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Alcatraz, also known as “The Rock,” had housed some of America’s most dangerous felons, since it opened in 1934.

Alcatraz had previously served as a fortress to protect the San Francisco Bay area and also was the home of the first operational lighthouse on the West Coast.

The Army gave control of Alcatraz to the U.S. Justice Department in 1933 so it could be used as a federal prison for inmates deemed too dangerous for other U.S. prisons, according to www.history.com.

Alcatraz had held some famous inmates such as Al “Scarface” Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly and gangster Alvin “Creepy Karpis” Karpowicz who was listed as “Public Enemy No. 1,” according to history.com.

Alcatraz was shut down in 1963 because its operating costs were higher than other prisons and exposure to the salty sea air was taking a toll on the buildings.

The 1979 movie “Escape from Alcatraz” starring Clinton Eastwood was an adaptation of the 1963 non-fiction book by J. Campbell Bruce about the 1962 prisoner escape from Alcatraz.

According to history.com, 36 inmates attempted to escape over the years.

“According to the U.S. Marshals Service, only three remain unaccounted for: Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin, who spent months digging out of their cells with crude tools before escaping on June 11, 1962, in one of the most famous prison breaks in history.”

Alcatraz Island today is a popular tourist attraction and is part of the National Park Service.

Nineteen people in Ponce, Puerto Rico, are shot by a police squad acting under orders of the USA appointed Governor, Blanton Winship.

The social media site Twitter is founded.

The Massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa were Police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding a further 180.