Born on this day

Wednesday, March 21, 1685. :   The great German composer and organist, Johann Sebastian Bach, is born.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany on 21 March 1685. He was a German composer and organist of the Baroque Era. The Baroque Era spanned approximately 1600 to 1750, and followed the Renaissance era of musical style. Baroque music was typically harder to perform than Renaissance music as it was written more for virtuoso singers and instrumentalists, and made more complex use of harmony and rhythm.

Bach is arguably one of the greatest composers of all time. His most famous works include the Brandenburg Concertos, The Well-Tempered Clavier (a collection of 48 preludes and fugues), Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Mass in B Minor, much sacred choral music, and the St Matthew Passion. He wrote Cantatas, Masses and Magnificats, Chorales, Oratorios and many other styles and forms of music. When Bach died on 28 July 1750, he left behind the legacy of a musically talented family, many of whom also composed prolifically. His style strongly influenced both Mozart and Beethoven.

Australian History

Thursday, March 21, 1895. :   South Australia’s Suffrage Act is proclaimed after being passed by Queen Victoria.

South Australia is recognised as the first state of Australia to grant women the right to vote. It is generally accepted that this right occurred with the passing of a Bill on 18 December 1894. However, a letter from the Attorney-General advising Governor Kintore that Royal Assent would be required to enact the Bill, is dated 21 December 1894. The Bill was enacted when Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent on 2 February 1895.

Queen Victoria’s Royal assent granted women an equal right with men to vote, and it also allowed women to stand for election to South Australia’s House of Assembly. Women who owned property could also now vote in Legislative Council elections. The announcement proclaiming South Australia’s Suffrage Act was gazetted as ‘The Constitution Amendment Act 1894’ in the “South Australian Government Gazette” on 21 March 1895. The amendment stated the following:

Section 1. The right to vote for persons to sit in Parliament as members of the Legislative Council, and the right to vote for persons to sit in Parliament as members of the House of Assembly, are hereby extended to women.
Section 2. Women shall possess and may exercise the rights hereby granted, subject to the same qualifications and in the same manner as men.

World History

Friday, March 21, 1947. :   Two men die in the first documented case of death by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Homer Lusk Collyer and Langley Collyer were two American brothers, born in 1881 and 1885 respectively. Intelligent and educated, the men were known to be reclusive, tending to shun company. They also suffered OCD – obsessive compulsive disorder – which caused them to hoard anything and everything. Their compulsive hoarding made them targets for thieves who believed valuables were also stocked in the home. This had the result of making the men more reclusive, boarding up windows and setting up booby traps. Homer also suffered many health issues which finally led to him becoming blind, paralysed and totally dependent on his younger brother.

On 21 March 1947, police were tipped off to the presence of a dead body in the house. Workers were unable to get into the house by conventional means, due to large amounts of junk piled in the doorway and foyer, which included a wall of old newspapers, folding beds and chairs, half a sewing machine, boxes, parts of a wine press among other junk. Patrolman William Baker finally broke in through a window into a second-story bedroom. Behind this window lay, among other things, more packages and newspaper bundles, empty cardboard boxes lashed together with rope, the frame of a baby carriage, a rake, and old umbrellas tied together. After a two-hour crawl, Baker came across the body of Homer Collyer. A Medical Examiner ruled that death had occurred from malnutrition, and that Homer had died less than a day earlier. It was then necessary to find out where the stench in the house originated.

Returning to the house, the clean-up of the junk and search for Homer’s brother Langley continued for several weeks. Finally, on 8 April, Langley’s decomposing body was found just a few metres from where his brother’s body had lain. Investigations showed that Langley had been crawling through a tunnel of newspapers to bring food to his paralysed brother when one of his own booby traps fell and crushed him. Homer, blind and paralysed, starved to death several days later.

World History

Friday, March 21, 1980. :   The USA announces its intention to boycott the Moscow Olympics due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was publicly decried around the world. On 27 December 1979 700 KGB spetsnaz special forces troops dressed in Afghan uniforms stormed the Presidential Palace in Kabul, killing President Hafizullah Amin. On that day, Soviet ground forces also invaded from the north. It was intended that such action would end the factional struggles within the PDPA, the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan. However, the Afghans mounted a resistance movement which ultimately meant that the Soviet-Afghan war continued for ten years.

On 21 March 1980, in protest over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, USA President Jimmy Carter announced the intention of the US to boycott the Games of the XXII Olympiad to be held in Moscow that year. 64 other countries eventually joined the US in its protest, with only eighty nations participating – the lowest number since 1956.

Internet

Tuesday, March 21, 2006. :   The first Twitter message is sent.

Twitter is a microblogging and social networking service based in the United States and used worldwide. Users communicate throughout the day with brief messages known as “tweets” via a mobile device keypad or computer. As of 2020, there are about 48.35 million monthly active Twitter users in the US and 262 million outside the US.

Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey (@Jack), Evan Williams (@Ev), Biz Stone (@Biz) and Noah Glass (@Noah). Dorsey originally envisaged Twitter as an SMS-based communications platform, and after pitching the idea to co-founders Williams and Stone of the podcasting company Odeo, Dorsey was encouraged to develop the project further. Glass was the software developer who came up with the original name of “twttr”.

The first Twitter message was sent by Jack Dorsey on 21 March 2006. It read “just setting up my twttr.” Originally, Messages could not exceed 140 characters; this was later expanded to 280 characters.

Twttr was launched to the public in July 2006, and about six months later became Twitter.