On this day

March 21, 1937

Revisit the news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.

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Headlines from March 21, 1937

Notable Births

Ann Clwyd

1937Ann Clwyd, Welsh journalist and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Wales (died 2023)[†]

Ann Clwyd Roberts was a Welsh Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Cynon Valley for 35 years, from 1984 until 2019. Although she had intended to stand down in 2015, she was re-elected in that year's general election and in 2017 before standing down in 2019. Clwyd is the longest-serving female MP for a Welsh constituency.

Tom Flores

1937Tom Flores, American football player and coach[†]

Thomas Raymond Flores is an American former professional football player in the American Football League (AFL) and coach in the National Football League (NFL). He played as a quarterback for nine seasons in the AFL, primarily with the Oakland Raiders. After his retirement as a coach, he was a radio announcer for more than twenty years.

Pierre-Jean Rémy

1937Pierre-Jean Rémy, French diplomat and author (died 2010)[†]

Pierre-Jean Rémy is the pen-name of Jean-Pierre Angremy who was a French diplomat, novelist, and essayist. He was elected to the Académie française on 16 June 1988, and won the 1986 Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française for his novel Une ville immortelle.

Historical Events

Ponce massacre

1937Ponce massacre: Nineteen unarmed civilians in Ponce, Puerto Rico are gunned down by police in a terrorist attack ordered by the US-appointed Governor, Blanton Winship.[†]

The Ponce massacre took place on Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937, in Ponce, Puerto Rico, when a peaceful civilian march turned into a police shooting in which 17 civilians and two policemen were killed, and more than 200 civilians wounded. None of the civilians were armed and most of the dead were reportedly shot in their backs. The march had been organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to commemorate the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873, and to protest the U.S. government's imprisonment of the Party's leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, on sedition charges.