On this day

March 21, 1944

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

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Headlines from March 21, 1944

CASSINO PUSH LAGS; Germans Yield Hotel but Hold Fiercely to Edge of Town

By C.l. Sulzberger

Gers reptd infiltrating previously surrendered Continental Hotel, Cassino; NZ units role in surrender cited; Ger reserves reinforce Hill 165, Abbey Hill, amphitheatre and ducal palace positions; Lt Gen Heidrich reptd near front line; US planes supply Indian Gurkhas fighting on Hangman's Hill; Allied ships shell Littoria area, Anzio; Ger E-boat and lighter sunk; map

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Notable Births

Marie-Christine Barrault

1944Marie-Christine Barrault, French actress[†]

Marie-Christine Barrault is a French actress. She is best known for her performance in Cousin Cousine (1975) for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2010, she released her autobiography, titled This Long Way to Get to You.

1944Janet Daley, American-English journalist and author[†]

Janet Daley is an American-born conservative journalist based in Britain. She is a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph.

Hideki Ishima

1944Hideki Ishima, Japanese guitarist[†]

Hideki Ishima is a Japanese musician, known primarily for his work with Flower Travellin' Band and for creating the sitarla instrument. A guitarist and sitar player for nearly forty years, he now exclusively plays the sitarla, an instrument he invented in 2000 that combines aspects of a sitar with an electric guitar. Guitarists Kazuo Takeda, Akira Takasaki, Rolly, and Mikael Åkerfeldt have cited him as an influence.

Mike Jackson (British Army officer)

1944Mike Jackson, English general (died 2024)[†]

General Sir Michael David Jackson, was a British Army officer and one of its most high-profile generals since the Second World War. Originally commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1963, he transferred to the Parachute Regiment in 1970, with which he served two of his three tours of duty in Northern Ireland. On his first, he was present as an adjutant at the events of the Ballymurphy massacre (1971), where eleven unarmed civilians were shot dead by British troops, and then at Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters, killing fourteen. On his second, he was a company commander in the aftermath of the Warrenpoint ambush (1979), when the IRA killed 18 soldiers with two roadside bombs, the British Army's heaviest single loss of life during the Troubles. He was assigned to a staff post at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1982 before assuming command of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, in 1984. Jackson was posted to Northern Ireland for the third time, as a brigade commander, in the early 1990s.

David Lindley (musician)

1944David Lindley, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer (died 2023)[†]

David Perry Lindley was an American musician who founded the rock band El Rayo-X and worked with many other performers including Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Warren Zevon, Curtis Mayfield and Dolly Parton. He mastered such a wide variety of instruments that Acoustic Guitar magazine referred to him not as a multi-instrumentalist but instead as a "maxi-instrumentalist."