On this day: March 21
POSTED: 11:38 AM PDT Mar 18, 2013
UPDATED: 11:00 PM PDT Mar 20, 2013
Alcatraz prison closes, Martin Luther King Jr. marches toward Montgomery, the U.S. decides to boycott Moscow's Olympics, and Spielberg nabs his first Oscar, all on this day.
Public domain
1965: Martin Luther King Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. The marchers averaged 10 miles a day along U.S. Route 80, known in Alabama as the "Jefferson Davis Highway." Protected by 2,000 soldiers of the U.S. Army, 1,900 members of the Alabama National Guard under federal command, and many FBI agents and U.S. marshals, the marchers arrived in Montgomery on March 24, and at the Alabama State Capitol on March 25, where King delivered the speech "How Long, Not Long."
