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.
German Federal Archive/Wikimedia Commons
1943: Wehrmacht officer Rudolf von Gersdorff plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler by using a suicide bomb, but the plan falls through when Hitler's planned 30-minute visit to a military museum in Berlin is cut short as a security precaution. Von Gersdorff is able to defuse the bomb in time and avoid suspicion.
