Control panel of Computer Space

Computer Space is a space-combat arcade game released in 1971. Created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering, it was the first arcade video game and the first commercially available video game. In the game the player controls a rocket engaged in a missile battle against a pair of hardware-controlled flying saucers set against a starfield background. The goal is to score more hits than the enemy within a set time period. The game is enclosed in a custom fiberglass cabinet, which Bushnell designed to look futuristic. Bushnell and Dabney created the game to be a coin-operated version of Spacewar!, a 1962 computer game. They could not economically run the game on a general-purpose minicomputer, so they built specialized hardware for the game. They ran their first location test in August 1971, and it was shown to industry press and distributors at the annual Music Operators of America Expo in October. More than one thousand cabinets were sold by mid-1972. (Full article...)

Gateshead Millennium Bridge, tilted to allow boats to pass underneath

• ... that Gateshead Millennium Bridge (pictured) is the world's first tilt bridge?
• ... that Peter Walker choreographed an Oklahoma!-inspired dream ballet for the film I'm Thinking of Ending Things?
• ... that Ukrainian parties obtained only a fifth of the votes in the 1917 Kiev City Duma election?
• ... that when Oprah Winfrey was honored at the 2018 Golden Globes, the first person she thanked was Dennis Swanson, the Chicago TV station manager who hired her?
• ... that the women's wheelchair race at the 2021 Tokyo Marathon featured just two competitors?
• ... that Angel Joy Chavis Rocker, a guidance counselor with no political experience, was the first black woman to run for President of the United States as a Republican?
• ... that the Hittite plague in the 14th century BC was the the first documented use of a disease as a biological weapon?
• ... that Jane Cakebread's 277 court appearances for drunkenness helped bring about the Inebriates Act of 1898?

1915 Çanakkale Bridge

• The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge (pictured), the first bridge over the Dardanelles and the world's longest suspension bridge, opens in Turkey.
• A 7.3 magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, killing at least four people and injuring more than 225 others.
• The Power of the Dog wins Best Film and Best Director at the British Academy Film Awards.
• Cyclone Gombe kills at least 53 people in Mozambique.
• Yoon Suk-yeol is elected president of South Korea.

March 21: Oltenia Day in Romania

Poster for the Moondog Coronation Ball

• 1788 – A large fire destroyed 856 of the 1,100 structures in New Orleans.
• 1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: At the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube in north-central France, Napoleon suddenly realized that his French army was vastly outnumbered by Allied forces, and hurriedly ordered a retreat.
• 1952 – The Moondog Coronation Ball (poster pictured), generally considered to be the first major rock and roll concert, took place at the Cleveland Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 2019 – A major explosion at a chemical plant in Yancheng, China, killed 78 people and injured 617 others.