February 21
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
February 21 is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 313 days remaining after February 21 until the end of the year (314 in leap years).
[change] Events
- 362 – Athanasius returns to Alexandria
- 1431 – The trial of Joan of Arc begins.
- 1440 – The Prussian Confederation is formed.
- 1543 – Battle of Wayna Daga – Combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeat Muslim army led by Ahmed Gragn.
- 1613 – Mikhail I is elected unanimously as Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia .
- 1743 – The premiere in London of George Frideric Handel's oratorio, Samson
- 1804 – The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales.
- 1842 – John J. Greenough patents the sewing machine.
- 1848 – Karl Marx publishes the Communist Manifesto.
- 1874 – The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first newspaper.
- 1875 – Jeanne Calment was born. She then went on to live for 122 years 164 days, the longest confirmed lifespan for any human being in history.
- 1878 – The first telephone book is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.
- 1885 – The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.
- 1893 – Thomas Edison receives two U.S. patents for a "Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps" and for a "Stop Device"
- 1916 – World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins.
- 1925 – The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
- 1937 – Initial flight of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile; League of Nations banned foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War.
- 1947 – In New York City Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
- 1948 – NASCAR is incorporated.
- 1952 – Language Martyrs' Day, marking language-revolution in the then East Pakistan (currently, the independent state of People's Republic of Bangladesh)
- 1952 – Churchill government in the UK abolishes Identity Cards to "set the people free".
- 1953 – Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the structure of the DNA molecule.
- 1960 – Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.
- 1965 – Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.
- 1970 – Swissair Flight 330: A mid-air bomb explosion and subsequent crash kills 38 passengers and nine crew members near Zürich, Switzerland.
- 1971 – The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.
- 1972 – President Richard Nixon visits the People's Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations.
- 1972 – The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
- 1973 – Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down a Libyan Airlines jet killing 108.
- 1974 – The long-running Japanese comic strip Sazae-san publishes its final installment in the Asahi Shimbun.
- 1974 – The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal in carrying out a truce with Egypt.
- 1975 – Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.
- 1988 – Jimmy Swaggart, on his own televangelism program being tapped in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, confesses that he is guilty of an unspecified sin and will be temporarily leaving the pulpit.
- 1995 – Serkadji prison mutiny in Algeria; 4 guards and 96 prisoners killed in a day and a half.
- 1995 – Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.
- 2000 – David Letterman returns to The Late Show over a month after having an emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery.
- 2003 – Over 100 concert goers die in a fire during a performance of the rock band Great White.
- 2004 – The first European political party organization, the European Greens, is established in Rome.
- 2006 – The United Kingdom's biggest-ever cash robbery is carried out at a depot in Kent.
[change] Births
- 1791 – Carl Czerny, Austrian composer (d. 1857)
- 1794 – Antonio López de Santa Anna, President of Mexico (d. 1876)
- 1875 – Jeanne Calment, officially the longest-lived human on record (d. 1997)
- 1880 – Waldemar Bonsels, German writer (d. 1952)
- 1893 – Andres Segovia, Spanish Guitarist (d. 1987)
- 1895 – Henrik Dam, Danish chemist, won the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, (d. 1976)
- 1907 – W. H. Auden, British poet (d. 1973)
- 1909 – Hans Erni, Swiss painter and sculptor
- 1910 – Douglas Bader, British fighter pilot (d. 1982)
- 1914 – Ilmari Juutilainen, Finnish fighter pilot (d. 1999)
- 1924 – Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe
- 1925 – Sam Peckinpah, American film director (d. 1984)
- 1927 – Erma Bombeck, American writer and humorist (d. 1996)
- 1927 – Hubert de Givenchy, French fashion designer
- 1933 – Nina Simone, American singer and musician (d. 2003)
- 1934 – Rue McClanahan, American actress (d. 2010)
- 1936 – Barbara Jordan, American politician (d. 1996)
- 1937 – King Harald V of Norway
- 1938 – Lester Bird, Antiguan politician
- 1942 – Margarethe von Trotta, German film director
- 1945 – Walter Momper, German politician
- 1946 – Alan Rickman, British actor
- 1947 – Olympia Snowe, American politician
- 1955 – Kelsey Grammer, American actor
- 1976 – Michael McIntyre, British comedian
- 1979 – Pascal Chimbonda, French footballer
- 1979 – Jennifer Love Hewitt, American actress
- 1980 – Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, King of Bhutan
- 1984 – David Odonkor, German footballer
- 1985 – Georgios Samaras, Greek footballer
- 1986 – Charlotte Church, Welsh singer and TV presenter
- 1987 – Ellen Page, Canadian actress
- 1989 – Corbin Bleu, American actor
- 1992 – Phil Jones, British footballer
[change] Deaths
- 1437 – King James I of Scotland (b. 1394)
- 1513 – Pope Julius II (b. 1443)
- 1543 – Ahmed Gragn, Sultan of Adal
- 1824 – Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Napoleon Bonaparte's wife, Josephine (b. 1781)
- 1919 – Kurt Eisner, Bavarian socialist (b. 1867)
- 1926 – Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist (b. 1853)
- 1938 – George Ellery Hale, American astronomer (b. 1868)
- 1941 – Frederick Banting, Canadian doctor, won the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, (b. 1891)
- 1944 – Ferenc Szisz, Hungarian-born French race car driver (b. 1873)
- 1945 – Eric Liddell, Scottish runner (b. 1902)
- 1965 – Malcolm X, American black activist (b. 1925)
- 1967 – Charles Beaumont, writer (b. 1929)
- 1968 – Howard Walter Florey, Australian pharmacologist (b. 1898)
- 1974 – Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player (b. 1930)
- 1984 – Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian novelist (b. 1905)
- 1991 – Dame Margot Fonteyn, British ballet dancer (b. 1919)
- 1995 – Calder Willingham, writer (b. 1922)
- 1996 – Morton Gould, American composer (b. 1913)
- 1997 – Josef Posipal, German footballer (b. 1927)
- 1999 – Ilmari Juutilainen, Finnish fighter pilot (b. 1914)
- 1999 – Gertrude B. Elion, American scientist (b. 1918)
- 2002 – John Thaw, British actor (b. 1942)
- 2004 – John Charles, Welsh footballer (b. 1931)
- 2008 – Emmanuel Sanon, Haitian footballer (b. 1951)
