February 21

February 21 is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 313 days remaining until the end of the year (314 in leap years).

Events

Up to 1900

362 – Athanasius returns to Alexandria.
1245 – Bishop Thomas, the first–known Bishop of Finland, is granted resignation after confessing to torture and forgery.
1431 – The trial of Joan of Arc begins.
1437 – King James I of Scotland is murdered.
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.
1808 – Without a previous declaration of war, Russian troops enter then–Swedish territory in Eastern Finland, starting the Finnish War, which later results in Russia taking control of Finland.
1842 – John J. Greenough patents the sewing machine.
1848 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.
1858 – Corinth, Greece, is destroyed by an earthquake. The city is rebuilt 6 kilometers away.
1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Valverde is fought near Fort Craig in the New Mexico territory.
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".

1901 – 1950

1902 – Harvey Cushing carries out the first brain surgery.
1907 – British passenger ship Berlin sinks in a storm in the harbor of Hoek van Holland, Netherlands, killing 128 people.
1913 – Ioannina is incorporated into the Greek state after the Balkan Wars.
1916 – World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins.
1918 – The last–surviving Carolina Parakeet dies in Cincinnati Zoo, making the species extinct.
1919 – German socialist Kurt Eisner is assassinated.
1921 – The Republic of Georgia's first Constitution is adopted.
1921 – Persian Prime Minister Fathollah Akbar Sepahdar is removed from power in a coup.
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.
1945 – World War II: Japanese Kamikaze planes sink the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea and damage the USS Saratoga.
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.

1951 – 2000

1952 – Language Martyrs' Day, marking language–revolution in the then East Pakistan through Bengali Language Movement (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.
1958 – The peace symbol, commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom.
1960 – Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.
1960 – The first Olympic biathlon is held, during the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. Over 20 kilometers, Sweden's Klas Lestander becomes the first Olympic champion in this event.
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.
1976 – The first Winter Paralympics are held in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden.
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.
1995 – Jeanne Calment reaches the age of 120 years, the first person known to have reached this age.
2000 – David Letterman returns to The Late Show over a month after having an emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery.

From 2001

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.
2005 – A series of avalanches kill over 100 people in Kashmir.
2006 – The United Kingdom's biggest–ever cash robbery is carried out at a depot in Kent, England.
2007 – Then–Prime Minister of Italy Romano Prodi attempts to resign, but his resignation is rejected by President of Italy Giorgio Napolitano.
2012 – EU finance ministers reach an agreement on a 30 billion–Euro bailout for Greece.
2013 – A bombing in Damascus, Syria, kills at least 53 people.
2013 – Two bomb blasts in Hyderabad, India, kill 17 people.

Births

Up to 1900

1397 – Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy (d. 1471)
1484 – Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg (d. 1535)
1556 – Sethus Calvisius, German composer, chronicler and astronomer (d. 1615)
1591 – Gerard Desargues, French mathematician and architect (d. 1661)
1594 – John Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar (d. 1626)
1705 – Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, English admiral (d. 1781)
1723 – Louis-Pierre Anquetil, French historian (d. 1808)
1728 – Tsar Peter III of Russia (d. 1762)
1779 – Friedrich Carl von Savigny, German jurist and historian (d. 1861)
1783 – Princess Catherine of Wuerttemberg, Queen Consort of Westphalia (d. 1835)
1791 – John Mercer, English dye and fabric chemist (d. 1866)
1791 – Carl Czerny, Austrian composer (d. 1857)
1794 – Antonio López de Santa Anna, President of Mexico (d. 1876)
1801 – John Henry Newman, English theologian and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (d. 1890)
1815 – Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, French painter (d. 1891)
1817 – José Zorilla y Moral, Spanish dramatist (d. 1893)
1821 – Rachel Félix, French actress (d. 1858)
1835 – Mikhail Mikeshin, Russian artist (d. 1896)
1836 – Leo Delibes, French composer (d. 1891)
1844 – Charles-Marie Widor, French organist and composer (d. 1937)
1856 – Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Dutch architect (d. 1934)
1859 – Mikhail Rodzianko, Russian statesman (d. 1924)
1860 – Goscombe John, Welsh sculptor (d. 1952)
1865 – John Haden Badley, English school founder (d. 1967)
1867 – Otto Hermann Kahn, German millionaire (d. 1934)
1875 – Jeanne Calment, French supercentenarian, officially the longest–lived human on record (d. 1997)
1876 – Pyotr Konchalovsky, Russian painter (d. 1956)
1876 – Joseph Meister, first person to be inoculated against Rabies (d. 1940)
1878 – Mirra Alfassa, Indian spiritual leader (d. 1973)
1880 – Waldemar Bonsels, German writer (d. 1952)
1880 – Otto Christman, Canadian soccer player (d. 1963)
1881 – Kenneth J. Alford, British composer (d. 1945)
1882 – William Jeremiah Tuttle, American freestyle swimmer and water polo player (d. 1930)
1885 – Sacha Guitry, French actor (d. 1957)
1887 – Korechika Anami, Japanese general (d. 1945)
1888 – Clemence Dane, British novelist and playwright (d. 1965)
1893 – Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (d. 1987)
1895 – Henrik Dam, Danish chemist, won the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)
1899 – Bernard Griffin, Archbishop of Westminster (d. 1956)
1900 – Madeleine Renaud, French theatre actress (d. 1994)

1901 – 1950

1903 – Anaïs Nin, French writer (d. 1977)
1903 – Raymond Queneau, French writer (d. 1976)
1907 – W. H. Auden, British poet (d. 1973)
1909 – Hans Erni, Swiss painter and sculptor (d. 2015)
1910 – Douglas Bader, British fighter pilot (d. 1982)
1913 – Roger Laurent, Belgian racing driver (d. 1997)
1914 – Ilmari Juutilainen, Finnish fighter pilot (d. 1999)
1914 – Park Su-geun, South Korean painter (d. 1965)
1915 – Godfrey Brown, British athlete (d. 1995)
1915 – Ann Sheridan, American actress (d. 1967)
1917 – Lucille Bremer, American actress (d. 1996)
1917 – Tadd Dameron, American pianist and composer (d. 1965)
1917 – Otto Kittel, German World War II flying ace (d. 1945)
1919 – Kehat Shorr, Israeli shooting coach (d. 1972)
1921 – John Rawls, American philosopher (d. 2002)
1921 – Zdenek Miler, Czech animator (d. 2011)
1921 – Antonio Maria Javierre Ortas, Spanish cardinal (d. 2007)
1924 – Robert Mugabe, former President of Zimbabwe (d. 2019)
1924 – Silvano Piovanelli, Italian cardinal (d. 2016)
1925 – Tom Gehrels, Dutch–American astronomer (d. 2011)
1925 – Jack Ramsay, American basketball coach (d. 2014)
1925 – Sam Peckinpah, American movie director (d. 1984)
1927 – Erma Bombeck, American writer and humorist (d. 1996)
1927 – Hubert de Givenchy, French fashion designer (d. 2018)
1927 – Pierre Mercure, Canadian musician and composer (d. 1966)
1929 – Chespirito, Mexican actor, director and screenwriter (d. 2014)
1933 – Nina Simone, American singer and musician (d. 2003)
1934 – Rue McClanahan, American actress (d. 2010)
1935 – Mark McManus, Scottish actor (d. 1994)
1935 – Jean Pelletier, 37th Mayor of Quebec City
1936 – Barbara Jordan, American politician (d. 1996)
1937 – King Harald V of Norway
1937 – Ron Clarke, Australian athlete and politician (d. 2015)
1937 – Jilly Cooper, English novelist
1937 – Gary Lockwood, American actor
1938 – Bobby Charles, American singer-songwriter (d. 2010)
1938 – Lester Bird, Antiguan politician, former Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda
1940 – John Lewis, American politician and civil rights activist (d. 2020)
1942 – Margarethe von Trotta, German movie director
1942 – Magnus Linklater, Scottish newspaper editor
1943 – David Geffen, American record producer
1944 – Kitty Winn, American actress
1945 – Paul Newton, British musician (Uriah Heep)
1945 – Walter Momper, German politician, former Mayor of Berlin
1946 – Tyne Daly, American actress
1946 – Anthony Daniels, British actor
1946 – Alan Rickman, British actor (d. 2016)
1947 – Victor Sokolov, Russian journalist (d. 2006)
1947 – Olympia Snowe, American politician, former United States Senator for Maine
1947 – Marcel Paquet, Belgian philosopher (d. 2014)
1948 – Bill Slayback, American baseball player (d. 2015)
1949 – Larry Drake, American actor (d. 2016)
1949 – Ronnie Hellström, Swedish footballer
1949 – Jerry Harrison, American musician
1950 – Hakan Nesser, Swedish writer

1951 – 1975

1951 – Vince Welnick, American musician
1952 – Jean-Jacques Burnel, British musician
1952 – Vitaly Churkin, Russian diplomat (d. 2017)
1952 – Igor Levitin, Russian political figure
1953 – William Petersen, American actor
1953 – Christine Ebersole, American singer
1954 – Ivo Van Damme, Belgian athlete (d. 1976)
1954 – Rudolf Simek, Austrian philologist
1955 – Kelsey Grammer, American actor
1956 – Ha Jin, Chinese–American writer
1957 – Nikolay Rastorguyev, Russian singer
1958 – Mary Chapin Carpenter, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1958 – Jack Coleman, American actor
1958 – Alan Trammell, American baseball player and manager
1960 – Steve Wynn, American singer-songwriter
1960 – Plamen Oresharski, 52nd Prime Minister of Bulgaria
1961 – Christopher Atkins, American actor
1962 – Vanessa Feltz, British television presenter
1962 – Chuck Palahniuk, American writer
1962 – David Foster Wallace, American writer (d. 2008)
1963 – William Baldwin, American actor
1964 – Huw Higginson, British actor
1964 – Mark Kelly, American astronaut
1964 – Scott Kelly, American astronaut
1964 – Jane Tomlinson, British cancer campaigner (d. 2007)
1965 – Steve Lee, Sound effects wrangler and film historian
1967 – Leroy Burrell, American athlete
1969 – James Dean Bradfield, Welsh musician (Manic Street Preachers)
1969 – Tony Meola, American footballer
1969 – Chen Wei, Chinese dissident
1970 – Michael Slater, Australian cricketer
1973 – Heri Joensen, Faroese musician
1973 – Brian Rolston, American ice hockey player
1974 – Ivan Campo, Spanish footballer
1974 – Roberto Heras, Spanish cyclist

From 1976

1976 – Michael McIntyre, British comedian
1977 – Steve Francis, American basketball player
1979 – Pascal Chimbonda, French footballer
1979 – Shane Gibson, American guitarist (d. 2014)
1979 – Jennifer Love Hewitt, American actress
1979 – Jordan Peele, American actor, director and screenwriter
1980 – Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, King of Bhutan
1980 – Tiziano Ferro, Italian singer-songwriter and producer
1981 – Jun Kaname, Japanese actor
1982 – Andre Barrett, American basketball player
1983 – Lusine Gevorkyan, Russian–Armenian singer
1984 – Andreas Seppi, Italian tennis player
1984 – David Odonkor, German footballer
1985 – Georgios Samaras, Greek footballer
1986 – Prince Amedeo of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este
1986 – Charlotte Church, Welsh singer and TV presenter
1987 – Ellen Page, Canadian actress
1987 – Ashley Greene, American model and actress
1987 – Carlos Carmona, Chilean footballer
1987 – Eniola Aluko, English footballer
1987 – Tuppence Middleton, English actress
1988 – Matthias de Zordo, Spanish footballer
1989 – Josh Walker, English footballer
1989 – Corbin Bleu, American actor
1989 – Kristin Herrera, American actress
1989 – Scout Taylor-Compton, American actress
1990 – Mattias Tedenby, Swedish ice hockey player
1990 – David Addy, Ghanaian footballer
1991 – Riyad Mahrez, Algerian footballer
1992 – Phil Jones, British footballer
1996 – Sophie Turner, English actress
2001 – Isabella Acres, American actress

Deaths

Up to 1900

4 – Gaius Caesar, heir to Augustus Caesar
1437 – King James I of Scotland (b. 1394)
1513 – Pope Julius II (b. 1443)
1543 – Ahmed Gragn, Sultan of Adal
1554 – Hieronymus Bock, German botanist (b. 1498)
1572 – Cho Shik, Korean poet and scholar (b. 1501)
1677 – Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (b. 1632)
1715 – Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, Governor of the province of Maryland (b. 1637)
1730 – Pope Benedict XIII (b. 1649)
1788 – Johann Georg Palitzsch, German astronomer (b. 1723)
1821 – Georg Friedrich von Martens, German diplomat (b. 1756)
1824 – Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Napoleon Bonaparte's wife, Josephine (b. 1781)
1846 – Emperor Ninko of Japan (b. 1800)
1861 – Lars Levi Laestadius, Swedish missionary (b. 1800)
1862 – Justinus Kerner, German poet (b. 1786)
1894 – Gustave Caillebotte, French painter (b. 1848)
1900 – Charles Piazzi Smyth, Scottish astronomer (b. 1819)

1901 – 2000

1901 – George Francis Fitzgerald, Irish mathematician (b. 1851)
1919 – Kurt Eisner, Bavarian socialist (b. 1867)
1926 – Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist (b. 1853)
1934 – Augusto Nicolas Calderon Sandino, Nicaraguan revolutionary (b. 1895)
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)
1958 – Duncan Edwards, English footballer (b. 1936)
1965 – Malcolm X, American civil rights activist (b. 1925)
1967 – Charles Beaumont, American writer (b. 1929)
1968 – Howard Walter Florey, Australian pharmacologist (b. 1898)
1972 – Zhang Guohua, Chinese general and politician (b. 1914)
1972 – Bronislava Nijinska, Polish–Russian ballet dancer (b. 1891)
1974 – Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player (b. 1930)
1980 – Mario Lanzi, Italian athlete (b. 1914)
1982 – Gershom Scholem, German–born Israeli Jewish philosopher (b. 1897)
1984 – Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian novelist (b. 1905)
1986 – Shigechiyo Izumi, Japanese centenarian, previously thought to have been the oldest man ever (b. probably in 1890)
1987 – Jack Catain Jr., American businessman and convicted criminal (b. 1930)
1987 – Noel Odell, British mountaineer (b. 1890)
1989 – Alex Thepot, French footballer (b. 1906)
1991 – Dame Margot Fonteyn, British ballet dancer (b. 1919)
1994 – Johannes Steinhoff, German pilot and commander (b. 1913)
1995 – Calder Willingham, writer (b. 1922)
1996 – Morton Gould, American composer (b. 1913)
1997 – Josef Posipal, German footballer (b. 1927)
1999 – Walter Lini, 1st Prime Minister of Vanuatu (b. 1939)
1999 – Ilmari Juutilainen, Finnish fighter pilot (b. 1914)
1999 – Gertrude B. Elion, American scientist (b. 1918)

From 2001

2002 – John Thaw, British actor (b. 1942)
2003 – Eddie Thomson, Scottish footballer (b. 1947)
2004 – John Charles, Welsh footballer (b. 1931)
2005 – Ara Berberian, American opera singer (b. 1930)
2008 – Sunny Lowry, first British woman to swim across the English Channel (b. 1911)
2008 – Sufi Abu Taleb, Egyptian politician (b. 1925)
2008 – Emmanuel Sanon, Haitian footballer (b. 1951)
2013 – Bruce Millan, British politician (b. 1927)
2013 – Bob Godfrey, British animator (b. 1921)
2014 – Sakis Boulas, Greek singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1954)
2014 – Georgette Rejewski, Dutch actress (b. 1910)
2014 – Francesco Di Giacomo, Italian singer (b. 1947)
2014 – Stanley Brotman, American federal judge (b. 1924)
2014 – Matthew Robinson, Australian Paralympic snowboarder (b. 1985)
2015 – Clark Terry, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1920)
2015 – Sadeq Tabatabaei, Iranian politician (b. 1943)
2016 – Eric Brown, Scottish test pilot (b. 1919)
2017 – Kenneth Arrow, American economist (b. 1921)
2017 – Douglas Coe, American religious leader (b. 1928)
2017 – Desmond Connell, Irish cardinal (b. 1926)
2017 – Cosmo Haskard, Irish–born British Governor of the Falkland Islands (b. 1916)
2017 – Bengt Gustavsson, Swedish footballer (b. 1928)
2017 – Jeanne Martin Cissé, Guinean teacher and politician (b. 1926)
2017 – Brunella Bovo, Italian actress (b. 1932)
2017 – Ion Croitoru, Canadian professional wrestler (b. 1963)
2017 – Edwin Kessler, American atmospheric scientist (b. 1928)
2018 – Billy Graham, American evangelist (b. 1918)
2018 – Emma Chambers, English actress (b. 1964)
2019 – Peter Tork, American keyboardist (The Monkees) (b. 1942)

Observances

International Mother Language Day
Language Movement Day (Bangladesh)
Biikebrennen in Northern Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) and Southern Jutland (Denmark)