October 21

October 21 is the 294th day of the year (295th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 71 days remaining.

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Events

• 686 – Conon becomes Pope.
• 1600 – Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-Nineteenth century.
• 1797 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched.
• 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar – a British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain.
• 1824 – Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
• 1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Ball's Bluff – Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war. Baker, a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed in the fighting.
• 1867 – Manifest Destiny: Medicine Lodge Treaty – Near Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate a reservation in western Oklahoma.
• 1879 – Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric light bulb (it lasted 13 1/2 hours before burning out).
• 1895 – The Republic of Taiwan collapses as Japanese forces invade.
• 1902 – In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
• 1934 – Mao Tse-tung and his followers begin the Long March.
• 1941 – World War II: Germans rampage in Yugoslavia, killing thousands of civilians.
• 1944 – The first kamikaze attack: HMAS Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg (441 pound) bomb off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.
• 1945 – Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
• 1945 – Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married actress Evita.
• 1947 – 21 die as a fire destroys an asylum in Hoff, Germany.
• 1957 – The movie Jailhouse Rock, starring Elvis Presley, opens.
• 1959 – In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
• 1959 – US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun and other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA.
• 1966 – Aberfan disaster: A coal tip falls on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren
• 1967 – Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, DC. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility (event lasts until October 23; 683 people will be arrested). Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.
• 1973 – John Paul Getty III's ear is cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome; it doesn't arrive until November 8.
• 1980 – 1980 World Series: In 6 games, the Philadelphia Phillies win their first World Series.
• 1986 – In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he will be released in August 1991).
• 1987 – Former Miss America Bess Myerson is arrested on charges of bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud, all involving an alimony-fixing scandal. She is later found not guilty.
• 1994 – North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea and the United States sign an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.
• 1997 – Hotel owners from the Detroit area meet to discuss Jack Kevorkian's practice of leaving corpses in hotel rooms.
• 1997 – The government of Singapore announces in a widely-publicized "toilet alert" that the drive for toilet cleanliness is a great success; five toilets were selected by citizens as toilet role models.
• 2001 – The first Toronto Special is printed in downtown Toronto.

Births

• 1449 – George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV of England and Richard III of England (d. 1478)
• 1660 – Georg Ernst Stahl, German scientist
• 1762 – Herman Willem Daendels, Dutch statesman
• 1772 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, British poet (d. 1834)
• 1821 – The Monster of Glamis (d. unknown)
• 1833 – Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and benefactor of the Nobel Prize (d. 1896)
• 1895 – Edna Purviance, actress (d. 1958)
• 1912 – Sir Georg Solti, Hungarian conductor (d. 1997)
• 1914 – Martin Gardner, American writer on mathematics and games
• 1917 – Dizzy Gillespie, American jazz musician (d. 1993)
• 1920 – Hy Averback, film and television director (d. 1997)
• 1921 – Malcolm Arnold, British composer
• 1924 – Celia Cruz, singer (d. 2003)
• 1928 – Whitey Ford, American baseball player
• 1929 – Ursula K. Le Guin, American science fiction author
• 1940 – Manfred Mann, musician
• 1941 – Steve Cropper, musician
• 1942 – Elvin Bishop, musician
• 1942 – Judge Judy Sheindlin, American judge, television host
• 1943 – Brian Piccolo, American football star (d. 1970)
• 1949 – Benjamin Netanyahu, the 9th Prime Minister of Israel
• 1955 – Rich Mullins, American musician (d. 1997)
• 1956 – Carrie Fisher, actress, writer
• 1971 – Nick Oliveri, musician
• 1972 – Felicity Andersen, actress
• 1978 – Joey Harrington, American football quarterback
• 1980 – Amit Agarwal,Software Engineer

Deaths

• 310 – Pope Eusebius
• 1328 – Hongwu Emperor of China, founder of the Ming Dynasty (d. 1398)
• 1558 – Julius Caesar Scaliger, humanist scholar
• 1687 – Sir Edmund Waller, English poet
• 1805 – Horatio Nelson, British admiral
• 1896 – James Henry Greathead, British engineer
• 1931 – Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian writer
• 1944 – Alois Kayser, German missionary, working in Nauru
• 1969 – Waclaw Sierpinski, Polish mathematician
• 1969 – Jack Kerouac, American beat novelist
• 1975 – Charles Reidpath, American athlete
• 1984 – François Truffaut, French film director
• 1986 – Lionel Murphy, Australian Labor Party politician and High Court judge.
• 1995 – Shannon Hoon, lead singer of pop band Blind Melon
• 2003 – Fred Berry, American actor
• 2003 – Luis A. Ferré, former governor of Puerto Rico
• 2003 – Louise Day Hicks, US politician
• 2003 – Elliott Smith, musician

Holidays

• Overseas Chinese Day — the Republic of China
• Trafalgar Day — celebrated throughout much of the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th Century.

External links

• BBC: On This Day

October 20 – October 22 – November 21 – September 21 – more historical anniversaries