February 21

February 21 is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 313 days remaining, 314 in leap years.

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.
• 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.

Births

• 1688 – Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden (d. 1741)
• 1728 – Peter III, Tsar of Russia, husband of Catherine the Great (d. 1762)
• 1791 – Carl Czerny, Austrian composer (d. 1857)
• 1791 – John Mercer, chemist and industrialist (d. 1866)
• 1836 – Léo Delibes, French composer (d. 1891)
• 1844 – Charles-Marie Widor, organist and composer (d. 1937)
• 1867 – Otto Hermann Kahn, millionaire and benefactor (d. 1934)
• 1875 – Jeanne Calment, oldest documented human being (d. 1997)
• 1880 – Waldemar Bonsels, writer (d. 1952)
• 1885 – Sacha Guitry, dramatist, writer, director, and actor (d. 1957)
• 1893 – Celia Lovsky, actress (d. 1979)
• 1893 – Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (d. 1987)
• 1895 – Henrik Carl Peter Dam Danish biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)
• 1903 – Anaïs Nin, French writer (d. 1977)
• 1907 – W. H. Auden, English poet (d. 1973)
• 1910 – Douglas Bader, British fighter pilot (d. 1982)
• 1910 – Carmine Galante, gangster (d. 1979)
• 1915 – Ann Sheridan, American actress (d. 1967)
• 1925 – Sam Peckinpah, director (d. 1984)
• 1924 – Robert Mugabe First Prime Minister of Zimbabwe
• 1927 – Erma Bombeck, writer, humorist (d. 1996)
• 1927 – Hubert de Givenchy, fashion designer
• 1933 – Nina Simone, singer (d. 2003)
• 1933 – Bob Rafelson, American film director
• 1934 – Rue McClanahan, actress
• 1936 – Barbara Jordan, American politician (d. 1996)
• 1937 – King Harald V of Norway
• 1937 – Gary Lockwood, actor
• 1941 – James Wong, Hong Kong composer (d. November 23, 2004.)
• 1942 – Margarethe von Trotta, actor, film director, and writer
• 1943 – David Geffen, record producer
• 1946 – Tyne Daly, actress
• 1946 – Alan Rickman, actor
• 1946 – Anthony Daniels, British actor
• 1946 – Tyne Daly, American actress
• 1947 – Olympia Snowe, American politician
• 1949 – Jerry Harrison, musician
• 1953 – William Petersen, actor
• 1953 – Christine Ebersole, American actress
• 1955 – Kelsey Grammer, American actor
• 1958 – Mary Chapin Carpenter, singer
• 1958 – Jack Coleman, American actor
• 1961 – Davey Allison, automobile racer (d. 1993)
• 1961 – Chuck Palahniuk, writer
• 1962 – David Foster Wallace, American author
• 1963 – William Baldwin, actor
• 1969 – Eric Wilson, American musician (Subline)
• 1970 – Michael Slater, Australian cricketer
• 1972 – Seo Taiji, Korean pop musician
• 1974 – Roberto Heras, Spanish cyclist
• 1975 – Affirmed, race horse (d. 2001)
• 1977 – Kevin Rose, co-host of Attack of the Show
• 1979 – Jennifer Love Hewitt, actress, singer
• 1986 – Charlotte Church, Welsh singer

Deaths

• 1513 – Pope Julius II (b. 1443)
• 1543 – Ahmed Gragn, Sultan of Adal
• 1824 – Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Napoleon's wife, Josephine (b. 1781)
• 1938 – George Ellery Hale, astronomer
• 1944 – Ferenc Szisz, Hungarian-born French race car driver (b. 1873)
• 1945 – Eric Liddell, Scottish runner
• 1965 – Malcolm X, American black activist (b. 1925)
• 1967 – Charles Beaumont, writer (b. 1929)
• 1974 – Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player
• 1984 – Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian novelist
• 1985 – Nathan Pritikin, physician
• 1991 – Dame Margot Fonteyn, ballet dancer
• 1994 – Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexican politician
• 1995 – Calder Willingham, writer
• 1996 – Morton Gould, American composer (b. 1913)
• 2002 – John Thaw, actor (b. 1942)
• 2004 – Guido Molinari, Canadian artist
• 2004 – John Charles, Welsh footballer

Holidays and observances

• Language Martyrs' Day – A day celebrated by Bengali speaking people for gaining right of mother tongue.
• International Mother Language Day (UNESCO)
• Catholicism – Feast day of St Peter Damian.
• Presidents' Day in the United States (2005)
• Family Day in Alberta (2005)

External links

• BBC: On This Day

February 20 – February 22 – January 21 – March 21 — listing of all days