Title: February 21 Content: ==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 - 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) Category:Days of the year