February 21



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)

Days of the year