February 21

### 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.

### 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

### 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)