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 Zurich, 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 Lopez 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 - Jose Zorilla y Moral, Spanish dramatist (d. 1893)
1821 - Rachel Felix, 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 - Andres 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 - Anais 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 Hellstrom, 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 - Eugene 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 Cisse, 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