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 .
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 - Reigning Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden (d. 1741 )
1728 - Peter III , Tsar of Russia , husband of Catherine the Great (d. 1762 )
1791 - John Mercer , chemist and industrialist (d. 1866 )
1844 - Charles-Marie Widor , organist and composer (d. 1937 )
1867 - Otto Hermann Kahn , millionaire and benefactor (d. 1934 )
1875 - Jeanne Calment (d. 1997 , the longest confirmed lifespan for any human being in history.)
1880 - Waldemar Bonsels , writer (d. 1952 )
1885 - Sacha Guitry , dramatist, writer, director, 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 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976 )
1903 - Anaïs Nin , 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 from Texas (d. 1996 )
1937 - King Harald V of Norway
1937 - Gary Lockwood , actor
1941 - James Wong , the famous composer of Hong Kong (d. November 23 , 2004 .)
1942 - Margarethe von Trotta , actor, film director, 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
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 , 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 , Black Muslim Movement activist (b. 1925 )
1967 - Charles Beaumont , writer (b. 1929 )
1974 - Tim Horton , Canadian ice hockey player
1984 - Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov , Russian novelist
1985 - Nathan Pritikin , physician, founder of the Pritikin Diet
1991 - Dame Margot Fonteyn , ballet dancer
1994 - Luis Donaldo Colosio , Mexican politician
1995 - Calder Willingham , writer
2002 - John Thaw , actor (b. 1942 )
2004 - Guido Molinari , Canadian abstract artist
2004 - John Charles , Welsh football player
Holidays and observances
External links
February 20 - February 22 - January 21 - March 21 -- listing of all days
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