February 21
February 21 is the 52nd day of the year in the
Gregorian Calendar. There are 313 days remaining, 314 in
leap years.
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Events
\n* 1431 - The trial of Joan of Arc begins.\n* 1743 - The premiere in London of George Frideric Handel's oratorio, Samson\n* 1804 - The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales. \n* 1842 - John J. Greenough patents the sewing machine. \n* 1848 - Karl Marx publishes the Communist Manifesto.\n* 1874 - The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first newspaper. \n* 1878 - First telephone book issued in New Haven, Connecticut.\n* 1885 - The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.\n* 1893 - Thomas Edison received two U.S. patents for a "Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps" and for a "Stop Device" \n* 1916 - World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins.\n* 1925 - The New Yorker publishes its first issue. \n* 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. \n* 1948 - NASCAR is incorporated.\n* 1952 - Language Martyrs' Day, marking language-revolution in the then East Pakistan (currently, the independent state of People's Republic of Bangladesh)\n* 1953 - Francis Crick and James D. Watson discovered the structure of the DNA molecule.\n* 1960 - Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.\n* 1965 - Malcolm X is assassinated at his mosque in New York City by Black Muslims. \n* 1972 - President Richard Nixon visits the People's Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations.\n* 1972 - The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.\n* 1973 - Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down a Libyan Airlines jet killing 108. \n* 1974 - The long-running Japanese comic strip Sazae-san published its final installment in the Asahi Shimbun.\n* 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. \n* 1988 - On his own televangelism program being tapped in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jimmy Swaggart confesses that he is guilty of an unspecified sin and will be temporarily leaving the pulpit. \n* 1995 - Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon. \n* 2000 - David Letterman returns to The Late Show over a month after having an emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery.\n* 2003 - Over 100 concert goers die in a fire during a performance of the rock band Great White.\n* 2004 - The first European political party organization, the European Greens, is established in Rome.
Births
\n*1688 - Reigning Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden (d. 1741)\n*1728 - Peter III, Tsar of Russia, husband of Catherine the Great (d. 1762)\n*1791 - John Mercer, chemist and industrialist (d. 1866)\n*1844 - Charles-Marie Widor, organist and composer (d. 1937)\n*1867 - Otto Hermann Kahn, millionaire and benefactor (d. 1934)\n*1880 - Waldemar Bonsels, writer (d. 1952)\n*1885 - Sacha Guitry, dramatist, writer, director, actor (d. 1957)\n*1893 - Celia Lovsky, actress (d. 1979)\n* 1893 - Andrés Segovia, musician (d. 1987)\n*1895 - Henrik Carl Peter Dam Danish biochemist, winner of the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)\n*1903 - Anaïs Nin, writer (d. 1977)\n*1907 - W. H. Auden, English poet (d. 1973)\n*1925 - Sam Peckinpah, director (d. 1984)\n*1924 - Robert Mugabe First Prime Minister of Zimbabwe\n*1927 - Erma Bombeck, writer, humorist (d. 1996)\n* 1927 - Hubert de Givenchy, fashion designer\n*1933 - Nina Simone, singer (d. 2003)\n*1934 - Rue McClanahan, actress \n*1936 - Barbara Jordan, American politician from Texas (d. 1996)\n*1937 - King Harald V of Norway\n* 1937 - Gary Lockwood, actor \n*1942 - Margarethe von Trotta, actor, film director, writer\n*1943 - David Geffen, producer\n*1946 - Tyne Daly, actress\n* 1946 - Alan Rickman, actor\n*1953 - William Petersen, actor\n*1955 - Kelsey Grammer, actor\n*1958 - Mary Chapin Carpenter, singer\n*1961 - Davey Allison, automobile racer (d. 1993)\n* 1961 - Chuck Palahniuk, writer\n*1962 - David Foster Wallace, American author\n*1963 - William Baldwin, actor\n*1975 - Affirmed, race horse (d. 2001)\n*1979 - Jennifer Love Hewitt, actress, singer\n*1986 - Charlotte Church, singer
Deaths
\n*1513 - Pope Julius II (b. 1443)\n*1824 - Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Napoleon's wife, Josephine (b. 1781)\n*1938 - George Ellery Hale, astronomer\n*1945 - Eric Liddell, Scottish runner\n*1965 - Malcolm X, Black Muslim Movement activist (b. 1925)\n*1967 - Charles Beaumont, writer (b. 1929)\n*1991 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, ballet dancer\n*1994 - Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexican politician\n*1995 - Calder Willingham, writer\n*2002 - John Thaw, actor (b. 1942)
Holidays and observances
\n* Language Martyrs' Day - A day celebrated by Bengali speaking people for gaining right of mother tongue.\n* International Mother Language Day (UNESCO)\n* Catholicism - Feast day of St Peter Damian.
February 20 -
February 22 -
January 21 -
March 21 --
listing of all days
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