What Happened on April 21st in History
30 historical events on this date
Al-Baqi cemetery, former site of the mausoleum of four Shi'a Imams, is leveled to the ground by Wahhabis.
Jannat al-Baqī is the oldest and first Islamic cemetery of Medina located in the Hejaz region of present-day Saudi Arabia. It is also known as Baqi al-Gharqad.
The "Surgeon's Photograph", the most famous photo allegedly showing the Loch Ness Monster, is published in the Daily Mail (in 1994, it is revealed to be a hoax).
The Loch Ness Monster, known affectionately as Nessie, is a mythical creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large,...
World War II: Soviet forces south of Berlin at Zossen attack the German High Command headquarters.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
The U.S. Weather Bureau records that a tornado which struck Timber Lake, South Dakota was 4 miles (6.4 km), among the widest tornadoes on record.
The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related...
United Nations Security Council Resolution 47 relating to Kashmir conflict is adopted.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 47, adopted on 21 April 1948, concerns the resolution of the Kashmir conflict. After hearing arguments from both India and Pakistan, the Council increased...
The Nainital wedding massacre occurs, killing 22 members of the Harijan caste.
This is a list of mass stabbings that took place before 2010. It includes incidents in which there were at least three casualties.
Secretary's Day (now Administrative Professionals' Day) is first celebrated.
Administrative Professionals Day is a day observed yearly in a small number of countries. It is not a public holiday in any of them. In some countries, it falls within Administrative Professionals...
United Air Lines Flight 736 collides with a United States Air Force fighter jet near Arden, Nevada in what is now Enterprise, Nevada.
United Air Lines Flight 736 was a scheduled American transcontinental passenger service flown daily by United Airlines between Los Angeles and New York City. On April 21, 1958, the airliner assigned...
Brasília, Brazil's capital, is officially inaugurated. At 09:30, the Three Powers of the Republic are simultaneously transferred from the old capital, Rio de Janeiro.
Brasília is the capital city of Brazil and the Federal District. Located in the Brazilian Highlands in the country's Central-West region, it was founded by President Juscelino Kubitschek on 21 April...
The Seattle World's Fair (Century 21 Exposition) opens. It is the first World's Fair in the United States since World War II.
The Century 21 Exposition was a world's fair held April 21, 1962, to October 21, 1962, in Seattle, Washington, United States. Nearly 10 million people attended the fair during its six-month run.
The first election of the Universal House of Justice is held, marking its establishment as the supreme governing institution of the Baháʼí Faith.
The Universal House of Justice is the nine-member supreme ruling body of the Baháʼí Faith. It was envisioned by Baháʼu'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, as an institution that could legislate...
A Transit-5bn satellite fails to reach orbit after launch; as it re-enters the atmosphere, 2.1 pounds (0.95 kg) of radioactive plutonium in its SNAP RTG power source is widely dispersed.
The Transit system, also known as NAVSAT or NNSS, was the first satellite navigation system to be used operationally. The radio navigation system was primarily used by the U.S. Navy to provide...
The 1964–1965 New York World's Fair opens for its second and final season.
The 1964 New York World's Fair was an international exposition at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City, United States. The fair included exhibitions, activities, performances,...
Rastafari movement: Haile Selassie of Ethiopia visits Jamaica, an event now celebrated as Grounation Day.
Rastafari is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central...
A few days before the general election in Greece, Colonel George Papadopoulos leads a coup d'état, establishing a military regime that lasts for seven years.
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become...
A tornado outbreak in Illinois, United States, kills over 50 and injures over 1,000. Belvidere sustains over 500 casualties as a violent tornado strikes the high school. Another tornado near Chicago causes another 500 casualties, devastating Oak Lawn.
A destructive tornado outbreak affected much of the Midwestern United States on April 21, 1967, in particular the towns of Belvidere and Oak Lawn, Illinois, United States. It was the largest tornado...
Astronauts John Young and Charles Duke fly Apollo 16's Apollo Lunar Module to the Moon's surface, the fifth NASA Apollo Program crewed lunar landing.
John Watts Young was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as commander of the Apollo 16 mission in...
Vietnam War: President of South Vietnam Nguyễn Văn Thiệu flees Saigon, as Xuân Lộc, the last South Vietnamese outpost blocking a direct North Vietnamese assault on Saigon, falls.
The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while...
Annie opens on Broadway.
Annie is a musical with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and a book by Thomas Meehan. It is based on the 1924 comic strip Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray. The original Broadway...
Baseball: Rollie Fingers of the Milwaukee Brewers becomes the first pitcher to record 300 saves.
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play beginning when a...
The compound of the militant group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord surrenders to federal authorities in Arkansas after a two-day government siege.
The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) was a far-right survivalist anti-government militia that advocated for Christian Identity and was active in the United States during the 1970s...
The Tamil Tigers are blamed for a car bomb that detonates in the Sri Lankan capital city of Colombo, killing 106 people.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in...
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: In Beijing, around 100,000 students gather in Tiananmen Square to commemorate Chinese reform leader Hu Yaobang.
Protests led by students and workers, known in China as the June Fourth Incident, were held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts...
The Supreme Court in La Paz, Bolivia, sentences former dictator Luis García Meza to 30 years in jail without parole for murder, theft, fraud and violating the constitution.
La Paz, officially Nuestra Señora de La Paz is the seat of government of Bolivia. With 755,732 residents as of 2024, it is the third-most populous city in Bolivia. Its metropolitan area, which...
Four people are killed and 75 are injured in a train accident in Jokela, Finland.
The Jokela rail accident occurred on 21 April 1996, at 07:08 local time in Tuusula, Finland, approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi) north of Helsinki. Four people were killed and 75 injured when...
Five suicide car bombers target police stations in and around Basra, killing 74 people and wounding 160.
On 21 April 2004, a series of large car bomb explosions ripped through Basra, Iraq. Seventy-four people died and more than 100 were injured. The attacks were some of the deadliest in southern Iraq...
The controversial Kharkiv Pact (Russian Ukrainian Naval Base for Gas Treaty) is signed in Kharkiv, Ukraine, by Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev; it was unilaterally terminated by Russia on March 31, 2014.
The Agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine, widely referred to as the Kharkiv Pact or Kharkov Accords, was a treaty between Ukraine and Russia whereby the Russian...
Two trains are involved in a head-on collision near Sloterdijk, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, killing one person and injuring 116 others.
On 21 April 2012 at 18:30 local time, two trains were involved in a head-on collision at Westerpark, near Sloterdijk, in the west of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Approximately 117 people were injured,...
Eight bombs explode at churches, hotels, and other locations in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing at least 269.
On 21 April 2019, Easter Sunday, three churches in Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital, Colombo, were targeted in a series of coordinated ISIS-related terrorist suicide...
Indonesian Navy submarine KRI Nanggala (402) sinks in the Bali Sea during a military drill, killing all 53 on board.
The Indonesian Navy is the naval branch of the Indonesian National Armed Forces. It was founded on 10 September 1945 and has a role to patrol Indonesia's lengthy coastline, to enforce and patrol the...