What Happened on February 21st in History
30 historical events on this date
The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first edition.
The Oakland Tribune was a daily newspaper published in Oakland, California from 1874 to 2016 when it was merged into the East Bay Times by its owner, Bay Area News Group. The former nameplate of the...
The first telephone directory is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.
A telephone directory, commonly called a telephone book, telephone address book or phonebook, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the...
The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.
The Washington Monument is a 555-foot (169Â m) tall obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington, a Founding Father of the United States and the nation's...
An Englishman raised in Australia, Bob Fitzsimmons, fights an Irishman, Peter Maher, in an American promoted event which technically takes place in Mexico, winning the 1896 World Heavyweight Championship in boxing.
Robert James Fitzsimmons was a Cornish-New Zealand professional boxer who was the sport's first three-division world champion. He achieved fame for beating "Gentleman Jim" Corbett, and he is in The...
Ioannina is incorporated into the Greek state after the Balkan Wars.
Ioannina, often called Yannena within Greece, is the capital and largest city of the Ioannina regional unit and of Epirus, an administrative region in northwestern Greece.
World War I: In France, the Battle of Verdun begins.
World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the...
The last Carolina parakeet dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
The Carolina parakeet, or Carolina conure, is an extinct species of small green neotropical parrot with a bright yellow head, reddish orange face, and pale beak that was native to the Eastern,...
German socialist Kurt Eisner is assassinated. His death results in the establishment of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and parliament and government fleeing Munich, Germany.
Kurt Eisner was a German politician, revolutionary, journalist, and theatre critic. As a socialist journalist, he organized the socialist revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy in...
Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia adopts the country's first constitution.
The Constituent Assembly of Georgia was a national legislature of the Democratic Republic of Georgia which was elected in February 1919 to ratify the Act of Independence of Georgia and enact the...
RezÄ ShÄh takes control of Tehran during a successful coup.
Reza Shah Pahlavi was Shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941 and founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. Originally an army officer, he became a politician, serving as minister of war and prime minister of Iran,...
The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
The New Yorker is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife...
In the first battle of the Warlord Rebellion in northeastern Shandong against the Nationalist government of China, a 24,000-strong rebel force led by Zhang Zongchang was defeated at Zhifu by 7,000 NRA troops.
The Warlord Rebellion in northeastern Shandong was an uprising of several allied Chinese warlord armies under the leadership of Zhang Zongchang in 1929. The rebels wanted to regain their former...
The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War.
The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that...
World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, Japanese kamikaze planes sink the escort carrier USSÂ Bismarck Sea and damage the USSÂ Saratoga.
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...
World War II: the Brazilian Expeditionary Force defeat the German forces in the Battle of Monte Castello on the Italian front.
The Brazilian Expeditionary Force, nicknamed Cobras Fumantes, was a military division of the Brazilian Army and Air Force that fought as part of Allied forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of World...
In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a...
NASCAR is incorporated.
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of...
The British government, under Winston Churchill, abolishes identity cards in the UK to "set the people free".
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again...
The Bengali language movement protests occur at the University of Dhaka in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
The Bengali language movement was a political movement in East Bengal in 1952, advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as a co-lingua franca of the Dominion of Pakistan. The movement...
The CND symbol, aka peace symbol, commissioned by the Direct Action Committee in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom.
A number of peace symbols have been used many ways in various cultures and contexts. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by early Christians and then eventually became a secular peace...
The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.
The Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971 is a United Nations treaty designed to control psychoactive drugs such as amphetamine-type stimulants, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and...
United States President Richard Nixon visits China to normalize Sino-American relations.
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he represented California in both houses of the...
The Soviet uncrewed spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's...
Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 jet killing 108 people.
The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai, is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in West Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south,...
The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal pursuant to a truce with Egypt.
The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. It is the border between Africa...
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.
The Watergate scandal, or simply Watergate, was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. On June 17, 1972, operatives associated with Nixon's...
Aldrich Ames is arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for selling national secrets to the Soviet Union in Arlington County, Virginia.
Aldrich Hazen Ames was an American counterintelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency who was convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and Russia in 1994.
Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.
James Stephen Fossett was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing...
At least 17 people are killed and 119 injured following several bombings in the Indian city of Hyderabad.
On 21 February 2013, at around 19:00 IST, two blasts occurred in the city of Hyderabad, India. The bombs exploded in Dilsukhnagar, a crowded shopping area, within 100 metres (330Â ft) of each other....
In the prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin declares the Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic as independent from Ukraine, and moves troops into the region. The action is condemned by the United Nations.
In March and April 2021, before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces began massing thousands of personnel and military equipment near Russia's border with Ukraine and in...