February 21: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

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 - A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated a 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, going 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
• 1937 - The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War.
• 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] - The government of Winston Churchill abolishes Identity Cards in the UK 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.
• 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.
• 1986 - Metallica released their 3rd album Master of Puppets.
• 1988 - Jimmy Swaggart, on his own televangelism program being taped 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 (band).
• 2004 - The first European political party organization, the European Greens, is established in Rome.

• 1484 - Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg (d. 1535)
• 1556 - Sethus Calvisius, German calendar reformer (d. 1615)
• 1621 - Rebecca Nurse, American accused witch (d. 1692)
• 1675 - Franz Xaver Josef von Unertl, Bavarian politician (d. 1750)
• 1688 - Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden (d. 1741)
• 1705 - Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, British naval officer (d. 1781)
• 1721 - John McKinly, American physician and President of Delaware (d. 1796)
• 1723 - Louis-Pierre Anquetil, French historian (d. 1808)
• 1728 - Tsar Peter III of Russia, husband of Catherine the Great (d. 1762)
• 1791 - Carl Czerny, Austrian composer (d. 1857)
• 1801 - John Henry Newman, English Catholic cardinal (d. 1890)
• 1821 - Charles Scribner, American publisher (d. 1871)
• 1836 - Léo Delibes, French composer (d. 1891)
• 1844 - Charles-Marie Widor, French organist and composer (d. 1937)
• 1865 - John Haden Badley, English author and school founder (d. 1967)
• 1867 - Otto Hermann Kahn, German millionaire and benefactor (d. 1934)
• 1880 - Waldemar Bonsels, German writer (d. 1952)
• 1885 - Sacha Guitry, Russian dramatist, writer, director, and actor (d. 1957)
• 1893 - Celia Lovsky, Russian-born actress (d. 1979)
• 1893 - Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (d. 1987)
• 1895 - Carl Peter Henrik Dam Danish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)
• 1903 - Fairfax M. Cone, American advertising executive (d. 1977)
• 1903 - Anaïs Nin, French writer (d. 1977)
• 1907 - W. H. Auden, English poet (d. 1973)
• 1910 - Douglas Bader, British pilot (d. 1982)
• 1910 - Carmine Galante, Italian-born gangster (d. 1979)
• 1915 - Ann Sheridan, American actress (d. 1967)
• 1917 - Lucille Bremer, American actress (d. 1996)
• 1925 - Sam Peckinpah, American director (d. 1984)
• 1924 - Robert Mugabe first President of Zimbabwe
• 1927 - Erma Bombeck, American humorist (d. 1996)
• 1927 - Hubert de Givenchy, French fashion designer
• 1933 - Nina Simone, American singer (d. 2003)
• 1934 - Rue McClanahan, American actress
• 1936 - Barbara Jordan, American politician (d. 1996)
• 1937 - King Harald V of Norway
• 1937 - Gary Lockwood, American actor
• 1941 - James Wong, Hong Kong composer (d. 2004)
• 1942 - Margarethe von Trotta, French actor, film director, and writer
• 1943 - David Geffen, American record producer
• 1946 - Tyne Daly, American actress
• 1946 - Anthony Daniels, British actor
• 1946 - Alan Rickman, English actor
• 1947 - Olympia Snowe, American politician
• 1949 - Jerry Harrison, American musician
• 1953 - Christine Ebersole, American actress
• 1953 - William Petersen, American actor
• 1955 - Kelsey Grammer, American actor
• 1958 - Jake Burns, Northern Ireland singer (Stiff Little Fingers}
• 1958 - Mary Chapin Carpenter, American singer
• 1958 - Alan Trammell, baseball player and manager
• 1961 - Davey Allison, American race car driver (d. 1993)
• 1961 - Christopher Atkins, American actor
• 1961 - Martha Hackett, American actress
• 1961 - Chuck Palahniuk, American writer
• 1963 - William Baldwin, American actor
• 1967 - Leroy Burrell, American sprinter
• 1969 - Eric Wilson, American musician (Sublime)
• 1970 - Michael Slater, Australian cricketer
• 1972 - Seo Taiji, Korean musician
• 1974 - Ivan Campo, Spanish footballer
• 1974 - Roberto Heras, Spanish cyclist
• 1975 - Affirmed, American race horse (d. 2001)
• 1977 - Steve Francis, NBA Basketball player
• 1977 - Kevin Rose, American television host
• 1979 - Pascal Chimbonda, French footballer
• 1979 - Lonnie Ford, Arena Football League fullback/linebacker
• 1979 - Jennifer Love Hewitt, American actress and singer
• 1983 - Braylon Edwards, American football player
• 1986 - Charlotte Church, Welsh singer

• 1437 - King James I of Scotland (b. 1394)
• 1471 - John of Rokycan, Czech Catholic archbishop
• 1513 - Pope Julius II (b. 1443)
• 1543 - Ahmed Gragn, Sultan of Adal
• 1554 - Hieronymus Bock, German botanist
• 1595 - Robert Southwell, English poet
• 1668 - John Thurloe, English Puritan spy (b. 1616)
• 1677 - Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (b. 1632)
• 1715 - Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, Governor of the Province of Maryland (b. 1637)
• 1788 - Johann Georg Palitzsch, German astronomer (b. 1723)
• 1824 - Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Napoleon's wife, Josephine (b. 1781)
• 1846 - Emperor Ninko of Japan, (b. 1800)
• 1862 - Justinus Kerner, German poet (b. 1786)
• 1926 - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1853)
• 1938 - George Ellery Hale, American astronomer (b. 1868)
• 1941 - Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1891)
• 1944 - Ferenc Szisz, Hungarian-born race car driver (b. 1873)
• 1945 - Eric Liddell, Scottish runner (b. 1902)
• 1965 - Malcolm X, American black activist (b. 1925)
• 1967 - Charles Beaumont, American writer (b. 1929)
• 1968 - Howard Walter Florey, Australian-born pharmocologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1898)
• 1974 - Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player (b. 1905)
• 1984 - Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
• 1991 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, English ballet dancer (b. 1919)
• 1994 - Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexican politician (b. 1948)
• 1996 - Morton Gould, American composer (b. 1913)
• 1999 - Gertrude B. Elion, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1918)
• 2002 - John Thaw, English actor (b. 1942)
• 2004 - John Charles, Welsh footballer (b. 1931)
• 2004 - Guido Molinari, Canadian artist (b. 1933)
• 2005 - Ara Berberian, American opera singer (b. 1930)
• 2005 - Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Cuban novelist (b. 1929)
• 2005 - Eugene Scott, American religious broadcaster (b. 1929)

• Language Martyrs' Day - A day celebrated by Bengali speaking people for gaining right of mother tongue.
• International Mother Language Day (UNESCO)
• Catholicism - Feast day of St Peter Damian.
• Presidents' Day in the United States (2005)
• Family Day in Alberta (2005)

February 20 - February 22 - January 21 - March 21 -- listing of all days