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
* 1431 - The trial of Joan of Arc begins
* 1804 - The first self-propelling steam engine or steam locomotive makes
its outing at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales.
* 1842 - John J. Greenough patents the sewing machine.
* 1848 - Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto
* 1874 - The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first newspaper.
* 1878 - First telephone book issued in New Haven, Connecticut
* 1885 - The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated
* 1893 - Thomas Edison received two U.S. patents. The first was for a
"Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps" and another for a "Stop
Device" (No. 491,992-3). Also No. 492,150 for "Process of Coating
Conductors for Incandescent Lamps."
* 1916 - World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins.
* 1925 - The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
* 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
* 1953 - Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the structure of the
DNA molecule
* 1960 - Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.
* 1965 - Malcolm X is assassinated at his mosque in New York City by
Black Muslims.
* 1972 - President Richard Nixon goes to China to help improve 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 100.
* 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 - 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 will be temporarily leaving the pulpit.
* 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 with David Letterman
over a month after having an emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery.
Births
* 1728 - Peter III, Tsar or Russia, husband of Catherine the Great (+
1762)
* 1791 - John Mercer, chemist and industrialist (+ 1866)
* 1844 - Charles-Marie Widor, organist and composer (+ 1937)
* 1880 - Waldemar Bonsels, writer (+ 1952)
* 1885 - Sacha Guitry, dramatist, writer, director, actor (+ 1957)
* 1893 - Andrˇs Segovia, musician (+ 1987)
* 1895 - Henrik Carl Peter Dam Danish biochemist, winner of the 1943
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (+ 1976)
* 1903 - Ana•s Nin, writer (+ 1977)
* 1907 - W.H Auden, English poet
* 1925 - Sam Peckinpah, director (+ 1984)
* 1924 - Robert Mugabe First Prime Minister of Zimbabwe
* 1927 - Erma Bombeck, writer, humorist (+ 1996)
* 1927 - Hubert de Givenchy, fashion designer
* 1933 - Nina Simone, singer
* 1936 - Barbara Jordan, American politician (+ 1996)
* 1937 - King Harald V of Norway
* 1942 - Margarethe von Trotta, actor, film director, writer
* 1943 - David Geffen, producer
* 1946 - Tyne Daly, actress
* 1946 - Alan Rickman, actor
* 1953 - William Petersen, actor
* 1958 - Mary Chapin Carpenter, singer
* 1961 - Davey Allison, automobile racer (+ 1993)
* 1962 - David Foster Wallace, American author
* 1963 - William Baldwin, actor
* 1979 - Jennifer Love Hewitt, actress, singer
* 1986 - Charlotte Church, singer
Deaths
* 1513 - Pope Julius II
* 1824 - Eug¸ne de Beauharnais, son of Napoleon's wife, Josephine
* 1965 - Malcolm X, writer, political activist
* 1967 - Charles Beaumont, writer
* 1991 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, ballet dancer
* 1995 - Calder Willingham, writer
* 2002 - John Thaw, actor
Holidays and observances
* International Mother Language Day (UNESCO)
* Catholicism - Feast day of St Peter Damian.
