21 February History
- 1595 - The Jesuit poet Robert Southwell is hanged for "treason" being a Catholic.
- 1631 - Michael Romanov, son of the Patriarch of Moscow, is elected Russian Tsar.
- 1744 - The British blockade of Toulon is broken by 27 French and Spanish warships attacking 29 British ships.
- 1775 - As troubles with Great Britain increase, colonists in Massachusetts vote to buy military equipment for 15,000 men.
- 1797 - Trinidad, West Indies surrenders to the British.
- 1828 - The first issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is printed, both in English and in the newly invented Cherokee alphabet.
- 1849 - In the Second Sikh War, Sir Hugh Gough's well placed guns win a victory over a Sikh force twice the size of his at Gujerat on the Chenab River, assuring British control of the Punjab for years to come.
- 1862 - The Texas Rangers win a Confederate victory in the Battle of Val Verde, New Mexico.
- 1878 - The world's first telephone book is issued by the New Haven Connecticut Telephone Company containing the names of its 50 subscribers.
- 1885 - The Washington Monument is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
- 1905 - The Mukden campaign of the Russo-Japanese War, begins.
- 1916 - The battle of Verdun begins with an unprecedented German artillery barrage of the French lines.
- 1925 - The first issue of New Yorker magazine hits the newsstands.
- 1940 - The Germans begin construction of a concentration camp at Auschwitz.
- 1944 - Hideki Tojo becomes chief of staff of the Japanese army.
- 1949 - Nicaragua and Costa Rica sign a friendship treaty ending hostilities over their borders.
- 1951 - The U. S. Eighth Army launches Operation Killer, a counterattack to push Chinese forces north of the Han River in Korea.
- 1956 - A grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama indicts 115 in a Negro bus boycott.
- 1960 - Havana places all Cuban industry under direct control of the government.
- 1965 - El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcom X) is assassinated in front of 400 people.
- 1972 - Richard Nixon arrives in Beijing, China, becoming the first U.S. president to visit a country not diplomatically recognized by the U.S.
- 1974 - A report claims that the use of defoliants by the U.S. has scarred Vietnam for a century.
21 February Birthdays
- 1794 - Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Mexican Revolutionary.
- 1801 - John Henry Newman, English theologian and writer.
- 1821 - Charles Scribner, founded the publishing firm which became Charles Scribner's Sons and also founded Scribner's magazine.
- 1893 - Andés Segovia, Spanish classical guitarist.
- 1907 - W.H. Auden, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (The Age of Anxiety).
- 1920 - Robert S. Johnson, American World War II fighter ace who shot down 27 German planes.
- 1927 - Erma Bombeck, author and humorist (The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank).