21 May History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 996    -    Sixteen year old Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor.
  • 1471    -    King Henry VI is killed in the Tower of London. Edward IV takes the throne.
  • 1506    -    Christopher Columbus dies.
  • 1536    -    The Reformation is officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland.
  • 1620    -    Present-day Martha's Vineyard is first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
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  • 1790    -    Paris is divided into 48 zones.
  • 1832    -    The Democratic party holds its first national convention.
  • 1856    -    Lawrence, Kansas is captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.
  • 1863    -    The siege of the Confederate Port Hudson, Louisiana, begins.
  • 1881    -    The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton.
  • 1927    -    Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris completing the first solo air crossing of the Atlantic.
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  • 1940    -    British forces attack German General Rommel's 7th Panzer Division at Arras, slowing his blitzkrieg of France.
  • 1941    -    The first U.S. ship, the S.S. Robin Moor, is sunk by a U-boat.
  • 1951    -    The U.S. Eighth Army counterattacks to drive the Communist Chinese and North Koreans out of South Korea.
  • 1961    -    Governor Patterson declares martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.
  • 1970    -    The U.S. National Guard mobilizes to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.
  • 1991    -    In Madras, India, a suicide bomber kills the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.
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  • 21 May Birthdays

  • 427 BC    -    Plato, Greek philosopher.
  • 1527    -    Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal.
  • 1844    -    Henri Rousseau, French painter.
  • 1856    -    Grace Hoadley Dodge, philanthropist, helped organize the YWCA.
  • 1860    -    Willem Einthoven, physiologist, inventor of the electrocardiogram.
  • 1867    -    Frances Densmore, ethnomusicologist.
  • 1878    -    Glenn Hammond Curtiss, aviation pioneer.
  • 1898    -    Armand Hammer, American entrepeneur and industrialist.
  • 1902    -    Marcel Breuer, Hungarian-born architect.
  • 1909    -    Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, artist.
  • 1917    -    Raymond Burr, actor (Perry Mason).
  • 1921    -    Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist.
  • 1926    -    Robert Creeley, poet.
  • 1944    -    Mary Bourke Robinson, first woman president of Ireland (1990-1997).