21 October History
- 1096 - Seljuk Turks at Chivitot slaughter thousands of German crusaders.
- 1529 - The Pope names Henry VIII of England Defender of the Faith after defending the seven sacraments against Luther.
- 1600 - Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats his enemies in battle and affirms his position as Japan's most powerful warlord.
- 1790 - The Tricolor is chosen as the official flag of France.
- 1805 - Vice Admiral and Viscount Horatio Nelson wins his greatest victory over a Franco-Spanish fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off Cape Trafalgar, Spain. Nelson is fatally wounded in the battle, but lives long enough to see victory.
- 1837 - Under a flag of truce during peace talks, U.S. troops siege the Indian Seminole Chief Osceola in Florida.
- 1861 - The Battle of Ball's Bluff, Va. begins, a disastrous Union defeat which sparks Congressional investigations.
- 1867 - Many leaders of the Kiowa, Comanche and Kiowa-Apache sign a peace treaty at Medicine Lodge, Kan. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker refused to accept the treaty terms.
- 1872 - The U.S. Naval Academy admits John H. Conyers, the first African American to be accepted.
- 1879 - After 14 months of testing, Thomas Edison first demonstrates his electric lamp, hoping to one day compete with gaslight.
- 1904 - Panamanians clash with U.S. Marines in Panama in a brief uprising.
- 1917 - The first U.S. troops enter the front lines at Sommerviller under French command.
- 1939 - As war heats up with Germany, the British war cabinet holds its first meeting in the underground war room in London.
- 1940 - Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
- 1942 - Eight American and British officers land from a submarine on an Algerian beach to take measure of Vichy French to the Operation Torch landings.
- 1950 - North Korean Premier Kim Il-Sung establishes a new capital at Sinuiju on the Yalu River opposite the Chinese City of Antung.
- 1959 - The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens in Manhattan.
- 1961 - Bob Dylan records his first album in a single day at a cost of $400.
- 1967 - The "March on the Pentagon," protesting American involvement in Vietnam , draws 50,000 protesters.
- 1983 - The United States sends a ten-ship task force to Grenada.
21 October Birthdays
- 1760 - Katsushika Hokusai, Japanese printmaker.
- 1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet ("The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Kubla Khan").
- 1833 - Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prizes.
- 1917 - Dizzy Gillespie, jazz trumpeter.
- 1929 - Ursula K. Le Guin, science fiction writer (The Left Hand of Darkness).