October 21
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[edit] Births
- 1914 - Martin Gardner
[edit] Deaths
- 310 - Pope Eusebius
- 1558 - Julius Caesar Scaliger, humanist scholar
- 1687 - Sir Edmund Waller, English poet
- 1805 - Horatio Nelson, British admiral
- 1896 - James Henry Greathead, British engineer
- 1931 - Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian writer
- 1944 - Alois Kayser, German missionary, working in Nauru
- 1969 - Waclaw Sierpinski, Polish mathematician
- 1969 - Jack Kerouac, American beat novelist
- 1975 - Charles Reidpath, American athlete
- 1980 - Hans Asperger, Austrian psychologist who discovered Asperger's Syndrome.
- 1984 - François Truffaut, French film director
- 1986 - Lionel Murphy, Australian Labor Party politician and High Court judge.
- 1995 - Shannon Hoon, lead singer of pop band Blind Melon
- 1995 - Jesús Blasco, Spanish comic book author (b. 1919)
- 2003 - Fred Berry, American actor
- 2003 - Luis A. Ferré, former governor of Puerto Rico
- 2003 - Louise Day Hicks, US politician
- 2003 - Elliott Smith, musician
[edit] Events
- 686 - Conon becomes Pope.
- 1600 - Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-Nineteenth century.
- 1797 - In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched.
- 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar - a British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signalled the virtual end of French maritime power and left Britain navally unchallenged until the twentieth century.
- 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrendurs his army to the Grand Armee of Napoleon at Ulm, reaping Napoleon over 30,000 prisoners and inflicting 10,000 casualties on the losers. Ulm was considered to be one of Napoleon's finest hours.
- 1824 - Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
- 1854 - Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
- 1861 - American Civil War: Battle of Ball's Bluff - Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war. Baker, a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed in the fighting.
- 1867 - Manifest Destiny: Medicine Lodge Treaty - Near Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate a reservation in western Oklahoma.
- 1879 - Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric light bulb (it lasted 13 1/2 hours before burning out).
- 1895 - The Republic of Taiwan collapses as Japanese forces invade.
- 1902 - In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
- 1921 - President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.
- 1934 - Mao Tse-tung and his followers begin the Long March.
- 1941 - World War II: Germans rampage in Yugoslavia, killing thousands of civilians.
- 1944 - The first kamikaze attack: HMAS Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg (441 pound) bomb off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.
- 1945 - Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
- 1945 - Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married actress Evita.
- 1947 - 21 die as a fire destroys an asylum in Hoff, Germany.
- 1957 - The movie Jailhouse Rock, starring Elvis Presley, opens.
- 1959 - In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
- 1959 - US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun and other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA.
- 1966 - Aberfan disaster: A coal tip falls on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren
- 1967 - Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, DC. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility (event lasts until October 23; 683 people will be arrested). Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.
- 1973 - John Paul Getty III's ear is cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome; it does not arrive until November 8.
- 1980 - 1980 World Series: In 6 games, the Philadelphia Phillies win their first World Series.
- 1986 - In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he will be released in August 1991).
- 1987 - Former Miss America Bess Myerson is arrested on charges of bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud, all involving an alimony-fixing scandal. She is later found not guilty.
- 1994 - North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea and the United States sign an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.
- 1997 - Hotel owners from the Detroit area meet to discuss Jack Kevorkian's practice of leaving corpses in hotel rooms.
- 1997 - The government of Singapore announces in a widely-publicized "toilet alert" that the drive for toilet cleanliness is a great success; five toilets were selected by citizens as toilet role models.
- 2004 - The Boston Red Sox win the American League pennant, defeating the New York Yankees 10-3 in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, capping off a remarkable comeback from three games to none down to win.
