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.

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