On this day in History - Oct. 21

• 0310 - Pope Eusebius dies
• 0686 - Conon becomes Pope.
• 1125 - Cosmas of Prague dies (b.1045)
• 1147 - Lisboa cercada por D. Afonso Henriques e uma força de cruzados rende-se.
• 1187 - Election of Pope Gregory VIII
• 1221 - Alix of Thouars dies (b. 1201). Duchess of Brittany.
• 1266 - Birger jarl dies (b. 1210). Swedish statesman and founder of Stockholm.
• 1328 - Hongwu Emperor of China was born (d. 1398)
• 1422 - Charles VI dies (b. 1368). King of France.
• 1449 - George, Duke of Clarence was born (d. 1478). Brother of Edward IV of England and Richard III of England
• 1492 - Christopher Columbus lands on the San Salvador Islands.
• 1500 - Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado of Japan dies (b. 1442).
• 1505 - Paul Scriptoris dies. German mathematician
• 1512 - Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.
• 1520 - Ferdinand Magellan arrived at Tierra Del Fuego (Argentina-Chile).
• 1527 - Louis I, Cardinal of Guise was born (d. 1578). French cardinal.
• 1556 - Pietro Aretino dies. Italian writer.
• 1558 - Julius Caesar Scaliger dies (b. 1484). Italian humanist scholar.
• 1581 - Domenico Zampieri was born (d. 1641). Italian painter.
• 1600 - Toda Katsushige dies (b. 1557). Japanese warlord.
• 1600 - Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa hogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-Nineteenth century.
• 1623 - William Wade dies (b. 1546). English statesman and diplomat
• 1650 - Jean Bart was born (d. 1702). French admiral.
• 1660 - Georg Ernst Stahl was born (d. 1734). German scientist.
• 1662 - Henry Lawes dies (b. 1595). English composer
• 1675 - Emperor Higashiyama of Japan was born (d. 1710)
• 1687 - Nicolaus I Bernoulli was born (d. 1759). Swiss mathematician.
• 1687 - Sir Edmund Waller dies (b. 1606). English poet.
• 1712 - Sir James Denham Steuart, 4th Baronet was born (d. 1780). British economist.
• 1725 - Franz Moritz Graf von Lacy was born (d. 1801). Austrian field marshal.
• 1757 - Pierre François Charles Augereau, duc de Castiglione was born (d. 816). French marshal
• 1762 - Herman Willem Daendels was born (d. 1818). Dutch statesman.
• 1760 - Katsushka Hokusai was born. Japanese painter and printmaker.
• 1765 - Giovanni Paolo Pannini dies (b. 1691). Italian painter and architect
• 1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born (d. 1834). British poet.
• 1774 - First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
• 1775 - Giuseppe Baini was born (d. 1844). Italian composer.
• 1777 - Samuel Foote dies (b. 1720). English dramatist and actor.
• 1790 - Alphonse de Lamartine was born (d. 1869). French writer.
• 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 / Batalha de Trafalgar. A frota britânica, comandada pelo almirante Nelson, derrota a frota conjunta franco-espanhola, comandada pelo almirante francês Villeneuve.
• 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grand Army 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.
• 1805 - Horatio Nelson dies in battle (b. 1758). British admiral.
• 1817 - Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher was born (d. 1894). German economist
• 1821 - Fiodor Dostoievsky wads born in Moscow (d. 1881).
• 1824 - Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
• 1833 - Alfred Nobel was born (d. 1896). Swedish inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prize
• 1845 - Ulises Heureaux was born. Presidente of Dominican Republic
• 1847 - Giuseppe Giacosa was born (d. 1906). Italian writer.
• 1850 - Salomé Ureña de Henríquez was born (d. 1897). Dominican poetess.
• 1851 - George Ulyett was born (d. 1898). British cricketer.
• 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.
• 1872 - Jacques Babinet dies (b. 1794). French physicist.
• 1873 - Johann Sebastian Welhaven dies (b. 1807). Norwegian poet.
• 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).
• 1889 - Visconde de Mauá (Irineu Evangelista de Sousa) dies (b. 1813). Brazilian industrialist and politician
• 1895 - The Republic of Taiwan collapses as Japanese forces invade.
• 1895 - Edna Purviance was born (d. 1958). American actress.
• 1896 - James Henry Greathead dies (b. 1844). British engineer.
• 1902 - In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
• 1904 - Isabelle Eberhardt dies (b. 1877). Explorer and writer who spent a lot of time in North Africa.
• 1904 - Patrick Kavanagh was born (d. 1967). Irish poet.
• 1912 - Sir Georg Solti was born (d. 1997). Hungarian conductor.
• 1914 - Martin Gardner was born. American writer
• 1917 - Lindanor Celina was born (d. 2003). Brazilian writer.
• 1917 - Dizzy Gillespie was born (d. 1993). American musician, trumpet player and composer.
• 1921 - Sir Malcolm Arnold was born. British composer
• 1921 - President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.
• 1924 - Celia Cruz was born (d. 2003). Cuban singer.
• 1928 - Whitey Ford was born. Baseball player.
• 1928 - José Maria Pedroto was born in Almocave, Lamego (d. 8 Jan 1895). Portuguese football coach.
• 1929 - Ursula K. Le Guin was born. American author
• 1931 - Arthur Schnitzler dies (b. 1862). Austrian writer
• 1934 - Dóris Monteiro was born. Brazilian singer.
• 1938 - Carl Brewer was born (d. 2001). National Hockey League defenseman.
• 1940 - Geoff Boycott was born. British cricketer
• 1940 - Manfred Mann was born. British musician
• 1941 - Steve Cropper was born. American musician
• 1941 - World War II: Germans rampage in Yugoslavia, killing thousands of civilians.
• 1942 - Elvin Bishop was born. American musician
• 1942 - Judy Sheindlin was born. American judge and television host
• 1943 - Brian Piccolo was born (d. 1970). American football player.
• 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.
• 1944 - Alois Kayser dies (b. 1877). German missionary to Nauru
• 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.
• 1949 - Benjamin Netanyahu was born. 9th Prime Minister of Israel
• 1949 - Mike Keenan was born. Canadian hockey coach/GM
• 1949 - Michel Brière was born (d. 1971). National Hockey League player.
• 1950 - Chinese forces occupied Tibet.
• 1952 - Trevor Chappell was born. Australian Cricketer.
• 1952 - Brent Mydland was born (d. 1990). American keyboardist (Grateful Dead)
• 1953 - Peter Mandelson was born. British politician.
• 1953 - Keith Green was born (d. 1982). American musician.
• 1954 - The first part of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring is published in the U.S.A.
• 1954 - Brian Tobin was born. Canadian politician, former premier of Newfoundland
• 1955 - Rich Mullins was born (d. 1997). American musician.
• 1956 - Carrie Fisher was born. American actress and writer
• 1957 - Wolfgang Ketterle was born. German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1957 - Steve Lukather was born. American musician
• 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.
• 1959 - Ken Watanabe was born. Japanese actor.
• 1962 - David Campese was born. Australian rugby player
• 1963 - Fundação da Confederação Européia de Voleibol
• 1964 - Jon Carin was born. American musician (Pink Floyd, The Who)
• 1965 - Helen Schucman commits the first lines of A Course in Miracles to paper.
• 1965 - John F. Jewell was born. American artist and lawyer.
• 1965 - Bill Black dies (b. 1926). American musician.
• 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.
• 1967 - Paul Ince was born. English football player
• 1968 - Pagette Davenport Persad was born. American scientist
• 1969 - A coup d'état in Somalia brings Siad Barre to power.
• 1969 - Waclaw Sierpinski dies (b. 1882). Polish mathematician.
• 1969 - Jack Kerouac dies (b. 1922). American novelist.
• 1969 - Willy Brandt is elected Chancellor of West Germany.
• 1971 - Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) "for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams".
• 1971 - Damien Martyn was born. Australian cricketer
• 1971 - Nick Oliveri was born. American musician
• 1972 - Felicity Andersen was born. Australian actress
• 1973 - Lera Auerbach was born. Russian composer
• 1973 - John Paul Getty III's ear is cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome; it doesn't arrive until November 8.
• 1975 - Charles Reidpath dies (b. 1887). American athlete
• 1976 - Saul Bellow won the Nobel Prize for literature, the first American honored since John Steinbeck in 1962.
• 1976 - Keith Moon plays his last public show with The Who. He died in 1978.
• 1976 - Lavinia Miloşovici was born. Romanian gymnast
• 1977 - Meat Loaf's hit album Bat Out of Hell is released under Epic's Cleveland International Records
• 1977 - The European Patent Institute is founded
• 1978 - Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
• 1978 - Jessica Jones was born. American costume designer
• 1978 - Joey Harrington was born. American football player.
• 1978 - Anastas Mikoyan dies (b. 1895). Soviet politician.
• 1979 - Gabe Gross was born. American Baseball player
• 1979 - Alziro Zarur dies (b. 1914). Brazilian radio personality. Founder of Legião da Boa Vontade (LBV) (Good Will Legion)
• 1980 - Brian Pittman was born. American musician (Inhale Exhale, formerly of Relient K)
• 1980 - Hans Asperger dies (b. 1906). Austrian psychologist
• 1980 - 1980 World Series: In 6 games, the Philadelphia Phillies win their first World Series.
• 1981 - Nemanja Vidic was born. Serbian footballer
• 1982 - Gerry Adams becoming the first Sinn Fein member to be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
• 1983 - The metre is defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
• 1984 - Alain Prost (Equipe McLaren) vence o Grande Prêmio de Estoril de F1 e Nikki Lauda sagra-se Campeão do Mundo pela 3ª. vez
• 1984 - Kieran Richardson was born. British footballer.
• 1984 - François Truffaut dies (b. 1932). French film director.
• 1985 - Aisha Jambo was borm. Brazilian actress.
• 1986 - Alex Kew was born. British child actor
• 1986 - Lionel Murphy dies (b. 1922). Australian politician and judge
• 1986 - Marshall Islands becomes independent
• 1986 - In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he will be released in August 1991).
• 1986 - Ilhas Marshall becomes independent
• 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.
• 1990 - Airton Senna conquista o bicampeonato da Fórmula 1 em Suzuka, no Japão.
• 1992 - Jim Garrison dies (b. 1921). American attorney.
• 1993 - Melchior Ndadaye dies. President of Burundi.
• 1993 - Gary Kasparov defeated Nigel Short for chess championship.
• 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.
• 1994 - O escritor português Joaquim Manuel Magalhães recebe o Prémio D. Dinis da Fundação da Casa de Mateus.
• 1995 - Shannon Hoon dies (b. 1967). American singer (Blind Melon)
• 1995 - Jesús Blasco dies (b. 1919). Spanish comic book author
• 1995 - Maxene Andrews dies (b. 1916). American singer (The Andrews Sisters).
• 1996 - Arnoldo Aleman claimed victory over Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua's presidential election.
• 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.
• 1998 - In Guinea-Bissau heavy artillery fire rocked the capital and rebels claimed to have captured Bafata, the 2nd largest town.
• 1999 - In East Timor Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao, the exiled guerrilla leader, returned to Dili.
• 2002 - Violence in Badlapur located in Mumbai Conurbation created a tension in the city resulted in a lot of property damage injuring 4 people.
• 2003 - Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.
• 2003 - Fred Berry dies (b. 1951). American actor
• 2003 - Luis A. Ferré dies (b. 1940). Governor of Puerto Rico
• 2003 - Louise Day Hicks dies (b. 1916). American politician
• 2003 - Elliott Smith dies (b. 1969). American musician.
• Overseas Chinese Day — the Republic of China
• Trafalgar Day — celebrated throughout much of the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th Century.
• International Day of the Nacho — celebrated in the United States and Mexico since the early 1990s.
• Diwali in Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddhism (2006)
• Sweetest Day - Celebrated mostly in the Midwest United States (2006)
• Dia do Ecumenismo (Brazil)