February 21

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.
• 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 - Andrés Segovia, musician (+ 1987)
• 1895 - Henrik Carl Peter Dam Danish biochemist, winner of the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (+ 1976)
• 1903 - Anaïs 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 - Eugène 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[?].

February 20 - February 22 - January 21 - March 21 - more historical anniversaries