February 21 - Events

Events

• 362 – Athanasius returns to Alexandria.
• 1245 – Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland, is granted resignation after having confessed to tortureand forgery.
• 1440 – The Prussian Confederation is formed.
• 1543 – Battle of Wayna Daga – A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeats a Muslimarmy led by Ahmed Gragn.
• 1613 – Mikhail I is elected unanimously as Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynastyof Imperial Russia.
• 1743 – The premiere of George Frideric Handel's oratorio, "Samson" takes place in London.
• 1804 – The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.
• 1842 – John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.
• 1848 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish the Communist Manifesto.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Valverde fought near Fort Craig in New Mexico Territory.
• 1874 – The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first newspaper.
• 1878 – The first telephone book is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.
• 1885 – The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.
• 1913 – Ioannina is incorporated into the Greek state after the Balkan Wars.
• 1916 – World War I: In France, the Battle of Verdun begins.
• 1918 – The last Carolina Parakeet dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
• 1919 – Kurt Eisner, German socialist, is assassinated. His death results in the establishment of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and parliament and government fleeing Munich, Germany.
• 1921 – Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia adopts the country's first constitution.
• 1925 – The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
• 1937 – Initial flight of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile.
• 1937 – The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War.
• 1945 – World War II: Japanese Kamikaze planes sink the escort carrier Bismarck Sea and damage the Saratoga.
• 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.
• 1952 – The British government, under Winston Churchill, abolishes identity cards in the UK to "set the people free".
• 1952 – In Dhaka, East Pakistan (present Bangladesh) police open fire on a procession of students that was demanding the establishment of Bengali as the official language, killing four people and starting a country-wide protest which led to the recognition of Bengali as one of the national languages of Pakistan. The day is later declared as "International Mother Language Day" by UNESCO.
• 1953 – Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the structure of the DNA molecule.
• 1958 – The Peace symbol is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom, commissioned by Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.
• 1965 – Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.
• 1970 – Swissair Flight 330: A mid-air bomb explosion and subsequent crash kills 38 passengers and nine crew members near Zürich,Switzerland.
• 1971 – The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.
• 1972 – President Richard Nixon visits the People's Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations.
• 1972 – The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
• 1973 – Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 jet killing 108.
• 1974 – The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal pursuant to a truce with Egypt.
• 1975 – Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman andJohn Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.
• 1995 – Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.
• 2004 – The first European political party organization, the European Greens, is established in Rome.
• 2007 – Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigns from office. His resignation is rejected by the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano.