Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 21
This is a list of selected August 21 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Staging area
Images
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Lake Nyos, Cameroon
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Gustav III -
The Xa Loi Pagoda, one of the largest Buddhist pagodas in Vietnam -
Taos pueblo
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James Anderson, Jr. -
Nat Turner woodcarving
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Youth Day and King Mohammed's Birthday in Morocco; | Morocco: refimprove; Mohammed VI: lead too short, unreferenced section (Ancestry) |
| Rosh Hashanah LaBehema (Judaism, 2020) | Date not reliably cited, and not a mainstream Jewish festival; see discussion at [1] |
| Ninoy Aquino Day in the Philippines | refimprove |
| 1140 – Song dynasty general Yue Fei defeated an army led by Jin dynasty general Wuzhu at the Battle of Yancheng during the Jin–Song Wars. | refimprove section |
| 1680 – Several tribes of Pueblo Indians captured the town of Santa Fe in Nuevo México. | lots of CN tags in one section ("In the arts") |
| 1772 – A bloodless coup d'état led by Gustav III was completed with the adoption of a new Swedish Constitution. | refimprove section |
| 1791 – A slave rebellion erupted in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, starting the Haitian Revolution. | refimprove section |
| 1831 – Enslaved African-American preacher Nat Turner led a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, which was suppressed about 48 hours later. | in popular culture section |
| 1944 – Delegations from Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, met at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. to discuss the formation of the United Nations. | unreferenced section |
| 1959 – Under the terms of the Hawaii Admission Act and a subsequent plebiscite, the Territory of Hawaii was officially admitted as the 50th U.S. state. | lots of CN tags (24) |
| 1968 – The Prague Spring, a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia, abruptly ended after Warsaw Pact troops invaded the country, killing 72 Czechoslovaks and arresting their leader Alexander Dubček. | refimprove section |
| 1968 – Private First Class James Anderson Jr. of the U.S. Marine Corps became the first African-American Marine Corps recipient of the Medal of Honor. | unreferenced section |
| 1982 – Lebanese Civil War: The first troops of a multinational force landed in Beirut to oversee the Palestine Liberation Organization withdrawal from Lebanon. | unreferenced sections |
| 1983 – Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated moments after stepping off a plane at the Manila International Airport from his self-imposed exile in the United States. | Aquino: unreferenced section (Ancestry); Assassination: unreferenced section, refimprove section |
| 1993 – NASA lost contact with its Mars Observer spacecraft, three days before orbital insertion. | unreferenced section |
| 2007 – Hurricane Dean made landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico at Category 5 intensity, causing 45 deaths and US$1.5 billion in damage. | figures are dubious; refer to the whole hurricane, rather than the Yucatan peninsula |
| Alphonse, Count of Poitiers |d|1271 | CN tags |
| Zahir al-Umar |d|1775 | date of death uncertain, could be 21st or 22nd |
Eligible
- 1689 – Jacobite risings: Jacobite clans clashed with a regiment of Covenanters in the streets of Dunkeld, Scotland.
- 1717 – Austro-Turkish War: Austrian troops under the command of Prince Eugene of Savoy captured the strategically important city of Belgrade from the Ottoman Empire.
- 1858 – The first of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas (both pictured), candidates for an Illinois seat in the U.S. Senate, was held in Ottawa, Illinois.
- 1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army lost the Battle of the Tenaru, the first of its three major land offensives during the Guadalcanal Campaign.
- 1944 – World War II: A combined Canadian–Polish force captured the strategically important town of Falaise, France, in the final offensive of the Battle of Normandy.
- 1945 – American physicist Harry Daghlian accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium bomb core, exposing himself to neutron radiation and later becoming the first Manhattan Project fatality due to a criticality accident.
- 1963 – The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces raided and vandalised Buddhist pagodas across Vietnam, arresting thousands and leaving hundreds dead.
- 1969 – An Australian tourist set the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on fire, a major catalyst of the formation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
- 1992 – United States Marshals engaged a fugitive in a shootout at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, beginning a twelve-day siege.
- 2013 – Syrian civil war: Rockets containing sarin struck opposition-controlled areas in the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, resulting in at least 281 deaths.
- 2015 – Passengers subdued an attacker in a train heading from Amsterdam to Paris, resulting in four injuries, including the attacker himself.
- Born/died this day: | Baldwin II of Jerusalem |d|1131| John Claypole |b|1625| Lady Mary Wortley Montagu |d|1762| John MacCulloch |d|1835| Emily Tinne |b|1886| Christopher Robin Milne |b|1920| Thomas S. Monson |b|1927| Art Farmer |b|1928| Emma Mashinini |b|1929| Sergey Brin |b|1973| Eve Torres |b|1984| Jerry Finn |d|2008
Notes
Mona Lisa
- 1716 – Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: The Ottoman Empire suddenly abandoned its siege of the city of Corfu, allowing the Republic of Venice to preserve its rule over the Ionian Islands.
- 1808 – Peninsular War: British–Portuguese forces put an end to the first French invasion of Portugal at the Battle of Vimeiro.
- 1911 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (pictured) was stolen from the Louvre by museum employee Vincenzo Peruggia and was not recovered until two years later.
- 1971 – Six people were killed during an escape attempt and riot at California's San Quentin State Prison; the subsequent trial of six inmates was the longest in state history at the time.
- 1986 – A limnic eruption of Lake Nyos in Cameroon released a cloud of carbon dioxide, suffocating 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.
- Juan de Tassis, 2nd Count of Villamediana (d. 1622)
- Jules Michelet (b. 1798)
- Stephen Hillenburg (b. 1961)