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
Use only ONE image at a time
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Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas -
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 -
Xá Lợi Pagoda, raided by South Vietnamese special forces
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Rocket launcher from the Ghouta chemical attack
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 |
| 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. | 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 |
| 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. | Lots of tags in one 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 |
| 1992 – United States Marshals engaged a fugitive in a shootout at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, beginning a twelve-day siege. | Lots of self-published sources |
| 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 |
| Zahir al-Umar |d|1775 | date of death uncertain, could be 21st or 22nd |
| Jules Michelet |b|1798| | peacock, underreffed section |
| Eve Torres |b|1984 | Too much unreferenced |
Eligible
- 1716 – Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: Ottoman forces suddenly abandoned their siege of Corfu, allowing the Republic of Venice to preserve its rule over the Ionian Islands.
- 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.
- 1808 – Peninsular War: British–Portuguese forces put an end to the first French invasion of Portugal at the Battle of Vimeiro.
- 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.
- 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 – South Vietnamese special forces loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, the brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, raided and vandalised Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving hundreds dead.
- 1971 – Six people were killed during an escape attempt and riot at San Quentin State Prison in California; 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.
- 2013 – Syrian civil war: Areas controlled by the Syrian opposition in Ghouta, Damascus, were attacked by rockets (launcher pictured) containing sarin, killing at least 281 people.
- 2015 – Passengers on a Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris confronted and subdued an attacker who attempted a mass shooting.
- Born/died this day: | Baldwin II of Jerusalem |d|1131| Juan de Tassis, 2nd Count of Villamediana |d|1622| John Claypole |b|1625| John MacCulloch |d|1835| Emily Tinne |b|1886| Christopher Robin Milne |b|1920| Art Farmer |b|1928|Emma Mashinini |b|1929|Stephen Hillenburg |b|1961| Sergey Brin |b|1973|
Notes
Mona Lisa
- 1689 – Jacobite clans clashed with a regiment of Covenanters in the streets of Dunkeld, Scotland.
- 1789 – The national colours of Italy first appeared on a tricolour cockade in Genoa.
- 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.
- 1944 – World War II: A combined Canadian–Polish force captured the town of Falaise, France, in the final offensive of the Battle of Normandy.
- 2007 – BioShock was released in North America, becoming a critical success and a demonstration of video games as an art form.
- Alphonse, Count of Poitiers (d. 1271)
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (d. 1762)
- Thomas S. Monson (b. 1927)
- Frederick Seguier Drake (d. 1974)