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.
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Nat Turner woodcarving -
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.
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 1772 – A bloodless coup d'état led by Gustav III was completed with the adoption of a new Swedish Constitution. | 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. | refimprove section |
| 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 US Marine Corps became the first African-American Marine Corps recipient of the Medal of Honor. | unreferenced section, kind of short |
| 1976 – Axe Murder Incident/Operation Paul Bunyan | Featured on August 18 |
| 1982 – Lebanese Civil War: The first troops of a multinational force landed in Beirut to oversee the Palestine Liberation Organization withdrawal from Lebanon. | unreferenced/refimprove 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; Assassination: unreferenced sections |
| 1992 – United States Marshals engaged a fugitive in a shootout at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, beginning a twelve-day siege. | cleanup required |
Eligible
- 1139 – Song dynasty general Yue Fei defeated an army led by Jin dynasty general Wanyan Wuzhu at the Battle of Yancheng during the Jin–Song wars.
- 1680 – Several tribes of Pueblo Indians captured the town of Santa Fe in Nuevo México.
- 1831 – Nat Turner led a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, US; it was suppressed about 48 hours later.
- 1911 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre by a museum employee and was not recovered until two years later.
- 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 – Second World War: A combined Canadian–Polish force captured the strategically important town of Falaise, France, in the final offensive of the Battle of Normandy.
- 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.
- 1963 – The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces raided and vandalised Buddhist pagodas across the country, 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.
- 1993 – NASA lost contact with its Mars Observer spacecraft, three days before orbital insertion.
- 2007 – Hurricane Dean made landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula as a Category 5 storm, causing 45 deaths and US$1.5 billion in damage.
Notes
- Cable 243 appears on Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 24|August 24]], so Xá Lợi Pagoda raids should not appear in the same year
August 21: Youth Day and King Mohammed's Birthday in Morocco; Ninoy Aquino Day in the Philippines
 Lincoln |  Douglas |
- 1689 – Jacobite risings: Jacobites supporting James VII of Scotland clashed with a regiment of Covenanters supporting William of Orange, in the streets of Dunkeld, Scotland.
- 1858 – The first of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas (both pictured), candidates for an Illinois seat in the United States Senate, was held in Ottawa, Illinois.
- 1945 – American physicist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a delta phase plutonium bomb core and exposed himself to a lethal dose of neutron radiation, becoming the first known fatality due to a criticality accident 25 days later.
- 1986 – A limnic eruption of a cloud of carbon dioxide from Lake Nyos in Cameroon killed up to 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock in nearby villages.
- 2013 – Syrian Civil War: Rockets containing sarin struck the opposition-controlled portions of the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, resulting in at least 281 deaths.