Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 21
This is a list of selected February 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, featured list 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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Peace sign designed by Gerald Holtom -
Friedrich Engels -
Karl Marx -
Kurt Eisner -
Polaroid Land Camera Model 95 -
Carolina Parakeet -
Richard Trevithick -
Malcolm X
.svg)
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| International Mother Language Day | refimprove section |
| 1245 – Pope Innocent IV accepted the resignation of Thomas, the first known bishop of Finland, after he confessed to torture and forgery. | multiple issues |
| 1543 – Abyssinian–Adal war: Led by Ethiopian emperor Gelawdewos, a combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated a Muslim army led by Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi. | date not cited |
| 1613 – Michael was elected unanimously by the Zemsky Sobor to become Tsar, beginning the Romanov dynasty in Imperial Russia. | needs more footnotes |
| 1804 – Built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick, the first self-propelled steam locomotive ran in Wales. | Trevithick: needs more footnotes; Locomotive: refimprove section |
| 1848 – Communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, which became one of the world's most influential political tracts. | refimprove |
| 1918 – The Carolina parakeet, the only parrot species native to the eastern United States, became extinct when the last individual died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. | refimprove |
| 1921 – Reza Khan seized Tehran to make himself the most powerful person in Iran, which eventually led to the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty. | lots of CN tags (9) |
| 1921 – The Constituent Assembly of Georgia adopted the nation's first constitution, shortly before being overthrown by the Soviet Union. | lots of CN tags (relative to length) (2) |
| 1947 – Edwin H. Land demonstrated the use of the first instant camera to the Optical Society of America. | both: refimprove |
| 1948 – Bill France Sr. and several other race car drivers founded NASCAR, the governing body of stock car racing in the United States. | multiple issues |
| 1971 – The Convention on Psychotropic Substances, a United Nations treaty designed to control psychoactive drugs, was signed at a conference of plenipotentiaries in Vienna. | refimprove section |
Eligible
- 1746 – Jacobite rising of 1745: The siege of Inverness ended with British forces surrendering to the Jacobite army.
- 1862 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army began an attempt to gain control of the Southwest with a major victory in the Battle of Valverde.
- 1878 – The first telephone directory, consisting of a single page, was issued to fifty subscribers in New Haven, Connecticut.
- 1919 – Bavarian socialist Kurt Eisner, who had organized the German Revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy and established Bavaria as a republic, was assassinated.
- 1952 – A number of student protesters demanding the establishment of Bengali as an official language were killed by police in Dhaka, East Pakistan.
- 1958 – British artist Gerald Holtom unveiled a logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that later became internationally recognised as the peace sign.
- 1965 – Black nationalist Malcolm X was assassinated while giving a speech in New York City's Audubon Ballroom.
- 1973 – After accidentally straying into Israeli-occupied airspace, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by two fighter aircraft, killing 108 of the 113 people on board.
- Born/died: | Gaius Caesar |d||AD 4| Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi |d|1543| Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick |d|1590| Baruch Spinoza |d|1677| Elizabeth Willing Powel |b|1743| Léo Delibes |b|1836| Mirra Alfassa |b|1878| Mary Edwards Walker |d|1919| Thelma Estrin |b|1924| Nina Simone |b|1933| Howard Florey |d|1968| Elliot Page |b|1987| Jeanne Martin Cissé |d|2017
February 21: Shrove Tuesday (Western Christianity, 2023); Language Movement Day in Bangladesh (1952)
- 1437 – King James I of Scotland was murdered at Perth in a failed coup by his uncle and former ally Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl.
- 1828 – The inaugural issue of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper in a Native American language, was published.
- 1866 – Lucy Hobbs Taylor (pictured) became the first woman to receive a doctorate from a dental college.
- 1929 – In the first battle of the Warlord Rebellion in northeastern Shandong against the Nationalist government of China, a 24,000-strong rebel force led by Zhang Zongchang was defeated at Zhifu by 7,000 NRA troops.
- Raimondo Montecuccoli (b. 1609)
- Goscombe John (b. 1860)
- Helen Hooven Santmyer (d. 1986)