On October 21st...

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1422 King Charles VI of France died.

1521 Ferdinand Magellan entered the strait that now bears his name.

1555 The English Parliament refused to recognize Philip of Spain as king.

1760 Artist Hokusai was born.

1772 Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born.

1774 The word "Liberty" was displayed on a flag raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts.

1785 Henry Miller Shreve, Mississippi River trader and inventor, was born.

1797 The U.S.S. Constitution was launched.

1805 The British Navy defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar, but British Admiral Horatio Nelson was mortally wounded during the battle.

1824 Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement.

1833 Inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel was born.

1854 Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.

1861 The Battle of Balls Bluff was fought.

1864 The Battle of Westport was fought.

1876 Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling, cartonist and conservationist, was born.

1897 Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago was dedicated.

1912 Conductor Georg Solti was born.

1914 The Battle of Warsaw ended.

1915 The first transatlantic radiotelephone message was sent from Arlington, Virginia to Paris, France.

1917 American troops saw action on the front lines of World War I for the first time.
1917 Jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie was born.

1928 Baseball player and manager Whitey Ford was born.

1929 Novelist Ursula K. Le Guin was born.

1940 Musician Manfred Mann was born.

1942 Musician Elvin Bishop was born.
1942 Judith Sheindlin, aka Judge Judy, was born.

1944 Aachen became the first major German city to fall to the Allies during World War II.

1945 Women in France were allowed to vote for the first time.

1947 The Northrop YB-49 "flying wing" bomber was flight-tested.

1948 Facsimile high-speed radio transmission was demonstrated in Washington D.C.

1949 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was born.

1950 The death penalty was abolished in Belgium.

1956 A group of military officers forced Honduran President Julio Lozano Diaz to resign in favor of a three-man military junta.
1956 Actress Carrie Fisher was born.

1957 Sir Hugh M. Foot was named to succeed Field Marshal Sir John Harding as Governor of Cyprus.

1958 Baroness Swanborough, the Dowager Marchioness of Reading, was introduced as the first woman to sit in the British House of Lords.

1959 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City opened to the public.
1959 James Dillon was elected president of the Irish Parliament.

1960 Queen Elizabeth II launched Britain's first nuclear submarine, the Dreadnought, at Barrow-in-Furness.
1960 The last debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon was held.

1962 The Seattle World's Fair closed.
1962 At least 32 of the 90 persons aboard the liner Sanct Svithun were reported dead or missing after it ran aground and sank in heavy seas off the Vikna Islands, Norway.

1965 The New York World's Fair closed.

1967 End-of-the-Vietnam-War marchers stormed the Pentagon.

1969 Novelist Jack Kerouac died.

1970 John T. Scopes, the defendant in the "Scopes Monkey Trial," died.

1973 Fred Dryer of the Los Angeles Rams became the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game.

1975 The U.S. Coast Guard Academy opened enrollment to women.
1975 Venera 9 was launched on a mission to Venus.

1979 Moshe Dayan resigned as Foreign Minister of Israel.

1980 Socialite Kim Kardashian was born.

1989 Betram Lee and Peter Bynoe purchased the Denver Nuggets and became the first blacks to own a major sports team.

1991 U.S. hostage Jesse Turner was released from 5 years in captivity in Beirut.

1992 Madonna's book Sex went on sale.

1995 Singer Maxene Andrews died.

2003 Actor Fred Berry died.

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This page was last updated on October 23, 2018.