Historical Events on Thursday, 21st August

21/08/2017

A solar eclipse traverses the continental United States.

A total solar eclipse, dubbed the "Great American Eclipse" by some media, occurred on August 21, 2017. It was visible within a band that spanned the contiguous United States from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts. It was also visible as a partial solar eclipse from as far north as Nunavut in northern Canada to as far south as northern South America. In northwestern Europe and Africa, it was partially visible in the late evening. In northeastern Asia, it was partially visible at sunrise.

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21/08/2013

Hundreds of people are reported killed by chemical attacks in the Ghouta region of Syria.

The Ghouta chemical attack was a chemical attack carried out by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in the early hours of 21 August 2013 in Ghouta, Syria during the Syrian civil war. It was the deadliest use of chemical weapons in Syrian conflict and since the Iran–Iraq War. Two opposition-controlled areas in the suburbs around Damascus were struck by rockets containing the chemical agent sarin. Estimates of the death toll range from 281 to 1,729 people. The attack led to an international agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, but this was not completed and further chemical attacks occurred, including Khan Shaykhun in 2017 and Douma in 2018.

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21/08/2000

American golfer Tiger Woods wins the 82nd PGA Championship and becomes the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in a calendar year.

Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer. Woods is widely regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time and as one of the most famous athletes in modern history. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, holds numerous golf records, and is an inductee of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

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21/08/1995

Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia, attempts to divert to West Georgia Regional Airport after the left engine fails, but the aircraft crashes in Carroll County near Carrollton, Georgia, killing nine of the 29 people on board.

On August 21, 1995, Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia flying from Atlanta, Georgia, to Gulfport, Mississippi, crashed in the community of Burwell between the cities of Bowdon, Georgia, and Carrollton, Georgia. Out of the 29 people on board, 9 were killed. The accident bore similarities to Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311, which had occurred four years earlier, and resulted in the deaths of all 23 people on board. The inquiries of both crashes concluded that design flaws in the aircraft's propellers were to blame.

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21/08/1994

Royal Air Maroc Flight 630 crashes in Douar Izounine, Morocco, killing all 44 people on board.

Royal Air Maroc Flight 630 was a passenger flight on 21 August 1994 which crashed approximately ten minutes after takeoff from Agadir–Al Massira Airport in Morocco. All 44 passengers and crew on board were killed. It was the deadliest ATR 42 aircraft crash at that point in time. An investigation showed that the crash was deliberately caused by one of the pilots.

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21/08/1993

NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program and for research in aeronautics and space. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA operates ten field centers across the U.S. and is organized into mission directorates for Science, Space Operations, Exploration Systems Development, Space Technology, Aeronautics Research, and Mission Support. Established in 1958, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space program a distinct civilian orientation focused on peaceful applications. Since then, it has led most American spaceflight programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the Apollo program, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS) and the ongoing multi-national Artemis program.

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21/08/1991

Latvia declares renewal of its full independence after its occupation by the Soviet Union since 1940.

Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to the southeast and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of 64,573 km2 (24,932 sq mi), with a population of 1.83 million. The country has a temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Riga. Latvians, who are the titular nation and comprise 65.5% of the country's population, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of the Balts and speak Latvian. Russians are the most prominent minority in the country, at almost a quarter of the population; 37.7% of the population speak Russian as their native tongue.

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Coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev collapses.

The 1991 Soviet coup attempt, also known as the August Coup, was a failed attempt by hardliners of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to forcibly seize control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev, who was Soviet president and General Secretary of the CPSU at the time. The coup leaders consisted of top military and civilian officials, including Vice President Gennady Yanayev, who together formed the State Committee on the State of Emergency. They opposed Gorbachev's reform program, were angry at the loss of control over Eastern European states and fearful of the New Union Treaty, which was on the verge of being signed by the Soviet Union (USSR). The treaty was to decentralize much of the central Soviet government's power and distribute it among its fifteen republics. Boris Yeltsin's demand for more autonomy to the republics opened a window for the plotters to organize the coup.

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21/08/1988

The 6.9 Mw  Nepal earthquake shakes the Nepal–India border with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), leaving 709–1,450 people killed and thousands injured.

The 1988 Nepal earthquake occurred near the Nepal–India border on 20 August 1988 at 23:09:09 UTC. The epicenter was located in Udayapur District. Measuring Mw  6.9, it was the largest earthquake recorded in the country since 1934.

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21/08/1986

Carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing up to 1,800 people within a 20-kilometre (12 mi) range.

A volcano is a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.

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21/08/1983

Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. is assassinated at Manila International Airport (now renamed Ninoy Aquino International Airport in his honor).

Benigno Simeón "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., was a Filipino politician and journalist who served as a senator of the Philippines (1967–1972) and governor of the province of Tarlac (1963–1967). Aquino was the husband of Corazon Aquino, who became the 11th president of the Philippines after his assassination, and father of Benigno Aquino III, who became the 15th president of the Philippines. Aquino, together with Gerry Roxas and Jovito R. Salonga, helped form the leadership of the Liberal Party-based coalition against ex-President Ferdinand Marcos. Aquino was a significant emotional leader, who, together with the intellectual leader Sen. Jose W. Diokno, led the overall opposition.

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21/08/1982

Lebanese Civil War: The first troops of a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestine Liberation Organization's withdrawal from Lebanon.

The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon.

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21/08/1971

A bomb exploded in the Liberal Party campaign rally in Plaza Miranda, Manila, Philippines with several anti-Marcos political candidates injured.

The Liberal Party of the Philippines is a liberal political party in the Philippines.

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21/08/1968

Cold War: Nicolae Ceaușescu, leader of the Socialist Republic of Romania, publicly condemns the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, encouraging the Romanian population to arm itself against possible Soviet reprisals.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

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James Anderson Jr. posthumously receives the first Medal of Honor to be awarded to an African American U.S. Marine.

Private First Class James Anderson Jr. was a United States Marine who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for heroism while serving in Vietnam in February 1967. When his Medal of Honor was awarded on August 21, 1968, he became the first African American U.S. Marine recipient of the Medal of Honor while serving in Vietnam.

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21/08/1965

The Socialist Republic of Romania is proclaimed, following the adoption of a new constitution.

The Socialist Republic of Romania was the communist state that existed officially in Romania from 1947 to the Revolutions of 1989. From 1947 to 1965, the state was known as the Romanian People's Republic. The country was an Eastern Bloc state and a member of the Warsaw Pact with a dominant role for the Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its constitutions. Geographically, RSR was bordered by the Black Sea to the east, the Soviet Union to the north and east, Hungary and Yugoslavia to the west, and Bulgaria to the south.

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21/08/1963

Xá Lợi Pagoda raids: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem, vandalizes Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead.

The Xá Lợi Pagoda raids were a series of synchronized attacks on various Buddhist pagodas in the major cities of South Vietnam shortly after midnight on 21 August 1963. The raids were executed by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces under Colonel Lê Quang Tung and combat police, both of which took their orders directly from Ngô Đình Nhu, the younger brother of the Roman Catholic President Ngô Đình Diệm. Xá Lợi Pagoda, the largest pagoda in the South Vietnamese capital Saigon was the most prominent of the raided temples. Over 1,400 Buddhists were arrested, and estimates of the death toll and missing ranged up to the hundreds. In response to the Huế Vesak shootings and a ban on the Buddhist flag in early May, South Vietnam's Buddhist majority rose in widespread civil disobedience and protest against the religious bias and discrimination of the Catholic-dominated Diệm government. Buddhist temples in major cities, most prominently the Xá Lợi pagoda, became focal points for protesters and assembly points for Buddhist monks from rural areas.

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21/08/1959

United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. Hawaii's admission is currently commemorated by Hawaii Admission Day.

The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

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21/08/1957

The Soviet Union successfully conducts a long-range test flight of the R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

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21/08/1945

Physicist Harry Daghlian is fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Haroutune Krikor Daghlian Jr. was an American physicist with the Manhattan Project, which designed and produced the atomic bombs that were used in World War II. He accidentally irradiated himself on August 21, 1945, during a critical mass experiment at the remote Omega Site of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico and died 25 days later from the resultant radiation poisoning.

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21/08/1944

Dumbarton Oaks Conference, prelude to the United Nations, begins.

The Dumbarton Oaks Conference, or, more formally, the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization, was an international conference at which proposals for the establishment of a "general international organization", which was to become the United Nations, were formulated and negotiated. The conference was led by the Four Policemen – the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China. It was held at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., from August 21, 1944, to October 7, 1944.

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World War II: Canadian and Polish units capture the strategically important town of Falaise, Calvados, France.

Operation Tractable was the final attack conducted by Canadian and Polish troops, supported by a British tank brigade, during the Battle of Normandy during World War II. The operation was to capture the tactically important French town of Falaise and then the smaller towns of Trun and Chambois. This operation was undertaken by the First Canadian Army with the 1st Polish Armoured Division and a British armoured brigade against Army Group B of the Westheer in what became the largest encirclement on the Western Front during the Second World War. Despite a slow start and limited gains north of Falaise, novel tactics by the 1st Polish Armoured Division during the drive for Chambois enabled the Falaise Gap to be partially closed by 19 August 1944, trapping about 150,000 German soldiers in the Falaise Pocket.

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21/08/1942

World War II: The Guadalcanal campaign: American forces defeat an attack by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in the Battle of the Tenaru.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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21/08/1918

World War I: The Second Battle of the Somme begins.

The Second Battle of the Somme of 1918 was fought during the First World War on the Western Front from late August to early September, in the basin of the River Somme. It was part of a series of successful counter-offensives in response to the German Spring Offensive, after a pause for redeployment and supply.

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21/08/1914

World War I: The Battle of Charleroi, a successful German attack across the River Sambre that pre-empted a French offensive in the same area.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as The Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

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21/08/1911

The Mona Lisa is stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre employee.

The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, [and] the most parodied work of art in the world." The painting's novel qualities include the subject's enigmatic expression, monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism.

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21/08/1901

Six hundred American school teachers, Thomasites, arrived in Manila on the USAT Thomas.

The Thomasites were a group of 600 American teachers who traveled from the United States to the newly occupied territory of the Philippines on the US Army Transport Thomas. The group included 346 men and 180 women, hailing from 43 different states and 193 colleges, universities, and normal schools. The term 'Thomasites' has since expanded to include any teacher who arrived in the first few years of the American colonial period of the Philippines.

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21/08/1888

The first successful adding machine in the United States is patented by William Seward Burroughs.

An adding machine is a class of mechanical calculator, usually specialized for bookkeeping calculations. Consequently, the earliest adding machines were often designed to read in particular currencies. Adding machines were ubiquitous office equipment in developed countries for most of the twentieth century.

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21/08/1883

An F5 tornado strikes Rochester, Minnesota, leading to the creation of the Mayo Clinic.

On August 21, 1883, a violent and devastating tornado affected southeastern portions of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The massive tornado, retrospectively estimated to have been an F5 on the modern Fujita scale, caused at least 37 deaths and over 200 injuries. The tornado was part of a tornado family, a series of tornadoes produced by a supercell, that included at least two significant tornadoes across Southeast Minnesota on August 21. A third significant tornado occurred two hours before the main event hit Rochester. The Rochester tornado indirectly led to the formation of Saint Mary's Hospital, now part of the Mayo Clinic. The tornado closely followed destructive tornadoes a month earlier in the same area: on July 21, two significant, deadly tornadoes hit the area, including an F4 tornado family that killed four people in Dodge and Olmsted Counties, especially near Dodge Center.

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21/08/1879

The locals of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland report their having seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary. The apparition is later named "Our Lady of Knock" and the spot transformed into a Catholic pilgrimage site.

Knock is a village in County Mayo, Ireland.

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21/08/1878

The American Bar Association is founded in Saratoga Springs, New York.

The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary national bar association of lawyers and law students in the United States, and not specific to any single jurisdiction. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation of model ethical codes related to the legal profession. As of fiscal year 2017, the ABA had 194,000 dues-paying members, constituting approximately 24.4% of American attorneys. In 1979, half of all lawyers in the U.S. were members of the ABA. In 2016, about one third of the 1.3 million practicing lawyers in the U.S. were included in the ABA membership of 400,000, with figures largely unchanged in 2024; Included are "about 150,000 paying members" for 2024–2025, according to Reuters.

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21/08/1863

Lawrence, Kansas is destroyed by pro-Confederate guerrillas known as Quantrill's Raiders.

Lawrence is a city in and the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, United States, It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas and Wakarusa rivers. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 94,934, making it the sixth-largest city in the state. The city is a college town with a significant student population, because it is home to both the University of Kansas (KU) and Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU).

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21/08/1862

The Stadtpark, the first public park in Vienna, opens to the public.

The Stadtpark in Vienna, Austria is a large municipal park that extends from the Ringstraße in the Innere Stadt first district up to the Heumarkt in the Landstraße third district. The park is divided in two sections by the Wienfluss, and has a total surface area of 65,000 square metres. Scattered throughout the park are statues of famous Viennese artists, writers, and composers, including Hans Canon, Emil Jakob Schindler, Johann Strauss II, Franz Schubert, and Anton Bruckner. The opulent Kursalon building on Johannesgasse, with its broad terrace that reaches into the park, is the site of popular waltz concerts.

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21/08/1858

The first of the Lincoln–Douglas debates is held in Ottawa, Illinois.

The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Until the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that senators shall be elected by the people of their states, was ratified in 1913, senators were elected by their respective state legislatures. Therefore, Lincoln and Douglas were trying to win the people's votes for legislators in the Illinois General Assembly, aligned with their respective political parties.

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21/08/1852

Tlingit Indians destroy Fort Selkirk, Yukon Territory.

The Tlingit or Lingít are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Tlingit people are Alaska Natives and First Nations in Canada. They speak the Tlingit language, a Na-Dene language.

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21/08/1831

Nat Turner leads black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, which will claim the lives of 55 to 65 whites and about twice that number of blacks.

Nat Turner was an enslaved Black carpenter and preacher who led a four-day rebellion of both enslaved and free Black people in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.

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21/08/1821

Jarvis Island is discovered by the crew of the ship, Eliza Frances.

Jarvis Island is an uninhabited 4.5 km2 (1.7 sq mi) coral island located in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands. It is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States, administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Wildlife Refuge system. Unlike most coral atolls, the lagoon on Jarvis is wholly dry.

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21/08/1810

Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France, is elected Crown Prince of Sweden by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates.

Charles XIV John was King of Sweden and Norway from 1818 until his death in 1844 and the first monarch of the Bernadotte dynasty. In Norway, he is known as Charles III John ; before he became royalty in Sweden, his name was Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte. During the Napoleonic Wars, he participated in several battles as a Marshal of France.

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21/08/1808

Battle of Vimeiro: British and Portuguese forces led by General Arthur Wellesley defeat French force under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro, Portugal, the first Anglo-Portuguese victory of the Peninsular War.

In the Battle of Vimeiro on 21 August 1808, the British under General Arthur Wellesley defeated the French under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro, near Lisbon, Portugal, during the Peninsular War. This battle put an end to the first French invasion of Portugal.

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21/08/1791

Enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue, led by Dutty Boukman, held a Vodou ceremony that became a pivotal act of resistance. This gathering sparked a mass uprising against slavery, marking the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.

Saint-Domingue was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1803. The name derives from the Spanish main city on the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer specifically to the Spanish-held Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, now the Dominican Republic. The borders between the two were fluid and changed over time until they were finally solidified in the Dominican War of Independence in 1844.

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21/08/1778

American Revolutionary War: British forces begin besieging the French outpost at Pondichéry.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

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21/08/1772

King Gustav III completes his coup d'état by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot.

Gustav III, also called Gustavus III, was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden.

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21/08/1770

James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

Captain James Cook was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer who led three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans between 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand, and led the first recorded visit by Europeans to the east coast of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands.

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21/08/1716

Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: The arrival of naval reinforcements and the news of the Battle of Petrovaradin force the Ottomans to abandon the Siege of Corfu, thus preserving the Ionian Islands under Venetian rule.

The Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War was fought between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire between 1714 and 1718. It was the last conflict between the two powers, and ended with an Ottoman victory and the loss of Venice's major possession in the Greek peninsula, the Peloponnese (Morea). Venice was saved from a greater defeat by the intervention of Austria in 1716 and by some naval success. The war ended with Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718.

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21/08/1689

The Battle of Dunkeld in Scotland.

The Battle of Dunkeld was fought between Jacobite clans supporting the deposed king James VII of Scotland and a regiment of covenanters supporting William of Orange,in the streets around Dunkeld Cathedral, Dunkeld, Scotland, on 21 August 1689 and formed part of the Jacobite rising of 1689, commonly called Dundee's rising in Scotland. The battlefield was added to the Inventory of Historic Battlefields in Scotland in 2012.

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21/08/1680

Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe from the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt.

The Pueblo peoples or Puebloans are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Among the currently inhabited pueblos, Taos, San Ildefonso, Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi are some of the most commonly known. Pueblo people speak languages from four different language families, and each pueblo is further divided culturally by kinship systems and agricultural practices, although all cultivate varieties of corn (maize).

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21/08/1415

Henry the Navigator leads Portuguese forces to victory over the Marinids at the Conquest of Ceuta.

Prince Henry of Portugal, Duke of Viseu, better known in English as Prince Henry the Navigator, was a Portuguese prince, a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and 15th-century European maritime exploration. He is regarded as the main initiator of what would be known as the Age of Discovery. Henry was the third child of King John I of Portugal, who founded the House of Aviz.

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21/08/1331

King Stefan Uroš III, after months of anarchy, surrenders to his son and rival Stefan Dušan, who succeeds as King of Serbia.

Stefan Uroš III, was King of Serbia from 6 January 1322 to 8 September 1331. Dečanski was the son of King Stefan Milutin. He defeated two other contenders to the Serbian throne. Stefan is known as Dečanski after the great monastery of Visoki Dečani he built.

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21/08/1192

Minamoto no Yoritomo becomes Sei-i Taishōgun and the de facto ruler of Japan. (Traditional Japanese date: the 12th day of the seventh month in the third year of the Kenkyū (建久) era).

Minamoto no Yoritomo was a samurai, daimyo and the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate, ruling from 1192 until 1199, also the first shogun in the history of Japan to hold de-facto power over Japan. He was married to Hōjō Masako, who acted as regent (shikken) after his death. The early 11th-century text Mutsu Waki 陸奥話記 says Yoritomo is an incarnation of the god of the north Bishamonten.

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21/08/1169

Battle of the Blacks: Uprising by the black African forces of the Fatimid army, along with a number of Egyptian emirs and commoners, against Saladin.

The Battle of the Blacks or Battle of the Slaves was a conflict in Cairo that occurred during the Rise of Saladin in Egypt, on 21–23 August 1169, between the black African units of the Fatimid army and other pro-Fatimid elements, and Sunni Syrian troops loyal to the Fatimid vizier, Saladin. Saladin's rise to the vizierate, and his sidelining of the Fatimid caliph, al-Adid, antagonized the traditional Fatimid elites, including the army regiments, as Saladin relied chiefly on the Kurdish and Turkish cavalry that had come with him from Syria. According to the medieval sources, which are biased towards Saladin, this conflict led to an attempt by the palace majordomo, Mu'tamin al-Khilafa, to enter into an agreement with the Crusaders and jointly attack Saladin's forces to get rid of him. Saladin learned of this conspiracy and had Mu'tamin executed on 20 August. Modern historians have questioned the veracity of this report, suspecting that it may have been invented to justify Saladin's subsequent move against the Fatimid troops.

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21/08/1140

Song dynasty general Yue Fei defeats an army led by Jin dynasty general Wuzhu at the Battle of Yancheng during the Jin–Song Wars.

The Song dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song often came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao, Western Xia, and Jin dynasties in northern China. After retreating to southern China following attacks by the Jin dynasty, the Song was eventually conquered by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty.

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21/08/0959

Eraclus becomes the 25th bishop of Liège.

Eraclus, alternatively Eraclius or Evraclus, was the 25th bishop of Liège (959–971).

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