Historical Events on Saturday, 21st February

21/02/2022

In the prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin declares the Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic as independent from Ukraine, and moves troops into the region. The action is condemned by the United Nations.

In March and April 2021, prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces began massing thousands of personnel and military equipment near Russia's border with Ukraine and in Crimea, representing the largest mobilisation since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. This precipitated an international crisis due to concerns over a potential invasion. Satellite imagery showed movements of armour, missiles, and heavy weaponry towards the border. The troops were partially withdrawn by June 2021, though the infrastructure was left in place. A second build-up began in October 2021, this time with more soldiers and with deployments on new fronts; by December over 100,000 Russian troops were massed around Ukraine on three sides, including Belarus from the north and Crimea from the south. Despite the Russian military build-ups, Russian officials from November 2021 to 20 February 2022 repeatedly denied that Russia had plans to invade Ukraine.

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21/02/2013

At least 17 people are killed and 119 injured following several bombings in the Indian city of Hyderabad.

On 21 February 2013, at around 19:00 IST, two blasts occurred in the city of Hyderabad, India. The bombs exploded in Dilsukhnagar, a crowded shopping area, within 100 metres (330 ft) of each other. The first explosion occurred outside a roadside eatery named A1 Mirchi, next to the Anand Tiffin Centre and opposite the Konark movie hall, followed by the second one two minutes later near the Route 107 bus stand close to the Venkatadri theatre. In December 2016, Yasin Bhatkal - the co-founder of Indian Mujahideen, Pakistani national Zia-ur-Rahman, Asadullah Akhtar, Tahaseen Akhtar, and Ajaz Shaikh were sentenced to death by a National Investigation Agency special court for carrying out the attacks under the Arms Act, Explosive Substances Act and Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act. In 2025, the Telangana High Court also upheld their death sentence.

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21/02/1995

Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

James Stephen Fossett was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing aircraft. He made his fortune in the financial services industry and held world records for five nonstop circumnavigations of the Earth: as a long-distance solo balloonist, as a sailor, and as a solo flight fixed-wing aircraft pilot.

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21/02/1994

Aldrich Ames is arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for selling national secrets to the Soviet Union in Arlington County, Virginia.

Aldrich Hazen Ames was an American CIA counterintelligence officer who was convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and Russia in 1994. He served a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in various federal prisons until his death in 2026 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland. Ames was responsible for the arrest and eventual execution of numerous Soviet and Russian officials secretly working on behalf of the U.S. intelligence community, and had compromised more highly classified CIA assets than any other intelligence officer at the time of his arrest until the arrest of FBI agent Robert Hanssen seven years later in 2001. Both Ames and Hanssen were recruited by Victor Cherkashin, a high-ranking KGB officer.

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21/02/1975

Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.

The Watergate scandal, or simply Watergate, was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. On June 17, 1972, operatives associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign were caught burglarizing and planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington, D.C.'s Watergate complex. Nixon's efforts to conceal his administration's involvement led to an impeachment process and his resignation in August 1974.

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21/02/1974

The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal pursuant to a truce with Egypt.

The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. It is the border between Africa and Asia. The 193.30-kilometre-long (120.11 mi) canal is a key trade route between Europe and Asia.

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21/02/1973

Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 jet killing 108 people.

The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai, is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in West Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Africa. Sinai has a land area of about 60,000 km2 (23,000 sq mi) and a population of approximately 600,000 people. Administratively, the vast majority of the area of the Sinai Peninsula is divided into two governorates: the South Sinai Governorate and the North Sinai Governorate. Three other governorates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt: Suez Governorate on the southern end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia Governorate in the center, and Port Said Governorate in the north.

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21/02/1972

United States President Richard Nixon visits China to normalize Sino-American relations.

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he represented California in both houses of the United States Congress before serving as the 36th vice president under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961. His presidency saw the reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal.

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The Soviet uncrewed spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.

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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21/02/1971

The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.

The Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971 is a United Nations treaty designed to control psychoactive drugs such as amphetamine-type stimulants, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and psychedelics signed in Vienna, Austria on 21 February 1971. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 did not ban the many newly discovered psychotropics, since its scope was limited to drugs with cannabis, coca and opium-like effects.

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21/02/1958

The CND symbol, aka peace symbol, commissioned by the Direct Action Committee in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom.

A number of peace symbols have been used many ways in various cultures and contexts. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by early Christians and then eventually became a secular peace symbol, popularized by a Dove lithograph by Pablo Picasso after World War II. In the 1950s, the "peace sign", as it is known today, was designed by Gerald Holtom as the logo for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), a group at the forefront of the peace movement in the UK, and adopted by anti-war and counterculture activists in the US and elsewhere. The symbol is a superposition of the semaphore signals for the letters "N" and "D", taken to stand for "nuclear disarmament", while simultaneously acting as a reference to Goya's The Third of May 1808 (1814).

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21/02/1952

The British government, under Winston Churchill, abolishes identity cards in the UK to "set the people free".

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) and represented a total of five constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.

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The Bengali language movement protests occur at the University of Dhaka in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

The Bengali language movement was a political movement in East Bengal in 1952, advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as a co-lingua franca of the Dominion of Pakistan. The movement wanted to allow its use in government affairs, the continuation of its use as a medium of education, its use in media, currency and stamps, and to maintain its writing in the Bengali alphabet and Bengali script.

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21/02/1948

NASCAR is incorporated.

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top-ranked motorsports organizations in the world and is one of the largest spectator sports leagues in America. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and his son, Jim France, has been the CEO since August 2018. The company is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida. Each year, NASCAR sanctions over 1,500 races at over 100 tracks in 48 US states, as well as in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Europe.

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21/02/1947

In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.

Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in one minute or less.

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21/02/1945

World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, Japanese kamikaze planes sink the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea and damage the USS Saratoga.

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 in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. 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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World War II: the Brazilian Expeditionary Force defeat the German forces in the Battle of Monte Castello on the Italian front.

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force, nicknamed Cobras Fumantes, was a military division of the Brazilian Army and Air Force that fought as part of Allied forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II. It numbered around 25,900 men, including a full infantry division, liaison flight, and fighter squadron.

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21/02/1937

The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War.

The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The main organisation ceased operations on 18 April 1946 when many of its components were relocated into the new United Nations (UN) which was created in the aftermath of the Second World War.

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21/02/1929

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.

The Warlord Rebellion in northeastern Shandong was an uprising of several allied Chinese warlord armies under the leadership of Zhang Zongchang in 1929. The rebels wanted to regain their former territories in Shandong from Liu Zhennian, the man who had defected from Zhang to the Nationalist government in Nanjing during the Northern Expedition. After some initial successes, the rebels were defeated due to the indiscipline of their forces. In the end, the uprising failed to topple Liu Zhennian's rule over eastern Shandong, but resulted in high civilian casualties and widespread destruction at the hands of both sides in the conflict.

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21/02/1925

The New Yorker publishes its first issue.

The New Yorker is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for The New York Times. Together with entrepreneur Raoul H. Fleischmann, they established the F-R Publishing Company and set up the magazine's first office in Manhattan. Ross remained the editor until his death in 1951, shaping the magazine's editorial tone and standards, such as its robust fact-checking operation, for which The New Yorker is widely recognized.

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21/02/1921

Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia adopts the country's first constitution.

The Constituent Assembly of Georgia was a national legislature of the Democratic Republic of Georgia which was elected in February 1919 to ratify the Act of Independence of Georgia and enact the Constitution of 1921. The assembly remained active until the Soviet Russian military intervention brought Georgia’s three-year independence to an end in March 1921.

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Rezā Shāh takes control of Tehran during a successful coup.

Reza Shah Pahlavi was Shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941 and founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. Originally an army officer, he became a politician, serving as minister of war and prime minister of Iran, and was elected shah following the deposition of Ahmad Shah, the last monarch of the Qajar dynasty.

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21/02/1919

German socialist Kurt Eisner is assassinated. His death results in the establishment of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and parliament and government fleeing Munich, Germany.

Kurt Eisner was a German politician, revolutionary, journalist, and theatre critic. As a socialist journalist, he organized the socialist revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy in Bavaria in November 1918, which led to him being described as "the symbol of the Bavarian revolution". Eisner subsequently proclaimed the People's State of Bavaria but was assassinated by far-right Bavarian nationalist Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley in Munich on 21 February 1919.

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21/02/1918

The last Carolina parakeet dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.

The Carolina parakeet, or Carolina conure, is an extinct species of small green neotropical parrot with a bright yellow head, reddish orange face, and pale beak that was native to the Eastern, Midwest, and Plains states of the United States. It was the only indigenous parrot within its range, and one of only three parrot species native to the United States. The others are the thick-billed parrot, now extirpated, and the green parakeet, still present in Texas; a fourth parrot species, the red-crowned amazon, is debated.

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21/02/1916

World War I: In France, the Battle of Verdun begins.

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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21/02/1913

Ioannina is incorporated into the Greek state after the Balkan Wars.

Ioannina, often called Yannena within Greece, is the capital and largest city of the Ioannina regional unit and of Epirus, an administrative region in northwestern Greece.

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21/02/1896

An Englishman raised in Australia, Bob Fitzsimmons, fights an Irishman, Peter Maher, in an American promoted event which technically takes place in Mexico, winning the 1896 World Heavyweight Championship in boxing.

Robert James Fitzsimmons was a Cornish professional boxer who was the sport's first three-division world champion. He achieved fame for beating "Gentleman Jim" Corbett, and he is in The Guinness Book of World Records as the lightest heavyweight champion, weighing just 167 pounds when he won the title. Nicknamed Ruby Robert and The Freckled Wonder, he took pride in his lack of scars and appeared in the ring wearing heavy woollen underwear to conceal the disparity between his trunk and leg-development.

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21/02/1885

The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.

The Washington Monument is a 555-foot (169 m) tall obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington, a Founding Father of the United States and the nation's first president. Standing east of the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial, the monument is made of bluestone gneiss for the foundation and of granite for the construction. The outside facing consists of three different kinds of white marble, as the building process was repeatedly interrupted. The monument stands 554 feet 7+11⁄32 inches (169.046 m) tall, according to U.S. National Geodetic Survey measurements in 2013 and 2014. It is the third tallest monumental column in the world, trailing only the Juche Tower in Pyongyang, and the San Jacinto Monument in Houston, Texas. It was the world's tallest structure between 1884 and 1889, after which it was overtaken by the Eiffel Tower, in Paris.

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21/02/1878

The first telephone directory is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.

A telephone directory, commonly called a telephone book, telephone address book, phonebook, or the white and yellow pages, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory. Its purpose is to allow the telephone number of a subscriber identified by name and address to be found.

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21/02/1874

The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first edition.

The Oakland Tribune was a daily newspaper published in Oakland, California from 1874 to 2016 when it was merged into the East Bay Times by its owner, Bay Area News Group. The former nameplate of the consolidated newspaper will continue to be published every Friday as weekly community supplements.

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21/02/1862

American Civil War: Battle of Valverde is fought near Fort Craig in New Mexico Territory.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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21/02/1861

Mariehamn, the capital city of Åland, is founded.

Mariehamn is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. The city is the seat of the Government of Åland and the Parliament of Åland, and about 40% of Åland's population live there. Mariehamn borders Jomala to the north and west and Lemland to the east.

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21/02/1848

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.

Karl Marx was a German philosopher, social and political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto, and his three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1894), a critique of classical political economy which employs his theory of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism, in the culmination of his life's work. Marx's ideas and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have had enormous influence.

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21/02/1842

John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.

A sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. Since the invention of the first sewing machine, generally considered to have been the work of Englishman Thomas Saint in 1790, the sewing machine has greatly improved the efficiency and productivity of the clothing industry.

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21/02/1828

Initial issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is the first periodical to use the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah.

The Cherokee Phoenix is the first newspaper published by Native Americans in the United States and the first published in a Native American language. The first issue was published in English and Cherokee on February 21, 1828, in New Echota, capital of the Cherokee Nation. The paper continued until 1834. The Cherokee Phoenix was revived in the 20th century, and today it publishes both print and Internet versions.

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21/02/1808

Without a previous declaration of war, Russian troops cross the border to Sweden at Abborfors in eastern Finland, thus beginning the Finnish War, in which Sweden will lose the eastern half of the country (i.e. Finland) to Russia.

Ahvenkoski is a historical site in the Kymenlaakso region, Finland, located by the westernmost branch of the river Kymijoki. It consists of the Vähä-Ahvenkoski village in Loviisa and the Ahvenkoski village in Pyhtää. The site is especially known of its rich military history. Between 1743 and 1809, Ahvenkoski was a border crossing of Sweden and the Russian Empire. Ahvenkoski was originally part of the Pyhtää municipality. As the border divided the village in two, the Swedish side became known as Ruotsinpyhtää, the Swedish Pyhtää, which was annexed to the town of Loviisa in 2010.

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21/02/1804

The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.

A steam locomotive is a type of locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,600 to 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a self-propelled steam engine on wheels.

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21/02/1797

A force of 1,400 French soldiers invade Britain at Fishguard in support of the Society of United Irishmen. They were defeated by 500 British reservists.

The Battle of Fishguard was a military invasion of Great Britain by Revolutionary France during the War of the First Coalition. The brief campaign, on 22–24 February 1797, is the most recent landing on British soil by a hostile foreign force and thus is often referred to as the "last invasion of mainland Britain".

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21/02/1613

Mikhail I is unanimously elected Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia.

Michael I was Tsar of all Russia from 1613 after being elected by the Zemsky Sobor of 1613 until his death in 1645. He was the first tsar of the House of Romanov, which succeeded the House of Rurik following the Time of Troubles.

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21/02/1440

The Prussian Confederation is formed.

The Prussian Confederation was an organization formed on 21 February 1440 at Marienwerder by a group of 53 nobles and clergy and 19 cities in Prussia, to oppose the arbitrariness of the Teutonic Knights. It was based on an earlier similar organization, the Lizard Union established in 1397 by the nobles of Chełmno Land.

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21/02/1245

Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland, is granted resignation after confessing to torture and forgery.

Thomas was the third bishop of Finland, and is the first known one. Little is known of his activities. After admitting to having committed several crimes, he resigned in 1245. He died in Visby three years later. He is sometimes associated with an unnamed bishop who was sent letters from Pope Gregory IX in 1229.

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