1328 Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder and first emperor of China's Ming dynasty, was born on October 21, 1328. Zhu Yuanzhang rose to command the force that conquered China and ended the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, forcing the Mongols to retreat to the Central Asian steppes. Following his seizure of the Yuan capital, Khanbaliq (present-day Beijing), Zhu ascended the throne of China on January 22, 1368. This initiated the Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
1422 On October 21, 1422, the 10-month-old Henry VI of England became the King of France as well, as upon his grandfather Charles VI's death in accordance with the Treaty of Troyes of 1420. His coronation as King of France was held at Notre Dame de Paris two months later. He was disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. Until 1437, Henry's realm was governed by regents.
1772 The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in the country town of Ottery St Mary, Devonshire, England on October 21, 1772. His father, the Reverend John Coleridge (1718–1781), was a well-respected vicar of the parish and headmaster of Henry VIII's Free Grammar School at Ottery.Coleridge wrote about 750 poems in total and is best remembered for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and his poetry volume collaboration with William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads.
1774 The first display of the word "Liberty" on a flag was on October 21, 1774. It was simply a Queen Anne Flag with the words, "LIBERTY AND UNION" sewn onto the red field. The flag was raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
1805 The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought on October 21, 1805 between the navies of France and Spain on one side, and Great Britain on the other near Cape Trafalgar in southwest Spain. At the battle, 27 British ships led by Admiral Nelson defeated 33 French and Spanish ships.The French and Spaniards lost 22 ships in the battle; all the British ships survived. Britain's victory allowed them to become the world's largest sea power for 100 years.
1805 Admiral Nelson was in the midst of defeating Napoleon's combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, when a musket ball that hit his left shoulder wounded him. The doctors told him the injury was fatal. Nelson accepted this with resignation and sent an officer to Admiral Collingwood, his second in command with instructions for the continuation of battle. Shortly after hearing encouraging news about the battle's progress, he passed away.
1824 Joseph Aspdin (1779-1855) a Yorkshire bricklayer and inventor patented what he called Portland cement on October 21, 1824 by grinding and burning together a mixture of limestone and clay. He called it "portland" because concrete made from his cement looked like stone quarried on the Isle of Portland.
1833 Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize, was born on October 21, 1833. Nobel was a Swedish chemist who invented dynamite and established almost 100 arms factories. The Nobel Prizes came about when a brother of Nobel died and a newspaper mistakenly printed Alfred's obituary under the headline: "The merchant of death is dead." Desperate to leave a positive legacy, he decided to bequeath his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.
1854 Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War on October 21, 1854 after war correspondents for newspapers reported the scandalous treatment of wounded soldiers in the first desperate winter, The Lady With The Lamp and her staff brought the death rate down 20 times within a space of a few months following their arrival in the Crimea.
1858 The can-can is a high kicking and risqué dance popularized in Paris. It is normally danced with four women in 4 / 4 time. Although danced to many tunes, it is associated with Offenbach's opera Orpheus in the Underworld, which was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris on October 21, 1858. It was actually composed as the musical backdrop for a man descending into hell in one of the opera's scenes.
1879 British chemist Joseph Swan first invented the electric light bulb but Thomas Edison wanted to produce a long lasting one. The American inventor worked thousands of hours on his commercially practical incandescent light bulb experimenting with 1,200 different varieties of bamboo before finding the ideal one for the filament on October 21, 1879. He tested it the next day and it lasted 13.5 hours.
1912 Hungarian-born orchestral and operatic conductor Sir Georg Solti was born on October 21, 1912. Solti was best known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He won 31 Grammy Awards, more than any other recording artist.
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| Portrait of EFile:Zhu Yuanzhang.Wikipedia |
1422 On October 21, 1422, the 10-month-old Henry VI of England became the King of France as well, as upon his grandfather Charles VI's death in accordance with the Treaty of Troyes of 1420. His coronation as King of France was held at Notre Dame de Paris two months later. He was disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. Until 1437, Henry's realm was governed by regents.
1774 The first display of the word "Liberty" on a flag was on October 21, 1774. It was simply a Queen Anne Flag with the words, "LIBERTY AND UNION" sewn onto the red field. The flag was raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
1805 The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought on October 21, 1805 between the navies of France and Spain on one side, and Great Britain on the other near Cape Trafalgar in southwest Spain. At the battle, 27 British ships led by Admiral Nelson defeated 33 French and Spanish ships.The French and Spaniards lost 22 ships in the battle; all the British ships survived. Britain's victory allowed them to become the world's largest sea power for 100 years.
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| The Battle of Trafalgar J. M. W. Turner |
1805 Admiral Nelson was in the midst of defeating Napoleon's combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, when a musket ball that hit his left shoulder wounded him. The doctors told him the injury was fatal. Nelson accepted this with resignation and sent an officer to Admiral Collingwood, his second in command with instructions for the continuation of battle. Shortly after hearing encouraging news about the battle's progress, he passed away.
1824 Joseph Aspdin (1779-1855) a Yorkshire bricklayer and inventor patented what he called Portland cement on October 21, 1824 by grinding and burning together a mixture of limestone and clay. He called it "portland" because concrete made from his cement looked like stone quarried on the Isle of Portland.
1833 Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize, was born on October 21, 1833. Nobel was a Swedish chemist who invented dynamite and established almost 100 arms factories. The Nobel Prizes came about when a brother of Nobel died and a newspaper mistakenly printed Alfred's obituary under the headline: "The merchant of death is dead." Desperate to leave a positive legacy, he decided to bequeath his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.
1854 Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War on October 21, 1854 after war correspondents for newspapers reported the scandalous treatment of wounded soldiers in the first desperate winter, The Lady With The Lamp and her staff brought the death rate down 20 times within a space of a few months following their arrival in the Crimea.
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| The Lady with the Lamp. Reproduction of a painting of Nightingale by Henrietta Rae, 1891 |
1858 The can-can is a high kicking and risqué dance popularized in Paris. It is normally danced with four women in 4 / 4 time. Although danced to many tunes, it is associated with Offenbach's opera Orpheus in the Underworld, which was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris on October 21, 1858. It was actually composed as the musical backdrop for a man descending into hell in one of the opera's scenes.
1879 British chemist Joseph Swan first invented the electric light bulb but Thomas Edison wanted to produce a long lasting one. The American inventor worked thousands of hours on his commercially practical incandescent light bulb experimenting with 1,200 different varieties of bamboo before finding the ideal one for the filament on October 21, 1879. He tested it the next day and it lasted 13.5 hours.
1912 Hungarian-born orchestral and operatic conductor Sir Georg Solti was born on October 21, 1912. Solti was best known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He won 31 Grammy Awards, more than any other recording artist.
1922 Warren G. Harding delivered the first speech by a sitting U.S. President against lynching on October 21, 1921 at Birmingham, Alabama. The lynchings were illegal hangings committed primarily by white supremacists against African Americans in the Deep South and Harding spoke in support of Congressman Leonidas Dyer's federal anti-lynching bill, which passed the House of Representatives in January 1922.
1941 The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls was published on October 21, 1941. The first edition print run was 75,000 copies priced at $2.75. Hemingway wrote the book in Havana, Cuba; Key West, Florida; and Sun Valley, Idaho in 1939. The story was based on his experiences as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War.
1944 The German city of Aachen was heavily damaged during World War II. Two Allied air raids in April and May 1944 radically destroyed the city. When the German garrison surrendered to American forces after three weeks of fighting on October 21, 1944, it was the first German city to fall to the Allies in World War II. Its residents welcomed the Allied soldiers as liberators.
1944 The first kamikaze attack took place on October 21, 1944 .A Japanese fighter plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacked HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began. Around 3,860 kamikaze pilots gave their lives during World War II in attacks when their bomb-loaded fighters crashed into Allied naval vessels. It is estimated that about 19% of kamikaze attacks managed to hit a ship.
1949 On October 21, 1949, a few months after the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell received a letter from his former teacher Aldous Huxley, whose Brave New World had been published 17 years earlier. Huxley commended the book and contrasted it with his own futuristic novel. He wrote: "I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World."
1959 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue in New York City opened on October 21, 1959. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, it took the American architect 700 draft sketches until the final design was created. Wright worked on this project for 16 years before the building opened and it is probably his most recognized masterpiece.
1980 When Bruce Springsteen went to a Ramones show, he met Joey Ramone, who asked him to write a song for them. Springsteen wrote "Hungry Heart" for the group that night but decided to keep it on the advice of his producer and manager, Jon Landau. Released as a single on October 21, 1980, it became Bruce Springsteen's first Top 10 hit as a performer.
1941 The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls was published on October 21, 1941. The first edition print run was 75,000 copies priced at $2.75. Hemingway wrote the book in Havana, Cuba; Key West, Florida; and Sun Valley, Idaho in 1939. The story was based on his experiences as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War.
1944 The German city of Aachen was heavily damaged during World War II. Two Allied air raids in April and May 1944 radically destroyed the city. When the German garrison surrendered to American forces after three weeks of fighting on October 21, 1944, it was the first German city to fall to the Allies in World War II. Its residents welcomed the Allied soldiers as liberators.
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| German prisoners in Aachen |
1944 The first kamikaze attack took place on October 21, 1944 .A Japanese fighter plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacked HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began. Around 3,860 kamikaze pilots gave their lives during World War II in attacks when their bomb-loaded fighters crashed into Allied naval vessels. It is estimated that about 19% of kamikaze attacks managed to hit a ship.
1949 On October 21, 1949, a few months after the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell received a letter from his former teacher Aldous Huxley, whose Brave New World had been published 17 years earlier. Huxley commended the book and contrasted it with his own futuristic novel. He wrote: "I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World."
1959 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue in New York City opened on October 21, 1959. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, it took the American architect 700 draft sketches until the final design was created. Wright worked on this project for 16 years before the building opened and it is probably his most recognized masterpiece.
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| Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City (1959) Wikipedia |
1980 When Bruce Springsteen went to a Ramones show, he met Joey Ramone, who asked him to write a song for them. Springsteen wrote "Hungry Heart" for the group that night but decided to keep it on the advice of his producer and manager, Jon Landau. Released as a single on October 21, 1980, it became Bruce Springsteen's first Top 10 hit as a performer.
1983 At the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures on October 21, 1983, the meter was redefined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds. This redefinition tied the meter to a fundamental constant of nature, the speed of light, which is approximately 299,792,458 meters per second. It made the meter more precise and consistent because it was no longer tied to a physical prototype like the previous definition, which was based on a platinum-iridium bar.
2001 The controversial video game Grand Theft Auto III was first released to critical acclaim on October 21, 2001, and went on to popularize open world and adult-content games. The Grand Theft Auto series is the fifth-highest selling video game franchise of all time, behind Nintendo's Mario and Pokémon franchises, Activision's Call of Duty and Tetris.
2005 Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, was discovered in January 2005 by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory.
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| Eris (center) and Dysnomia (left of center), taken by the Hubble Space Telescope |
2010 The current flag of Myanmar was adopted on October 21, 2010 to replace the former flag in use since 1974. The design of the flag has three horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a five-pointed white star in the middle. The three colors of the stripes are meant to symbolize solidarity, peace and tranquility, and courage and decisiveness.
2021 The Ain Dubai opened to the public on October 21, 2021. Located on Bluewaters Island in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the Ain Dubai is 820 feet (250 meters) tall making it the tallest Ferris wheel in the world and has 48 cabins. Each cabin can hold up to 40 people, giving the wheel a total capacity of 1,750 passengers.
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