Date
February 21 is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar . 313 days remain until the end of the year (314 in leap years ).
Events
362 – Athanasius returns to Alexandria .
1245 – Thomas , the first known Bishop of Finland , is granted resignation after confessing to torture and forgery .
1440 – The Prussian Confederation is formed.
1613 – Mikhail I is unanimously elected Tsar by a national assembly , beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia .
1797 – A force of 1,400 French soldiers invaded Britain at Fishguard in support of the Society of United Irishmen . They were defeated by 500 British reservists.
1804 – The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.
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.
1828 – Initial issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is the first periodical to use the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah .
1842 – John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine .
1848 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto .
1862 – American Civil War : Battle of Valverde is fought near Fort Craig in New Mexico Territory .
1866 – Lucy Hobbs Taylor becomes the first American woman to graduate from dental school.
1874 – The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first edition.
1878 – The first telephone directory is issued in New Haven, Connecticut .
1885 – The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.
1896 – An Englishman raised in Australia, Bob Fitzsimmons , fought an Irishman, Peter Maher , in an American promoted event which technically took place in Mexico, winning the 1896 World Heavyweight Championship in boxing .
1913 – Ioannina is incorporated into the Greek state after the Balkan Wars .
1916 – World War I : In France, the Battle of Verdun begins.
1918 – The last Carolina parakeet dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo .
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.
1921 – Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia adopts the country's first constitution.
1921 – Rezā Shāh takes control of Tehran during a successful coup .
1925 – The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
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.
1937 – The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers " in the Spanish Civil War .
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 .
1945 – World War II : the Brazilian Expeditionary Force defeat the German forces in the Battle of Monte Castello on the Italian front .
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 .
1948 – NASCAR is incorporated.
1952 – The British government, under Winston Churchill , abolishes identity cards in the UK to "set the people free".
1952 – The Bengali Language Movement protests occur at the University of Dhaka in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh ).
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 .
1965 – Malcolm X is assassinated while giving a talk at the
Audobon ballroom in Harlem.
1971 – The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna .
1972 – United States President Richard Nixon visits the People's Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations .
1972 – The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
1973 – Over the Sinai Desert , Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 jet killing 108 people.
1974 – The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal pursuant to a truce with Egypt .
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.
1995 – Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan , Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon .
2013 – At least 17 people are killed and 119 injured following several bombings in the Indian city of Hyderabad .