Major Events
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar: British Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats combined French and Spanish fleet. Nelson shot and killed during battle.
- 1854 Florence Nightingale with a staff of 38 nurses is sent to the Crimean War
- 1944 World War II: US troops capture Aachen, 1st large German city to fall
- 1948 UN rejects Russian proposal to destroy atomic weapons
- 1950 Chinese forces occupy Tibet
- 1966 116 children and 28 adults die as a coal waste heap slides and engulfs a school in Aberfan, South Wales
- 1993 Failed military coup in Burundi, led by ex-President Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, includes assassination President Ndadaye; 525,000 Hutus flee
- More October 21 Events
Oct 21 in Film & TV
- 1964 Film version of "My Fair Lady" directed by George Cukor, and starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, premieres in New York (Academy Awards Best Picture 1965)
Oct 21 in Music
- 1858 Jacques Offenbach's operetta " Orpheus in the Underworld" (Orphée aux Enfers) premieres in Paris, includes "Infernal Galop" (can-can tune)
Oct 21 in Sport
- 1980 Phillies win their 1st World Championship in their 98-year history
Did You Know?
Explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his fleet reach Cape Virgenes after transiting the Magellan Strait between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, becoming the first Europeans to sail into the Pacific
Hongwu
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Alfred Nobel
D. S. Senanayake
Ronald McNair
Benjamin Netanyahu
Carrie Fisher
Judith Sheindlin
Kim Kardashian
Kane Brown
Doja Cat
Whitey Ford
David Campese
Fun Fact About October 21
Margaret Owen sets world typing speed record of 170 wpm for 1 min
Famous Weddings
- 1917 Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats (52) weds Georgie Hyde-Lees (25)
- 1929 Bank robber Willie Sutton (28) weds Louise Leudemann
- 1948 Science fiction pioneering author "Stranger in a Strange Land" Robert A. Heinlein marries 3rd wife Virginia "Ginny" Gerstenfeld
More October 21 Weddings
Horatio Nelson
Jack Kerouac
John T. Scopes
John Bromwich
Ben Bradlee
Betsy Rawls
