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On this day in History Archives

 
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21 October, 2003
Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.
21 October, 2002
Violence in Badlapur, suburb of Mumbai created a tension in the city resulted in a lot of property damage injuring 4 people.
21 October, 2001
"United We Stand" benefit concert for September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks victims, held at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC. Event organized and headlined by Michael Jackson, also featuring pop stars Aerosmith, Mariah Carey, The Backstreet Boys, and others.
21 October, 1995
Dayton Agreement The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
21 October, 1994
North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea and the United States sign an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections. In Seoul, 32 people are killed when the Seongsu Bridge collapses.
21 October, 1990
The first Apple Day, is held in Covent Garden, London.
21 October, 1987
Former Miss America Bess Myerson is arrested on charges of bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud, all involving an alimony-fixing scandal. She is later found not guilty.
21 October, 1986
In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he was released in August 1991).
21 October, 1983
The metre is defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
21 October, 1978
Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
21 October, 1977
The European Patent Institute is founded.
21 October, 1976
Keith Moon plays his last public show with The Who. He would die in 1978.
21 October, 1975
Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox scores a twelfth inning homerun againist the Cincinnati Reds. His homerun would win game six of the World Series.
21 October, 1973
John Paul Getty IIIs ear is cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome; it doesnt arrive until November 8. Fred Dryer of the then Los Angeles Rams becomes the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game.
21 October, 1969
A coup détat in Somalia brings Siad Barre to power.
21 October, 1967
Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, DC. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility (event lasts until October 23; 683 people were arrested). Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.
21 October, 1966
Aberfan disaster: A coal tip falls on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.
21 October, 1965
Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun.
21 October, 1959
In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun and other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA.
21 October, 1947
21 die as a fire destroys an asylum in Hoff, Germany.
21 October, 1945
Womens suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time. Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón married actress Evita.
21 October, 1944
The first kamikaze attack: HMAS Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg (441 pound) bomb off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.
21 October, 1941
7000 Serbs was shot in Kragujevac, Serbia by Nazi Germans.
21 October, 1921
President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.
21 October, 1902
In the United States, a five month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
21 October, 1895
The Republic of Formosa collapses as Japanese forces invade.
21 October, 1892
Opening ceremonies for the Worlds Columbian Exposition were held in Chicago, though because construction was behind schedule, the exposition did not open until May 1, 1893.
21 October, 1879
Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb (it lasted 13˝ hours before burning out).
21 October, 1867
Manifest Destiny: Medicine Lodge Treaty - Near Medicine Lodge, Kansas a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate a reservation in western Oklahoma.
21 October, 1861
American Civil War: Battle of Balls Bluff - Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war. Baker, a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed in the fighting.
21 October, 1854
Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
21 October, 1824
Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
21 October, 1805
Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signalled the virtual end of French maritime power and left Britain navally unchallenged until the twentieth century. Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grand Army of Napoleon at Ulm, reaping Napoleon over 30,000 prisoners and inflicting 10,000 casualties on the losers. Ulm was considered to be one of Napoleons finest hours.
21 October, 1797
In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched.
21 October, 1774
First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
21 October, 1600
Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-Nineteenth century.
21 October, 1520
Ferdinand Magellan discovers a strait now known as Strait of Magellan.
21 October, 1517
Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, thus beginning the Protestant Reformation.
21 October, 1512
Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.

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