TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – OCT 21
1096 Seljuk Turks at Chivitot slaughter thousands of German crusaders.
1529 The Pope names Henry VIII of England Defender of the Faith after defending the seven sacraments against Luther.
1790 The Tricolor is chosen as the official flag of France.
1797 The navy frigate U.S. Constitution, known as “Old Ironsides,” was launched in Boston Harbor.
1837 Under a flag of truce during peace talks, U.S. troops siege the Indian Seminole Chief Osceola in Florida.
1849 The first tattooed man, James F. O’Connell, was put on exhibition at the Franklin Theatre in New York City, NY.
1867 Many leaders of the Kiowa, Comanche and Kiowa-Apache sign a peace treaty at Medicine Lodge, Kan. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker refused to accept the treaty terms.
1872 The U.S. Naval Academy admits John H. Conyers, the first African American to be accepted.
1904 Panamanians clash with U.S. Marines in Panama in a brief uprising.
1910 A bomb explodes in the Los Angeles Times building killing 21 and injuring many more.
1940 Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
1945 Women in France get the right to vote in the parliamentary elections as part of the woman’s suffrage movement.
1948 UN rejects Russian proposal to destroy atomic weapons
1949 Harry S. Truman appoints the first female federal judge in the nation. Burnita Shelton Matthews from Hazelhurst, MS.
1950 North Korean Premier Kim Il-Sung establishes a new capital at Sinuiju on the Yalu River opposite the Chinese City of Antung.
1959 The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens in Manhattan.
1967 The “March on the Pentagon,” protesting American involvement in Vietnam , draws 50,000 protesters.
1971 Nixon nominates Lewis F Powell & William H Rehnquist to US Supreme Court, following resignations of Justices Hugo Black & John Harlan
1983 The United States sends a ten-ship task force to Grenada.
1986 In a satellite hook up from Antarctica scientists have been studying a huge hole that has appeared in the earths ozone layer over Antarctica.
1986 The U.S. ordered 55 Soviet diplomats to leave. The action was in reaction to the Soviet Union expelling five American diplomats.
1994 North Korea and the US sign an agreement requiring North Korea to halts its nuclear weapons program and agree to international inspections.
2001 A Washington postal worker is confirmed as the ninth confirmed case of anthrax since anthrax infected mail began turning up in Florida, Washington and New York following the 11 September attacks.
2003 Florida Governor Jeb Bush has ordered a feeding tube reinserted into Terry Schiavo, who suffered severe brain damage in 1990 the patient at the center of The Right To Die battle in Florida.
2003 North Korea rejected U.S. President George W. Bush’s offer of a written pledge not to attack in exchange for the communist nation agreeing to end its nuclear weapons program.
2009 After nearly 12 months with large losses or low profits, the US banking sector begins the current reporting session with larger than expected profits. Many are concerned that this will mean large bonuses for banking sector employees while the rest of the country is in a recession.
2011 President Obama announced that all troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of December 2011, honoring the terms set between Iraq and the United States when George W. Bush was president.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
