TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: OCT 21
2137 BC- 1st recorded total eclipse of the sun China
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 “Old Ironsides,” the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, was launched in Boston’s harbor.
1805 Vice Admiral and Viscount Horatio Nelson wins his greatest victory over a Franco-Spanish fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off Cape Trafalgar, Spain. Nelson is fatally wounded in the battle, but lives long enough to see victory.
1837 Under a flag of truce during peace talks, U.S. troops siege the Indian Seminole Chief Osceola in Florida.
1854 Florence Nightingale with a staff of 38 nurses is sent to the Crimean War
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.
1879 Thomas Edison perfects the carbonized cotton filament light bulb
1904 Panamanians clash with U.S. Marines in Panama in a brief uprising.
1917 1st Americans to see action on the front lines of WW I
1925 The U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had fined 29,620 people for prohibition (of alcohol) violations.
1940 Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
1948 UN rejects Russian proposal to destroy atomic weapons
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.
1969 Coup in Somalia. Siad Barre staged a military coup against the government the day after the death of Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, the then president of Somalia.
1971 Nixon nominates Lewis F Powell & William H Rehnquist to US Supreme Court, following resignations of Justices Hugo Black & John Harlan
1983 The Pentagon reported that 2,000 Marines were headed to Grenada to protect and evacuate Americans living there.
1993 Failed military coup in Burundi, led by ex-President Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, includes assassination President Ndadaye; 525,000 Hutus flee
1994 North Korea and the US sign an agreement requiring North Korea to halts its nuclear weapons program and agree to international inspections.
2003 The U.S. Senate voted to ban what was known as partial birth abortions.
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.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
