TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: OCTOBER 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.
1553 Volumes of the Talmud are burned
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.
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
1861 The Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Va. begins, a disastrous Union defeat which sparks Congressional investigations.
1872 The U.S. Naval Academy admits John H. Conyers, the first African American to be accepted.
1927 In New York City, construction began on the George Washington Bridge.
1950 North Korean Premier Kim Il-Sung establishes a new capital at Sinuiju on the Yalu River opposite the Chinese City of Antung.
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.
1986 The U.S. ordered 55 Soviet diplomats to leave. The action was in reaction to the Soviet Union expelling five American diplomats.
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. They believe it may have been caused by a chemical process and are suspecting the gas used in Aerosol Cans.
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.
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 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.
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
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
