http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Feb 21, 1848: Marx publishes Manifesto
On February 21, 1848, The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, is published in London by a group of German-born revolutionary socialists known as the Communist League. The political pamphlet--arguably the most influential in history--proclaimed that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" and that the inevitable victory of the proletariat, or working class, would put an end to class society forever. Originally published in German as Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei ("Manifesto of the Communist Party"), the work had little immediate impact. Its ideas, however, reverberated with increasing force into the 20th century, and by 1950 nearly half the world's population lived under Marxist governments.
Karl Marx was born in Trier, Prussia, in 1818--the son of a Jewish lawyer who converted to Lutheranism. He studied law and philosophy at the universities of Berlin and Jena and initially was a follower of G.W.F. Hegel, the 19th-century German philosopher who sought a dialectical and all-embracing system of philosophy. In 1842, Marx became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, a liberal democratic newspaper in Cologne. The newspaper grew considerably under his guidance, but in 1843 the Prussian authorities shut it down for being too outspoken. That year, Marx moved to Paris to co-edit a new political review.
Paris was at the time a center for socialist thought, and Marx adopted the more extreme form of socialism known as communism, which called for a revolution by the working class that would tear down the capitalist world. In Paris, Marx befriended Friedrich Engels, a fellow Prussian who shared his views and was to become a lifelong collaborator. In 1845, Marx was expelled from France and settled in Brussels, where he renounced his Prussian nationality and was joined by Engels.
During the next two years, Marx and Engels developed their philosophy of communism and became the intellectual leaders of the working-class movement. In 1847, the League of the Just, a secret society made up of revolutionary German workers living in London, asked Marx to join their organization. Marx obliged and with Engels renamed the group the Communist League and planned to unite it with other German worker committees across Europe. The pair were commissioned to draw up a manifesto summarizing the doctrines of the League.
Back in Brussels, Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in January 1848, using as a model a tract Engels wrote for the League in 1847. In early February, Marx sent the work to London, and the League immediately adopted it as their manifesto. Many of the ideas in The Communist Manifesto were not new, but Marx had achieved a powerful synthesis of disparate ideas through his materialistic conception of history. The Manifesto opens with the dramatic words, "A spectre is haunting Europe--the spectre of communism," and ends by declaring: "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!"
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx predicted imminent revolution in Europe. The pamphlet had hardly cooled after coming off the presses in London when revolution broke out in France on February 22 over the banning of political meetings held by socialists and other opposition groups. Isolated riots led to popular revolt, and on February 24 King Louis-Philippe was forced to abdicate. The revolution spread like brushfire across continental Europe. Marx was in Paris on the invitation of the provincial government when the Belgian government, fearful that the revolutionary tide would soon engulf Belgium, banished him. Later that year, he went to the Rhineland, where he agitated for armed revolt.
The bourgeoisie of Europe soon crushed the Revolution of 1848, and Marx would have to wait longer for his revolution. He went to London to live and continued to write with Engels as they further organized the international communist movement. In 1864, Marx helped found the International Workingmen's Association--known as the First International--and in 1867 published the first volume of his monumental Das Kapital--the foundation work of communist theory. By his death in 1884, communism had become a movement to be reckoned with in Europe. Twenty-three years later, in 1917, Vladimir Lenin, a Marxist, led the world's first successful communist revolution in Russia.
Feb 21, 1965: Malcolm X assassinated
In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights.
Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925, Malcolm was the son of James Earl Little, a Baptist preacher who advocated the black nationalist ideals of Marcus Garvey. Threats from the Ku Klux Klan forced the family to move to Lansing, Michigan, where his father continued to preach his controversial sermons despite continuing threats. In 1931, Malcolm's father was brutally murdered by the white supremacist Black Legion, and Michigan authorities refused to prosecute those responsible. In 1937, Malcolm was taken from his family by welfare caseworkers. By the time he reached high school age, he had dropped out of school and moved to Boston, where he became increasingly involved in criminal activities.
In 1946, at the age of 21, Malcolm was sent to prison on a burglary conviction. It was there he encountered the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, whose members are popularly known as Black Muslims. The Nation of Islam advocated black nationalism and racial separatism and condemned Americans of European descent as immoral "devils." Muhammad's teachings had a strong effect on Malcolm, who entered into an intense program of self-education and took the last name "X" to symbolize his stolen African identity.
After six years, Malcolm was released from prison and became a loyal and effective minister of the Nation of Islam in Harlem, New York. In contrast with civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X advocated self-defense and the liberation of African Americans "by any means necessary." A fiery orator, Malcolm was admired by the African American community in New York and around the country.
In the early 1960s, he began to develop a more outspoken philosophy than that of Elijah Muhammad, whom he felt did not sufficiently support the civil rights movement. In late 1963, Malcolm's suggestion that President John F. Kennedy's assassination was a matter of the "chickens coming home to roost" provided Elijah Muhammad, who believed that Malcolm had become too powerful, with a convenient opportunity to suspend him from the Nation of Islam.
A few months later, Malcolm formally left the organization and made a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, where he was profoundly affected by the lack of racial discord among orthodox Muslims. He returned to America as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and in June 1964 founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which advocated black identity and held that racism, not the white race, was the greatest foe of the African American. Malcolm's new movement steadily gained followers, and his more moderate philosophy became increasingly influential in the civil rights movement, especially among the leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
On February 21, 1965, one week after his home was firebombed, Malcolm X was shot to death by Nation of Islam members while speaking at a rally of his organization in New York City.
Feb 21, 1972: Nixon arrives in China for talks
In an amazing turn of events, President Richard Nixon takes a dramatic first step toward normalizing relations with the communist People's Republic of China (PRC) by traveling to Beijing for a week of talks. Nixon's historic visit began the slow process of the re-establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China.
Still mired in the unpopular and frustrating Vietnam War in 1971, Nixon surprised the American people by announcing a planned trip to the PRC in 1972. The United States had never stopped formally recognizing the PRC after Mao Zedong's successful communist revolution of 1949. In fact, the two nations had been bitter enemies. PRC and U.S. troops fought in Korea during the early-1950s, and Chinese aid and advisors supported North Vietnam in its war against the United States.
Nixon seemed an unlikely candidate to thaw those chilly relations. During the 1940s and 1950s, he had been a vocal cold warrior and had condemned the Democratic administration of Harry S. Truman for "losing" China to the communists in 1949. The situation had changed dramatically since that time, though. In Vietnam, the Soviets, not the Chinese, had become the most significant supporters of the North Vietnamese regime. And the war in Vietnam was not going well. The American people were impatient for an end to the conflict, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that the United States might not be able to save its ally, South Vietnam, from its communist aggressors. The American fear of a monolithic communist bloc had been modified, as a war of words—and occasional border conflicts—erupted between the Soviet Union and the PRC in the 1960s. Nixon, and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger saw a unique opportunity in these circumstances—diplomatic overtures to the PRC might make the Soviet Union more malleable to U.S. policy requests (such as pressuring the North Vietnamese to sign a peace treaty acceptable to the United States). In fact, Nixon was scheduled to travel to meet Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev shortly after completing his visit to China.
Nixon's trip to China, therefore, was a move calculated to drive an even deeper wedge between the two most significant communist powers. The United States could use closer diplomatic relations with China as leverage in dealing with the Soviets, particularly on the issue of Vietnam. In addition, the United States might be able to make use of the Chinese as a counterweight to North Vietnam. Despite their claims of socialist solidarity, the PRC and North Vietnam were, at best, strongly suspicious allies. As historian Walter LaFeber said, "Instead of using Vietnam to contain China, Nixon concluded that he had better use China to contain Vietnam." For its part, the PRC was desirous of another ally in its increasingly tense relationship with the Soviet Union and certainly welcomed the possibility of increased U.S.-China trade.
Feb 21, 1916: Battle of Verdun begins
At 7:12 a.m. on the morning of February 21, 1916, a shot from a German Krupp 38-centimeter long-barreled gun—one of over 1,200 such weapons set to bombard French forces along a 20-kilometer front stretching across the Meuse River—strikes a cathedral in Verdun, France, beginning the Battle of Verdun, which would stretch on for 10 months and become the longest conflict of World War I.
By the beginning of 1916, the war in France, from the Swiss border to the English Channel, had settled into the long slog of trench warfare. Despite the hard conditions in the trenches, Erich von Falkenhayn, chief of staff of the German army, believed that the key to winning the war lay not in confronting Russia in the east but in defeating the French in a major battle on the Western Front. In December 1915, Falkenhayn convinced the kaiser, over the objections of other military leaders such as Paul von Hindenburg, that in combination with unrestricted submarine warfare at sea, a major French loss in battle would push the British—whom Falkenhayn saw as the most potent of the Allies—out of the war.
The chosen mark of Falkenhayn's offensive was the fortress city of Verdun, on the Meuse River in France. The city was selected because in addition to its symbolic importance—it was the last stronghold to fall in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War—it was possible to attack the fortress city from three sides, which made it a good strategic target.
Ignoring intelligence that warned of a possible German attack in the region, French command had begun in 1915 to strip its forces at Verdun of the heavy artillery essential to defensive warfare, choosing instead to focus on an offensive strategy masterminded by General Ferdinand Foch, the director of the army's prestigious War College, and dubbed Plan XVII. Thus the German attack of February 21 caught the French relatively unprepared.
From the beginning, the Battle of Verdun resulted in heavy losses on both sides. Falkenhayn famously admitted that he did not aim to take the city quickly and decisively, but to bleed the French white, even if it meant an increased number of German casualties. Within four days of the start of the bombardment on the Meuse, the French forward divisions had suffered over 60 percent casualties; German losses were almost as heavy.
After a few quick German gains of territory, the battle settled into a stalemate, as casualties swiftly mounted on both sides. The newly promoted French commander in the region, Henri-Philippe Petain, was determined to inflict the maximum amount of damage on the German forces, famously pledging to his commander-in-chief, Joseph Joffre, that, They shall not pass.
By the latter half of 1917, German resources were stretched thinner by having to confront both a British-led offensive on the Somme River and Russia's Brusilov Offensive on the Eastern Front. In July, the kaiser, frustrated by the state of things at Verdun, removed Falkenhayn and sent him to command the 9th Army in Transylvania; Paul von Hindenburg took his place. Petain had been replaced in April by Robert Nivelle, who by early December had managed to lead his forces in the recapture of much of their lost territory. From December 15 to 18, the French took 11,000 German prisoners; on December 18, Hindenburg finally called a stop to the German attacks after ten long months. With a German death toll of 143,000 (out of 337,000 total casualties) and a French one of 162,440 (out of 377,231), Verdun would come to signify, more than any other battle, the grinding, bloody nature of warfare on the Western Front during World War I.
Feb 21, 1918: Allied troops capture Jericho
On the morning of February 21, 1918, combined Allied forces of British troops and the Australian mounted cavalry capture the city of Jericho in Palestine after a three-day battle with Turkish troops.
Commanded by British General Edmund Allenby, the Allied troops began the offensive on Tuesday, February 19, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Despite battling adverse weather conditions and a determined enemy in the Turks, the Allies were able to move nearly 20 miles toward Jericho in just three days.
On the morning of February 21, it was apparent that the Turkish line had been broken, and the Allied forces entered the holy city of Jericho without much resistance at just after 8 a.m. Upon realizing they had lost control of the city, Turkish troops chose to retreat rather than fight. During the three-day battle, Allied troops captured 46 Turkish prisoners.
The capture of Jericho proved to be an important strategic victory for the Allies, who now controlled some of the most important roads in the region, including the main road to the coast and the mountain highway leading to Jerusalem, and had reached the northern end of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth at 1,290 feet below sea level.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria.
1173 - Pope Alexander III canonizes Thomas Becket Absp of
Canterbury
1245 - Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland, is granted
resignation after having confessed to torture and forgery.
1431 - England begins trial against Joan of Arc
1440 - The Prussian Confederation is formed.
1564 - Philip II routes cardinal Granvelle to Franche-Comte
1574 - Spanish garrison of Middelburg Neth surrenders
1583 - Groningen Neth begins using Gregorian calendar
1598 - Boris Godunov crowned tsar
1613 - Michael Romanov, son of Patriarch of Moscow, elected
Russian tsar
1673 - Michiel A de Ruyter appointed lt-admiral-general of
Dutch fleet
1675 - Prince Willem III appointed viceroy of Gelderland
1764 - John Wilkes thrown out of Engl House of Commons for
"Essay on Women"
1777 - English ambassador Joseph Yorke demands dismissal of
Governor John de Graaff for saluting US flag
1782 - US congress resolves establishment of a US mint
1792 - Congress passes Pres Succession Act
1795 - Freedom of worship established in France under
constitution
1797 - Trinidad, West Indies surrenders to British
1804 - 1st locomotive, Richard Trevithick's, runs for 1st
time, in Wales
French National Heroine Joan of ArcFrench National Heroine
Joan of Arc 1828 - 1st American Indian newspaper in US, "Cherokee
Phoenix," published
1842 - 1st known sewing machine patented in US, John
Greenough, Wash DC
1846 - 1st US woman telegrapher, Sarah G Bagley, Lowell,
Mass
1853 - US authorizes minting of $3 gold pieces
1857 - Congress outlaws foreign currency as legal tender in
US
1857 - US issues flying eagle cents
1858 - Edwin T Holmes installs 1st electric burglar alarm
(Boston, Mass)
1861 - Navaho indians elect Herrero Grande as chief
1862 - Confederate Constitution & presidency are
declared permanent
1862 - Texas Rangers win Confederate victory at Battle of
Val Verde, NM
1864 - -22] Battle at Okolona, Mississippi
1864 - 1st US Catholic parish church for blacks dedicated,
Baltimore
1866 - Lucy B Hobbs (Taylor) becomes 1st US woman to earn a
DDS degree
1874 - Benjamin Disraeli replaces William Gladstone as
English premier
1874 - Oakland Daily Tribune begins publication
British Prime Minister William GladstoneBritish Prime
Minister William Gladstone 1878 - 1st telephone book issued, 50 subscribers
(New Harbor, Connecticut)
1882 - NYC's 24 hour race begins, winner with most mileage
in 24 hours
1883 - 2nd French government of Ferry begins
1885 - Washington Monument dedicated (Wash DC)
1887 - 1st US bacteriology laboratory opens (Brooklyn)
1887 - Oregon becomes 1st US state to make Labor Day a
holiday
1895 - NC Legislature, adjourns for day to mark death of
Frederick Douglass
1902 - Dr Harvey Cushing, 1st US brain surgeon, does his 1st
brain operation
1903 - Cornerstone laid for US army war college, Washington,
DC
1904 - National Ski Association forms in Ishpeming Mich
1907 - SS Berlin sinks off Hoek van Holland Neth (142 dead)
1909 - John Galsworthy's "Strife," premieres in
London
1910 - John Galsworthy's "Justice," premieres in
London
1911 - Gustav Mahler conducts his last concerto (Berceuse
élégique)
1914 - White Wolf troops attack Zhanjiang China
Abolitionist Frederick DouglassAbolitionist Frederick
Douglass 1915 - 20th Russian Army corps surrenders
1915 - World's Fair in SF opens
1916 - Battle of Verdun in WW I begins (1 million
casualties)
1917 - British Mendi sinks off Isle of Wight, 627 die
1917 - Train near Chirurcha Romania catches fire &
explodes; 100s die
1918 - Australians chase Turkish troop out of Jericho, Dutch
Palestine
1918 - The last Carolina parakeet dies in captivity at the
Cincinnati Zoo.
1919 - German National Meeting accepts Anschluss:
incorporation of Austria
1919 - Revolutionary strike in Barcelona
1920 - Darius Milhaud & Jean Cocteau's ballet, premieres
in Paris
1921 - Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of
Georgia adopts the country's first constitution.
1922 - Airship Rome explodes at Hampton Roads Virginia; 34
die
1922 - Great Britain grants Egypt independence
1922 - WHK-AM in Cleveland OH begins radio transmissions
1923 - Andre Charlot's musical "Rats," premieres
in London
1925 - 1st issue of "New Yorker" magazine
published
1925 - Mass meeting of SPD's Reichsbanner Black-Red-Gold in
Magdeburg
1927 - Franz Lehr's opera "Zarewitsch," premieres
1930 - Marc Connelly's "Green Pastures," premieres
in NYC
1931 - Alka Seltzer introduced
1931 - Chicago White Sox & NY Giants play 1st exhibition
night game
1932 - Andre Tardieu becomes premier of France
1932 - Camera exposure meter patented, WN Goodwin
1934 - Nicaraguan patriot Augusto Cesar Sandino assassinated
by Natl Guard
1937 - Initial flight of the first successful flying car,
Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile.
1937 - The League of Nations bans foreign national
"volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War.
1939 - Belgian government of Pierlot forms
1941 - Omar Bradley is promoted to the rank of brigadier
general
1942 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Jane
Vaughn
1942 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Bobby
Specht
1943 - Dutch RC bishops protest against persecution of Jews
1943 - German offensive at Western Dorsalgebergte Tunisia
1944 - "War As It Happens" news show premieres on
NBC TV (NYC only)
1945 - Archbishop De Jong calls for help with war casualties
1945 - British Army captures Goch
1945 - US 10th Armour division overthrows Orscholz line
1946 - Anti-British demonstrations in Egypt
1947 - 1st broadcast of 1st US TV soap opera "A Woman
to Remember"
1947 - 1st instant developing camera demonstrated in NYC, by
E H Land
1947 - Whipper Billy Watson beats Bill Longson, to become
wrestling champ
1948 - NASCAR is incorporated.
1950 - WOI TV channel 5 in Ames-Des Moines, IA (ABC/PBS)
begins broadcasting
1951 - SC House urges "Shoeless Joe" Jackson be
reinstated
1952 - Bangladesh Martyrs Day (martyrs of Bengali Language
Movement)
1952 - Dick Button performs 1st figure skating triple jump
in competition
1953 - "Maggie" closes at National Theater NYC
after 5 performances
1953 - F Crick & J Watson discover structure of
DNA-molecule
1953 - Longest collegiate basketball game (6 OTs) Niagara
beats Siena 88-81
1957 - Dodgers (Fort Worth) & Cubs (LA)
"trade" minor league franchises
1958 - "Portotino" opens at Adelphi Theater NYC
for 3 performances
1958 - Egypt-Syria as UAR elect Nasser president (99.9%
vote)
1960 - Fay Crocker wins LPGA Lake Worth Golf Open
1961 - Friedrich Durrenmatt's "Die Physiker,"
premieres in Zurich
1961 - Gabon adopts constitution
1961 - Mercury-Atlas 2 reentry Test reaches 172 km
1962 - Minister De Pous confirms natural gas reserves in
Groningen Neth
1963 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1964 - UK flies 24,000 rolls of Beatle wallpaper to US
1966 - Indonesia's president Sukarno fires General Nasution
1968 - 150,000 demonstrate against leftist students in
West-Berlin
1968 - Baseball announces a minimum annual salary of $10,000
1969 - 1st launching of heavy N-1 rocket at Baikonur
Kazachstan (explodes)
Baseball Player Ted WilliamsBaseball Player Ted Williams
1969 - Ted Williams signs 5-year contract to manage Wash Senators
1970 - Jackson 5 make TV debut on "American
Bandstand"
1970 - Pathet Lao conquerors Xieng Khuang & Muong Suy
1971 - Ruth Jessen wins LPGA Sears Women's World Golf
Classic
1971 - Series of tornadoes cuts through Miss & La
killing 117
1971 - The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed
at Vienna.
1972 - Michael Weller's "Moonchildren," premieres
in NYC
1972 - Richard Nixon becomes 1st US president to visit China
1973 - Chicago Black Hawks, record 262nd NHL game without
being shut-out
1973 - Israeli fighters shoot Libyan aircraft down, killing
108
1974 - Israeli forces leave western Suez
1974 - Silver hits record $5.96½ an ounce in London
1974 - Yugoslavia adopts constitution
1975 - John Lennon releases "Rock 'n' Roll" album
1975 - John Mitchell, HR Haldeman & John D Ehrlichman
sentenced to 2½-8 yrs
Musician and Beatle John LennonMusician and Beatle John
Lennon 1976 - "Rockabye Hamlet" closes at Minskoff Theater NYC after
7 perfs
1976 - Cardinal Willebrands installed as archbishop of
Utrecht
1977 - 74 Unification Church couples wed in NYC
1979 - Japan launches Hakucho x-ray satellite & Corsa-B
(550/580 km)
1979 - 2 Iowa girls HS basketball teams play 4 scoreless
quarters game was won 4-2 in 4th overtime period
1980 - Eric Heiden skates Olympic record 1500m in 1:55.44
1980 - Hanni Wenzel is 1st Liechtensteiner to win Olymp gold
(giant slalom)
1981 - "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe,
murderer of 13 women, captured
1981 - Charles Rocket clearly says "fuck" on
Saturday Night Live
1981 - Japan launches Hinotori satellite to study solar
flares (580/640 k)
1981 - NASA launches Comstar D-4
1982 - "Ain't Misbehavin'" closes at Longacre
Theater NYC after 1604 perfs
1982 - "Little Me" closes at Eugene O'Neill
Theater NYC after 36 performances
1982 - Beth Daniel wins LPGA Bent Tree Ladies Golf Classic
1983 - Donald Davis runs 1 mile backwards in 6 m 7.1 s
1983 - NBA San Diego Clippers begin a 29 game road losing
streak
1985 - Evert van Benthem wins 13th Friese 11 city skateing
race
1985 - Largest NBA crowd to date 44,970 (Atlanta at Detroit)
1985 - Tim Raines is awarded a $12 million salary for 1985
by arbitrator
1986 - AIDS patient Ryan White returns to classes at Western
Middle School
1986 - Tennis star Jimmy Connors fined $20,000 & suspended
for 10 weeks
1987 - Cindy Rarick wins LPGA Tsumura Hawaiian Ladies Golf
Open
1987 - Syrian army marches into Beirut
1988 - Gustafson skates world record 10km (13:48.20)
1988 - Televangelist Jimmy Swaggert confesses his sins to
his congregation
1989 - Pete Rose meets with Commissioner Ueberroth to
discuss his gambling
1989 - US bust Chinese ring, capture record 820 lbs heroin
($1B st value)
1989 - US capture record 820 lbs of heroin ($1 B street
value)[dup]
1990 - 32nd Grammy Awards: Wind Beneath My Wings, Nick of
Time wins
1991 - "Lost in Yonkers" opens at Richard Rodgers
Theater NYC for 780 perfs
1991 - Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers," premieres
in NYC
1991 - USSR announces Iraq agrees to a proposal to end
Persian Gulf War US calls the plan unacceptable
1992 - Kristi Yamaguchi of US wins Olympic gold medal in
women's fig skating
1993 - 43rd NBA All-Star Game: West beats East 135-132 (OT)
at Salt Lake City
1993 - Sergei Bubka pole vaults world record indoor (6.15 m)
1995 - CFL's Sacramento Gold Miners become San Antonio
Texans
1995 - RAF-pilot Jo Salter is 1st woman to fly in a tornado
1996 - Soyuz TM-23, launched into orbit
1997 - "Empire Strikes Back, special edition,"
premieres
1997 - STS 82 (Discovery 22) lands
1998 - Cup Noodles Hawaiian Ladies Golf Open
2001 - 43rd Grammy Awards: Beautiful Day, Shelby Lynne wins
2004 - The first European political party organization, the
European Greens, is established in Rome.
2007 - Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigns from
office. His resignation is rejected by the President of Italy, Giorgio
Napolitano.
2012 - Yemen voters go to the polls for a presidential
election where the only candidate on the ballot paper is vice-president Abd
Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi
2013 - 83 people are killed and 250 are injured in a series
of bombing attacks in Damascus, Syria
2013 - 21 people are killed and 54 are injured in a bombing
in Hyderabad, India
1613 Michael Romanov was elected czar of Russia, beginning the Romanov imperial line. 1878 The first telephone book was issued (New Haven, Conn.). 1916 Battle of Verdun, the longest and one of the bloodiest engagements of World War I, began. 1965 Black nationalist leader Malcolm X was assassinated. 1972 President Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit China. 1995 Steve Fossett became the first person to cross the Pacific Ocean solo in a balloon. 2002 It was confirmed that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was dead, allegedly murdered by Islamic militants. 2012 Eurozone finance ministers reached an agreement on a second, 130-billion bailout for Greece to help with the country's debt crisis.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/feb21.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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