Today in History

Today in History
August 21

1129 The warrior Yoritomo is made Shogun without equal in Japan.

1525 Estavao Gomes returns to Portugal after failing to find a clear waterway to Asia.

1794 France surrenders the island of Corsica to the British.

1808 Napoleon Bonaparte’s General Junot is defeated by Wellington at the first Battle of the Peninsular War at Vimiero, Portugal.

1831 Nat Turner leads a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia that kills close to 60 whites.

1858 The first of a series of debates begins between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Douglas goes on to win the Senate seat in November, but Lincoln gains national visibility for the first time.

1863 Confederate raiders under William Quantrill strike Lawrence, Kansas, leaving 150 civilians dead.

1864 Confederate General A.P. Hill attacks Union troops south of Petersburg, Va., at the Weldon railroad. His attack is repulsed, resulting in heavy Confederate casualties.

1915 Italy declares war on Turkey.

1942 U.S. Marines turn back the first major Japanese ground attack on Guadalcanal in the Battle of Tenaru.

1944 The Dumbarton Oaks conference, which lays the foundation for the establishment of the United Nations, is held in Washington, D.C.

1945 President Harry S. Truman cancels all contracts under the Lend-Lease Act.

1959 Hawaii is admitted into the Union.

1963 The South Vietnamese Army arrests over 100 Buddhist monks in Saigon.

1968 Soviet forces invade Czechoslovakia because of the country’s experiments with a more liberal government.

1972 US orbiting astronomy observatory Copernicus launched.

1976 Mary Langdon in Battle, East Sussex, becomes Britain’s first firewoman.

1976 Operation Paul Bunyan: after North Korean guards killed two American officers sent to trim a poplar tree along the DMZ on Aug. 18, US and ROK soldiers with heavy support chopped down the tree.

1986 In Cameroon 2,000 die from poison gas from a volcanic eruption.

1988 Ceasefire in the 8-year war between Iran and Iraq.

1989 Voyager 2 begins a flyby of planet Neptune.

1991 Communist hardliners’ coup is crushed in USSR after just 2 days; Latvia declares independence from USSR.

1994 Ernesto Zedillo wins Mexico’s presidential election.

1996 The new Globe theater opens in England.

2000 Tiger Woods wins golf’s PGA Championship, the first golfer to win 3 majors in a calendar year since Ben Hogan in 1953.

2001 NATO decides to send a peacekeeping force to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Born on August 21

1798 Jules Michelet, French historian who wrote the 24-volume Historie de France.

1904 William "Count" Basie, American band leader and composer.

1936 Wilt Chamberlin, four-time MVP for the National Basketball Association and only player to score 100 points in a professional basketball game.

1938 Kenny Rogers, singer, actor; one of top-selling artists of all time; voted Favorite Singer of All Time in 1986 poll.

1944 Jackie DeShannon (Sharon Lee Meyers), singer/songwriter ("Lonely Girl," "What the World Needs Now"); toured as The Beatles opening act in 1964; inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2010.

1944 Peter Weir, film director; among the leaders of Australian New Wave cinema (Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli); Academy Award nominee (Dead Poets Society, Master and Commander).

1950 Arthur Bremer, attempted assassin who shot segregationist Alabama governor George C. Wallace in May 1972.

1951 Harry Smith, TV co-anchor (The Early Show and its predecessor CBS Morning Show, 1987–96, 2002–10).

1952 Joe Strummer, lead singer of British punk band The Clash ("Rock the Casbah").

1953 Ivan Stang (Douglass St. Clair Smith), writer, Church of the SubGenius.

1954 Archie Griffin, NFL running back; only college player to win two Heisman trophies (Ohio State) and first player to start in four Rose Bowls; member, College Football Hall of Fame.

1956 Kim Cattrall, actress (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Sex in the City TV series).

1961 Stephen Hillenburg, animator and cartoonist; created character of Spongebob Squarepants.

1973 Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google..

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