On this day in history

January 21

27 births · 17 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

107

Irish War of Independence

107 years ago

Born this day

1869

Grigori Rasputin

Died aged 47

Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

Oldest record

688th

Charles V of France

birth anniversary

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Famous births27

1338 · 688 yrs

Charles V of France

Charles V (21 January 1338 – 16 September 1380), called the Wise (French: le Sage; Latin: Sapiens), was King of France from 1364 to his death in 1380.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 42

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1824 · 202 yrs

Stonewall Jackson

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general and military officer who served during the American Civil War. He played a prominent role in nearly all military engagements in the eastern theater of the war until his death.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryDied aged 39

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1829 · 197 yrs

Oscar II of Sweden

Oscar II (Oscar Fredrik; 21 January 1829 – 8 December 1907) was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death in 1907 and King of Norway from 1872 to 1905. Oscar was the son of King Oscar I and Queen Josephine.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Lars Larsson · Public domain

1869 · 157 yrs

Grigori Rasputin

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (21 January 1869 – 30 December 1916) was a Russian mystic and faith healer. He is best known for having befriended the imperial family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, through whom he gained considerable influence in the final years of the Russian Empire.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 47

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1885 · 141 yrs

Umberto Nobile

Umberto Nobile (Italian pronunciation:; 21 January 1885 – 30 July 1978) was an Italian aviator, aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer. Nobile was a developer and promoter of semi-rigid airships in the years between the two World Wars.

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TechnologyWould be 141

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown (Mondadori Publishers) · Public domain

1885 · 141 yrs

Mikhail Frunze

Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze (Russian: Михаил Васильевич Фрунзе; Romanian: Mihail Frunză; 2 February 1885 – 31 October 1925) was a Soviet revolutionary, politician, army officer and military theorist.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 141

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1889 · 137 yrs

Pitirim Sorokin

Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (Russian: Питирим Александрович Сорокин; 4 February 1889 – 10 February 1968) was a Russian American sociologist and political activist, who contributed to the social cycle theory.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 137

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1898 · 128 yrs

Ahmad Shah Qajar

Ahmad Shah Qajar (Persian: احمد شاه قاجار‎; 21 January 1898 – 21 February 1930) was the shah of Iran (Persia) from 16 July 1909 to 15 December 1925, and the seventh and final ruling member of the Qajar dynasty.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 128

View profile Photo (modified): Bain News Service · Public domain

1905 · 121 yrs

Christian Dior

Christian Ernest Dior (French:; 21 January 1905 – 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer and founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE. He was one of the Big Four of 1950s haute couture, the others being Jacques Fath, Pierre Balmain and Jean Dessès.

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ArtWould be 121

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1910 · 116 yrs

Hideo Shinojima

Hideo Shinojima (篠島秀雄, Shinojima Hideo; January 21, 1910 – February 11, 1975) was a Japanese football player.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

SportsWould be 116

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1912 · 114 yrs

Konrad Emil Bloch

Konrad Emil Bloch (German pronunciation:; 21 January 1912 – 15 October 2000) was a German-American biochemist. Bloch received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1964 (joint with Feodor Lynen) for discoveries concerning the mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 114

View profile Photo (modified): Peter Geymayer · Public domain

1922 · 104 yrs

Paul Scofield

David Paul Scofield (21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008) was an English actor. During a six-decade career, Scofield achieved the Triple Crown of Acting, winning an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award for his work.

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FilmWould be 104

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Showing 12 of 27

Famous deaths17

1774 · 252 yrs

Mustafa III

Mustafa III (Ottoman Turkish: مصطفى ثالث Muṣṭafā-yi sālis; 28 January 1717 – 21 January 1774) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1757 to 1774. He was a son of Sultan Ahmed III (1703–30), and his consort Mihrişah Kadın.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Notable PeopleDied aged 56

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1789 · 237 yrs

Baron d'Holbach

Paul Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (French:; 8 December 1723 – 21 January 1789), known as d'Holbach, was a Franco-German philosopher, encyclopedist and writer, who was a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PhilosophyDied aged 65

View profile Photo (modified): Alexander Roslin · Public domain

1793 · 233 yrs

Louis XVI of France

Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; French:; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 38

View profile Photo (modified): Joseph-Siffred Duplessis / Formerly attributed to Antoine-François Callet · Public domain

1814 · 212 yrs

Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (pronounced; also called Bernardin de St. Pierre) (19 January 1737, in Le Havre – 21 January 1814, in Éragny, Val-d'Oise) was a French writer and botanist.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 77

View profile Photo (modified): Paul Claude-Michel Carpentier / After Elizabeth Harvey · Public domain

1831 · 195 yrs

Ludwig Achim von Arnim

Carl Joachim Friedrich Ludwig von Arnim (26 January 1781 – 21 January 1831), better known as Achim von Arnim, was a German poet, novelist, and together with Clemens Brentano and Joseph von Eichendorff, a leading figure of German Romanticism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 49

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1862 · 164 yrs

Božena Němcová

Božena Němcová (Czech pronunciation:; 4 February 1820 – 21 January 1862) was a Czech writer of the final phase of the Czech National Revival movement.

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LiteratureDied aged 43

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1892 · 134 yrs

John Couch Adams

John Couch Adams ( KOOTCH; 5 June 1819 – 21 January 1892) was a British mathematician and astronomer. He was born in Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall, and died in Cambridge.

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ScienceDied aged 72

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1919 · 107 yrs

Gojong of the Korean Empire

Gojong (Korean: 고종; Hanja: 高宗; 8 September 1852 – 21 January 1919), personal name Yi Jaehwang, later changed to Yi Hui, also known as the Gwangmu Emperor, was the penultimate Korean monarch.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 66

View profile Photo (modified): This photo was taken in 1907. · Public domain

1924 · 102 yrs

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 53

View profile Photo (modified): Pavel Zhukov · Public domain

1926 · 100 yrs

Camillo Golgi

Camillo Golgi (Italian:; 7 July 1843 – 21 January 1926) was an Italian biologist and pathologist who was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his works on the central nervous system.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 82

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1938 · 88 yrs

Georges Méliès

Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès ( mayl-YES, French:; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French filmmaker, actor, magician, and toymaker. He led many technical and narrative developments in the early days of cinema, primarily in the fantasy and science fiction genres.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmDied aged 76

View profile Photo (modified): Georges Méliès · Public domain

1950 · 76 yrs

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell.

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LiteratureWould be 123

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Showing 12 of 17

Events5

1919 · 107 yrs

Irish War of Independence

The Irish War of Independence (Irish: Cogadh na Saoirse), also known as the Anglo-Irish War or the Tan War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-military Royal Irish…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1942 · 84 yrs

Solomon Islands Campaign

The Solomon Islands campaign was a major campaign of the Pacific War during World War II. The campaign began with the Japanese seizure of several areas in the British Solomon Islands and Bougainville, in the Territory of New Guinea, during the first six months of 1942.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1968 · 58 yrs

Battle of Khe Sanh

The Siege of Khe Sanh (21 January – 9 July 1968) was conducted in the Khe Sanh area of northwestern Quảng Trị Province, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), during the Vietnam War.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2020 · 6 yrs

COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

On 31 December 2019, China announced the discovery of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan. The first American case of COVID-19 was reported on January 20, and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declared a public health emergency on January 31.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Disaster

2020 · 6 yrs

COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan

The COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of 19 March 2023 in Taiwan, 10,231,343 are confirmed cases, including 18,775 deaths.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Disaster

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