On this day in history

May 21

28 births · 13 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

1960 Valdivia earthquake

66 years ago

Born this day

1471

Albrecht Dürer

Died aged 56

Photo (modified): Albrecht Dürer · Public domain

Oldest record

555th

Albrecht Dürer

birth anniversary

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Famous births28

1471 · 555 yrs

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer ( DURE-ər, German:; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528), sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 56

View profile Photo (modified): Albrecht Dürer · Public domain

1527 · 499 yrs

Philip II of Spain

Philip II (21 May 1527 – 13 September 1598), sometimes known in Spain as Philip the Prudent (Spanish: Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from 1580, and King of Naples and Sicily from 1554 until his death in 1598.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 71

View profile Photo (modified): Sofonisba Anguissola · Public domain

1688 · 338 yrs

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 56

View profile Photo (modified): Michael Dahl · Public domain

1759 · 267 yrs

Joseph Fouché

Joseph Fouché, 1st Duke d'Otrante, 1st Count Fouché (French:; 21 May 1759 – 26 December 1820) was a French statesman, revolutionary, and Minister of Police under First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. Fouché later became a subordinate of Emperor Napoleon.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 61

View profile Photo (modified): Claude-Marie Dubufe / After René Théodore Berthon · Public domain

1792 · 234 yrs

Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis

Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis (French:; 21 May 1792 – 19 September 1843) was a French mathematician, mechanical engineer and scientist. He is best known for his work on the supplementary forces that are detected in a rotating frame of reference, leading to the Coriolis effect.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 51

View profile Photo (modified): gravure de Zéphyrin Belliard d'après le tableau de Roller (1812-1866) · Public domain

1799 · 227 yrs

Mary Anning

Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist. She became known internationally for her discoveries in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis in the county of Dorset, South West England.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Notable PeopleDied aged 47

View profile Photo (modified): Credited to 'Mr. Grey' in Crispin Tickell's book 'Mary Anning of Lyme Regis' (1996) · Public domain

1843 · 183 yrs

Charles Albert Gobat

Charles Albert Gobat (French pronunciation:; 21 May 1843 – 16 March 1914) was a Swiss lawyer, educational administrator, and politician who jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize with Élie Ducommun in 1902 for their leadership of the Permanent International Peace Bureau.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 70

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1844 · 182 yrs

Henri Rousseau

Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (French:; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910) was a French post-Impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier (the customs officer), a humorous description of his occupation as a toll and tax collector.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 66

View profile Photo (modified): Dornac · Public domain

1849 · 177 yrs

Édouard-Henri Avril

Édouard-Henri Avril (French:; 21 May 1849 – 28 July 1928) was a French painter and commercial artist. Under the pseudonym Paul Avril, he was an illustrator of erotic literature.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 79

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1851 · 175 yrs

Léon Bourgeois

Léon Victor Auguste Bourgeois (French:; 21 May 1851 – 29 September 1925) was a French statesman. His ideas influenced the Radical Party regarding a wide range of issues.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 74

View profile Photo (modified): Agence de presse Meurisse · Public domain

1855 · 171 yrs

Emile Verhaeren

Émile Adolphe Gustave Verhaeren (Dutch:; 21 May 1855 – 27 November 1916) was a Belgian poet and art critic who wrote in the French language. He was one of the founders of the school of Symbolism and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on six occasions.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 61

View profile Photo (modified): Théo van Rysselberghe · Public domain

1860 · 166 yrs

Willem Einthoven

Willem Einthoven (21 May 1860 – 29 September 1927) was a Dutch medical doctor and physiologist. He invented the first practical electrocardiograph (ECG or EKG) in 1895 and received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1924 for it ("for the discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram").

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 67

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC BY 4.0

Showing 12 of 28

Famous deaths13

1471 · 555 yrs

Henry VI of England

Henry VI (6 December 1421 – 21 May 1471) was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and claimant to the French throne from 1422 to 1453 under the terms of the Treaty of Troyes.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 49

View profile Photo (modified): anonymous · Public domain

1639 · 387 yrs

Tommaso Campanella

Tommaso Campanella (Italian:; 5 September 1568 – 21 May 1639), baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet. Campanella was prosecuted by the Roman Inquisition for heresy in 1594 and was confined to house arrest for two years.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 70

View profile Photo (modified): Francesco Cozza · Public domain

1786 · 240 yrs

Carl Wilhelm Scheele

Carl Wilhelm Scheele (German:, Swedish:; 9 December 1742 – 21 May 1786) was a German-Swedish pharmaceutical chemist. Scheele discovered oxygen (although Joseph Priestley published his findings first), and identified the elements molybdenum, tungsten, barium, nitrogen, and chlorine, among others.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 43

View profile Photo (modified): Unidentified painter · Public domain

1929 · 97 yrs

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of Midlothian (7 May 1847 – 21 May 1929), was a British Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from March 1894 to June 1895.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 82

View profile Photo (modified): Elliott & Fry · Public domain

1935 · 91 yrs

Hugo de Vries

Hugo Marie de Vries (Dutch:; 16 February 1848 – 21 May 1935) was a Dutch botanist and one of the first geneticists.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Notable PeopleDied aged 87

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1949 · 77 yrs

Klaus Mann

Klaus Heinrich Thomas Mann (18 November 1906 – 21 May 1949) was a German writer and anti-fascist activist. He was the son of Thomas Mann, a nephew of Heinrich Mann and brother of Erika Mann (with whom he maintained a lifelong close relationship) and Golo Mann.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 119

View profile Photo (modified): United States 5th Army · Public domain

1964 · 62 yrs

James Franck

James Franck (German:; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German–American physicist who shared the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom." Franck completed his doctorate in 1906 and his habilitation in 1911 at the Frederick…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 144

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1973 · 53 yrs

Ivan Konev

Ivan Stepanovich Konev (Russian: Иван Степанович Конев, IPA:; 28 December 1897 – 21 May 1973) was a Soviet general and Marshal of the Soviet Union who led Red Army forces on the Eastern Front during World War II, responsible for taking much of Axis-occupied Eastern Europe.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 128

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC BY 4.0

1983 · 43 yrs

Eric Hoffer

Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902 – May 21, 1983) was an American philosopher and social critic. A moderate with an atypical working-class background, Hoffer wrote ten books over his career and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PhilosophyWould be 124

View profile Photo (modified): White House of the President of the United States; uploaded to YouTube by TheLBJLibrary · Public domain

1991 · 35 yrs

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi (20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian aircraft pilot and politician who served as the prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989 for two terms. He took office after the assassination of his mother, then–prime minister Indira Gandhi, to become the youngest Indian prime minister at the age of 40.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 82

View profile Photo (modified): Bart Molendijk / Anefo · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl

2000 · 26 yrs

John Gielgud

Sir Arthur John Gielgud ( GHEEL-guud; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director. With his contemporaries Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave and Ralph Richardson, he made up a quartet of male actors who dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 122

View profile Photo (modified): MGM · Public domain

2000 · 26 yrs

Barbara Cartland

Dame Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland (9 July 1901 – 21 May 2000) was an English writer and socialite who published both contemporary and historical romance novels, the latter set primarily during the Victorian or Edwardian period. Cartland is one of the best-selling authors worldwide of the 20th century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 125

View profile Photo (modified): Allan warren · CC BY-SA 3.0

Showing 12 of 13

Events5

1809 · 217 yrs

Battle of Aspern-Essling

In the Battle of Aspern–Essling (21–22 May 1809), Napoleon crossed the Danube near Vienna, but the French and their allies were attacked and forced back across the river by the Austrians under Archduke Charles.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1960 · 66 yrs

1960 Valdivia earthquake

On 22 May 1960, an earthquake and tsunami occurred in Chile, devastating the city of Valdivia. Most studies have placed it at 9.4–9.6 on the moment magnitude scale, making it the strongest earthquake ever recorded, while some studies have placed the magnitude lower than 9.4.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Disaster

2006 · 20 yrs

Montenegrin independence referendum

An independence referendum was held in Montenegro on 21 May 2006. It was approved by 55.5% of voters, narrowly passing the 55% threshold.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Politics

2006 · 20 yrs

Confessions Tour

The Confessions Tour was the seventh concert tour by American singer-songwriter Madonna, launched in support of her tenth studio album, Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Culture

2008 · 18 yrs

2008 UEFA Champions League Final

The 2008 UEFA Champions League final was a football match that took place on 21 May 2008 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia, to determine the winner of the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sports

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