On this day in history

October 21

30 births · 14 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

221

Battle of Trafalgar

221 years ago

Born this day

1833

Alfred Nobel

Died aged 63

Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

Oldest record

1313th

Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-'Abidin

death anniversary

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Famous births30

1617 · 409 yrs

Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso

The 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (Tibetan: ངག་དབང་བློ་བཟང་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: Ngag-dbang blo-bzang rgya-mtsho) (1617–1682) was recognized as the 5th Dalai Lama, and he became the first Dalai Lama to hold both Tibet's political and spiritual leadership roles.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 64

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

1772 · 254 yrs

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( KOH-lə-rij; 21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 61

View profile Photo (modified): Samuel Cousins / After Washington Allston · Public domain

1790 · 236 yrs

Alphonse de Lamartine

Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (French:; 21 October 1790 – 28 February 1869) was a French author, poet, and statesman. Initially a moderate royalist, he became one of the leading critics of the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe, aligning more with the Republican Left and Social Catholicism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Adrien Tournachon · Public domain

1833 · 193 yrs

Alfred Nobel

Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( noh-BEL; Swedish:; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, inventor, engineer, and businessman. Nobel is known for inventing dynamite, as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 63

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

1844 · 182 yrs

Klas Pontus Arnoldson

Klas Pontus Arnoldson (27 October 1844 – 20 February 1916) was a Swedish author, journalist, politician, and committed pacifist who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1908 with Fredrik Bajer.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 71

View profile Photo (modified): Gen. Stab. Lit. Anst. (Generalstabens Litografiska Anstalt) (Lithographic Institute General Staff). Original uploader= G · Public domain

1846 · 180 yrs

Edmondo de Amicis

Edmondo De Amicis (Italian pronunciation:; 21 October 1846 – 11 March 1908) was an Italian novelist, journalist, poet, and short-story writer. His best-known book is the children's novel Heart.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 61

View profile Photo (modified): Schemboche, Turin · Public domain

1914 · 112 yrs

Martin Gardner

Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914 – May 22, 2010) was an American writer on popular mathematics and popular science. His interests also encompassed magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literature – especially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 112

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

1917 · 109 yrs

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ghih-LES-pee; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator, and singer.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicWould be 109

View profile Photo (modified): William P. Gottlieb · Public domain

1925 · 101 yrs

Celia Cruz

Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso (21 October 1925 – 16 July 2003), known as Celia Cruz, was a Cuban-American singer and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. Cruz rose to fame in Cuba during the 1950s as a singer of guarachas, earning the nickname La Guarachera de Cuba.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicWould be 101

View profile Photo (modified): Ibrahim Arce (Narcy Studios photographer), most likely · Public domain

1929 · 97 yrs

Lev Yashin

Lev Ivanovich Yashin (Russian: Лев Иванович Яшин; 22 October 1929 – 20 March 1990) was a Soviet professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers in the history of the sport, he is the only player in his position to win the Ballon d'Or.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

SportsWould be 97

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

1929 · 97 yrs

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( KROH-bər lə GWIN; née Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 97

View profile Photo (modified): Marian Wood Kolisch, Oregon State University Restored by Adam Cuerden · CC BY-SA 2.0

1933 · 93 yrs

Paco Gento

Francisco "Paco" Gento López (21 October 1933 – 18 January 2022) was a Spanish footballer who played as an outside left. A fast runner, Gento was referred to as the "Gale of the Cantabrian Sea" (Spanish: La Galerna del Cantábrico) in reference to his speed down the wing.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

SportsWould be 93

View profile Photo (modified): Wim van Rossem for Anefo · CC0

Showing 12 of 30

Famous deaths14

AD 713 · 1313 yrs

Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-'Abidin

Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Sajjad (Arabic: عَلِيٌّ بْنُ ٱلْحُسَيْنِ ٱلسَّجَّادُ, romanized: ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Sajjād, c. 658 – c.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 54

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

1422 · 604 yrs

Charles VI of France

Charles VI (3 December 1368 – 21 October 1422), nicknamed the Beloved (French: le Bien-Aimé) and in the 19th century, the Mad (French: le Fol or le Fou), was King of France from 1380 until his death in 1422.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 53

View profile Photo (modified): Gillot Saint-Evre · Public domain

1556 · 470 yrs

Pietro Aretino

Pietro Aretino (US:, Italian:; 19 or 20 April 1492 – 21 October 1556) was an Italian author, playwright, poet, satirist and blackmailer, who wielded influence on contemporary art and politics. He was one of the most influential writers of his time and an outspoken critic of the powerful.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 64

View profile Photo (modified): Titian · Public domain

1805 · 221 yrs

Horatio Nelson

Vice-Admiral of the White Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was a British Royal Navy officer whose leadership, grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics led to multiple decisive British naval victories during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 47

View profile Photo (modified): Lemuel Francis Abbott · Public domain

1931 · 95 yrs

Arthur Schnitzler

Arthur Schnitzler (German:; 15 May 1862 – 21 October 1931) was an Austrian author and dramatist. He is considered one of the most significant representatives of Viennese Modernism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 69

View profile Photo (modified): Ferdinand Schmutzer · Public domain

1967 · 59 yrs

Ejnar Hertzsprung

Ejnar Hertzsprung (Danish:; 8 October 1873 – 21 October 1967) was a Danish chemist and astronomer. He is best remembered for his role in developing the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram of stars.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 94

View profile Photo (modified): The Göttingen Observatory photo, courtesy Hartmut Grosser. · Public domain

1969 · 57 yrs

Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian parentage, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 104

View profile Photo (modified): Tom Palumbo from New York, NY, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

1978 · 48 yrs

Anastas Mikoyan

Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan (US:; Russian: Анастас Иванович Микоян, IPA:; Armenian: Անաստաս Հովհաննեսի Միկոյան, romanized: Anastas Hovhannesi Mikoyan; 25 November 1895 – 21 October 1978) was a Soviet statesman, diplomat, and Bolshevik revolutionary.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismWould be 130

View profile Photo (modified): G. Weil for TASS · Public domain

1984 · 42 yrs

François Truffaut

François Roland Truffaut (UK: TROO-foh, TRUU-, US: troo-FOH; French:; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French filmmaker, actor, and critic.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 94

View profile Photo (modified): Jack de Nijs for Anefo · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl

1986 · 40 yrs

Albert Szent-Györgyi

Albert Imre Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápolt (Hungarian: nagyrápolti Szent-Györgyi Albert Imre; September 16, 1893 – October 22, 1986) was a Hungarian biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 133

View profile Photo (modified): J.W. McGuire · Public domain

2003 · 23 yrs

Elliott Smith

Steven Paul Smith (August 6, 1969 – October 21, 2003), known as Elliott Smith, was an American musician and singer-songwriter. Raised primarily in Texas, he lived much of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he gained popularity in the 1990s.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicWould be 57

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

2014 · 12 yrs

Gough Whitlam

Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 1916 – 21 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from December 1972 to November 1975.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 110

View profile Photo (modified): Australian Conservation Foundation · CC BY-SA 4.0

Showing 12 of 14

Events5

1428 · 598 yrs

Siege of Orléans

The siege of Orléans (12 October 1428 – 8 May 1429) marked a turning point of the Hundred Years' War between France and England. The siege took place at the pinnacle of English power during the later stages of the war, but was repulsed by French forces inspired by the arrival of Joan of Arc.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1600 · 426 yrs

Battle of Sekigahara

The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: 関ヶ原の戦い; Kyūjitai: 關ヶ原の戰い, Hepburn romanization: Sekigahara no Tatakai) was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu Prefecture, Japan, at the end of the Sengoku period.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1805 · 221 yrs

Battle of Trafalgar

The Battle of Trafalgar was a fleet action which took place on 21 October 1805 between the Royal Navy and a combined fleet of the French and Spanish navies during the War of the Third Coalition.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1915 · 111 yrs

Macedonian Front

The Macedonian front, also known as the Salonica front (after Thessaloniki), was a military theatre of World War I formed as a result of an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2007 · 19 yrs

2007 Brazilian Grand Prix

The 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix (officially the Formula 1 Grande Prêmio do Brasil 2007) was a Formula One motor race held at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in São Paulo, Brazil on 21 October 2007. The 71-lap race was the seventeenth and final race of the 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

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