This is a list of selected May 21 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error in content currently on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If a listed event is inaccurate, please first seek consensus and update the corresponding article before making changes here.
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John III Sobieski, King of Poland
John III Sobieski, King of Poland
A boat on the Manchester Ship Canal- Leopold and Loeb
- Suharto (requires undeletion)
Suharto
Rioters outside San Francisco City Hall on May 21, 1979
Clara Barton
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Navy Day in Chile; | refimprove |
| 996 – Pope Gregory V crowned Otto III as Holy Roman Emperor. | refimprove section |
| 1674 – John III Sobieski, elected by the szlachta, became the monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. | unreferenced section |
| 1758 – French and Indian War: Ten-year-old Mary Campbell, taken captive from her Pennsylvania home by members of the Native American group Lenape, likely became the first white child to travel to the Connecticut Western Reserve. | refimprove, lead too short |
| 1863 – The Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Protestant denomination distinguished by its emphasis on the imminent second coming (Advent) of Jesus, was founded in Battle Creek, Michigan, U.S. | refimprove section |
| 1879 – War of the Pacific: Two Peruvian ironclads led by Miguel Grau Seminario attempted to lift the blockade of Iquique by Chilean battleships under Arturo Prat at the Battle of Iquique. | refimprove |
| 1982 – Falklands War: The United Kingdom began a major amphibious assault on the shores of San Carlos Water. | refimprove |
| 1904 – The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the international sport governing body of association football, was founded in Paris. | refimprove section |
| 1991 – Former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. | refimprove section |
| 1996 – Algerian Civil War: The remains of seven French Trappist monks who had been kidnapped in Algeria nearly two months earlier were found. | unreferenced section |
| 1998 – Indonesian President Suharto resigned as a result of the collapse of support for his three-decade-long reign. | external links |
| 2006 – The Montenegrin independence referendum was held in Montenegro, with 55.5 percent of the voters favouring independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. | refimprove section |
| 2010 – The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched IKAROS, the first spacecraft to successfully demonstrate solar sail technology in interplanetary space. | featured on December 8 |
Eligible
- 879 – Pope John VIII officially recognised Croatia as an independent state, and Branimir as its Duke.
- 1403 – King Henry III of Castile sent an embassy to the court of Timur (Tamerlane) to discuss the possibility of an alliance between Timur and Castile against the Ottoman Empire.
- 1856 – A crowd of about 800 pro-slavery Americans ransacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas.
- 1864 – American Civil War: The Union and Confederate armies fought to a draw at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, with nearly 32,000 casualties combined.
- 1894 – The Manchester Ship Canal, linking Greater Manchester in North West England to the Irish Sea, officially opened, becoming the largest navigation canal in the world at the time.
- 1911 – Mexican President Porfirio Díaz and the revolutionary Francisco Madero signed the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez to put an end to the fighting between the forces of both men, and thus concluding the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution.
- 1924 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murdered a 14-year-old boy in a thrill killing out of a desire to commit a perfect crime.
- 1939 – King George VI and Queen Elizabeth dedicated Canada's National War Memorial in Ottawa.
- 1946 – Manhattan Project physicist Louis Slotin accidentally triggered a fission reaction at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and gave himself a lethal dose of hard radiation, making him the second victim of a criticality accident in history.
- 1979 – Riots erupted in San Francisco after former Supervisor Dan White was only sentenced for voluntary manslaughter for the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk.
- 2005 – The world's tallest roller coaster, Kingda Ka, opened at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, U.S.
May 21: Sanja Matsuri begins in Tokyo (2017)
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Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis
- 878 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The city of Syracuse was captured by the Aghlabids, during the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
- 1881 – Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C.
- 1917 – The Imperial War Graves Commission was established through royal charter to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of British Empire military forces.
- 1927 – Aboard the Spirit of St. Louis, American aviator Charles Lindbergh (pictured) completed the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight, flying from Roosevelt Field near New York City to Paris–Le Bourget Airport.
- 1981 – The Italian government released the membership list of Propaganda Due, an illegal pseudo-Masonic lodge that had been implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries.
Feng Dao (d. 954) · Armand Hammer (b. 1898) · Al Franken (b. 1951)