This is a list of selected October 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 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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Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Port of Saint-Pierre, Saint Pierre and Miquelon- "Galop infernal" from Orpheus in the Underworld,
popularly used as can-can music 
Aberfan disaster memorial
USS Constitution in 2014
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| ; Trafalgar Day in various Commonwealth countries | unreferenced section |
| Overseas Chinese Day in Taiwan | refimprove, and Overseas Chinese does not mention this date |
| 1520 – The islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon (modern city of Saint-Pierre pictured) near Canada were visited by Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes, who named them after the 11,000 Virgins. | Referencing problems |
| 1600 – Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated the leaders of rival Japanese clans at the Battle of Sekigahara in what is now Sekigahara, Gifu, clearing the path for him to form the Tokugawa shogunate. | unreferenced/refimprove sections |
| 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Lord Nelson signalled "England expects that every man will do his duty" to the rest of his Royal Navy forces before the Battle of Trafalgar off the coast of Spain's Cape Trafalgar. | unreferenced section |
| 1824 – English stonemason, bricklayer and inventor Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement, currently the most common type of cement in general usage in many parts of the world. | Aspdin: refimprove section; Cement: unreferenced sections |
| 1921 – George Melford's wildly successful silent film The Sheik, which would propel its leading actor Rudolph Valentino to stardom, premiered. | refimprove section |
| 1950 – Korean War: The Battle of Yongyu began as British and Australian troops of the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade engaged in heavy fighting with North Korean forces. | multiple issues |
| 1956 – With the capture of Dedan Kimathi, the British mostly put an end to the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya, although the rebellion survived until after the nation's independence in 1960. | Too much uncited |
| 1969 – Siad Barre led Supreme Revolutionary Council forces in a military coup and established the Somali Democratic Republic. | Coup - unsourced material; Somali Democratic Republic (only has history, no other aspects of the country) |
| 1978 – After reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft, Australian pilot Frederick Valentich disappeared while piloting a Cessna 182L across the Bass Strait to King Island. | Date not cited in article |
| 1981 – Andreas Papandreou began the first of his two terms as Prime Minister of Greece, ending an almost 50-year-long system of power dominated by conservative forces. | refimprove sections |
| 1983 – At the 17th General Conference on Weights and Measures, the length of a metre was redefined as the distance that light travels in vacuum in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second. | Date not cited in article |
| 1987 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Indian Army soldiers, belonging to the Indian Peace Keeping Force, entered the Jaffna Teaching Hospital in Jaffna and began killing at least 60 patients, nurses, doctors and other staff members. | refimprove section |
| Hans Asperger |d|1980| | Too many "needs updates" tags |
| Virginia Zeani |b|1925| | Uncited paragraphs |
| Julian Cope |b|1957| | Birthday not cited |
Eligible
- 1345 – Hundred Years' War: The English victory at the Battle of Auberoche marked a change in the military balance of power in Aquitaine, with the subsequent collapse of the French position.
- 1858 – French composer Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, featuring the music most associated with the can-can (audio featured), was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris.
- 1867 – The first and second of three treaties were signed near Medicine Lodge, Kansas, between the United States federal government and several Native American tribes in the Great Plains, requiring them to relocate to areas in present-day western Oklahoma.
- 1910 – HMS Niobe arrived in Halifax Harbour to become the first large ship of the Royal Canadian Navy.
- 1941 – World War II: German soldiers massacred nearly 2,800 Serbs in Kragujevac in reprisal for insurgent attacks in the district of Gornji Milanovac.
- 1959 – The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in New York City.
- 1968 – At the height of the Japanese university protests, protesters occupied Shinjuku Station in Tokyo and clashed violently with police.
- 1994 – North Korea and the United States signed the Agreed Framework to limit the former's nuclear weapons program and to normalize relations between the two countries.
- Born/died this day: | Edmund Waller |d|1687| John Cooke |d|1805| Sims Reeves|b|1821| Will Carleton |b|1845| Maria Dulębianka |b|1861| Walter Gladwin |b|1902| Isabelle Eberhardt |d|1904| Georg Solti |b|1912| Dorothy Hale |d|1938| Peter Mandelson |b|1953| Steph Davies |b|1987| May'n|b|1989| Yulimar Rojas |b|1995| Einár |d|2021|
_활동_사진_1994년_성수대교붕괴.JPG)
Aftermath of the Seongsu Bridge disaster
- 1096 – First Crusade: At the Battle of Civetot, the Seljuk forces of Kilij Arslan destroyed the army of the People's Crusade as it marched toward Nicaea.
- 1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses and 15 nuns were sent to the Ottoman Empire to help treat wounded British soldiers fighting in the Crimean War.
- 1944 – World War II: The three-week-long Battle of Aachen concluded, making the city the first on German soil to be captured by the Allies.
- 1966 – A coal tip fell on the village of Aberfan, Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.
- 1994 – In Seoul, South Korea, 32 people were killed and 17 others injured when a span of the Seongsu Bridge collapsed (pictured).
- Birger Jarl (d. 1266)
- Henry Lawes (d. 1662)
- Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
- Nemanja Vidić (b. 1981)
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