On this day: October 21

Events on October 21

• 1139 Zengi, atabeg of Aleppo, takes Baalbek from the Burid dynasty. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1512 Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg. Wikipedia
• 1520 João Álvares Fagundes discovers the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, bestowing them their original name of "Islands of the 11,000 Virgins". Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1854 Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War. Wikipedia
• 1861 American Civil War: Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1879 Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his design for an incandescent light bulb. Wikipedia
• 1921 President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting U.S. president against lynching in the Deep South. Wikipedia
• 1940 The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published. Wikipedia
• 1941 World War II: German soldiers massacred nearly 2,800 Serbs in Kragujevac in reprisal for insurgent attacks in the district of Gornji Milanovac. Wikipedia
• 1941 World War II: The Kragujevac massacre against Serbian men and boys takes place. Wikipedia
• 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. Wikipedia
• 1959 President Dwight D. Eisenhower approves the transfer of all US Army space-related activities to NASA, including most of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. Wikipedia
• 1959 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in New York City. Wikipedia
• 1968 At the height of the Japanese university protests, protesters occupied Shinjuku Station in Tokyo and clashed violently with police. Wikipedia
• 1978 Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft. Wikipedia
• 1983 The metre is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. Wikipedia
• 1984 Niki Lauda claims his third and final Formula One Drivers' Championship Title by half a point ahead of McLaren team-mate Alain Prost at the Portuguese Grand Prix. Wikipedia
• 1989 In Honduras, 131 people are killed when a Boeing 727 crashes on approach to Toncontín International Airport near the nation's capital Tegucigalpa. Wikipedia
• 1994 In Seoul, South Korea, 32 people were killed and 17 others injured when a span of the Seongsu Bridge collapsed. Wikipedia
• 2007 Finnish race drivers Kimi Räikkönen of Scuderia Ferrari won the Brazilian Grand Prix in Formula One. With this result, Räikkönen became world champion, surpassing McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso by one point in the drivers' standings. Wikipedia
• 2011 Iraq War: President Barack Obama announces that the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq will be complete by the end of the year. Wikipedia
• 2019 In Canada, the 2019 Canadian federal election ends, resulting in incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remaining in office, albeit with the Liberal Party in a minority government. Wikipedia
• 2019 Thirty people are killed in a fiery bus crash in western Democratic Republic of the Congo. Wikipedia

Born on October 21

• 1328 Hongwu Emperor of China (died 1398) Wikipedia
• 1772 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, philosopher, and critic (died 1834) Wikipedia
• 1790 Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet and politician, French Head of State (died 1869) Wikipedia
• 1833 Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist and engineer, invented dynamite and founded the Nobel Prize (died 1896) Wikipedia
• 1914 Martin Gardner, American mathematician and author (died 2010) Wikipedia
• 1917 Dizzy Gillespie, American trumpet player, composer, and bandleader (died 1993) Wikipedia
• 1925 Celia Cruz, Cuban-American singer (died 2003) Wikipedia
• 1929 Ursula K. Le Guin, American author and critic (died 2018) Wikipedia
• 1930 Ivan Silayev, Russian engineer and politician, 19th Prime Minister of Russia (died 2023) Wikipedia
• 1933 Francisco Gento, Spanish footballer and manager (died 2022) Wikipedia
• 1942 Christopher A. Sims, American economist and statistician, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1943 Tariq Ali, Pakistani historian and author Wikipedia
• 1945 Nikita Mikhalkov, Russian filmmaker Wikipedia
• 1949 Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli captain and politician, 9th Prime Minister of Israel Wikipedia
• 1956 Carrie Fisher, American actress and screenwriter (died 2016) Wikipedia
• 1957 Wolfgang Ketterle, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1958 Andre Geim, Russian-English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1959 Ken Watanabe, Japanese actor and producer Wikipedia
• 1965 Ion Andoni Goikoetxea, Spanish footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1980 Kim Kardashian, American reality television personality, actress, model, businesswoman and socialite Wikipedia
• 1981 Nemanja Vidić, Serbian footballer Wikipedia
• 1995 Doja Cat, American rapper, singer and songwriter Wikipedia

Died on October 21

• 1096 Walter Sans Avoir, a leader of the First Crusade Wikipedia
• 1422 Charles VI of France (born 1368) Wikipedia
• 1556 Pietro Aretino, Italian author (born 1492) Wikipedia
• 1805 Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, English admiral (born 1758) Wikipedia
• 1931 Arthur Schnitzler, Austrian author and playwright (born 1862) Wikipedia
• 1939 Hendrik Wortman, Dutch civil engineer (born 1859) Wikipedia
• 1969 Jack Kerouac, American novelist and poet (born 1922) Wikipedia
• 1978 Anastas Mikoyan, Armenian-Russian civil servant and politician (born 1895) Wikipedia
• 1980 Hans Asperger, Austrian physician and psychologist (born 1906) Wikipedia
• 1984 François Truffaut, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1932) Wikipedia
• 2012 George McGovern, American historian, lieutenant, and politician (born 1922) Wikipedia
• 2014 Gough Whitlam, Australian lieutenant, lawyer, and politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia (born 1916) Wikipedia
• 2023 Bobby Charlton, English footballer and manager (born 1937) Wikipedia
• 2023 Bill Hayden, Australian politician, 21st Governor General of Australia (born 1933) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Armed Forces Day (Honduras) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Céline of Laon Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Charles of Austria (Roman Catholic Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Fintán of Taghmon Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Hilarion Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: John of Bridlington Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Laura of Saint Catherine of Siena Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Malchus of Syria Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Pedro Calungsod Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Peter Yu Tae-chol Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Severinus of Bordeaux Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Tuda of Lindisfarne Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Ursula Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Viator of Lyons Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: October 21 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Egyptian Naval Day (Egypt) Wikipedia
• Indian Police Commemoration Day (India) Wikipedia
• National Nurses' Day (Thailand) Wikipedia
• Ndadaye Day (Burundi) Wikipedia
• Overseas Chinese Day (Republic of China) Wikipedia
• Trafalgar Day (the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th century) Wikipedia
• Birth of the Báb (2017) (Baháʼí Faith) Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “October 21” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.