August 21
Events
Pre-1600
- 959 - Eraclus becomes the 25th bishop of Liège.
- 1140 - Song dynasty general Yue Fei defeats an army led by Jin dynasty general Wuzhu at the Battle of Yancheng during the Jin–Song Wars.
- 1169 - Battle of the Blacks: Uprising by the black African forces of the Fatimid army, along with a number of Egyptian emirs and commoners, against Saladin.
- 1192 - Minamoto no Yoritomo becomes Sei-i Taishōgun and the de facto ruler of Japan..
- 1331 - King Stefan Uroš III, after months of anarchy, surrenders to his son and rival Stefan Dušan, who succeeds as King of Serbia.
- 1415 - Henry the Navigator leads Portuguese forces to victory over the Marinids at the Conquest of Ceuta.
1601–1900
- 1680 - Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe from the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt.
- 1689 - The Battle of Dunkeld in Scotland.
- 1716 - Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: The arrival of naval reinforcements and the news of the Battle of Petrovaradin force the Ottomans to abandon the Siege of Corfu, thus preserving the Ionian Islands under Venetian rule.
- 1770 - James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.
- 1772 - King Gustav III completes his coup d'état by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot.
- 1778 - American Revolutionary War: British forces begin besieging the French outpost at Pondichéry.
- 1791 - Enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue, led by Dutty Boukman, held a Vodou ceremony that became a pivotal act of resistance. This gathering sparked a mass uprising against slavery, marking the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.
- 1808 - Battle of Vimeiro: British and Portuguese forces led by General Arthur Wellesley defeat French force under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro, Portugal, the first Anglo-Portuguese victory of the Peninsular War.
- 1810 - Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France, is elected Crown Prince of Sweden by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates.
- 1821 - Jarvis Island is discovered by the crew of the ship, Eliza Frances.
- 1831 - Nat Turner leads black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, which will claim the lives of 55 to 65 whites and about twice that number of blacks.
- 1852 - Tlingit Indians destroy Fort Selkirk, Yukon Territory.
- 1858 - The first of the Lincoln–Douglas debates is held in Ottawa, Illinois.
- 1862 - The Stadtpark, the first public park in Vienna, opens to the public.
- 1863 - Lawrence, Kansas is destroyed by pro-Confederate guerrillas known as Quantrill's Raiders.
- 1878 - The American Bar Association is founded in Saratoga Springs, New York.
- 1879 - The locals of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland report their having seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary. The apparition is later named "Our Lady of Knock" and the spot transformed into a Catholic pilgrimage site.
- 1883 - An F5 tornado strikes Rochester, Minnesota, leading to the creation of the Mayo Clinic.
- 1888 - The first successful adding machine in the United States is patented by William Seward Burroughs.
1901–present
- 1901 - Six hundred American school teachers, Thomasites, arrived in Manila on the USAT Thomas.
- 1911 - The Mona Lisa is stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre employee.
- 1914 - World War I: The Battle of Charleroi, a successful German attack across the River Sambre that pre-empted a French offensive in the same area.
- 1918 - World War I: The Second Battle of the Somme begins.
- 1942 - World War II: The Guadalcanal campaign: American forces defeat an attack by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in the Battle of the Tenaru.
- 1944 - Dumbarton Oaks Conference, prelude to the United Nations, begins.
- 1944 - World War II: Canadian and Polish units capture the strategically important town of Falaise, Calvados, France.
- 1945 - Physicist Harry Daghlian is fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
- 1957 - The Soviet Union successfully conducts a long-range test flight of the R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile.
- 1959 - United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. Hawaii's admission is currently commemorated by Hawaii Admission Day.
- 1963 - Xá Lợi Pagoda raids: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem, vandalizes Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead.
- 1965 - The Socialist Republic of Romania is proclaimed, following the adoption of a new constitution.
- 1968 - Cold War: Nicolae Ceaușescu, leader of the Socialist Republic of Romania, publicly condemns the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, encouraging the Romanian population to arm itself against possible Soviet reprisals.
- 1968 - James Anderson Jr. posthumously receives the first Medal of Honor to be awarded to an African American U.S. Marine.
- 1971 - A bomb exploded in the Liberal Party campaign rally in Plaza Miranda, Manila, Philippines with several anti-Marcos political candidates injured.
- 1982 - Lebanese Civil War: The first troops of a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestine Liberation Organization's withdrawal from Lebanon.
- 1983 - Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. is assassinated at Manila International Airport.
- 1986 - Carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing up to 1,800 people within a range.
- 1988 - The 6.9 Nepal earthquake shakes the Nepal–India border with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII, leaving 709–1,450 people killed and thousands injured.
- 1991 - Latvia declares renewal of its full independence after its occupation by the Soviet Union since 1940.
- 1991 - Coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev collapses.
- 1993 - NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.
- 1994 - Royal Air Maroc Flight 630 crashes in Douar Izounine, Morocco, killing all 44 people on board.
- 1995 - Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia, attempts to divert to West Georgia Regional Airport after the left engine fails, but the aircraft crashes in Carroll County near Carrollton, Georgia, killing nine of the 29 people on board.
- 2000 - American golfer Tiger Woods wins the 82nd PGA Championship and becomes the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in a calendar year.
- 2013 - Hundreds of people are reported killed by chemical attacks in the Ghouta region of Syria.
- 2017 - A solar eclipse traverses the continental United States.
Births
Pre-1600
- 1165 - Philip II of France
- 1481 - Jorge de Lencastre, Duke of Coimbra
- 1535 - Shimazu Yoshihiro, Japanese general
- 1552 - Muhammad Qadiri, Founder of the Naushahia branch of the Qadri order
- 1567 - Francis de Sales, Swiss bishop and saint
- 1579 - Henri, Duke of Rohan
- 1597 - Roger Twysden, English historian and politician
1601–1900
- 1625 - John Claypole, English politician
- 1643 - Afonso VI of Portugal
- 1660 - Hubert Gautier, French mathematician and engineer
- 1665 - Giacomo F. Maraldi, French-Italian astronomer and mathematician
- 1670 - James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, French general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire
- 1725 - Jean-Baptiste Greuze, French painter and educator
- 1754 - William Murdoch, Scottish engineer and inventor, created gas lighting
- 1754 - Banastre Tarleton, English general and politician
- 1765 - William IV, King of the United Kingdom
- 1787 - John Owen, American governor of North Carolina
- 1789 - Augustin-Louis Cauchy, French mathematician and academic
- 1798 - Jules Michelet, French historian and philosopher
- 1800 - Hiram Walden, American general and politician
- 1801 - Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Dutch historian and politician
- 1813 - Jean Stas, Belgian chemist and physician
- 1816 - Charles Frédéric Gerhardt, French chemist and academic
- 1823 - Nathaniel Everett Green, English painter and astronomer
- 1826 - Carl Gegenbaur, German anatomist and academic
- 1829 - Otto Goldschmidt, German composer, conductor and pianist
- 1840 - Ferdinand Hamer, Dutch bishop and missionary
- 1851 - Charles Barrois, French geologist and palaeontologist
- 1856 - Medora de Vallombrosa, Marquise de Morès, American heiress
- 1858 - Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria
- 1862 - Emilio Salgari, Italian journalist and author
- 1869 - William Henry Ogilvie, Scottish-Australian poet and author
- 1872 - Aubrey Beardsley, English author and illustrator
- 1878 - Richard Girulatis, German footballer and manager
- 1879 - Claude Grahame-White, English pilot and engineer
- 1884 - Chandler Egan, American golfer and architect
- 1885 - Édouard Fabre, Canadian runner
- 1886 - Ruth Manning-Sanders, Welsh-English author and poet
- 1887 - James Paul Moody, English sailor
- 1891 - Emiliano Mercado del Toro, Puerto Rican-American soldier
- 1892 - Charles Vanel, French actor and director
- 1894 - Christian Schad, German painter
- 1895 - Blossom Rock, American actress
- 1897 - Keith Arbuthnott, 15th Viscount of Arbuthnott, Scottish soldier and peer