October 21

What happened that day?

• 2005: Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in documenting its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.
• 1994: In Seoul, 32 people are killed when the Seongsu Bridge collapses.
• 1994: North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea and the United States sign an Agreed Framework that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.
• 1987: Jaffna hospital massacre is carried out by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 70 ethnic Tamil patients, doctors and nurses.
• 1986: In Lebanon, pro-Iran kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he is released in August 1991).
• 1983: The metre is defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
• 1981: Andreas Papandreou becomes Prime Minister of Greece, ending an almost 50-year-long system of power dominated by conservative forces.
• 1979: Moshe Dayan resigns from the Israeli government because of strong disagreements with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policy towards the Arabs.
• 1978: Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
• 1973: Fred Dryer of the Los Angeles Rams becomes the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game.
• 1971: A gas explosion kills 22 people at a shopping center in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire, near Glasgow, Scotland.
• 1969: A coup d'état in Somalia brings Siad Barre to power and establishes a socialist republic in Somalia.
• 1967: Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, D.C.. Similar demonstrations occur simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.
• 1966: [Aberfan](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan) disaster: A colliery spoil tip collapses on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.
• 1965: Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers (279,617 miles) from the sun.
• 1959: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun and other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA.
• 1959: In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens to the public.
• 1956: Mau Mau Uprising: Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is captured by the British Army, signalling the ultimate defeat of the rebellion, and essentially ending the British military campaign.
• 1950: Korean War: Heavy fighting begins between British and Australian forces from the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade and the North Korean 239th Regiment during the Battle of Yongju.
• 1945: Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
• 1944: World War II: Battle of [Aachen](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachen): The city of Aachen falls to American forces after three weeks of fighting, making it the first German city to fall to the Allies.
• 1944: World War II: Nemmersdorf massacre against the German civilians takes place.
• 1944: World War II: The first kamikaze attack. A Japanese fighter plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.
• 1943: The Provisional Government of Free India is formally declared by Subhas Chandra Bose.
• 1940: The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
• 1931: The Sakurakai, a secret society in the Imperial Japanese Army, launches an abortive coup d'état attempt.
• 1921: President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting U.S. President against lynching in the deep South.
• 1912: First Balkan War: Kardzhali is liberated by Bulgarian forces.
• 1910: HMS Niobe arrives in Halifax Harbour to become the first ship of the Royal Canadian Navy.
• 1895: The Republic of Formosa collapses as Japanese forces invade.
• 1892: Opening ceremonies for the World's Columbian Exposition are held in Chicago, though because construction was behind schedule, the exposition did not open until May 1, 1893.
• 1888: Foundation of the Swiss Social Democratic Party.
• 1879: Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his design for an incandescent light bulb.
• 1867: The Medicine Lodge Treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate to a reservation in western Oklahoma.
• 1861: American Civil War: Battle of Ball's Bluff: Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war.
• 1854: Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War.
• 1824: Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
• 1805: Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve.
• 1797: In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched.
• 1774: First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
• 1600: Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate.
• 1520: João Álvares Fagundes discovers the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, bestowing them their original name of "Islands of the 11,000 Virgins".
• 1520: Ferdinand Magellan discovers a strait now known as Strait of Magellan.
• 1512: Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.
• 1392: Nanboku-chō, Japan: Emperor Go-Kameyama abdicates in favor of rival claimant Go-Komatsu.
• 1209: Otto IV is crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Innocent III.
• 1097: First Crusade: Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch.
• 1096: People's Crusade: A Seljuk Turkish army successfully fight off the People's Army of the West.