What are the important events that happened on February 21? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.

February 21: Facts & Myths About This Day

February 21 is the 52^nd day of the year 2024 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 314 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Wednesday.

Under the Julian calendar, this day is February 8, 2024 – a Wednesday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?

When this day started, 1,708,473,600 seconds has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.

Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘pentacontadigon’ day.

Pisces is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Amethyst is the modern birthstone for this month. Bloodstone is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 343 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,079 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.

February 21: This Day In History

In addition, it’s the first day of the astronomical winter.

February 21 Historical Events

• 362 –
  Athanasius returns to Alexandria.
• 1440 –
  The Prussian Confederation is formed.
• 1804 –
  The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.
• 1862 –
  American Civil War: Battle of Valverde is fought near Fort Craig in New Mexico Territory.
• 1913 –
  Ioannina is incorporated into the Greek state after the Balkan Wars.
• 1925 –
  The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
• 1945 –
  World War II: Japanese Kamikaze planes sink the escort carrier Bismarck Sea and damage the Saratoga.
• 1947 –
  In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first “instant camera”, the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
• 1975 –
  Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.
• 1995 –
  Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

Who were born on February 21?

• 1865 –
  John Haden Badley, English school founder (d. 1967)
• 1876 –
  Pyotr Konchalovsky, Russian painter (d. 1956)
• 1909 –
  Hans Erni, Swiss painter
• 1910 –
  Douglas Bader, British pilot (d. 1982)
• 1937 –
  King Harald V of Norway
• 1951 –
  Wolfgang Frank, German footballer
• 1953 –
  William Petersen, American actor
• 1969 –
  James Dean Bradfield, Welsh musician
• 1977 –
  Owen King, American writer and journalist
• 1983 –
  Mélanie Laurent, French actress and director

Who died on February 21?

• 1513 –
  Pope Julius II (b. 1443)
• 1595 –
  Robert Southwell, English Jesuit priest and poet
• 1919 –
  Kurt Eisner, German socialist (assassinated), leader of socialist revolution of 1918 in Bavaria (b. 1867)
• 1968 –
  Howard Walter Florey, Australian-born pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1898)
• 1972 –
  Eugène Tisserant, French Catholic Cardinal (b. 1884)
• 1982 –
  Gershom Scholem, German-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and historian (b. 1897)
• 1984 –
  Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
• 1991 –
  Dorothy Auchterlonie, Australian academic, literary critic and poet (b. 1915)
• 1999 –
  Wilmer David Mizell, baseball player (b. 1930)
• 2003 –
  Eddie Thomson, Scottish football player and coach (b. 1947)