What is today history February 21

Today in History : February 21

1595 : The Jesuit poet Robert Southwell is hanged for “treason,” being a Catholic.

1631 : Michael Romanov, son of the Patriarch of Moscow, is elected Russian Tsar.

1744 : The British blockade of Toulon is broken by 27 French and Spanish warships attacking 29 British ships.

1775 : As troubles with Great Britain increase, colonists in Massachusetts vote to buy military equipment for 15,000 men.

1797 : Trinidad, West Indies surrenders to the British.

1828 : The first issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is printed, both in English and in the newly invented Cherokee alphabet.

1849 : In the Second Sikh War, Sir Hugh Gough’s well placed guns win a victory over a Sikh force twice the size of his at Gujerat on the Chenab River, assuring British control of the Punjab for years to come.

1862 : The Texas Rangers win a Confederate victory in the Battle of Val Verde, New Mexico.

1878 : The world’s first telephone book is issued by the New Haven Connecticut Telephone Company containing the names of its 50 subscribers.

1885 : The Washington Monument is dedicated in Washington, D.C.

1905 : The Mukden campaign of the Russo-Japanese War, begins.

1916 : The Battle of Verdun begins with an unprecedented German artillery barrage of the French lines.

1940 : The Germans begin construction of a concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1944 : Hideki Tojo becomes chief of staff of the Japanese army.

1949 : Nicaragua and Costa Rica sign a friendship treaty ending hostilities over their borders.

1951 : The U. S. Eighth Army launches Operation Killer, a counterattack to push Chinese forces north of the Han River in Korea.

1956 : A grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama indicts 115 in a Negro bus boycott.

1960 : Havana places all Cuban industry under direct control of the government.

1965 : El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcom X) is assassinated in front of 400 people.

1972 : Richard Nixon arrives in Beijing, China, becoming the first U.S. president to visit a country not diplomatically recognized by the U.S.

1974 : A report claims that the use of defoliants by the U.S. has scarred Vietnam for a century.

Born on February 21

1794 : Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Mexican Revolutionary.

1801 : John Henry Newman, English theologian and writer.

1821 : Charles Scribner, founded the publishing firm which became Charles Scribner’s Sons and also founded Scribner’s magazine.

1893 : Andrés Segovia, Spanish classical guitarist.

1907 : W.H. Auden, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (The Age of Anxiety).

1920 : Robert S. Johnson, American World War II fighter ace who shot down 27 German planes.

1927 : Erma Bombeck, author and humorist (The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank).