Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May 21
This is a lists selected May 21 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error in content currently on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If a listed event is inaccurate, please first seek consensus and update the corresponding article before making changes here.
Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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John III Sobieski, King of Poland -
John III Sobieski, King of Poland -
A boat on the Manchester Ship Canal -
Capture of Syracuse -
Suharto -
Rioters outside San Francisco City Hall on May 21, 1979 -
Clara Barton -
Kingda Ka roller coaster -
Recreation of the Manhattan Project "demon core" -
DOW7 ground-level wind data of the Greenfield tornado -
Richard Loeb (left) and Nathan Leopold (right)
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Navy Day in Chile; | refimprove |
| Global Accessibility Awareness Day (2026); | convert list to prose, WP:EXAMPLEFARM |
| 996 – Pope Gregory V crowned Otto III as Holy Roman Emperor. | refimprove section |
| 1403 – King Henry III of Castile sent an embassy to the Timurid court to discuss a potential alliance against the Ottoman Empire. | Too much uncited |
| 1674 – John III Sobieski, elected by the szlachta, became the monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. | unreferenced section |
| 1758 – French and Indian War: Ten-year-old Mary Campbell, taken captive from her Pennsylvania home by members of the Native American group Lenape, likely became the first white child to travel to the Connecticut Western Reserve. | refimprove, lead too short |
| 1863 – The Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Protestant denomination distinguished by its emphasis on the imminent second coming (Advent) of Jesus, was founded in Battle Creek, Michigan, U.S. | unsourced sections |
| 1879 – War of the Pacific: Two Peruvian ironclads led by Miguel Grau Seminario attempted to lift the blockade of Iquique by Chilean battleships under Arturo Prat at the Battle of Iquique. | refimprove |
| 1881 – Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. | refimprove section |
| 1904 – The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the international sport governing body of association football, was founded in Paris. | refimprove section |
| 1917 – A fire broke out in Atlanta, destroying several thousand buildings and displacing over 10,000 residents. | refimprove section |
| 1939 – King George VI and Queen Elizabeth dedicated Canada's National War Memorial in Ottawa.\ | unsourced section |
| * 1951 – The 9th Street Art Exhibition opened in New York City, marking the formal debut of the abstract expressionism movement. | "formal debut" not supported in article |
| 1979 – Riots erupted in San Francisco after former Supervisor Dan White was only sentenced for voluntary manslaughter for the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk. | misleading section |
| 1981 – The Italian government released the membership list of Propaganda Due, an illegal pseudo-Masonic lodge that had been implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries. | refimprove section |
| 1982 – Falklands War: The United Kingdom began a major amphibious assault on the shores of San Carlos Water. | refimprove |
| 1996 – Algerian Civil War: The remains of seven French Trappist monks who had been kidnapped in Algeria nearly two months earlier were found. | most important part uses an unreliable source |
| 2006 – The Montenegrin independence referendum was held in Montenegro, with 55.5 percent of the voters favouring independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. | unreferenced section |
| 2010 – The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched IKAROS, the first spacecraft to successfully demonstrate solar sail technology in interplanetary space. | featured on December 8 |
| Mary Robinson |b|1944| | Orange banner |
Eligible
- 878 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The city of Syracuse was captured by the Aghlabids (pictured) as part of the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
- 1703 – English writer Daniel Defoe was imprisoned for seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet that was perceived to satirise the Tory publications about Dissenters.
- 1851 – The Congress of Colombia passed a law abolishing slavery in the country, to take effect at the beginning of the new year.
- 1856 – A crowd of about 800 pro-slavery Americans ransacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas.
- 1911 – Mexican president Porfirio Díaz and the revolutionary Francisco I. Madero signed the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez to end hostilities between each other's forces, concluding the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution.
- 1917 – The Imperial War Graves Commission was established by royal charter to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of British Empire military forces.
- 1927 – Aboard the Spirit of St. Louis, American aviator Charles Lindbergh (pictured) completed the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight, flying from Roosevelt Field near New York City to Paris–Le Bourget Airport.
- 1924 – University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb (both pictured) murdered a 14-year-old boy in a thrill killing out of a desire to commit a "perfect crime".
- 1946 – While working with a mass of plutonium known as the demon core, Manhattan Project physicist Louis Slotin accidentally exposed himself to a lethal dose of hard radiation.
- 1991 – Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.
- 1998 – Indonesian president Suharto resigned after a collapse of support for his presidency amid economic and political crises, ending 32 years in power.
- 2005 – The world's tallest roller coaster, Kingda Ka, opened at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, U.S.
- 2015 – Islamic State militants entered the ancient city of Palmyra.
- 2024 – The Greenfield tornado, estimated to have produced winds in excess of 309 miles per hour (497 km/h), moves across Iowa.
- Born/died: | Olaf the Black |d|1237| Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk |d|1524| Luis Fajardo |d|1617| Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland |b|1806| Rudolf Koller |b|1828| Ella Stewart Udall |b|1855| Anne Walter Fearn |b|1867| Tudor Arghezi |b|1880| Leonidas Vasilikopoulos |b|1932| Al Franken |b|1951| Nadine Dorries |b|1957
May 21: World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
Busoni c. 1897
- 1138 – The Crusades: The siege of Shaizar ended, and the Emir of Shaizar became a vassal of the Byzantine Empire.
- 1864 – American Civil War: The inconclusive Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia ended with combined Union and Confederate casualties totaling around 31,000.
- 1894 – The Manchester Ship Canal, linking Manchester in North West England to the Irish Sea, officially opened, becoming the world's largest navigation canal at the time.
- 1925 – The opera Doktor Faust, unfinished when composer Ferruccio Busoni (pictured) died, was premiered in Dresden.
- 2014 – A Taiwanese man carried out a stabbing spree on a Taipei Metro train, killing four people and injuring 24 others.
- Feng Dao (d. 954)
- Tommaso Campanella (d. 1639)
- Armand Hammer (b. 1898)
- Linda Laubenstein (b. 1947)