About May 21

May 21, 2025 is the 141st day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 224 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Wednesday.

You can browse the full year calendar in case you need it.

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Taurus is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Emerald is the modern birthstone for this month. Sapphire is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 272 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

What Happened On May 21

  • 293
    Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appoint Galerius as Caesar to Diocletian, beginning the period of four rulers known as the Tetrarchy.
  • 879
    Pope John VIII gives blessings to duke Branimir and to Croatian people, considered to be international recognition of the Croatian state.
  • 1554
    A royal Charter is granted to Derby School as a grammar school for boys in Derby, England, by Queen Mary I.
  • 1674
    The nobility elect John Sobieski King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
  • 1758
    Mary Campbell is abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War.
  • 1851
    Slavery is abolished in Colombia, South America.
  • 1863
    American Civil War: The Union Army succeeds in closing off the last escape route from Port Hudson, Louisiana, in preparation for the coming siege.
  • 1871
    Opening of the first rack railway in Europe, the Rigi-Bahnen on Mount Rigi.
  • 1927
    Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
  • 1932
    Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
  • 1937
    A Soviet station becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean.
  • 1946
    Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
  • 1961
    American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.
  • 1981
    Irish Republican hunger strikers Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara die on hunger strike in Maze prison.
  • 1981
    The Italian government releases the membership list of Propaganda Due, an illegal pseudo-Masonic lodge that was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries.
  • 1994
    The Democratic Republic of Yemen unsuccessful attempts to secede from Republic of Yemen; a war breaks out.
  • 1996
    The MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1,000.
  • 1996
    The Trappist Martyrs of Atlas are executed.
  • 2001
    French Taubira law officially recognizes the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity.
  • 2005
    The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka opens at Six Flags Great Adventure.

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