About October 21
October 21, 2025 is the 294th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 71 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Tuesday.
You can browse the full year calendar in case you need it.
Are you looking for a day of the week calculator? Try it on any date like anniversaries, birthday of someone you know, or any other date that is special to you. You can even try it on historical dates. For example: October 21
(Sponsored by DayOfTheWeek.org)
Libra is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Opal is the modern birthstone for this month. Jasper is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 119 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
What Happened On October 21
- 1096 –People’s Crusade: The Turkish army annihilates the People’s Army of the West.
- 1209 –Otto IV is crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Innocent III.
- 1520 –Ferdinand Magellan discovers a strait now known as Strait of Magellan.
- 1520 –João Álvares Fagundes discovers the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, bestowing them their original name of “Islands of the 11,000 Virgins”.
- 1805 –Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signals almost the end of French maritime power and leaves Britain’s navy unchallenged until the 20th century.
- 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. Baker, a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed in the fighting.
- 1912 –During the First Balkan War, Kardzhali is liberated by Bulgarian forces
- 1921 –President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the deep south.
- 1931 –The Sakurakai, a secret society in the Imperial Japanese Army, launches an abortive coup d'état attempt.
- 1944 –World War II: Battle of 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.
- 1959 –In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens to the public.
- 1959 –President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun and other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA.
- 1967 –Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, D.C. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility. Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.
- 1977 –The European Patent Institute is founded.
- 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.
- 1979 –Moshe Dayan resigns from the Israeli government because of strong disagreements with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policy towards the Arabs.
- 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.
- 1986 –In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he is released in August 1991).
- 1987 –Jaffna hospital massacre is carried out by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 70 ethnic Tamil patients, doctors and nurses.
- 1994 –North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea and the United States sign an agreement that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.
Is this your birthday? Are you not curious to learn who shares your special day? Find out the October 21 famous birthdays and expand your knowledge today. (Sponsored link)
Share or Link to This Page: