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.
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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.
- 1097 –First Crusade: Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch.
- 1392 –Nanboku-chō: Emperor Go-Kameyama abdicates in favor of rival claimant Go-Komatsu.
- 1520 –João Álvares Fagundes discovers the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, bestowing them their original name of “Islands of the 11,000 Virgins”.
- 1600 –Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate that in effect rules Japan until the mid-nineteenth century.
- 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.
- 1824 –Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement.
- 1854 –Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War.
- 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.
- 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.
- 1944 –World War II: The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.
- 1945 –Women’s suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
- 1950 –Korean War: heavy fighting begins between British and Australian forces from the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade and the North Korean 239th Regiment during the Battle of Yongju.
- 1956 –Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is captured by the British Army, signalling the ultimate defeat of the Mau Mau Uprising, and essentially ending the British military campaign.
- 1969 –A coup d'état in Somalia brings Siad Barre to power.
- 1971 –A gas explosion kills 22 people at a shopping centre in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire, near Glasgow, Scotland.
- 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.
- 1986 –In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he is released in August 1991).
- 2003 –Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in documenting its discovery by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz.
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