February 21: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1613 - Mikhail I is unanimously elected Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia.
2. 1804 - The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales
3. 1828 - Initial issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is the first periodical to use the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah.
4. 1842 - John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.
5. 1848 - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.
6. 1885 - The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.
7. 1925 - The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
8. 1947 - In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
9. 1958 - The peace symbol, commissioned by Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom.
10. 1972 - The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
11. Famous Birthdays: Sethus Calvisius (German astronomer, composer, and theorist), John McKinly (American physician), Henrik Dam (Danish biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate), Hans Erni (Swiss painter and sculptor), Emil Frei (American physician and oncologist)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: February 20

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: February 22

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.