May
21
Independence
Day
Montenegro : May 21 2006
Events
May 21
293 – Roman
Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appoint Galerius as Caesar
to Diocletian, beginning the period of four rulers known as
the Tetrarchy.
878 – Syracuse, Italy, is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily.
879 – Pope John VIII gives blessings to Branimir of Croatia
and to the Croatian people, considered to be international recognition
of the Croatian state.
996 – Sixteen-year-old Otto III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
1349 – Dušan's Code, the constitution of the Serbian Empire,
is enacted by Dušan the Mighty.
1502 – The island of Saint Helena is discovered by the Portuguese
explorer João da Nova.
1554 – Queen Mary I grants a royal Charter to Derby School,
as a grammar school for boys in Derby, England.
1674 – The nobility elect John Sobieski King of Poland and Grand
Duke of Lithuania.
1725 – The Order of St. Alexander Nevsky is instituted in Russia
by Empress Catherine I. It would later be discontinued and then
reinstated by the Soviet government in 1942 as the Order of
Alexander Nevsky.
1758 – Ten-year-old Mary Campbell is abducted in Pennsylvania
by Lenape during the French and Indian War. She is returned
some six and a half years later.
1809 – The first day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling between
the Austrian army led by Archduke Charles and the French army
led by Napoleon I of France sees the French attack across the
Danube held.
1851 – Slavery is abolished in Colombia, South America.
1856 – Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery
forces.
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.
1863 – Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle
Creek, Michigan.
1864 – Russia declares an end to the Russian-Circassian War
and many Circassians are forced into exile. The day is designated
the Circassian Day of Mourning.
1871 – French troops invade the Paris Commune and engage its
residents in street fighting. By the close of "Bloody Week",
some 20,000 communards have been killed and 38,000 arrested.
1871 – Opening of the first rack railway in Europe, the Rigi-Bahnen
on Mount Rigi.
1879 – War of the Pacific: Two Chilean ships blocking the harbor
of Iquique (then belonging to Peru) battle two Peruvian vessels
in the Battle of Iquique.
1881 – The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton
in Washington, D.C..
1894 – The Manchester Ship Canal in England is officially opened
by Queen Victoria, who later knights its designer Sir Edward
Leader Williams.
1904 – The Fédération Internationale de Football Association
(FIFA) is founded in Paris.
1911 – Mexican President Porfirio Díaz and the revolutionary
Francisco Madero sign the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez to put an
end to the fighting between the forces of both men, and thus
concluding the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution.
1917 – The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is established
through Royal Charter to mark, record and maintain the graves
and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations military
forces.
1917 – The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 causes $5.5 million in
damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses
and churches, displacing about 10,000 people and leading to
only fatality (due to heart attack).
1924 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan
Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill
killing".
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.
1934 – Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the
United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.
1936 – Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo
for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her hand.
Her story soon becomes one of Japan's most notorious scandals.
1937 – A Soviet station, North Pole-1, becomes the first scientific
research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic
Ocean.
1939 – The Canadian National War Memorial is unveiled by King
George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa.
1946 – Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality
incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos
National Laboratory.
1951 – The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known
as the 9th Street Art Exhibition – a gathering of a number of
notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York
avant-garde, collectively known as the New York School.
1961 – American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John
Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore
order after race riots break out.
1966 – The Ulster Volunteer Force declares war on the Irish
Republican Army in Northern Ireland.
1969 – Civil unrest in Rosario, Argentina, known as Rosariazo,
following the death of a 15-year-old student.
1972 – Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome
is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist
Laszlo Toth.
1976 – The Yuba City bus disaster occurs in Martinez, California.
29 are killed making it the deadliest road accident in U.S.
history.
1979 – White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter
conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone
and Harvey Milk.
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.
1982 – Falklands War: A British amphibious assault during Operation
Sutton leads to the Battle of San Carlos.
1990 – The Democratic Republic of Yemen and North Yemen agree
to merge into the Republic of Yemen.
1991 – Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated
by a female suicide bomber near Madras.
1991 – Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of the People's Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia, flees Ethiopia, effectively bringing the
Ethiopian Civil War to an end.
1994 – The Democratic Republic of Yemen unsuccessful attempts
to secede from the Republic of Yemen; a war breaks out.
1996 – The ferry MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake
Victoria, killing nearly 1,000.
1996 – The Trappist Martyrs of Atlas, kidnapped during the Algerian
Civil War and held for two months, are found dead.
1998 – In Miami, Florida, five abortion clinics are hit by a
butyric acid attacker.
2001 – French Taubira law is enacted, officially recognizing
the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity.
2003 – An earthquake hits northern Algeria killing more than
2,000 people.
2005 – The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka opens
at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey.
2006 – The Republic of Montenegro holds a referendum proposing
independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.
The Montenegrin people choose independence with a majority of
55%.
2010 – JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, launches
the solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS aboard an H-IIA rocket. The
vessel would make a Venus flyby late in the year.
2012 – In Qafa e Vishës bus tragedy near Himara, Albania 13
students of Aleksandër Xhuvani University killed in bus crash.
Holidays
and observances
Afro-Colombian
Day (Colombia)
Christian Feast Day:
Charles-Joseph-Eugene de Mazenod
Emperor Constantine I
Earliest day on which Corpus Christi can fall, while June 24
is the latest; held on Thursday after Trinity Sunday. (Roman
Catholic Church)
Helena of Constantinople, also known as "Feast of the Holy
Great Sovereigns Constantine and Helen, Equal-to-the-Apostles."
(Eastern Orthodox Church)
May 21 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Circassian Day of Mourning (Circassians)
Day of Patriots and Military (Hungary)
Independence Day, honors the 2006 plebiscite that indicated
that 55.5% of Montenegrins were in favor of becoming a sovereign
nation. (Montenegro)
Navy Day (Chile)
Saint Helena Day, celebrates the discovery of Saint Helena in
1502.
World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
(International)
One of the festivals of Vejovis (Roman Empire)
For details, contact Datacentre
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