News & Politics - On This Day (April 21) 
MSFixR says: 753 BCE – Romulus and Remus founded Rome, according to the calculations by Roman scholar Varro Reatinus. 1816 - Charlotte Brontë , English author born. (d. 1855) (Brontë was a British novelist, the eldest of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. Charlotte Brontë is best known for "Jane Eyre", one of the most famous of British novels.)
Charlotte Brontë 1836 – Texan forces led by Sam Houston defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna and his Mexican troops in the Battle of San Jacinto near La Porte, the decisive battle in the Texas Revolution. 1894 – Norway formally adopted the Krag-Jřrgensen, a repeating bolt action rifle designed by the Norwegians Ole Herman Johannes Krag and Erik Jřrgensen, as the main firearm of its armed forces. 1918 – The German fighter pilot known as "The Red Baron", the most successful flying ace of World War I with 80 confirmed air combat victories, was shot down and killed near Vaux-sur-Somme in France. 1967 – Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos overthrew the government of Prime Minister Panagiotis Kanellopoulos in a coup d'état, establishing the Regime of the Colonels in Greece. 1970 – In response to a long-running dispute over wheat quotas, the Principality of Hutt River proclaimed their secession from Western Australia, but to this day has never been formally acknowledged by the Commonwealth of Australia or any other international entity. On This Day (April 20) 1653 – Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament of the Commonwealth of England by force, eventually replacing it with the Barebone's Parliament. 1862 – French physiologist Louis Pasteur (pictured) and physiologist Claude Bernard completed the first test on pasteurization. 1884 – Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Humanum Genus, denouncing Freemasonry, the doctrine of a separation of church and state, and many other principles, some of which are today equated by most people with the founding ones of the United States. 1902 - Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride. 1912 - Bram Stoker , Irish author died. (b. 1847) (Stoker was an Irish writer of novels and short stories, who is best known today for his 1897 horror novel, "Dracula".) 1918 - Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day. The Red Baron 1968 – British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell made his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech in opposition to immigration and anti-discrimination legislation, resulting in him being removed from the Shadow Cabinet. 1978 – Soviet fighters shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 after it violated Soviet airspace and failed to respond to Soviet interceptors. 1999 - Columbine High School massacre: Two gunmen kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School located in Jefferson County, Colorado. Picture of the Day A Hairy Toad Lily (Tricyrtis hirta), one of the species of the Tricyrtis genus. They are perennial herbaceous plants that grow naturally at the edge of forests. On This Day (April 19) 1713 – With no living male heirs, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI issued the Pragmatic Sanction to ensure one of his daughters would inherit the Habsburg monarchy. 1775 – The American Revolutionary War began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. 1912 - Glenn Seaborg , American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate born. (d. 1999) (Seaborg won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements," contributed to the discovery and isolation of ten elements, developed the actinide concept and was the first to propose the actinide series which led to the current arrangement of the Periodic Table of the Elements.) 1943 – Nazi German troops entered the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews, sparking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the first mass uprising in Poland against the Nazi occupation during the Holocaust. 1971 – The first space station, Salyut 1, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR, USSR. 1984 – Scottish-born composer Peter Dodds McCormick's "Advance Australia Fair", a patriotic song that was first performed in 1878, officially replaced "God Save the Queen" as Australia's national anthem. fcMuf8wE52k 1995 – A car bomb was detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, killing 168 people and injuring over 800 others. (Sorry for being late today.) Original post: On This Day (April 21) |
