Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 21

This is a list of selected February 21 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← February 20	February 22 →

Staging area

Images

Use only ONE image at a time

• 
  Kurt Eisner
• 
  Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament logo now recognised as the peace sign
• 
  Friedrich Engels
• Karl Marx
  Karl Marx
• 
  Malcolm X

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
Language Movement Day in Bangladesh	unreferenced
1613 – Mikhail I was elected unanimously by the Zemsky Sobor to become Tsar, beginning the Romanov dynasty in Imperial Russia.	no footnotes
1878 – The first telephone directory, consisting of a single page, was issued to fifty subscribers in New Haven, Connecticut.	Tagged with {{refimprove}}
1948 – Bill France Sr. and several other race car drivers founded NASCAR, the governing body of stock car racing in the United States.	refimprove section, neutrality issues

Eligible

• 1245 – Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland, was granted resignation by Pope Innocent IV after having confessed to torture and forgery.

• 1543 – Led by the Ethiopian Emperor Galawdewos, the combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated a Muslim army led by Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi.

• 1804 – Built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick, the first self-propelled steam locomotive first ran in Wales.

• 1848 – The Communist Manifesto by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was first published, becoming one of the world's most influential political tracts.

• 1919 – Bavarian socialist Kurt Eisner, who had organized the Socialist Revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy and established Bavaria as a republic, was assassinated.

• 1952 – Protesters in Dhaka, East Pakistan, walked into military crossfire demanding the establishment of the Bengali language as an official language.

• 1958 – British artist Gerald Holtom designed a logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that became internationally recognised as the peace sign.

• 1971 – The Convention on Psychotropic Substances, a United Nations treaty designed to control psychoactive drugs, was signed at a conference of plenipotentiaries in Vienna.

February 21: International Mother Language Day; Fast of Esther (Judaism, 2013)

• 1862 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army began an attempt to gain control of the Southwest with a major victory in the Battle of Valverde.

• 1918 – The Carolina Parakeet (pictured), the only parrot species native to the eastern United States, became extinct when the last individual died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.

• 1921 – Rezā Khan seized Tehran to make himself the most powerful person in Iran, which eventually led to the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty.

• 1965 – Black nationalist Malcolm X was assassinated while giving a speech in New York City's Audubon Ballroom.

• 1973 – After accidentally having strayed into Israeli airspace, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by two Israeli fighter planes.

More anniversaries:

• February 20
• February 21
• February 22