Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Today is the 21st day of 2021. There are 344 days left in this year.
Notable Events
1785
Chippewa, Delaware, Ottawa, and Wyandot Indians signed the treaty of Fort McIntosh, ceding present-day Ohio to the United States.
1861
The future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, and four other Southerners resigned from the U.S. Senate.
1908
New York City's Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance that effectively prohibited women from smoking in public. The measure was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr.
1915
The first Kiwanis Club was founded, in Detroit.
1942
Count Basie and His Orchestra recorded "One O'Clock Jump" in New York City for Okeh Records.
1950
A federal jury in New York City found former State Department official Alger Hiss guilty of perjury.
1954
The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched by the United States at Groton, Connecticut. It is also the largest submarine, at 97 m (319 ft) long.
1976
The supersonic Concorde jet was put into service by Britain and France.
1977
President Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.
1981
The 52 American hostages held at the US embassy in Tehran for more than 14 months arrive in West Germany on their way home to the United States.
1994
A jury in Manassas, Va., acquitted Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding her husband, John, whom she'd accused of sexually assaulting her.
1997
Speaker Newt Gingrich was fined as the House voted for first time in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct.
1998
Pope John Paul II began his first visit to Cuba.
1998
President Bill Clinton angrily denied reports he'd had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and had tried to get her to lie about it.
1999
Former Sen. Dale Bumpers, an Arkansas Democrat, told the Senate impeachment trial of Bill Clinton the president was guilty of a "terrible moral lapse" but not of conduct warranting or even permitting his removal from office.
2000
The grandmothers of Elian Gonzalez traveled to the United States to plead forthe boy's return to Cuba.
2003
The U.S. Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed blacks as America's largest minority group.
Notable Births
1738
Ethan Allen, American soldier, frontiersman, patriot of the American Revolution.
1813
John Fremont, American mapmaker.
1824
Stonewall (Thomas) Jackson, famous Confederate General of the Civil War.
1884
Roger Nash Baldwin, American founder of the American Civil Liberties Union.
1905
Christian Dior, French couturier.
1925
Benny Hill, British comedian.
1927
Telly Savalas, American Emmy Award-winning actor.
1940
Jack Nicklaus, American golf champion.
1941
Plácido Domingo, Spanish operatic tenor.
1957
Geena Davis, American film actress.
Notable Deaths
1793
King Louis XVI executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris, one day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention.
1924
Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died at age 54.
1950
George Orwell (pseudonym for Eric Arthur Blair), Indian-born British novelist and essayist author of "1984," died in London.
1959
Cecil B. de Mille, American film maker.
1997
"Colonel" Tom Parker (born Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk), manager of Elvis Presley.
1998
Actor Jack Lord of "Hawaii Five-O" fame died in Honolulu at age 77.
2002
Peggy Lee (born Norma Dolores Engstrom), popular singer, songwriter, and film actress.