October 21 in History

The city flag of Taunton, Massachusetts, also known as the Taunton Flag and the Liberty and Union Flag, was first adopted in 1774 and has since been adopted as the flag of Taunton. It consists of the Red Ensign with the flag of Great Britain in the canton, defaced with the words "Liberty and Union" across the lower portion.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a global series of conflicts fought by a fluctuating array of European coalitions against the French First Republic (1803–1804) under the First Consul followed by the First French Empire (1804–1815) under the Emperor of the French, Napoleon I. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.

Florence Nightingale was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople. She significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards. Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.

The Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name for three treaties signed near Medicine Lodge, Kansas, between the Federal government of the United States and southern Plains Indian tribes in October 1867, intended to bring peace to the area by relocating the Native Americans to reservations in Indian Territory and away from European-American settlement. The treaty was negotiated after investigation by the Indian Peace Commission, which in its final report in 1868 concluded that the wars had been preventable. They determined that the United States government and its representatives, including the United States Congress, had contributed to the warfare on the Great Plains by failing to fulfill their legal obligations and to treat the Native Americans with honesty.

The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, also called the Swiss Socialist Party, is a political party in Switzerland. The SP has had two representatives on the Federal Council since 1960 and received the second-highest number of votes in the 2023 Swiss federal election.

The Capitulation of Tainan, on 21 October 1895, was the last act in the Japanese invasion of Taiwan. The capitulation ended the brief existence of the Republic of Formosa and inaugurated the era of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan.

HMS Niobe was a ship of the Diadem class of protected cruisers in the Royal Navy. She served in the Boer War and was then given to Canada as the second ship of the newly created Naval Service of Canada as HMCS Niobe. The Naval Service of Canada became the Royal Canadian Navy in August 1911. The ship was nearly lost when she went aground off Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia overnight 30–31 July 1911. Repairs were completed at the end of 1912 and the ship returned to service in late 1914. During the First World War, Niobe patrolled the approaches to the St. Lawrence River and then joined the Royal Navy's 4th Cruiser Squadron to patrol off New York City. The cruiser returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia on 17 July 1915 and never put to sea again. Niobe was paid off in September and served as a depot ship in Halifax. Damaged in the 1917 Halifax Explosion, she was sold for scrap and broken up in the 1920s.

Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular presidents at the time of his death. After that, a number of scandals were exposed that greatly damaged his reputation.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle and outspoken, blunt public image. Some of his seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works have become classics of American literature, and he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Provisional Government of Free India or, more simply, Azad Hind, was a short-lived Japanese-controlled provisional government in India. It was established in exile in Japanese-occupied Singapore during World War II in October 1943 and has been considered a puppet government of the Empire of Japan.

The Nemmersdorf massacre was a civilian massacre perpetrated by Red Army soldiers in the late stages of World War II. Nemmersdorf was one of the first prewar ethnic German settlements to fall to the advancing Red Army during the war. On 21 October 1944, Soviet soldiers killed many German civilians as well as French and Belgian POWs.

Legislative elections were held in France on 21 October 1945 to elect a Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution for a Fourth French Republic. A total of 522 seats were elected through proportional representation; women were allowed to vote for the first time.

The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising or Kenya Emergency, was an armed conflict in the British Colony of Kenya between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA) and the British colonial authorities. While the KLFA was primarily composed of Kikuyu, Meru, and Embu fighters, the movement also drew support from units of Kamba and Maasai. Groups such as the Luo and Kalenjin – who had led significant earlier resistance movements against colonial establishment, such as the Nandi Resistance (1890–1906) were largely not part of the KLFA's core structure. Instead, many from these communities served in the King's African Rifles (KAR), the colonial military force through which the British maintained internal security and quelled the uprising. The KLFA fought against the British Army and the local Kenya Regiment, which included European settlers and African loyalists.

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. A General of the Army, Eisenhower was the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. His successful leadership in Operation Torch (1942–1943) and Operation Overlord was pivotal to the Allied victory in World War II.

The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees.

The 1969 Somali coup d'état was a bloodless military takeover of the Somali Republic on 21 October 1969, led by Somali National Army officers of the Supreme Revolutionary Council under General Siad Barre. After the assassination of President Abdirashid Shermarke in Las Anod, the Somali National Army under Barre's command stormed Mogadishu, seized key government buildings, and demanded the resignation of the country's leaders. The coup deposed acting President Sheikh Mukhtar Hussein and Prime Minister Mohammad Egal, ushering in a 21-year military rule under Barre and the establishment of an authoritarian government that lasted until 1991.

John Frederick Dryer is an American actor, radio host, and former professional football player who played as a defensive end in the National Football League for 13 years with the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams, participating in 176 games and recorded 103 career sacks starting in 1969 until his retirement in 1981, and is the only NFL player to score two safeties in one game. Following his retirement from football, Dryer had a successful career as a film and television actor, notably starring as the titular character Detective Sgt. Rick Hunter in the NBC police drama series Hunter, with his height of 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) and physique proving useful for action roles.

Moshe Dayan was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) during the 1956 Sinai War, and as Defense Minister during the Six-Day War in 1967, he became a worldwide fighting symbol of the new state of Israel.

The metre is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of ⁠1/299792458⁠ of a second, where the second is defined by a hyperfine transition frequency of caesium.

The Lebanon hostage crisis was the kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992, when the Lebanese Civil War was at its height. The hostages were mostly Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were represented. At least eight hostages died in captivity; some were murdered, while others died from lack of medical attention. During the fifteen years of the Lebanese civil war an estimated 17,000 people disappeared after being abducted.

Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Its capital and largest city is Tegucigalpa.

The Seongsu Bridge disaster was a deadly bridge collapse that occurred on the morning of October 21, 1994 in Seoul, South Korea. 32 people died and 17 were injured when a section of the upper truss of the Seongsu Bridge collapsed onto the Han River. A combination of faulty welding, rusted extension hinges, and insufficient maintenance resulted in the structural failure of the bridge.

The Iraq War, also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion by a United States–led coalition, which resulted in the overthrow of the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein. During the US occupation of Iraq, the conflict persisted as an insurgency that arose against coalition forces and the newly established Iraqi government. US forces were officially withdrawn in 2011. In 2014, the US became re-engaged in Iraq, leading a new coalition under Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, as the conflict evolved into the ongoing Islamic State insurgency.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo or less often Zaire, is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 124 million people, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the fourth-most populous country in Africa and the most populous Francophone country in the world. French is the official and most widely spoken language, though there are over 200 indigenous languages, of which Lingala is the most widely spoken. The capital, largest city, and economic center is Kinshasa. The DRC is bordered by the Republic of the Congo, the Cabinda exclave of Angola, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west; the Central African Republic and South Sudan to the north; Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania to the east; and Zambia and Angola to the south. Centered on the Congo Basin, most of the country's terrain is covered by dense rainforests and is crossed by many rivers, while the east and southeast are mountainous.