September 21 in History

The schooner Ancud was the ship sent by Chile in 1843 to claim sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan and establish Fuerte Bulnes, the first Chilean settlement in the strait. It was built for the purpose in the city of San Carlos de Ancud and commanded by John Williams Wilson, a British-born Chilean captain.

The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War, Revolution, or Movement, was a civil war in China between the Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of Taiping-controlled Nanjing—which had been renamed to Tianjing —in 1864. The last rebel forces were defeated in August 1871. Estimates of the conflict's death toll range between 20 to 30 million people, representing 5–10% of China's population at that time. Higher estimates range from 73 to 100 million, roughly up to one quarter of the Chinese population at that time, making it perhaps the deadliest civil war in all of human history. While the Qing ultimately defeated the rebellion, the victory came at a great cost to the state's economic and political viability.

Empress Dowager Cixi was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara clan who periodically controlled the government of the late Qing dynasty as empress dowager and regent from 1861 until her death in 1908.

Salvador Lutteroth González was a Mexican professional wrestling promoter of the mid-twentieth century. Lutteroth's organization, Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL), was the dominant Mexican wrestling promotional enterprise from its founding in 1933 until Lutteroth left the company in the 1950s. Under its current name of Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), it is, to date, the longest-running active professional wrestling promotion in the world presenting three weekly shows. Lutteroth was known as the father of Mexican professional wrestling or lucha libre and, in his position as promoter and booker of the dominant promotion, was the most powerful man in Mexican wrestling, and one of the most powerful wrestling executives in the world. He was, in large part, responsible for the widespread fame of the most famous Mexican professional wrestlers of the mid-twentieth century, such as Octavio Gaona, the first Mexican wrestler to win the middleweight championship of the world by defeating Gus Kallio, Carlos Tarzán López, El Santo, Gory Guerrero, René Guajardo, Karloff Lagarde, Enrique Llanes, and the international league wrestler Medico Asesino, Rito Romero, Dorrel Dixon and Mil Máscaras, who wrestled in the United States, Japan, and Europe.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer and academic philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955).

Armand Călinescu was a Romanian economist and politician, who served as 39th Prime Minister from March 1939 until his assassination six months later. He was a staunch opponent of the fascist Iron Guard and may have been the real power behind the throne during the dictatorship of King Carol II. He survived several assassination attempts but was finally killed by members of the Iron Guard with German assistance.

Dunaivtsi is a city in Kamianets-Podilskyi Raion, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Ukraine. It is located on the river Ternavka, 22 km away from the railway station Dunaivtsi and 68 km from the Khmelnytskyi. Reinforcement plant, repair and engineering works and butter-processing plant are located in the city. The city also houses a control center of the State Space Agency of Ukraine. Dunaivtsi hosts the administration of Dunaivtsi urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Current population is 15,078 (2024).

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is a retired American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Superfortress was designed for high-altitude strategic bombing, but also excelled in low-altitude night incendiary bombing and in dropping naval mines to blockade Japan. Silverplate B-29s dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and remain the only system to deliver nuclear weapons in combat.

Pamir was a four-masted barque built for the German shipping company F. Laeisz. One of their famous Flying P-Liners, named after the Pamir Mountains, she was the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, she had been outmoded by modern bulk carriers and could not operate at a profit. Her shipping consortium's inability to finance much-needed repairs or to recruit sufficient sail-trained officers caused severe technical difficulties. On 21 September 1957, she was caught in Hurricane Carrie and sank off the Azores, with only six survivors rescued after an extensive search.

The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie is a retired prototype version of the planned B-70 nuclear-armed, deep-penetration supersonic strategic bomber for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. Designed by North American Aviation in the late 1950s, the Valkyrie was a large six-engine, delta-winged aircraft able to fly Mach 3+ at an altitude of 70,000 feet.

Mexicana de Aviación Flight 801 was a scheduled international flight from Chicago-O'Hare International Airport in Illinois bound for Mexico City International Airport, Mexico City. On September 21, 1969, the Boeing 727-100 crashed during its final approach to Mexico City International Airport. The aircraft broke apart upon impact, killing 27 of the 118 occupants on board. The cause of the crash was never determined.

Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. was a Filipino lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. From 1972 to 1981, Marcos ruled the Philippines under martial law, embracing a policy of "constitutional authoritarianism." Following the lifting of martial law in 1981, a wide-ranging economic crisis, and the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, Marcos was deposed in 1986 by the People Power Revolution and was succeeded as president by Aquino's widow, Corazon Aquino. He was also the father of Bongbong Marcos, the incumbent president of the Philippines since 2022.

Seychelles, officially the Republic of Seychelles, is an archipelagic country consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, is 1,500 kilometres east of mainland Africa. Nearby island countries and territories include the Maldives, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the French overseas departments of Mayotte and Réunion to the south; and the Chagos Archipelago to the east. Seychelles is the smallest country in Africa as well as the least populated sovereign African country, with an estimated population of 100,600 in 2022.

Sandra Day O'Connor was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, O'Connor was the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. A moderate conservative, she was considered a swing vote. Before O'Connor's tenure on the Court, she was an Arizona state judge and earlier an elected legislator in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate. Upon her nomination to the Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate.

Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south. Yerevan is the capital, largest city and financial center.

From 20 to 23 September 1993, during the Sukhumi massacre, separatists in Sukhumi, Abkhazia blocked Georgian troops' overland supply routes as part of the war in Abkhazia. In response, the Georgian government used Sukhumi Babushara Airport to ferry supplies to troops stationed in Sukhumi. Abkhaz forces attacked the airport in an attempt to further block the supply routes.

St. Olaf's Church in Tyrvää is a late medieval fieldstone church in Tyrvää, Sastamala, Finland. It is located on the shore of lake Rautavesi. The church was built approximately in 1510–1516 and burnt down by a burglar on 21 September 1997.

America: A Tribute to Heroes was a benefit concert created by the heads of the four major American broadcast networks; Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS. Joel Gallen was selected by them to produce and run the show. Actor George Clooney organized celebrities to perform and to staff the telephone bank.

Galileo was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989, by Space Shuttle Atlantis, during STS-34. Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet.

Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, simply known as Al-Shabaab, is a Sunni Islamist political and militant organization based in Somalia. It is involved in the ongoing Somali Civil War and controls territory in south and southwestern Somalia, which is referred to as the Islamic Wilayat of Somalia. The group has regularly invoked takfir to rationalize its terrorist attacks on Somali civilians and civil servants. It is allied to the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda, it is also in a more limited capacity active elsewhere in East Africa, and has forged ties with other insurgent groups like AQIM and AQAP.

Zacharias "Zak" Kostopoulos was a Greek-American activist, defending the rights of LGBT people, HIV-positive people, sex workers, and refugees. He worked as a drag performer under the stage name Zackie Oh. He was killed on a busy street near Omonoia Square, Athens in broad daylight on 21 September 2018. First beaten by civilians and later by the police, he died while on the way to the hospital. Two men were found guilty of his murder.