October 21 birthdays & history

Famous people born on October 21

• 1833Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist and engineer, invented dynamite and founded the Nobel Prize
• 1949Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli captain and politician, 9th Prime Minister of Israel
• 1772Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, philosopher, and critic
• 1980Kim Kardashian, American reality television personality, actress, model, businesswoman and socialite
• 1929Ursula K. Le Guin, American author and critic
• 1956Carrie Fisher, American actress and screenwriter
• 1981Nemanja Vidić, Serbian footballer
• 1945Nikita Mikhalkov, Russian filmmaker
• 1958Andre Geim, Russian-English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1957Wolfgang Ketterle, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate

What happened on October 21

• 1824Portland cement is patented.
• 1858French composer Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, featuring the music most associated with the can-can (audio featured), was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris.
• 1867The first and second of three treaties were signed near Medicine Lodge, Kansas, between the United States federal government and several Native American tribes in the Great Plains, requiring them to relocate to areas in present-day western Oklahoma.
• 1879Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his design for an incandescent light bulb.
• 1888The Swiss Social Democratic Party is founded.
• 1892Opening ceremonies for the World's Columbian Exposition are held in Chicago, though because construction was behind schedule, the exposition did not open until May 1, 1893.
• 1940The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
• 1945In the 1945 French legislative election French women vote for the first time.
• 1959The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in New York City.
• 1965Comet Ikeya–Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers (279,617 miles) from the sun.
• 1973Fred Dryer of the Los Angeles Rams becomes the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game.
• 1978Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.

Also observed on October 21

• Armed Forces Day (Honduras)
• Indian Police Commemoration Day (India)
• National Nurses' Day (Thailand)
• Ndadaye Day (Burundi)
• Overseas Chinese Day (Republic of China)
• Trafalgar Day (the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th century)