January 21

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January 21 is the 21st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 344 days remaining (345 in leap years).

Events

1189 - Philip II of France and Richard I of England begin to assemble troops to wage the Third Crusade
1276 - Innocent V becomes Pope
1643 - Abel Tasman discovers Tonga
1789 - The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts
1793 - After being found guilty for treason by the French Convention, Louis XVI of France is guillotined.
1793 - Russia and Prussia partition Poland
1853 - Russell L. Hawes patents the envelope folding machine.
1861 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate
1887 - The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is formed
1899 - Opel Motors opens for business
1908 - New York City passes a law, the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public only to be vetoed by the mayor.
1911 - The first Monte Carlo motor rally
1915 - Kiwanis International founded in Detroit, Michigan
1924 - Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins to purge his rivals to clear way for his leadership.
1925 - Albania declares itself a republic
1941 - World War II: Australian and British forces attack Tobruk, Libya
1950 - Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury
1954 - The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut.
1968 - Simon & Garfunkel release the Original Soundtrack to The Graduate, which quickly goes to #1 on the pop charts and which will bring Simon a Grammy for Best Original Score.
1976 - The first commercial service Concorde flight took off.
1977 - President Jimmy Carter pardons nearly all Vietnam War draft evaders.
1994 - Lorena Bobbitt is found not-guilty by reason of temporary insanity for severing the penis of her husband John.
1995 - Would have been the date which Phase I of Project Bojinka, an Al Qaeda plan, would have been implemented. If the plan hadn't been exposed in Manila, Philippines, 11 jetliners would have exploded over the Pacific Ocean on a 48-hour period spanning that day and the subsequent day, January 22.
1997 - Newt Gingrich becomes the first leader of the United States House of Representatives to be internally disciplined for ethical misconduct.
1999 - War on Drugs: In one of the one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 9,500 pounds of cocaine aboard. The ship was headed to Houston, Texas.
2003 - Kevin Mitnick is finally allowed to use a computer again.