WHAT HAPPENED ON 21. MAY
Want to find out what all happened on 21. May

War of the Pacific: Two Chilean ships blocking the harbor of Iquique (then belonging to Peru) battle two Peruvian vessels in the Battle of Iquique. (21. May 1879)

The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C.. (21. May 1881)

The Manchester Ship Canal in England is officially opened by Queen Victoria, who later knights its designer Sir Edward Leader Williams. (21. May 1894)

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is founded in Paris. (21. May 1904)

Mexican President Porfirio Díaz and the revolutionary Francisco Madero sign the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez to put an end to the fighting between the forces of both men, and thus concluding the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution. (21. May 1911)

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is established through Royal Charter to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations military forces. (21. May 1917)

The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 causes $5.5 million in damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses and churches, displacing about 10,000 people but leading to only one fatality (due to heart attack). (21. May 1917)

University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing". (21. May 1924)

Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. (21. May 1927)

Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. (21. May 1932)

Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens. (21. May 1934)

Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her hand. Her story soon becomes one of Japan's most notorious scandals. (21. May 1936)

A Soviet station, North Pole-1, becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean. (21. May 1937)

The Canadian National War Memorial is unveiled by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa. (21. May 1939)

Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (21. May 1946)

The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition – a gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively known as the New York School. (21. May 1951)

American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out. (21. May 1961)

The Ulster Volunteer Force declares war on the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. (21. May 1966)

Civil unrest in Rosario, Argentina, known as Rosariazo, following the death of a 15-year-old student. (21. May 1969)

Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth. (21. May 1972)