February 21st Anniversaries

Santo Domingo.- The ephemeris of the 21st of February, are marked by important historical events and international celebrations that left their mark on world history.

• International Tourist Guide Day. It is an anniversary of the 21st of February since the year 1990.
• International Day for the Protection of Bears. It is an anniversary of the 21st of February that was promoted by organizations such as International Polar Bear and The Bornean Sun Bear.
• International Mother Language Day. It is an anniversary of the 21st of February, Proclaimed by the General Conference of the Unesco in 1999.
• International Kombucha Day. It is an anniversary of the 21st of February since the year 2021. This date was established by the Kombucha Brewers International (KBI) association.

Saint's Day: Saints Peter Damian, Severian, Fortunatus, and Sabinus. Saint Eleanor.

National: February 21st Anniversaries

• 1533. Francisco de Barrionuevo presents credentials to the Real Audiencia, in his capacity as envoy of Emperor Charles V, to repress the uprising of Cacique Enriquillo.
• 1863. General Lucas Evangelista de Peña, along with other officers, forms a restorative movement in Guayubín and arrests the military personnel of the Spanish detachment.
• 1864. General Pedro Santana receives a communication from the Spanish General Carlos de Vargas Cervedo, in which he indicates that the people are opposed to the re-annexation to Spain.
• 1935. President Rafael Trujillo promulgates law 834, which allows divorce to couples who have not had children during the first five years of marriage, which he used to separate from Bienvenida Ricardo and marry María Martínez.
• 1955. The Dominican ambassador to the UN, Minerva Binervino, informs dictator Rafael Trujillo that the Spanish professor Jesús de Galíndez has become a dangerous enemy of his and the country, due to his denunciations in the city of New York, against the regime.
• 1981. President Antonio Guzmán and the Secretary of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Mario Imbert McGregor, declare that they do not know the place where the remains of Colonel Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deño and his guerrilla companions were deposited in 1973.
• 2011. The Dominican authorities definitively close the passage through the old border bridge that separates the country from Haiti and enable all their government offices in the new structure built in Dajabón with funds from the European Community (EC).
• 2017. Law 63-17 was approved on the 10th day of the month of February of the year two thousand seventeen. The President of the Republic, Danilo Medina, promulgated it on the same year.
• 2019. The archbishop of the archdiocese of Santiago, Monsignor Freddy Bretón, demands that, just as the powers have intervened in other nations to obtain benefits, they do so with Haiti, but so that it achieves stability and a reliable political system, because what happens in the neighboring nation has repercussions in the Dominican Republic.
• -Venezuela notifies the Dominican Government about the alleged "unconsulted use" of its territory for the planning and organization of illegal and "terrorist" operations.
• 2020. The Organization of American States (OAS) accepts the requests of the JCE and the Government to determine the causes that caused the collapse of the automated voting system in the suspended municipal elections of the 15th of this month.

International: February 21st Anniversaries

• 1809. The Junta of Zaragoza capitulates to the French after several months of siege and more than 50,000 deaths.
• 1822. Guatemala voluntarily joins Mexico.
• 1916. During the First World War, the Battle of Verdun begins.
• 1934. U.S. occupation army colonel Elías Riggs, backed by the Nicaraguan National Guard, assassinates General Augusto César Sandino, who had fought against the American intervention.
• 1961. French President Charles de Gaulle asks Central and South America to join France and other countries in a brotherhood of Latin countries.
• 1963. The USSR warns the United States that an attack against Cuba would mean a World War.
• 1965. The North American civil rights leader Malcom X is assassinated, who accused white Americans in the harshest conditions of their crimes against their black compatriots.
• 1972. United States President Richard Nixon visits the People's Republic of China, being the first official visit of an American ruler to the Asian country.
• 1982. In Guatemala, unknown persons assassinate Supreme Court magistrate and presidential candidate for the United Revolutionary Front (FUR, social democrat), Guillermo Rodríguez, with several shots.
• 1992. The United Nations Security Council approves the deployment of blue helmets in the former Yugoslavia.
• 2000. In Iraq, more than 100 people die during Shiite demonstrations in protest of the assassination of Ayatollah Sadek al-Sadr, being the third religious leader so far this year.
• 2001. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, current Supreme Pontiff, is instituted as a cardinal by then Pope John Paul II
• 2003. During a concert by the rock band Great White, about 100 people die due to a fire.
• 2004. In Rome, 32 national environmental entities from 29 European countries merge with four non-members of the European Union, to create the first exclusive European political party: the European Green Party.
• -In Iraq, two Red Cross members visit former President Saddam Hussein, for the first time since his detention.
• 2005. In a historic gesture of goodwill with which it tries to consolidate and support the peace process initiated by the new president, Mahmud Abbas, the Israeli Government releases 500 Palestinian prisoners.
• 2006. In Johannesburg, South Africa, former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide, promises that he will no longer participate in the politics of his country, to which he said he plans to return as soon as possible.
• 2009. Due to several errors made in the swearing-in, the previous day, of the President of the United States, Barack Obama, Chief Justice John G. Roberts re-administers the oath to the new president in a private ceremony in the Map Room of the White House.
• 2012. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez reveals that he was in Cuba, where a "lesion that may be cancerous" was detected, for which he will be operated on that island.
• 2013. The U.S. President, Barack Obama, extends the declaration of emergency with Cuba, approved in 1996 for the downing of two civilian planes of the Cuban exile organization "Brothers to the Rescue".
• 2014. The Venezuelan government withdraws the operating permit and the signal within Venezuela to the international channels NTN24 and CNN en Español.
• 2016. A constitutional referendum is held in Bolivia to allow a new re-election of President Evo Morales, which is rejected with 51% of the votes.
• 2018. In Venezuela, the pre-sale of the petro begins, a cryptocurrency different from all the others, created by a government based on the gigantic energy and mineral reserves of the South American country, to compete in the world cryptocurrency market.
• 2019. The presidents of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela, and Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, affirm that they only support a democratic solution based on dialogue for the crisis facing the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
• - Pope Francis inaugurates a historic conference in Rome on sexual abuse, which analyzes "the scourge of sexual abuse perpetrated by men of the Church to the detriment of minors". 
• 2021. The Secretariat of National Defense of Mexico reports that six of its members die, when an Air Force plane crashed due to problems on takeoff at the Xalapa, Veracruz airport.
• 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin orders the army to enter the separatist territories in eastern Ukraine, after recognizing their independence, a measure that is interpreted as a challenge to the West that disapproved of Moscow in an emergency session of the UN Security Council.
• 2023. In the United States, the State Department approves the extradition to Peru of former President Alejandro Toledo, after a long six-year process, to answer for alleged accusations of influence peddling, related to the scandal of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

Births: February 21st Anniversaries

• 711: Suzong, Chinese emperor of the Tang dynasty.
• 1895: Henrik Dam, Danish biochemist and physiologist, Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1943.
• 1924: Thelma Estrin, American computer scientist and pioneer in biomedical engineering and expert systems.
• 1924: Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean military and politician, president of Zimbabwe between 1987 and 2017.
• 1929: Roberto Gómez Bolaños, Mexican comedian, director and producer, creator of El Chavo del ocho.
• 1937: Paloma Cordero, Mexican citizen, wife of President Miguel de la Madrid.
• 1950: Sahle-Work Zewde, Ethiopian diplomat and stateswoman. President of Ethiopia from 2018 to 2024.
• 1980: Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, dragon king of Bhutan.

Death: February 21st Anniversaries

• 1513: Julius II, Italian pope.
• 1833: Josefa Amar y Borbón, Spanish pedagogue and writer.
• 1866: Manuel Felipe de Tovar, the 15th president of Venezuela.
• 1926: Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1913.
• 1965: Malcolm X, American activist.
• 2011: Odón Alonso Ordás, Spanish conductor and composer.
• 2024: Roger Guillemin, French physician, Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1977.