On this Day February 21st

 OTD

February 21st is the Fifty-second day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 313 days remain until the end of the year.

Events

1613 – Mikhail I is unanimously elected Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia.

1797 – A force of 1,400 French soldiers invaded Britain at Fishguard in support of the Society of United Irishmen. 500 British reservists defeated them.

1804 – The first self-propelling steam locomotive was at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.

1828 – Initial issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is the first periodical to use the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah.

1828 – Initial issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is the first periodical to use the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah

1848 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.

1885 – The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.

1925 – The New Yorker publishes its first issue.

1947 – In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera," the Polaroid Land Camera, to the Optical Society of America meeting.

1972 – United States President Richard Nixon visits China to normalize Sino-American relations.

1995 – Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada, becoming the first person to solo fly across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

 

Birthdays

1728 – Peter III of Russia (d. 1762)

1794 – Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexican general and politician, 8th President of Mexico (d. 1876)

1821 – Charles Scribner I, American publisher, founded Charles Scribner's Sons (d. 1871)

1893 – Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (d. 1987)

1943 – David Geffen, the American businessman, co-founded DreamWorks and Geffen Records

1946 – Alan Rickman, English actor and director (d. 2016)

1955 – Kelsey Grammer, American actor, singer, and producer

1979 – Jordan Peele, American actor, producer, and screenwriter

 

Holiday Spotlight

LANGUAGE MOVEMENT DAY

Language is a powerful tool that enables us to communicate easily with others. The bulk of our communication is done through verbal means. Thought to be as old as 1.8 million years, the early forms of language were primitive and action-based. Back then, communication was mainly intended to coordinate hunting, sharing food, finding mates, and collecting herbs. But as humans evolved, our intelligence improved dramatically. The language developed along with human civilizations. Spoken language began to flourish around 50,000 years ago. However, we can never be sure, as words do not leave any fossil records.

By around 3000 B.C., the first written languages were developed. Sumerian is generally considered the oldest written language in the world. Other ancient civilizations also witnessed the development of written languages like Egyptian, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Hebrew. These languages further developed into new regional dialects as human politics spread across the Asian and European continents. The Bengali language was derived from Magadhi Prakrit, a spoken language in 1000 A.D.

With over 300 million native speakers, Bengali is one of the most spoken languages in the world. After the end of the colonial era, the British were forced to leave the Indian subcontinent. Britain partitioned India into three dominions: India, East Pakistan, and West Pakistan. East and West Pakistan were once a single entity, with political power concentrated in West Pakistan. They had few ties with the Bengali language, whereas it was the primary language of East Pakistan. Tensions between the two units erupted over the matter of official language. The Bengali language movement started to resist the idea of Urdu being the only national language. Subsequent riots and conflicts resulted in police killing student protesters. The movements succeeded and paved the way for a nationalistic feeling that ultimately led to the formation of Bangladesh.

 

Others Include.

Card Reading Day

International Mother Language Day

National Grain Free Day

National Sticky Bun Day