What are the important events that happened on August 21? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.

August 21: Facts & Myths About This Day

August 21 is the 233^rd day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 132 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Thursday.

Under the Julian calendar, this day is August 8, 2025 – a Thursday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?

When this day started, 1,755,734,400 seconds has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.

Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘dihectatriacontatrigon’ day.

Leo is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Peridot is the modern birthstone for this month. Diamond is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 180 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,626 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.

August 21 Historical Events

• 1770 –
  James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.
• 1808 –
  Battle of Vimeiro: British and Portuguese forces led by General Arthur Wellesley defeat French force under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro, Portugal, the first Anglo-Portuguese victory of the Peninsular War.
• 1810 –
  Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France, is elected Crown Prince of Sweden by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates.
• 1911 –
  The Mona Lisa is stolen by a Louvre employee.
• 1945 –
  Physicist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
• 1963 –
  Xa Loi Pagoda raids: the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem, vandalises Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead.
• 1968 –
  James Anderson, Jr. posthumously receives the first Medal of Honor to be awarded to an African American U.S. Marine.
• 1968 –
  Soviet Union-dominated Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring; on the same day, Nicolae Ceauşescu, leader of Communist Romania, publicly condemns the Soviet maneuver, encouraging the Romanian population to arm itself against possible Soviet reprisals.
• 1991 –
  Coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev collapses.
• 1993 –
  NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

Who were born on August 21?

• 1670 –
  James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, French military leader (d. 1734)
• 1826 –
  Karl Gegenbaur, German anatomist (d. 1903)
• 1925 –
  Maurice Pialat, French actor and director (d. 2003)
• 1937 –
  Donald Dewar, First Minister of Scotland (d. 2000)
• 1952 –
  Joe Strummer, British musician and singer (The Clash) (d. 2002)
• 1962 –
  Jeff Stryker, American actor
• 1971 –
  Mamadou Diallo, Senegalese Soccer player
• 1978 –
  Jason Marquis, American baseball player
• 1986 –
  Usain Bolt, Jamaican sprinter
• 1989 –
  Hayden Panettiere, American actress, model and singer

Who died on August 21?

• 1153 –
  Bernard of Clairvaux, French theologian (b. 1090)
• 1673 –
  Henry Grey, 1st Earl of Stamford, English soldier
• 1870 –
  Ma Xinyi, Chinese Viceroy of Liangjiang and statesman (b. 1821)
• 1940 –
  Ernest Lawrence Thayer, American poet (b. 1863)
• 1947 –
  Ettore Bugatti, Italian automobile manufacturer (b. 1881)
• 1964 –
  Palmiro Togliatti, Italian communist leader (b. 1893)
• 1981 –
  Michael Devine, 1981 Irish hunger strike figure (b. 1954)
• 1989 –
  Raul Seixas, Brazilian singer (b. 1945)
• 2005 –
  Martin Dillon, American opera singer (b. 1957)
• 2007 –
  Siobhan Dowd, British/Irish writer (b. 1960)