On This Day for April 21 - French elections held, Elizabeth II is featured, and more

Created: 2020-04-21 10:02 Updated: 2020-04-21 10:02 Notebook: On this Day in History

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April 21

FEATURED BIOGRAPHY

Elizabeth II

FEATURED EVENT

2002

French elections held

MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2016: American musician Prince—who created groundbreaking music that fused funk, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and pop and was one of the biggest stars of the 1980s and '90s—died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl, a powerful opioid. [Test your knowledge of pop music.]

1990: Russian-born artist and fashion designer Erté—a major figure in Art Deco, who created spectacular costumes and set designs for French music-hall revues—died in Paris. [Take our fashion quiz.]

1977: Annie, a popular musical based on the newspaper comic strip Little Orphan Annie , first opened on Broadway.

Loch Ness monster: “surgeon's photograph”

1934: The Daily Mail printed a photograph that reportedly depicted the small head and neck of the Loch Ness monster; the iconic image, widely known as the “surgeon's photograph,” sparked an international sensation but was later revealed to be a hoax.

Manfred, Freiherr von Richthofen, “the Red Baron”

1918: Manfred, Freiherr (baron) von Richthofen , Germany's top flying ace in World War I, was shot down and killed during a battle near Amiens, France. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about World War I.]

1838: American naturalist and writer John Muir—who, as an advocate of U.S. forest conservation, was largely responsible for the establishment of both Sequoia National Park and Yosemite National Park in California—was born in Scotland.

SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY

ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY

1926

Elizabeth II
queen of United Kingdom

1864

Max Weber
German sociologist

1980

Tony Romo
American football player

1816

Charlotte Brontë
British author

1971

Anwar al-Awlaki
American radical cleric