April 21st

National Day

• World Creativity
• National Yellow Bat Day
• National Chocolate Covered Cashews Day
• Innovation Day
• Kindergarten Day.

Birthdays

• Iggy Pop (James Osterberg), singer-songwriter
• Tony Danza, actor
• Mike Barson, keyboardist/songwriter (Madness)
• Andie (Rosalie) MacDowell, actress
• Robert Smith, singer-songwriter/guitarist (The Cure)
• Johnny McElhone, guitarist/songwriter (Altered Images/Texas)
• James McAvoy, actor

On This Day

• 1913 – Richard Beeching, former British Rail chairman was born.
• 1916 – Roger Casement, the Irish-born British consular official, landed in Ireland from a German submarine prepared to lead the Sinn Fein rebellion, but was arrested as the ‘Easter Uprising’ took place. The rebellion against the British in Dublin reached its worst level as Irish republicans took over sections of the city, while a Royal Navy gunboat bombarded them from the River Liffey.
• 1918 – Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the legendary German ace pilot who had destroyed 80 Allied aircraft, was shot down by an RAF fighter and died from the crash behind British lines. He was known as the ‘Red Baron’ because of his distinctive red Fokker tri-plane.
• 1926 – Queen Elizabeth II was born. On 23rd Janury 2015, (following the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz), the Queen became the oldest reigning monarch in the world and on 21st April 2016 she became the first 90 year old head of state of the UK and 15 other Commonwealth realms.
• 1934 – The ‘Surgeon’s Photograph’, the most famous photo allegedly showing the Loch Ness Monster, was published in the Daily Mail. In 1999, it was revealed to be a hoax.
• 1955 – National newspapers were published for the first time in nearly a month following the end of the maintenance workers’ strike.
• 1956 – Legend Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” smashed the charts reaching #1.
• 1959 – English ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn was jailed for a day in Panama while the police looked for her Panamanian husband, accused of plotting a coup.
• 1964 – BBC television launched Playschool as the opening programme of their second channel. BBC2 actually opened a day late due to a major power failure the previous day.
• 1983 – One pound coins replaced notes in England and Wales.
• 1997 – American Psychologist Timothy Leary and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry were launched into orbit after being cremated.
• 2019 – Climate change activist Greta Thunberg gave a speech in London, leading to protests across the city for four days.

Music

• History

History