April 21

753 BC According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC by twins Romulus and Remus, who were raised by a wolf. Only with Julius Caesar in the first century BC, did the city of Rome begin to grow significantly, especially toward the Campo Marzio, at the north of Capitoline Hill.

Capitoline Wolf suckles the infant twins Romulus and Remus

900 A debt was pardoned on the island of Luzon on April 21, 900, as inscribed on the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the earliest known written document found in the Philippines. The inscription reveals that the Honourable Namwaran and his children, Lady Angkatan and Bukah, were granted pardon from all their debts by the Commander in chief of Tundun.

1073 Hildebrand, an administrator, was highly esteemed for his role as a counselor to several popes. When Pope Alexander II passed away on April 21, 1073, both laypeople and clergy took to the streets and chanted "Hildebrand, bishop!" The cardinals were alerted to the crowd's choice by one of their colleagues and subsequently endorsed the decision. Thus, the next day, Hildebrand was declared Pope Gregory VII.

1092 In the 11th century Pisa was a very important commercial center and controlled a significant Mediterranean merchant fleet and navy. The Diocese of Pisa was elevated to the rank of metropolitan archdiocese by Pope Urban II on April 21, 1092. Construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) begun in 1173. It would take two centuries to complete.

Leaning Tower of Pisa Saffron Blaze, via http://www.mackenzie.co

1142 French scholastic philosopher and theologian Peter Abelard spent his final months at the priory of St. Marcel, near Chalon-sur-Saône. He passed away from a combination of fever and a skin disorder, most likely scurvy on April 21, 1142. He is said to have uttered the last words "I don't know", before expiring.

1509 Eighteen-year-old Henry VIII ascended to the English throne after his father, Henry VII died on April 21, 1509. He was the first English king to be addressed as "your majesty". Before then, "Your Highness" or "Your Lord King" was always used. Henry's military and diplomatic successes against France and Scotland set England on the road to becoming a major European power.

Eighteen-year-old Henry VIII after his coronation in 1509

1782 The city of Rattanakosin, now known internationally as Bangkok, was founded on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya River by Phutthayotfa Chulalok (known as Rama I) on April 21, 1782. He set up his government there following the the destruction of Ayutthaya by Burmese invaders. Rama I fortified the city with a 4.4 mile wall with 15 forts and 63 gates.

1816 Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on April 21, 1816. She was bought up by her clergyman father, Patrick. Charlotte had four sisters including Emily who wrote Wuthering Heights and Anne who wrote Agnes Grey. She acted as "the motherly friend and guardian of her younger sisters." At school, Charlotte's English was considered indifferent. There was no indication that she would ever write a novel, let alone one as successful as Jane Eyre.

1836 Buoyed by a desire for revenge after the sacking of the Alamo fortress, the Texians defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, ending the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican army in a fight that lasted just 18 minutes.

The Battle of San Jacinto – 1895 painting by Henry Arthur McArdle

1859 The Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association was set up in 1859 to provide free drinking water. The first fountain was built on Holborn Hill on the railings of the church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate on Snow Hill. It was paid for by MP Samuel Gurney, and opened on April 21, 1859. The Holborn Hill fountain became immediately popular, used by 7,000 people a day. Over the next six years 85 fountains were built.

1861 The New York Times was founded as the New-York Daily Times in 1851, by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond and former banker George Jones. It originally sold for a penny (equivalent to 28 cents today). The New York Times joined other major dailies on April 21, 1861, in adding a Sunday edition to offer daily coverage of the Civil War.

1910 Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut. Twain wrote on his deathbed in Memorandum, "Death the only immortal who treats us all alike whose pity and whose peace and whose refuse are for all-the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved." Mark Twain was born on and died on days when Halley's Comet could be seen. He'd predicted in 1909 he would die when it was visible.

1918 Manfred von Richthofen, or the Red Baron — the ‘ace of aces’ World War I German fighter pilot credited with 80 Allied kills — was shot during an air battle over the Somme in northern France by a bullet fired from the ground on April 21, 1918. He managed to land his trademark red triplane, but died of the single wound. Von Richthofen's last word, to an Australian sergeant on the battlefield, was: "Kaputt."

1921 A person who studies mushrooms and fungi is a mycologist. The Italian mycologist Bruno Cetto who was born on April 21, 1921, described 2,147 types of mushroom. A mushroom-eater is a mycophagist, fear of mushrooms is mycophobia and a mushroom-lover is a mycophile.

1926 Queen Elizabeth II was born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary at 2.40 am (GMT) on April 21 1926 at her maternal grandfather's London house: 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair. She was the first child of Prince Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI), and Elizabeth, Duchess of York (later Queen Elizabeth), the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon. She was named after her mother. The house in which she was born is now a fancy Cantonese restaurant called Hakkasan.

1926 Queen Elizabeth II had two birthdays: one on her actual date of birth, April 21, and one on the second Saturday in June. The reason for the second birthday is that April weather in the UK is often too cold for a large public event like Trooping the Colour, the annual military parade that marks the monarch's birthday.

1930 The First Division football match between Leicester City and Arsenal at Filbert Street on April 21, 1930 finished as a 6–6 draw. It was the joint highest scoring draw in the history of first class English football. The record was matched in a Second Division fixture between Charlton Athletic and Middlesbrough in October 1960.

1934 The legend of the Loch Ness monster began in May 1933 when the Inverness Courier published an article, by local reporter and Loch Ness water bailiff Alex Campbell, about a sighting of "a beast" in Loch Ness by unnamed locals a fortnight earlier. The following year the "Surgeon's Photograph," a photo by London gynaecologist Robert Kenneth Wilson purportedly showing the monster (later revealed to be a hoax), was published in the Daily Mail on April 21, 1934.

The "Surgeon's Photograph" of 1934, Wikipedia

1936 British painter and writer Phyllis Pearsall created London's first popular indexed street map on April 21, 1936. The work involved walking 3,000 miles to check the names of the 23,000 streets of England's capital city, waking up at 5am every day, and not going to bed until after an 18-hour working day.

1944 Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) was given her first corgi as an 18th-birthday gift on April 21, 1944. She named her Susan and adored her pet corgi so much that she took her on honeymoon. Queen Elizabeth II has owned over 30 Pembroke Welsh Corgis over the years. Every one of them was descended from Susan.

1960 Brasília, a planned city primarily designed by architect and urban planner Lúcio Costa, was officially inaugurated on April 21, 1960, replacing Rio de Janeiro as the capital of Brazil. It was built in the center of the country on a previously undeveloped plateau and was intended to be a modern, planned city that would symbolize Brazil's progress and move the capital away from the coastal cities that were vulnerable to foreign attack.

1989 The 8-bit handheld video game Game Boy device was developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989. The Gameboy quickly became the most coveted piece of kit in the playground. Its stable of killer games, including Tetris and Super Mario Land, made it the best-selling gaming system of all time, with worldwide sales reaching well over 100 million.

2015 The world record for the maximum speed attained by a passenger train is held by Japan's experimental maglev train L0 Series, which achieved 603 km/h (375 mph) on a 42.8 km magnetic-levitation track on April 21, 2015.

2018 10-year-old Krshaana Rawat from Jaipur, India was bestowed the title of the youngest practicing playwright by the Guinness Book of Records on April 21, 2018. Krshaana wrote the entire 85-minute play called Mystical Magical Adventures – The Lost Key, which was staged to hundreds of people in her home city of Jaipur. 40 actors performed the work.