From Historynet: Today in History February 21

1595          The Jesuit poet Robert Southwell  is hanged for "treason," being a Catholic.

1631          Michael Romanov , son of the Patriarch of Moscow, is elected Russian Tsar.

1744          The British blockade of Toulon is broken by 27 French and Spanish warships attacking 29 British ships.

1775          As troubles with Great Britain increase, colonists in Massachusetts vote to buy military equipment for 15,000 men.

1797          Trinidad, West Indies surrenders to the British.

1828          The first issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is printed, both in English and in the newly invented Cherokee alphabet.

1849          In the Second Sikh War, Sir Hugh Gough's  well placed guns win a victory over a Sikh force twice the size of his at Gujerat on the Chenab River, assuring British control of the Punjab for years to come.

1862          The Texas Rangers win a Confederate victory in the Battle of Val Verde, New Mexico.

1878          The world's first telephone book is issued by the New Haven Connecticut Telephone Company containing the names of its 50 subscribers.

1885          The Washington Monument is dedicated in Washington, D.C.

1905          The Mukden campaign of the Russo-Japanese War, begins.

1916          The Battle of Verdun begins with an unprecedented German artillery barrage of the French lines.

1940          The Germans begin construction of a concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1944          Hideki Tojo  becomes chief of staff of the Japanese army.

1949          Nicaragua and Costa Rica sign a friendship treaty ending hostilities over their borders.

1951          The U. S. Eighth Army launches Operation Killer, a counterattack to push Chinese forces north of the Han River in Korea.

1956          A grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama indicts 115 in a Negro bus boycott.

1960          Havana places all Cuban industry under direct control of the government.

1965           El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcom X)  is assassinated in front of 400 people by 

Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.

1972          Richard Nixon  arrives in Beijing, China, becoming the first U.S. president to visit a country not diplomatically recognized by the U.S.

1974          A report claims that the use of defoliants by the U.S. has scarred Vietnam for a century.