What happened on February 21 ?

1437 - King James I of Scotland (b. 1394)

1471 - John of Rokycan, Czech Catholic archbishop

1513 - Pope Julius II (b. 1443)

1543 - Ahmed Gragn, Sultan of Adal

1554 - Hieronymus Bock, German botanist

1595 - Robert Southwell, English poet

1668 - John Thurloe, English Puritan spy (b. 1616)

1677 - Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (b. 1632)

1715 - Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, Governor of the Province of Maryland (b. 1637)

1788 - Johann Georg Palitzsch, German astronomer (b. 1723)

1824 - Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Napoleon's wife, Josephine (b. 1781)

1846 - Emperor Ninko of Japan, (b. 1800)

1862 - Justinus Kerner, German poet (b. 1786)

1901 - George Francis FitzGerald, Irish mathematician (b. 1851)

1926 - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1853)

1938 - George Ellery Hale, American astronomer (b. 1868)

1941 - Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1891)

1944 - Ferenc Szisz, Hungarian-born race car driver (b. 1873)

1945 - Eric Liddell, Scottish runner (b. 1902)

1965 - Malcolm X, American black activist (b. 1925)

1967 - Charles Beaumont, American writer (b. 1929)

1968 - Howard Walter Florey, Australian-born pharmocologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1898)

1972 - Bronislava Nijinska, Polish-Russian ballet dancer (b. 1891)

1974 - Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player (b. 1905)

1984 - Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)

1991 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, English ballet dancer (b. 1919)

1994 - Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexican politician (b. 1948)

1996 - Morton Gould, American composer (b. 1913)

1999 - Gertrude B. Elion, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1918)

2002 - John Thaw, English actor (b. 1942)

2002 - Harold Furth, Austrian-born physicist (b. 1939)

2004 - John Charles, Welsh footballer (b. 1931)

2004 - Guido Molinari, Canadian artist (b. 1933)

2005 - Ara Berberian, American opera singer (b. 1930)

2005 - Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Cuban novelist (b. 1929)

2005 - Eugene Scott, American religious broadcaster (b. 1929)