What happened on August 21 ?

1192 - Minamoto Yoritomo becomes Seii Tai Sh?gun and the de facto ruler of Japan. (Traditional Japanese date: July 12, 1192)

1680 - Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe from Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt

1760 - The church (later cathedral) of "Our Lady of Candlemas of Mayagüez (Puerto Rico)" is founded, establishing the basis for the founding of the city.

1770 - James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1772 - King Gustav III completes his coup d'etat by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing him as an enlightened despot.

1810 - Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France, is elected Crown Prince of Sweden by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates.

1831 - Nat Turner leads slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia

1841 - The Venetian blind is first patented in the United States by John Hampson.

1842 - The city of Hobart, Tasmania, is founded.

1852 - Tlingit Indians destroy Fort Selkirk, Yukon Territory

1856 - America's first consul to Japan, Townsend Harris, arrives in Shimoda. (Traditional Japanese date: July 21, 1856)

1858 - The Lincoln-Douglas debates begin

1862 - The Vienna Stadtpark opens its gates.

1863 - Lawrence, Kansas is destroyed by Confederate guerillas Quantrill's Raiders in the Lawrence Massacre.

1878 - The American Bar Association is founded

1879 - The Virgin Mary, along with St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist reportedly appear to the people of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland.

1888 - The first successful adding machine in the United States was patented by William Seward Burroughs.

1911 - The Mona Lisa was stolen by a Louvre employee.

1942 - A Nazi flag was installed atop the Elbrus Mountain.

1944 - Dumbarton Oaks Conference, prelude to the United Nations, begins.

1959 - President Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union.

1968 - Soviet Union-dominated Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring; on the same day, Nicolae Ceau?escu, leader of Communist Romania, publicly condemns the Soviet maneuver, encouraging the Romanian population to arm itself against possible Soviet reprisals.

1971 - Black Panther George Jackson is shot and killed in the prison yard at California's San Quentin prison.

1971 - A bomb exploded in the Liberal Party campaign rally in Plaza Miranda, Manila, Philippines with several anti-Marcos political candidates injured.

1976 - Operation Paul Bunyan at Panmunjeom, Korea

1983 - Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. was assassinated at the Manila International Airport.

1986 - Carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing over 1700 people up to 20 kilometers away.

1987 - Hard rock band Guns N' Roses release their classic debut Appetite for Destruction.

1991 - Latvia declares its full independence from the Soviet Union.

1991 - Coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev collapses.

1993 - NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

1998 - The United States destroys a pharmaceutical plant (erroneously believed to be a chemical weapons plant) in Sudan.

2001 - NATO decides to send a peace-keeping force to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

2001 - A sixth-century temple is discovered in central Mexico.

2001 - The Red Cross announces that a famine is striking Tajikistan, and calls for international financial aid for Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

2002 - Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister of Canada, announces that he will not seek re-election and would resign within eighteen months.

2004 - A grenade attack on Bangladesh Awamee League, the biggest political party in Bangladesh kills 22 and injures more than a thousand, including party president Sheikh Hasina.

2005 - Pope Benedict XVI concludes World Youth Day with a mass. Over 1,100,000+ people attended the closing liturgy.