What happened on August 21 ?

1157 - King Alfonso VII of Castile (b. 1104/1105)

1153 - Bernard of Clairvaux, French theologian (b. 1090)

1271 - Alphonse of Toulouse, son of Louis VIII of France (b. 1220)

1581 - Sakuma Nobumori, Japanese retainer and samurai (b. 1527)

1614 - Elizabeth Báthory, the world's most prolific female serial killer (b. 1560)

1627 - Jacques Mauduit, French composer (b. 1557)

1673 - Henry Grey, 1st Earl of Stamford, English soldier

1689 - William Cleland, Scottish poet and soldier

1762 - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English writer (b. 1689)

1763 - Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, British statesman (b. 1710)

1796 - John McKinly, American physician and President of Delaware (b. 1721)

1814 - Benjamin Thompson, American physicist and inventor (b. 1753)

1836 - Claude-Louis Navier, French physicist (b. 1785)

1838 - Adelbert von Chamisso, German writer (b. 1781)

1940 - Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary (b. 1879)

1940 - Ernest Lawrence Thayer, American poet (b. 1863)

1940 - Hermann Obrecht, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1882)

1943 - Henrik Pontoppidan, Danish writer, Nobel Prize (b. 1857)

1947 - Ettore Bugatti, Italian automobile manufacturer (b. 1881)

1951 - Constant Lambert, British composer and conductor (b. 1905)

1957 - Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, Norwegian meteorologist and oceanographer (b. 1888)

1960 - David Barnard Steinman, American civil engineer and bridge designer (b. 1886)

1964 - Palmiro Togliatti, Italian communist leader (b. 1893)

1978 - Charles Eames, American designer and architect (b. 1907)

1982 - Sobhuza II, King of Swaziland (b. 1899)

1983 - Benigno S. Aquino Jr., Philippine opposition leader (b. 1932)

1988 - Ray Eames, American designer, artist and architect (b. 1912)

1995 - Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Indian-born astrophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)

1997 - Norris Bradbury, American physicist (b. 1909)

2000 - Daniel Lisulo, Prime Minister of Zambia (b. 1930)

2003 - Kathy Wilkes, English philosopher and aid worker (b. 1946)

2003 - Wesley Willis, American musician (b. 1963)

2005 - Marcus Schmuck, Austrian mountaineer (b. 1925)

2005 - Robert Moog, American pioneer of electronic music (b. 1934)

2005 - Dalia Rabikovich, Israeli poet (b. 1936)