On This Day

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Important events of history that took place in India and elsewhere on today’s date.

21 February

🇮🇳 In India

1829 Kittur Chennamma, one of the first female rulers to rebel against British rule, died. She became a folk hero in Karnataka and symbol of the independence movement in India. She was the queen of Kittur, a princely state in Karnataka. She led an armed resistance against the British East India Company in 1824 in defiance of the Doctrine of Lapse introduced by Lord Dalhousie. Rani Chennamma fought fiercely with the help of her lieutenants, Sangolli Rayanna and Gurusiddappa, but was outnumbered and ultimately captured and imprisoned at Bailhongal Fort, where she died.

1894 Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar, colloid chemist, academic and scientific administrator, was born. The first director-general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, he is revered as the "father of research laboratories" in India.

1896 Suryakant Tripathi "Nirala", poet, novelist, essayist and story-writer who wrote in Hindi, was born in Midnapore, West Bengal.

1952 First general elections of independent India ended.

🌎 Elsewhere

1848 The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, was first published; the pamphlet became hugely influential.

1925 The American weekly The New Yorker publishes its first issue.

⭐ Significance

International Mother Language Day is a worldwide annual observance held on 21 February to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism.

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