Historical events in Indian and world history on February 21.

1842: George Greeno received a patent for a sewing machine.

1848: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto.

1849: The Battle of Gujrat – a decisive battle in the Second Anglo-Sikh War, fought between the forces of the East India Company, and a Sikh army in rebellion against the Company’s control of the Sikh Empire, represented by the child Maharaja Duleep Singh who was in British custody in Lahore.

1878: The first telephone directory was published in New Haven, Connecticut.

1915: Armed revolutionary uprisings took place in Lahore, Benaras, and Meerut.

1948: Second draft of constitution of India was placed before the constituent assembly on this day.

1952: Demonstration of official language status to the Bengali language at Dhaka University in East Pakistan (present-Day Bangladesh)

1959: Establishment of Press Club of India in New Delhi.

1972: Soviet Unmanned spacecraft Luna 20 landed on the moon.

1999: Former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif signed the Lahore Declaration.

2013: At least 17 people were killed and 119 injured in a series of bomb blasts in Hyderabad.

2018: Indian film star Kamal Haasan launched a new political party – Makkal Needhi Mayyam in Tamil Nadu state.

Famous birthdays and birth anniversaries  – February 21.

1703: Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, an Islamic scholar.

1829: Ameer Minai, a 19th-century Indian poet. 

1878: Mirra Alfassa, a spiritual guru, an occultist and a collaborator of Sri Aurobindo.

1894: Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar, an Indian colloid chemist, academic and scientific administrator.

1899: Suryakant Tripathi, Nirala, an Indian poet, novelist, essayist, and story-writer. 

1924: Gulab Khandelwal, an Indian poet.

1911: Bhabatosh Datta, a noted Indian economist, academic, and writer.

1943: David Lawrence Geffen, an American business magnate, and co-founder of DreamWorks Pictures.

Death anniversaries of famous– February 21.

1677: Baruch Spinoza, a Dutch philosopher.

1829: Kitturu Chennamma, the Queen of the Nayakas of the kingdom of Kittur.

1965: Malcolm X, an African American Muslim minister, and human rights activist.

1991: Nutan, an Indian film actress.

1998: Om Prakash Bakshi, an Indian character actor.

2011: Dwayne McDuffie, an American writer of comic books.