1959Hawaii becomes the 50th state of the United States
The Hawaiian Islands had been an independent kingdom until 1893, when American businessmen overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani, and the United States annexed them in 1898. Hawaii became a US territory in 1900, but for decades Congress put off statehood, held back by doubts about a territory so far from the mainland and by prejudice against its largely Asian and Native Hawaiian population.
After the Second World War the pressure grew, and in March 1959 President Eisenhower signed the Hawaii Admission Act. In June the islanders voted overwhelmingly to accept statehood, and on 21 August 1959 Eisenhower signed the proclamation formally admitting Hawaii as the 50th state. On the same day he unveiled the new 50-star flag that would fly from the following Fourth of July.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Eisenhower Presidential Library: Hawaii statehood ↗
1991Latvia restores its independence as the Moscow coup collapses
Latvia had been an independent republic from 1918 until 1940, when the Soviet Union occupied and annexed it. As Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms loosened the Soviet grip, Latvians organised mass protests and the Baltic Way human chain, and on 4 May 1990 the Supreme Council in Riga declared the restoration of independence, with a period of transition to follow. Moscow refused to accept it, and in January 1991 Rigans built barricades to defend their parliament against Soviet troops.
On 19 August 1991 hardliners in Moscow tried to seize power from Gorbachev. Two days later, as the coup was failing, the Supreme Council adopted the Constitutional Law on the Statehood of the Republic of Latvia on 21 August 1991, ending the transition period and restoring the country’s full independence under its 1922 constitution. Soviet laws ceased to apply, foreign governments quickly recognised the restored state, and the Soviet Union itself did so in September.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Saeima of the Republic of Latvia: 21 August, the de facto restoration of Latvia’s independence ↗
1415Portugal seizes Ceuta and begins its overseas expansion
Ceuta, on the African shore of the Strait of Gibraltar, was a rich Muslim trading port under the Marinid rulers of Morocco, at the end of caravan routes that brought gold and other goods north across the Sahara. King João I of Portugal, whose kingdom had made peace with Castile, prepared a large fleet in secret, partly to give his sons a chance to win knighthood in battle and partly to strike at the Muslim powers across the strait.
On 21 August 1415 the Portuguese army, led by the king and his sons Duarte, Pedro and Henrique, stormed and took the city. The great mosque was turned into a cathedral, where the princes were knighted, and a Portuguese garrison was left to hold Ceuta. Historians often date the start of Portugal’s age of expansion to this conquest; Prince Henry, later called ‘the Navigator’, went on to sponsor the voyages down the coast of Africa.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo: Conquista de Ceuta ↗
1940Leon Trotsky dies after an attack in Mexico City
Leon Trotsky had been one of the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the founder of the Red Army. After Lenin’s death he lost the struggle for power to Joseph Stalin, was expelled from the Communist Party and in 1929 was deported from the Soviet Union. From exile in Turkey, France, Norway and finally Mexico, where he settled in Coyoacán in 1937, he kept up a stream of writing against Stalin’s rule.
On 20 August 1940 Ramón Mercader, a Spanish communist who had won the confidence of Trotsky’s household under a false name, attacked him with an ice axe in his study. Trotsky died in hospital the next day, 21 August 1940, aged 60. Mercader was convicted and served 20 years in a Mexican prison; it was later confirmed that he had acted for Stalin’s secret police. Trotsky’s house in Coyoacán is now a museum.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Britannica: The assassination of Leon Trotsky ↗
1983Ninoy Aquino is shot on his return to Manila
Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr. was a senator and the best-known opponent of President Ferdinand Marcos, who placed the Philippines under martial law in 1972. Aquino was arrested and held for more than seven years, and sentenced to death by a military court, before Marcos allowed him to leave for heart surgery in the United States in 1980. After three years in exile he decided to go home, despite warnings that his life was in danger.
On 21 August 1983 he was shot dead moments after leaving his plane at Manila International Airport, while in the custody of soldiers. An independent board later concluded that the killing was a military conspiracy, though the accused were acquitted under Marcos. His death turned a divided opposition into a mass movement, brought his widow Corazon into politics and led to the People Power revolution of 1986. The airport now bears his name.
Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: National Historical Commission of the Philippines: death anniversary of Sen. Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr. ↗
