THE DAY IN HISTORY · APRIL 21

April 21 in history

What happened on April 21: 3 moments from the Maps of History atlases, in 753 BC, 1949 and 1971, each linked to the map that shows it.

753 BC

Rome is founded — by tradition, on this day, by a fratricide. The city will run the Mediterranean for seven centuries.

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1949 — Yangtze River Crossing campaign

20–21 Apr 1949 — Once peace terms lapsed, a million men crossed the Yangtze in junks and sampans over two nights, along a 500-km front. Nanjing fell on the 23rd. The war’s last great natural line had been crossed almost without pause, and the Nationalist army south of it existed mostly on paper.

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1971 — Flateyjarbók

1387–94 — Flateyjarbók, the largest medieval Icelandic manuscript, takes its name from this island farm in Breiðafjörður. The farm’s owner gave it to the bishop of Skálholt in 1647; it reached the Danish king in 1656 and returned home to Reykjavík on 21 April 1971. Among the works it preserves is the Saga of the Greenlanders, written centuries after the voyages it recounts.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE CLIMATE AND INNOVATION MAP → · THE FULL STORY →