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.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE ROME MAP →
— Yangtze River Crossing campaign
20–21 Apr 1949 — After peace terms lapse, a million men cross the river on junks and sampans on a 500-km front in two nights; Nanjing falls on the 23rd. The last great natural line of the war is passed almost without pause — the Nationalist army south of it exists mostly on paper.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE CHINA IN REVOLUTION MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
— Flateyjarbók
1387–94 — Flateyjarbók, the largest medieval Icelandic manuscript, is named after this island farm in Breiðafjörður, whose owner gave it to the bishop of Skálholt in 1647. It reached the Danish king in 1656 and came home to Reykjavík on 21 April 1971. It preserves the Saga of the Greenlanders, written centuries after the voyages it describes.
READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE CLIMATE AND INNOVATION MAP → · THE FULL STORY →
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