August 21

August 21 is the 233rd day of the year, 132 days remaining

1192 - Minamoto Yoritomo becomes Seii Tai Shōgun and the de facto ruler of Japan.
1770 - James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales
1862 - The Vienna Stadtpark opens its gates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Stadtpark
1878 - The American Bar Association is founded.
1911 - The Mona Lisa is stolen by a Louvre employee.
1942 - The Battle of Stalingrad began.
1993 - NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

Birthday

1754 - William Murdoch, Scottish inventor
Inventor of gas lighting (early 1790s), coined the term gasometer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Murdoch

1826 - Karl Gegenbaur, German anatomist
Grundzüge der vergleichenden Anatomie (1859; Elements of Comparative Anatomy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Gegenbaur

1956 - Kim Cattrall, actress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Cattrall