May 21 in history — What Happened Today in History

Nineteen people are killed in a plane crash in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

In Miami, five abortion clinics are attacked by a butyric acid attacker.

President Suharto of Indonesia resigns following the killing of students from Trisakti University earlier that week by security forces and growing mass protests in Jakarta against his ongoing corrupt rule.

The ferry MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1,000.

The seven Trappist monks of Tibhirine who were abducted on March 27 are killed under uncertain circumstances.

The Democratic Republic of Yemen unsuccessfully attempts to secede from the Republic of Yemen; a war breaks out.

After 30 seasons Johnny Carson hosts his penultimate episode and last featuring guests (Robin Williams and Bette Midler) of The Tonight Show.

Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by a female suicide bomber near Madras.

Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, flees Ethiopia, effectively bringing the Ethiopian Civil War to an end.

Margaret Thatcher holds her controversial Sermon on the Mound before the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Falklands War: A British amphibious assault during Operation Sutton leads to the Battle of San Carlos.

The Italian government releases the membership list of Propaganda Due, an illegal pseudo-Masonic lodge that was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries.

Transamerica Corporation agrees to sell United Artists to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $380 million after the box office failure of the 1980 film Heaven's Gate.

White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

Twenty-nine people are killed in the Yuba City bus disaster in Martinez, California.

Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth.

Civil unrest in Rosario, Argentina, known as Rosariazo, following the death of a 15-year-old student.

The Ulster Volunteer Force declares war on the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland.

American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.

The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition: A gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively known as the New York School.

Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The Canadian National War Memorial is unveiled by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

A Soviet station, North Pole-1, becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean.

Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her handbag. Her story soon becomes one of Japan's most notorious scandals.

Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.

Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

The opera Doktor Faust, unfinished when composer Ferruccio Busoni died, is premiered in Dresden.

Luke Garbutt, English footballer

Matías Kranevitter, Argentine footballer

Lynn Williams, American soccer player

Hutch Dano, American actor

Lisa Evans, Scottish footballer

Philipp Grüneberg, German footballer

Olivia Olson, American singer and actress

Guilherme, Brazilian footballer

Kierre Beckles, Barbadian athlete

Rene Krhin, Slovenian footballer

Emily Robins, New Zealand actress and singer

Hal Robson-Kanu, Welsh footballer

Claire Cashmore, English Paralympic swimmer

Tunku Annuar, Malaysian son of Badlishah of Kedah (born 1939)

Johnny Gray, American baseball player (born 1926)

Jaime Lusinchi, Venezuelan physician and politician, President of Venezuela (born 1924)

Alireza Soleimani, Iranian wrestler (born 1956)

Count Christian of Rosenborg, member of the Danish royal family (born 1942)

Frank Comstock, American trombonist, composer, and conductor (born 1922)

Cot Deal, American baseball player and coach (born 1923)

Leonard Marsh, American businessman, co-founded Snapple (born 1933)

Bob Thompson, American pianist and composer (born 1924)

Dominique Venner, French journalist and historian (born 1935)

Eddie Blazonczyk, American singer-songwriter (born 1941)

Otis Clark, American butler and preacher, survivor of the Tulsa race massacre (born 1903)

Constantine of Irinoupolis, Metropolitan of Irinoupolis and Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA (born 1936)