Friday 21st of January 1774

Composer Florian Leopold Gassmann dies of long-term consequences of a carriage accident at the age of 45 in Wien, Wien, Austria.

Monday 21st of January 1793

King of France and Navarre Louis XVI is executed by the Guillotine at the age of 39 in Place de la Révolution, Paris, VIIIe, Île-de-France, France.

While Louis's blood dripped to the ground many members of the crowd ran forward to dip their handkerchiefs in it.

Friday 21st of January 1842

Notorious cannibal Alferd Griner Packer is born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States.

Sunday 21st of January 1855

Firearms designer John Moses Browning is born in Ogden, Utah, United States.

Thursday 21st of January 1869

Victim of Maria Swanenburg aka Goeie Mie Johannes Swanenburg is born in Leiden, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands.

Thursday 21st of January 1869

Mystic and self-proclaimed holy man Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin aka The Mad Monk is born in Pokrovskoye, Tobolsk Governorate, Russia.

Sunday 21st of January 1872

Murderer Frederick Henry Seddon is born in Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom.

Tuesday 21st of January 1896

Younger sister of Reichsführer Adolf Hitler Paula Hitler aka Paula Wolf is born in Hafeld, Oberösterreich, Austria.

Saturday 21st of January 1899

General practitioner and suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams is born in Randalstown, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

Saturday 21st of January 1905

Fashion designer Christian Dior is born in 1 Rue d'Estouteville, Granville, Manche, France.

Friday 21st of January 1921

Spree killer Howard Barton Unruh aka The Walker of Death is born in Camden, New Jersey, United States.

Saturday 21st of January 1922

Actor Telly Aristotelis Savalas known from the TV-series ‘Kojak’ is born in Garden City, New York, United States.

Monday 21st of January 1924

Political theorist and communist revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin dies of sclerosis of the cerebral arteries at the age of 54 in Gorki, Moscow, Central Federal District, Russia.

Persistent stories mark syphilis as the cause of Lenin's death. A retrospective diagnosis published in The European Journal of Neurology in 2004 strengthens these suspicions.

Monday 21st of January 1924

Comedian and actor Benny Alfred Hawthorne Hill known for The Benny Hill Show is born in Southampton, Hampshire, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 21st of January 1931

Actress and stage performer Alma Rubens aka Silent Snowbird dies of lobar pneumonia and bronchitis at the age of 34 in Los Angeles, California, United States.

Wednesday 21st of January 1931

Singer-songwriter Sam Cooke is born as Samuel Cook in Clarksdale, Mississippi, United States.

Friday 21st of January 1938

Disc jockey and radio presenter Robert Weston Smith aka Wolfman Jack known for his gravelly voice is born in New York, Brooklyn, New York, United States.

Friday 21st of January 1938

Illusionist and film pioneer Georges Marie Jean Méliès dies of cancer at the age of 77 in Hôpital Léopold-Bellan, 19-21, Rue Vercingétorix, Paris, XIVe, Île-de-France, France.

Tuesday 21st of January 1941

Tenor Plácido Domingo is born as José Plácido Domingo Embil in 34 Calle Ibiza, Madrid, distrito de Retiro, Área metropolitana de Madrid, Spain.

Friday 21st of January 1944

Murderer and literary talent Jack Henry Abbott known for his memoir ‘In the Belly of the Beast’ is born in Oscoda, Michigan, United States.

Saturday 21st of January 1950

Member of the Rote Armee Fraktion Silke Maier-Witt is born in Nagold, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Saturday 21st of January 1950

Writer George Orwell dies of a lung bleeding at the age of 47 in University College Hospital, Euston Road, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Monday 21st of January 1952

Spree killer Raymond Lee Stewart is born in Burlington, North Carolina, United States.

Wednesday 21st of January 1953

Triple murderer Pierre Dale Selby is born in Scarborough, Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago.

Tuesday 21st of January 1958

59-year-old Marion Bartlett, his 36-year-old wife Velda and their 2-year-old daughter Betty Jean are shot and stabbed to death by 20-year-old Spree killer Charles Raymond Starkweather aka Little Red in 924 Belmont Avenue, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States.

Velda was the mother of Caril Ann Fugate, Starkweather's girlfriend. The bodies were found on 27 January.

Wednesday 21st of January 1959

Film director Cecil Blount DeMille dies of heart failure at the age of 78 in Hollywood, California, United States.

On the evening before DeMille's doctor paid him a visit at home and seeing how weak the director was advised that he go to the hospital at once. DeMille merely replied "No, I think I'll go to the morgue instead."

Thursday 21st of January 1960

435 die in Coalbrook coal mine of Clydesdale Colliery cave in in Coalbrook, Sasolburg, Free State, South Africa.

The miners were suffocated by methane gas and crushed to death by rockfall caused by cascading pillar failure.

Saturday 21st of January 1961

Writer Blaise Cendrars dies of a stroke at the age of 74 in 5, Rue José-Maria-de-Heredia, Paris, VIIe, Île-de-France, France.

Thursday 21st of January 1965

28-year-old Lucienne Verhoeven-Bourlard is strangled by serial killer Michel Bellen aka The Strangler of the Left Bank in Gloriantlaan, Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium.

Sunday 21st of January 1968

Mistress of Henri Désiré Landru aka Le Barbe-Bleue de Gambais Fernande Ernestine Marcelline Segret commits suicide by drowning at the age of 76 in Château de Flers de l'Orne, Flers, Basse-Normandie, France.

A picture of Landru was found in Segret's room in the retirement home where she was staying.

Sunday 21st of January 1968

A B-52G Stratofortress carrying four B28FI thermonuclear bombs crashes onto sea ice in Thule Air Base, Pituffik, Greenland, Denmark.

The conventional explosives aboard detonated and the nuclear payload ruptured and dispersed which resulted in radioactive contamination. Six crew members ejected safely but 27-year-old co-pilot Leonard Svitenko who did not have an ejection seat was killed while trying to bail out.

Saturday 21st of January 1978

22-year-old Yvonne Pearson is beaten to death by serial killer Peter Sutcliffe aka The Yorkshire Ripper in Arthington Street, Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

Sutcliffe repeatedly bludgeoned Pearson about the head with a ball-pein hammer then jumped on her chest before stuffing horse-hair into her mouth from a discarded sofa under which he hid her body. Her body was not found until 26 March.

Monday 21st of January 1980

Start of the trial against 34-year-old Serial killer Ted Theodore Robert Bundy aka The Only Living Witness for the murder of Kimberley Leach in Orange County Courthouse, 65 East Central Boulevard, Orlando, Florida, United States.

Tuesday 21st of January 1997

Entertainment impresario Tom Parker aka Colonel Parker known for the management of Elvis Presley dies of a stroke at the age of 88 in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.

Parker's wife heard a crashing sound from the living room and when she heard no response to her calls she went in to find Tom slumped over in his chair.

Wednesday 21st of January 1998

Murderer Lloyd Wayne Hampton is executed by lethal injection at the age of 44 in Stateville Correctional Center, Crest Hill, Illinois, United States.

Wednesday 21st of January 1998

Double murderer Jose Jesus Ceja is executed by lethal injection at the age of 43 in Arizona State Prison Complex, 1305 E Butte Avenue, Florence, Arizona, United States.

Ceja's last meal request was for two chili beef burritos, two cans of Coke Classic and a slice of cherry pie.

Thursday 21st of January 1999

44-year-old Serial killer Gerald Parker aka The Bedroom Basher is sentenced to death by lethal injection plus life without possibility of parole plus 64 years in prison in Santa Ana, California, United States.

In 1978 and 1979 Parker raped and murdered five women. He also attacked a sixth woman who was pregnant, she survived but her child was stillborn.

Friday 21st of January 2000

Paranoid schizophrenic mass murderer Larry Keith Robison is executed by lethal injection at the age of 43 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Robison decapitated and castrated his 31-year-old roomate Rickey Lee Bryant and shot and stabbed 34-year-old Georgia Ann Reed, 11-year-old Scott Reed, 55-year-old Earline H. Barker and 33-year-old Bruce M. Gardner on 10 August 1982 in Lake Worth. Bryant had been sexually mutilated and had suffered two gunshot wounds to the head, eight cut wounds, and forty-nine stab wounds. His penis was found in the kitchen sink and his testicles were never found. His decapitated head was posed in the crook of his arm. Robison requested 21 January 2000 because he wanted to die on a night with a full moon.

Monday 21st of January 2002

Singer-songwriter Peggy Lee dies of complications from diabetes and a heart attack at the age of 82 in Los Angeles, Bel Air, California, United States.

Wednesday 21st of January 2004

Murderer Kevin Lee Zimmerman is executed by lethal injection at the age of 43 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Friday 21st of January 2005

Serial killer Sergei Vasilyevich Ryakhovsky aka The Hippopotamus aka The Balashikha Ripper dies in prison due to long untreated tuberculosis at the age of 43 in The White Swan, Solikamsk, Perm Krai, Russia.

Monday 21st of January 2019

A moon eclipse in Oudstrijdersstraat 35, Antwerpen, Borgerhout, Antwerpen, Belgium.

Saturday 21st of January 2023

Member of the 'Manson Family' Linda Kasabian dies of undisclosed causes at the age of 74 in Tacoma, Washington, United States.