Sunday 21st of November 1694

Writer Voltaire is born as François-Marie Arouet in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Monday 21st of November 1695

Composer Henry Purcell dies of tuberculosis at the age of 36 in Marsham Street, London, Westminster, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Thursday 21st of November 1811

Poet and writer Heinrich Bernd Wilhelm von Kleist commits suicide by a shot in his mouth at the age of 34 in Stolper Loch, Berlin, Wannsee, Berlin, Germany.

von Kleist first shot terminally ill 31-year-old Henriette Vogel, with whose intellectual accomplishments he was captivated.

Thursday 21st of November 1816

Pirate Robert Smith is executed by hanging in Execution Dock, London, Wapping, East London, United Kingdom.

Thursday 21st of November 1816

Pirate Charles Furney is executed by hanging in Execution Dock, London, Wapping, East London, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 21st of November 1821

Forger Josiah Cadman is executed by hanging in Newgate Prison, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 21st of November 1849

'Brother' of Lou Salomé and rival of Friedrich Nietzsche Paul Ludwig Carl Heinrich Rée is born in Bartelshagen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.

Tuesday 21st of November 1854

258th Pope Benedictus XV is born as Giacomo Battista Marquis Della Chiesa in Genova, Pegli, Liguria, Italy.

Wednesday 21st of November 1855

28-year-old John Parsons Cook is poisoned by serial poisoner William Palmer aka The Prince of Poisoners in The Talbot Arms, Rugeley, Staffordshire, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 21st of November 1860

Old West scout and hired gunman Tom Thomas Horn is born in Scotland County, Missouri, United States.

Wednesday 21st of November 1877

Murderer Thomas Thomas is executed by hanging by William Marwood in Bagthorpe Gaol, The Lace Market, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom.

Monday 21st of November 1881

Child killer Alfred Gough is executed by hanging by William Marwood at the age of 34 in Vernon Street Prison, Derby, Derbyshire, United States.

Gough raped and strangled 6-year-old Eleanor Wendle in Brimington on 20 August.

Monday 21st of November 1887

Murderer Joseph Morley is executed by hanging by John Berry at the age of 17 in Chelmsford Prison, Chelmsford, Essex, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 21st of November 1888

Double murderer Jake Tobler is executed by hanging at the age of 23 in Wichita, Kansas, United States.

Tobler's 21-year-old brother Joe was hanged next to him at the same time.

Monday 21st of November 1898

Surrealist painter René François Ghislain Magritte is born in Lessines, Hainaut, Belgium.

Tuesday 21st of November 1899

Murderer George Nunn is executed by hanging by James Billington at the age of 18 in Ipswich, Suffolk, United Kingdom.

Friday 21st of November 1902

Writer Isaac Bashevis Singer is born as Izaak Zynger in Leoncin, Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland.

Thursday 21st of November 1929

23-year-old Aloïs Ortner is attacked by murderer Kurt Tetzner aka Der Mann der Zweimal Starb in Ingolstadt, Bayern, Germany.

Ortner half unconscious managed to run and hide in the woods.

Tuesday 21st of November 1939

Treasurer of Pennsylvania Budd Robert Dwyer is born in St. Charles, Missouri, United States.

Sunday 21st of November 1943

Serial killer Gary Michael Heidnik aka The Cellar of Horror Murderer is born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States.

Thursday 21st of November 1957

Murderer David Taylor is executed by Old Sparky at the age of 44 in Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New York, United States.

Monday 21st of November 1960

Murderer Oscar Wimis is executed by Old Sparky at the age of 44 in Georgia State Prison, Georgia Highway 147, Reidsville, Georgia, United States.

Thursday 21st of November 1963

Double murderer Robert Franklin Stroud aka The Birdman of Alcatraz dies of natural causes at the age of 73 in Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, Springfield, Missouri, United States.

Stroud was incarcerated for the last 54 years of his life, of which 42 were spent in solitary confinement. Because of Stroud's contributions to the field of ornithology, he gained a large following of thousands of bird breeders, and poultry raisers who demanded his release and for many years a 'Committee to Release Robert F. Stroud' campaigned to have Stroud released from prison. Because Stroud had killed a federal officer his punishment in solitary confinement remained intact.

Thursday 21st of November 1963

25-year-old Wiener Aktionist Hermann Nitsch performs his 4. Aktion in his studio in Wien, Wien, Austria.

Thursday 21st of November 1968

35-year-old Artist Yoko Ono suffers a miscarriage of the baby she was expecting with John Lennon in Queen Charlotte's Hospital, 339-351 Goldhawk Road, London, Hammersmith, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Just before the miscarriage the foetal heartbeat was recorded and included in Lennon and Ono's 1969 album 'Life with the Lions' followed by two minutes' silence. The unborn child was named John Ono Lennon II and was buried by the couple in a secret location. It was later claimed that Ono's miscarriage was caused by the stress of their October drugs bust and subsequent arrest.

Tuesday 21st of November 1972

31-year-old Mass murderer Richard Benjamin Speck aka Born to Raise Hell has his death sentence commuted to 400 years imprisonment in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

Thursday 21st of November 1974

21 die and 182 are injured in two bomb-attacks by the Irish Republican Army on the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town in the city centre and Barclays Bank in Edgbaston in Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom.

Six Irishmen were arrested within hours of the blasts and in 1975 sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombings. The men—who became known as the Birmingham Six—maintained their innocence and insisted police had coerced them into signing false confessions through severe physical and psychological abuse. After 16 years in prison and a lengthy campaign their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1991.

Friday 21st of November 1975

23-year-old Serial killer Patrick David Mackay aka Franklin Bollvolt the First is sentenced to life imprisonment in Old Bailey Criminal Court, London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Friday 21st of November 1975

24-year-old Mass murderer Ronald Joseph 'Butch' DeFeo aka The Amityville Horror Murderer is found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder in New York City, New York, United States.

Wednesday 21st of November 1979

9/11 terrorist Saeed Abdallah Ali Sulayman al-Ghamdi known for hijacking United Airlines Flight 93 is born in al Bahah, al Bahah Province, Saudi Arabia.

Friday 21st of November 1980

85 die in MGM Grand Hotel and Casino fire in MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, Paradise, Nevada, United States.

The fire was caused by an electrical ground fault inside a wall soffit.

Thursday 21st of November 1985

Twenty-fifth bomb attack by Terrorist organisation Les Cellules Communistes Combattantes aka CCC in Motorola, Avenue Van Becelaere, Watermael-Boitsfort, Brabant, Belgium.

It was the third action in their 'Campagne Pierre Akkerman'.

Saturday 21st of November 1987

15-year-old Diane Cho is raped and strangled by serial killer Timothy Spencer in Gavilan Court, Richmond, Chesterfield, Virginia, United States.

Sunday 21st of November 1993

Actor Bill Wilfred Bailey Bixby known from ‘The Magician’ dies of prostate cancer at the age of 59 in Century City, California, United States.

Friday 21st of November 1997

Spree killer Josef Gautsch commits suicide by a shot in the head at the age of 36 in Mauterndorf, Salzburg, Austria.

Earlier that day Gautsch shot dead his 40-year-old wife Gabrielle Artner and their 3-year-old daughter Elizabeth, 55-year-old Wernfried Gappmayer, 39-year-old Harald Moser, 19-year-old Stefan Bader and 22-year-old Irene Schitter.

Friday 21st of November 1997

The painting 'Cathedra' by 92-year-old Artist Barnett Newman known for Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue? is attacked with a knife by 44-year-old artist Gerard Jan van Bladeren in Stedelijk Museum, Museumplein 10, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.

11 Years earlier van Bladeren also attacked Newman's 'Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue IV' with a knife in the same museum.

Friday 21st of November 1997

Murderer Charlie Livingston is executed by lethal injection at the age of 35 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Livingston's last words were "You all brought me here to be executed, not to make a speech. That's it."

Sunday 21st of November 1999

Raconteur Quentin Crisp dies of a heart attack at the age of 91 in Claude Road, Manchester, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom.

Wednesday 21st of November 2001

Installing my 'Perpetrators of Death' in the corridors of a psychiatric center in Sleidinge. in Psychiatrisch Centrum, Weststraat 135, Sleidinge, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium.

Wednesday 21st of November 2012

Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist terrorist Ajmal Mohammed Amir Kasab is executed by hanging at the age of 25 in Yerwada Central Jail, Pune, Maharashtra, India.