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History on the 21st of May

History
Date Text
21 May 1536 RELIGIOUS The General Assembly of Geneva, Switzerland officially embraced Protestantism by accepting the evangelical faith of the Swiss reformers.
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21 May 1739 RELIGIOUS Methodist hymnwriter Charles Wesley, 31, on the first anniversary of his religious conversion, penned the hymn, "O For a Thousand Tongues."
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21 May 1740 RELIGIOUS English revivalist George Whitefield wrote in a letter regarding Jesus' character; 'He was God and man in one person, that God and man might be happy together again.'
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21 May 1864 RELIGIOUS Belgian missionary priest Father Damien, 24, was ordained on the Island of Hawaii. Born Joseph de Veuster, the Picpus Father began a work among the lepers on the island of Molokai in 1873. Contracting the disease in 1884, Father Damien succumbed to it five years later.
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21 May 1911 WW2 Having defeated the weak Federal Army, Francisco I. Madero compels Mexican President Porfirio Díaz to sign the Treaty of Ciudad, forcing his abdication and handing over of power to the Revolutionaries. 
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21 May 1915 WW2 The French army officially adopted the Adrian helmet. 
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21 May 1916 WW2 Rohan Amerasekera was born in Kegalle, Ceylon. 
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21 May 1917 WW2 Graves Erskine joined the United States Marine Corps Reserve while attending Louisiana State University in Louisiana, United States. 
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21 May 1932 WW2 The Do X aircraft departed New York, United States. 
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21 May 1932 WW2 Algérie was launched at Brest, France. 
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21 May 1935 WW2 German military required "Aryan heritage" for service. 
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21 May 1935 WW2 Werner Mölders received the Pilot's Badge of the Luftwaffe. 
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21 May 1935 WW2 Zheng Xiaoxu resigned as the Prime Minister of the puppet state of Manchukuo. 
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21 May 1935 WW2 Zhang Jinghui was named the second Prime Minister of the puppet state of Manchukuo. 
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21 May 1935 WW2 Zang Shiyi was named the Manchukuo Speaker of the Legislature. 
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21 May 1935 WW2 Xi Qia stepped down as the Minister of Finance of the Japanese-sponsored puppet state of Manchukuo and became the Imperial Household Minister of the Aisin Gioro royal clan. 
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21 May 1937 WW2 As reprisal for the failed assassination of Italian Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani earlier this year, Italian troops massacred the entire community of Debre Libanos in Abyssinia, killing 320. 
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21 May 1938 WW2 Gneisenau was commissioned into service. 
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21 May 1938 WW2 British Ambassador Nevile Henderson met with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop twice in Berlin, Germany on this date in regards to the tension over Czechoslovakia. British Foreign Minister Lord Halifax likewise met with German Ambassador Herbert von Dirksen in Berlin, Germany. 
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21 May 1939 WW2 USS Astoria arrived at Guam, Mariana Islands. 
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21 May 1940 WW2 German General Rommel bypassed Arras, France and advanced west toward the English Channel. 74 British tanks spearheaded two infantry divisions in an attempt to counter Rommel's offensive, but it was defeated by Rommel's use of 8.8 cm FlaK anti-aircraft guns in an anti-tank role. Elsewhere, the French 9th Army was surrounded and destroyed; commanding officer General Giraud was captured. 
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21 May 1940 WW2 German bombers attacked British ports on the English Channel while RAF bombers attacked refineries near Rotterdam, the Netherlands. 
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21 May 1940 WW2 The British government announced that over 250,000 men had enrolled in the Local Defence Volunteers organization within the first 24 hours of its existance. 
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21 May 1940 WW2 British Royal Air Force 263 Squadron and 46 Squadron arrived in Narvik, Norway with 18 Gladiator and 18 Hurricane aircraft to provide additional, but still not adequate, protection for Allied warships in the area. 
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21 May 1940 WW2 Orion rounded Cape Horn and entered the South Pacific. 
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21 May 1940 WW2 Erwin Rommel was awarded the 1939 clasp to his Iron Cross First Class medal. 
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21 May 1940 WW2 An official British Admiralty communiqué noted that "he Secretary of the Admiralty regrets to announce that as the result of damage sustained through striking an uncharted rock off the Norwegian coast, HMS Effingham (Captain JM Howson, RN), has become a total loss". 
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21 May 1940 WW2 Émile Bertin completed her repairs at Brest, France. 
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21 May 1940 WW2 General Gaston Billote, commander of the French First Group of Armies, was fatally injured when his driver crashed into a truck returning from the Ypres conference. 
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21 May 1940 WW2 In Paris, France, General Robert Altmayer, a retired cavalry general who had retired four years earlier as Inspector-General of Cavalry, was summoned by Maxime Weygand to take command of Group A (later renamed Tenth Army) consisting of the 9th Corps, 10th Corps and 3rd Division Legere Mecanique. He was also told that all BEF troops south of the Somme (1st Armoured Division and 51st Highland Division) would also come under his orders. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 At a meeting of the Central Committee War Section in Moscow, Russia, the intelligence reports, provided by Communist sympathisers in Germany, that an attack on the Soviet Union was imminent was greeted with much apprehension. Stalin however still refused to accept the intelligence, believing that the reports must be either deliberate provocation of misinformation by the British to get the Soviet Union involved in the war. When General Proskurov, the head of Soviet Intelligence, argued personally with Stalin, he was duly arrested and shot. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 In the early hours of the day, 3 British cruisers and 4 destroyers intercepted and sank 11 small Axis vessels, killing 297 Germans. In the morning, 650 men of the German 5. Gebirsgäger Division landed on Crete, Greece in time to support the paratroopers already in position against a British counter attack at Maleme airfield. Many of the transport aircraft that delivered the troops would be damaged or destroyed on the airfield before they could take off. New Zealand General Freyberg held back his reserves despite German presence at Maleme, believing that the main German invasion was still to come at the beaches. At the nearby island of Milos, 19 fishing boats and 2 small passenger ships disembarked 2,331 German infantry. Out at sea, German aircraft damaged HMS Dido, HMS Orion, and HMS Ajax while Italian bombers sank HMS Juno (128 killed, 97 survived). 
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21 May 1941 WW2 The Women's Land Army in the United Kingdom was declared to have over 11,000 members. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 A Vichy French military court sentenced 56 enlisted soldiers who sided with de Gaulle to death or hard labor, in absentia. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 Vichy France government confiscated all property owned by Free French troops. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 German submarine U-69 sank unarmed American freighter Robin Moor by torpedo and gunfire 800 miles off the coast of British West Africa at 0525 hours; Robin Moor was the first American merchantman to be sunk by a German submarine in WW2. All 46 aboard survived. US President Roosevelt protested the sinking and unsuccessfully demanded compensation from Germany. At midnight at the very end of the day, U-69 struck again, sinking British ship Tewkesbury; all 42 aboard survived. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 The German fleet containing Bismarck was spotted by a British Coastal Command Spitfire aircraft at 1315 hours in the Korsfjord. It departed Korsfjord at 2000 hours. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 The German fleet containing Prinz Eugen was spotted by a British Coastal Command Spitfire aircraft at 1315 hours in the Korsfjord. It departed Korsfjord at 2000 hours. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 German battleship Bismarck and cruiser Prinz Eugen stopped in Grimstadfjord, Norway to refuel Prinz Eugen. At 1315 hours, RAF Flying Officer Michael Suckling, flying a Spitfire fighter, spotted the warships. British Home Fleet commander Admiral John Tovey dispatched all available warships to prevent the Germans from breaking out to the North Atlantic. The German ships completed refueling at 1900 hours and began moving westwards. After dark, British bombers attacked the empty Grimstadfjord. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 German submarine U-93 sank Dutch tanker Elusa off Greenland; 5 were killed, 49 survived. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 German submarine U-98 sank British ship Marconi; 22 were killed, 56 survived and rescued by US Coast Guard patrol boat General Greene. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 8 I-15 fighters of the Chinese 29th Squadron intercepted 27 Japanese G3M bombers over Lanzhou, Gansu, China, shooting down one and damaging another. 
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21 May 1941 WW2 Kaga was made the flagship of Carrier Division 1 of the Japanese Navy First Air Fleet at Sasebo, Japan. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 The US Navy established the North Pacific force, initially with 2 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 4 destroyers, 9 destroyer escorts, 5 submarines, and 107 aircraft. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter took flight for the first time. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 USS Pollack fired four torpedoes at a Japanese carrier off Kyushu, Japan; all torpedoes missed. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 Aleksandr Vasilevsky was awarded the Order of Lenin for the first time. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 German submarine U-103 sank US ships Clare at 0348 hours (all 40 aboard survived) and Elizabeth at 0415 hours (6 were killed, 36 survived) 40 miles west of Cuba. A few minutes later, at 0421 hours, U-106 sank Mexican tanker Faja de Oro to the north; 10 were killed, 27 survived. German submarine U-69 sank Canadian ship Torondoc 60 miles northwest of Martinique at 0753 hours; all 21 aboard survived as observed by the Germans, but none would be seen again. 40 miles northwest of Jamaica, U-558 sank Canadian ship Troisdoc by the deck gun at 1917 hours; all 18 aboard survived. U-156 sank Dominican ship Presidente Trujillo off Fort de France, Martinique at 1829 hours; 24 were killed, 15 survived. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 German submarine U-159 sank British ship New Brunswick (3 were killed, 59 survived) and damaged British fleet oiler Montenol (3 were killed, 61 survived) of Allied convoy OS-28 140 miles east of the Azores islands at 0323 hours. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 Allied convoy QP-12 departed Murmansk, Russia; it was consisted of 17 merchant ships, escorted by 1 catapult aircraft merchantman, 6 destroyers, 4 trawlers, and 1 anti-aircraft vessel. From the other end of the Arctic convoy route, PQ-16 departed Reykjavík, Iceland with 35 merchant ships, 1 minesweeper, and 4 trawlers. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 The US Navy cryptanalytic team in Melbourne, Australia belatedly voiced its agreement that the Japanese Navy was likely targeting Midway Atoll. In Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii, Joseph Rochefort furnished the official report noting that Midway Atoll was confirmed as the Japanese target. Chester Nimitz, who had already began to prepare for such an attack, ordered his carriers to exercise radio silence to prevent the Japanese from learning of his attempt to gather Pacific Fleet carriers at Pearl Harbor. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 Destroyer Yuzuki departed Truk, Caroline Islands for Saipan, Mariana Islands. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 Destroyer Yukikaze departed Kure, Japan. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 Raizo Tanaka led the 2nd Destroyer Squadron, consisted of light cruiser Jintsu and 10 destroyers, out of Kure, Japan to escort the invasion fleet of the Midway operation. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 Japanese troops occupied Leyte and Samar in the Philippine Islands unopposed. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 German 6th Army and 1st Panzer Army continued to threaten the Soviet troops near Izium, Ukraine with encirclement. 
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21 May 1942 WW2 George Marshall and Henry Stimson met in Washington DC, United States, concluding that there was a risk that the Japanese fleet suspected of sailing for Midway Atoll could actually be planning on conducting a major air raid against cities on the west coast of the United States. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 Mineichi Koga replaced Isoroku Yamamoto as the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Navy Combined Fleet. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 The Royal Navy submarine HMS Sickle "torpedoed" the world famous Monte Carlo Casino. While attacking shipping in the harbour one of the torpedoes ran up the beach and exploded, blowing out the windows of the casino which was being occupied, at the time, by German officers. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 4 US B-17 bombers attacked Vunakanau Airfield and Rapopo Airfield at Rabaul, New Britain. Pilot Senior Flight Petty Officer Shigetoshi Kudo and observer Lieutenant (jg) Akira Sugawara, in the J1N reconnaissance aircraft equipped with experimental aerial burst bomb launchers, shot down B-17E bomber "Honi Kuu Okole" (Major Paul Williams) and a unnamed B-17F bomber (Captain Joseph Geddes); it was this particular J1N aircraft's first combat. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 90th Bomb Squadron (flying B-25 aircraft) of USAAF 3rd Bombardment Group was transferred from Port Moresby to Dobodura Airfield, Australian Papua. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 Japanese 39th Division began to cross the Yangtze River near Pianyan, Hubei Province, China. In Hunan Province, the Japanese 3rd Corps attacked at dawn from Chayuansi, advancing northward toward Changyang in Hubei Province. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 USS Wahoo arrived at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii, ending her fifth war patrol. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 Shokaku arrived at Yokosuka, Japan with Cruiser Division 7 from Tokuyama, Japan. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 Yamato was drydocked at Yokosuka, Japan for inspection and repairs. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 One month after the death of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who had been killed when the aircraft in which he was travelling on a tour of inspection was shot down by US fighters over Bougainville Island, the news was finally revealed to the Japanese public. At Yokosuka, Japan, senior Japanese naval officers led by the Emperor, in person, trooped aboard the battleship Musashi to pay their last respects to Yamamato. Along with the late Admiral's ashes, contained in a small white box, was a poem by the Admiral that had been found in his sea-cabin on the battleship Yamato. It began: "So many are dead, I cannot face the Emperor... soon I shall join the young dead soldiers." 
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21 May 1943 WW2 RAF Hal Far was bombed by the Axis for the last time. 
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21 May 1943 WW2 The Soviet GKO issued a secret order for the construction of a railroad from Komsomolsk, Khabarovsk Krai, eastern Russia to Sovetskaya Gavan 200 kilometers to the southeast, in preparation for a war against Japan. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 Adolf Hitler ordered downed Allied airmen to be shot without trial. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 Anglo-Indian troops captured Kanglatongbi, India. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 USS Ray began pursuing a nine-ship Japanese convoy south of the Philippine Islands. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 USS Flier completed her repairs and resumed her first war patrol. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 USS Cero damaged a Japanese transport north of Dutch New Guinea, hitting her with 1 of 4 torpedoes fired. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 24 TBF, 20 SBD, a number of B-24, a number of P-39, and a number of New Zealand fighters and dive bombers attacked Vunakanau Airfield at Rabaul, New Britain. 1 TBF aircraft was shot down by anti-aircraft fire, and its crew was captured by the Japanese. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 An explosion on a LST moored in Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii set off a chain reaction that caused massive damage to shipping and installations and heavy loss of life. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 USS Wasp set sail for Wake Island. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 Four trains arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 12,438 Hungarian Jews (3,013 from Viseu de Sus (Felsövisó), 3,274 from Nyiregyháza, 3,290 from Sátoraljaújhely, and 2,861 from Mukacevo (Munkács)) and 2,000 Jews from Yugoslavia. 1,102 were registered into the camp; 2,698 were sent to the gas chambers. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 Submarine Boarfish was launched at Groton, Connecticut, United States, sponsored by Miss Barbara Walsh, daughter of Senator Arthur Walsh of the US state of New Jersey. 
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21 May 1944 WW2 USS Pintado departed Midway Atoll. 
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21 May 1944 RELIGIOUS German Lutheran theologian and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter from prison: 'God alone protects; otherwise there is nothing.'
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21 May 1945 WW2 Heinrich Himmler was arrested by British troops near Bremen, Germany as he attempted to disguise himself as refugee "Heinrich Hitzinger" and flee with the masses. 
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21 May 1945 WW2 Japanese traditional and special attacks damaged five Allied ships off Okinawa, Japan. 
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21 May 1945 WW2 USS Charr arrived at the naval base at Subic Bay, Luzon, Philippine Islands, ending her second war patrol. 
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21 May 1945 WW2 USS Wake Island departed Guam, Mariana Islands for Okinawa, Japan. 
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21 May 1945 WW2 USS Missouri departed Guam, Mariana Islands. 
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21 May 1945 WW2 USS Chub sank a Japanese ship in the Java Sea, hitting her with one of five torpedoes fired. 
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21 May 1945 WW2 Barbers Point Naval Air Station: Carrier Air Group 91 (CVG-91) departed. Escort Carrier Air Group 33 (CVEG-33) arrived on board. 
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21 May 1945 WW2 Prince Kotohito passed away in Odawara, Kanagawa, Japan. 
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21 May 1945 WW2 USS Hackleback departed Midway Atoll for her second war patrol. 
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21 May 1946 WW2 Canadian Manhattan Project Louis Slotin accidentally set of a prompt critical reaction when he allowed two beryllium hemispheres to touch with a plutonium core in the center. He realized his mistake immediately and lifted the upper hemisphere with his left hand, averting disaster, but not before he received 2,100 rems of radiation. He was rushed to the hospital. The plutonium core involved in this accident was the same one in the accident with physicist Harry Daghlian in 1945. 
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21 May 1946 WW2 Charles J. Badger was decommissioned from service. 
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21 May 1946 WW2 LST-1 was decommissioned from service. 
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21 May 1946 WW2 Rudolf Hess' attorney Dr. Alfred Seidl visited Soviet prosecutor office in Nürnberg, Germany and spoke with Major General of Justice Nikolai Zorya. 
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