Today in History - History - February 21st

1965Rights activist Malcolm X is shot dead by Nation of Islam followers at Audubon Ballroom in New York

1852George Bancroft becomes the American Geographical Society's first president

1972Richard Nixon becomes 1st US president to visit China

1173Pope Alexander III canonizes Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury

1975John Lennon releases "Rock 'n' Roll" album

2003Bill Maher's political talk show "Real Time with Bill Maher" debuts on HBO

2014US President Barack Obama meets with the Dalai Lama

1985Tim Raines is awarded a $12 million salary for 1985 by arbitrator

1874Benjamin Disraeli succeeds William Gladstone as British premier

1982Beth Daniel wins LPGA Bent Tree Ladies Golf Classic

1979Jennifer Love Hewitt, actress (Sarah Reeves-Party of Five)

1924Robert Mugabe, president (Zimbabwe, 1988- )

1954Actor Leonard Nimoy (22) weds actress Sandra Zober

1952Actress Elizabeth Taylor (19) marries for the 2nd time to actor Michael Wilding (39)

1807US President Martin Van Buren (24) weds highschool sweetheart Hannah Hoes (23) in Catskill, New York

1988Actor Dudley Moore (53) weds actress Brogan Lane at the Little Chapel of the West in Las Vegas

1968Howard Florey, pharmacologist/Pathologist, Nobel Prize Laureate, dies at 69

1513Julius II, [Giuliano dellea Rovere], Pope (1503-13), dies at 69

1941Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1891)

1965Malcolm X, [Little], black Moslem leader and human rights activist, assassinated in NYC at 39

1974Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player and co-founder of Tim Hortons, dies in a car crash at 44

1437King James I of Scotland dies at 42