April 21
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Featured Event
MPI/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The mysteries of Al Capone’s vault revealed
In a much-hyped special aired this day in 1986, television personality Geraldo Rivera blasted open walled-off space in a Chicago hotel that gangster Al Capone had used as his headquarters in the 1920s. Rivera and a demolition team spent two hours working their way into the (so-called) vault on live TV, hoping for guns or money or the victims of Capone’s mob hits. They found only dusty bottles. Rivera and his viewers were disappointed. Advertisers, however, were not: the show drew an estimated 30 million people, which beat just about everything else on TV that night. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Bill Ingalls/Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA
My Government will seek to restore confidence in the integrity of the nation’s political system by upholding the highest standards of honesty and propriety in public life.
Born this day in 1926 was Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, who ascended the throne in 1952 at age 25 and is known to favour simplicity in court life and to take a serious, informed interest in government business.
Famous Birthdays
More on April 21
© Franco Origlia/Getty Images
2025
A day after appearing at Easter services, Pope Francis died at the age of 88. The first pope from the Western Hemisphere, the first from South America, and the first from the Jesuit order, he brought many reforms to the church and a reputation for humility. [Explore Francis’s life in pictures.]
© Purple Rain/Warner Bros.
2016
Prince—who created groundbreaking music that fused funk, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and pop, which made him one of the biggest stars of the 1980s and ’90s—died at age 57 from an accidental drug overdose. [Test your knowledge of pop music.]
© Markwaters/Dreamstime.com
2002
In the first round of presidential voting in France, center-right Jacques Chirac, who was the incumbent, faced a reelection challenge from Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right nationalist leader of the National Front party. Two weeks later, Chirac handily defeated Le Pen in a run-off. [How much do you know about French history?]
Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum; object no. BK-1973-369
1990
Russian-born artist and fashion designer Erté—a major figure in Art Deco, who created spectacular costumes and set designs for French music-hall revues—died at age 97. [Take our fashion quiz.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1977
Annie, a popular musical based on the newspaper comic strip Little Orphan Annie, first opened on Broadway. [Test your knowledge of theater.]
AP
1966
The Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I, believed to be the Second Coming of Christ by many Rastas, arrived in Jamaica for a visit—an event since celebrated annually in Rastafari as Grounation Day.
© Historia/Shutterstock.com
1934
The Daily Mail printed a photograph that reportedly depicted the small head and neck of the Loch Ness monster. The iconic image, widely known as the “surgeon’s photograph,” sparked an international sensation but was later revealed to be a hoax. [Read about another famous hoax, claiming human-bat hybrids were living on the Moon, that didn’t fool Edgar Allan Poe.]
Pictorial Parade
1918
Manfred, Freiherr von Richthofen—better known as the Red Baron, he was Germany’s top flying ace in World War I—was shot down and killed during a battle near Amiens, France. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about World War I.]
Battle of San Jacinto; Accession ID: CHA 1989.080; Courtesy State Preservation Board, Austin, TX; Original Artist: McArdle, Henry A.; / 1836-1908; Photographer: Perry Huston, 8/3/94, post conservation. © State Preservation Board, Austin, Texas.
1836
General Sam Houston led 800 Texans to victory over a Mexican army of 1,500 under General Antonio López de Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto, ensuring Texas’s independence from Mexico. [Test your knowledge of the Texas Revolution.]
Science Museum, London, Crown copyright
1830
James Starley, an inventor and the father of the bicycle industry, was born in England. [How much do you know about cycling?]
Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
1800
French forces under General Jean-Baptiste Kléber recaptured Cairo and initiated the brief French occupation of Egypt. [Take our military history quiz.]
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Adams-Clement Collection, gift of Mary Louisa Adams Clement in memory of her mother, Louisa Catherine Adams Clement (object no. 1950.6.11)
1789
John Adams was sworn in as the first vice president of the United States, nine days before George Washington’s presidential inauguration. [Test your knowledge of American politics.]
C.W. Bardeen, Publisher, c1897/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. LC-DIG-pga-00127)
1782
Friedrich Froebel, an educational reformer and the founder of the kindergarten, was born in Oberweissbach, Thuringia. [Take our quiz about German history.]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (Louis V. Bell Fund, 1967), www.metmuseum.org
1526
Babur, a Central Asian prince, defeated the Delhi sultanate ruler Ibrahim Lodi in the First Battle of Panipat and laid the foundations of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. [Discover more about the Mughal Empire and its legacy.]
© duncan1890—DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images
1509
With the death of Henry VII, his eldest surviving son assumed the British throne as Henry VIII. [Take our quiz about Henry VIII and his wives.]