{"id":27583,"date":"2023-08-21T07:04:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T05:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=214200"},"modified":"2023-08-21T09:11:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T07:11:37","slug":"21-august-on-this-day-in-history","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/21-august-on-this-day-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"21 August: On this day in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

What events happened on 21 August in history? We round up the events, births and deaths\u2026 <\/p>

By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 21 August 2023 at 05:04 AM<\/p>

\n\n

21 August 1612<\/h3>\n

Diego\u00a0Sarmiento, 1st Count of Gondomar, was appointed Spanish\u00a0ambassador to London. His plans to arrange a marriage between Prince Charles and\u00a0the infanta Maria Anna of Spain eventually\u00a0came to nothing.<\/p>\n

21 August 1689<\/h3>\n

Although William Cleland, their\u00a0commander, was killed in the fighting, the Cameronian regiment successfully held the Perthshire town of Dunkeld against a much larger Jacobite force.<\/p>\n

21 August 1831<\/h3>\n

Outbreak in Southampton County,\u00a0Virginia, of Nat Turner\u2019s slave revolt; more than 50 whites were killed in the rebellion.\u00a0In its suppression over 100 enslaved Africans were killed and 16 more were hanged, including Turner himself.<\/p>\n

21 August 1911:\u00a0Mona Lisa goes missing from the Louvre<\/h3>\n

Handyman Vincenzo Peruggia walks out with priceless painting wrapped in a smock<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

Paris, 21 August 1911. The church bells rang to signal seven o\u2019clock. At the Louvre, the first workers were arriving in their white smocks. Few noticed the short figure of Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handy- man whom the museum had employed to\nmake protective glass cases for some of its most celebrated artworks. Peruggia, who had hidden in a museum closet overnight, simply strolled past them, his smock tucked under his arm. Then he went to his lodgings, where he unwrapped the painting hidden beneath the smock and placed it in a trunk. Its name was the Mona Lisa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And there, for the next two years, Leonardo<\/a>\u2019s masterpiece stayed. The Louvre authorities had not even noticed its disappear- ance for the first day, only realising it had been stolen when a visitor wondered where it was. The French newspapers went berserk, while tourists queued to view the empty space on the wall. But the days became weeks, the weeks became months, and there was no sign of the Mona Lisa. The police paid a routine visit to Peruggia\u2019s apartment, but they accepted his explanation that he had been working elsewhere that day. And they never bothered to search the trunk.<\/p>\n