May 21 in History

Empress Catherine I established the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky as one of Russia's highest military and civil honors, named after the medieval prince who defended Novgorod against Swedish and German invaders. The Soviet government revived the award in 1942 during World War II, stripping its religious imagery but preserving its prestige as recognition of exceptional military leadership.

Gerry Connolly, a Democratic congressman representing Virginia's 11th district, died at 75 after years of public service that included chairing the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and championing federal employee rights. His tenure in Congress focused on government oversight and environmental policy, earning him recognition as a persistent advocate for the federal workforce in the Washington suburbs.

Four rulers to control one empire—that was Diocletian's solution in 293, when running Rome from a single throne had become impossible. He kept the East, gave Maximian the West, and now added junior partners: Galerius got the Balkans under Diocletian, Constantius took Gaul and Britain under Maximian. The Tetrarchy. Each Caesar would someday become Augustus, each Augustus would retire at twenty years. Orderly succession, no civil war, perfect division of labor. It lasted exactly one generation. Then Constantine—Constantius's son—decided he'd rather conquer the whole thing than share a quarter of it.

The letter arrived in Latin, addressed to "Branimir, Duke of the Croats." Pope John VIII didn't just send blessings—he bypassed the Frankish bishops who'd claimed authority over Croatia for decades and wrote directly to Branimir's court. The Vatican was picking sides in a turf war. By recognizing Croatian clergy and leadership without Frankish intermediaries, John granted something no army could: legitimacy on the international stage. Croatia wasn't a rebellious province anymore. It was a state the Pope himself acknowledged. Sometimes independence arrives not with a sword, but with papal seal and wax.

The journey took three years and 4,000 miles. Ruy González de Clavijo left Castile in 1403 carrying Henry III's proposal: Christian Europe and the Turco-Mongol conqueror against the Ottoman Empire. By the time he reached Samarkand, he found Timur preparing to invade China instead. The ambassador watched executions, toured marble palaces, recorded everything in meticulous detail. Timur died before Clavijo made it home. The alliance never happened. But his travel journal survived—the only European eyewitness account of Timur's court at its height, written by a man who rode 4,000 miles to meet a corpse.

The same queen burning Protestants at the stake was simultaneously founding schools. Queen Mary I chartered Derby School in 1554, creating a grammar school for boys while her reign of religious terror killed nearly 300 people. The school taught Latin and Greek to Derby's sons for free—Mary believed educated men made better Catholics. Derby School still operates today, 470 years later, though it dropped the royal founder from most marketing materials. Turns out nobody wants their kids' blazers bearing the crest of Bloody Mary. Education and execution, signed by the same hand.

Three countries decided what should happen to nations that weren't in the room. The Dutch Republic, England, and France met at The Hague in 1659 to draft peace terms for the Second Northern War—a conflict burning across Sweden, Poland, and Russia. They weren't fighting. They were writing the script. The concert proposed Swedish withdrawals, Polish security, and a balance of power in the Baltic. Sweden ignored most of it. But the principle stuck: major powers now claimed the right to settle other people's wars by committee, whether the combatants agreed or not.

Seventeen Frenchmen held a makeshift fort for five days against seven hundred Iroquois warriors. Adam Dollard des Ormeaux and his volunteers had planned to ambush Iroquois canoes on the Ottawa River—easy pickings, they thought. Instead they got trapped at Long Sault rapids with forty-four Huron and Algonquin allies. The Iroquois didn't lose interest. They waited. Picked them off. By May 21, 1660, everyone inside was dead. But those five days bought Montreal time to prepare its defenses. The city survived the spring. Sixteen men who wanted glory accidentally saved a colony.

Mary Campbell knew her new name in Lenape. Kee-on-da-con-sy. She was ten when they took her from Pennsylvania in 1758, sixteen when her brother found her among the Delaware. She didn't want to leave. The warrior who'd adopted her as a daughter had taught her everything—language, customs, a completely different life. Her brother had to negotiate for months. When she finally returned to white society, she couldn't speak English anymore. Fifty-eight years later, she died in Ohio, still caught between worlds. Sometimes the captive is the one who loses their freedom when they're "rescued."

The mountain had been warning them for months. Mount Unzen's new lava dome kept growing, swelling like a blister ready to pop. When it finally collapsed on May 21, 1792, the rock didn't just fall—it triggered an avalanche that hit Ariake Bay so hard it created a tsunami. Waves slammed into coastal villages around Shimabara Peninsula. Nearly 15,000 people drowned. Japan still calls it the Shimabara Catastrophe, their deadliest volcanic disaster. And the dome? It just kept rebuilding itself, doing the same thing again in 1991.

A Turkish-Albanian commander named Ahmed Jezzar Pasha held a coastal fortress with 4,000 men against Napoleon's 13,000. For two months. Napoleon threw wave after wave at Acre's walls, lost 2,200 soldiers to siege and plague, and couldn't break through. He'd conquered Egypt in weeks. He'd crushed European armies without breaking stride. But this Ottoman officer, backed by British naval guns and sheer bloody-mindedness, stopped him cold. Napoleon retreated in May 1799, his aura of invincibility cracked. One stubborn pasha in one minor port ended France's dreams of an eastern empire.