Language Martyrs' Day: Honoring Bengali's Fallen Students
Language Martyrs' Day honors the students shot dead by Pakistani police in Dhaka on February 21, 1952, for demanding Bengali be recognized as a state language alongside Urdu. Their sacrifice ignited the Bengali language movement, ultimately contributing to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, and inspired UNESCO to designate this date as International Mother Language Day.
February 21
What Else Happened on February 21
Athanasius walked back into Alexandria after his third exile. He'd been bishop there since 328. He'd been thrown out in 336, 339, and 356. Three different emper…
Severianus refused to hand over the church's sacred texts. Roman officials in Palestine had ordered all Christian bishops to surrender their scriptures for burn…
Thomas resigned in 1245 after confessing to torture and forgery. He was Finland's first bishop. The job came with converting pagans who didn't want converting. …
The Prussian Confederation formed when 53 Prussian cities and nobles decided they'd rather fight their own king than keep paying his war taxes. They were techni…
Ahmed Gragn had conquered two-thirds of Ethiopia. For fourteen years, his Muslim forces burned churches, enslaved populations, pushed the Christian empire to th…
A sixteen-year-old hiding in a monastery became Tsar of Russia because nobody else wanted the job. Mikhail Romanov's father was in Polish captivity. His mother …
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