What happened this day in history - February 21
1804 - British engineer Richard Trevithick demonstrated the first steam engine to run on rails.
1858 - The first electronic burglar alarm was installed, in Boston USA.
1931 - The New Statesman was published for the first time.
1952 - Identity cards were scrapped in Britain.
1956 - The Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme was set up.
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Hide Ad1964 - £10 notes were issued for the first time since World War II.
1965 - Controversial black activist Malcolm X was assassinated at a meeting in New York.
1994 - Parliament voted to reduce the age of consent for homosexual men from 21 to 18.
1995 - Steve Fossett landed in Canada, becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.
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Hide Ad1995: The RAF presented Flight Lieutenant Jo Sauter as their first female bomber pilot.
2001 - The European Commission banned all British milk, meat and livestock exports following the UK’s first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease for 20 years.