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Today in History, May 21st

On May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris after the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight. Plus the founding of the American Red Cross.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published May 21, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

May 21 is best known for 1927, when Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris after the first solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic. The date also saw Clara Barton found the American Red Cross in 1881 and Amelia Earhart become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932.

The big story: Lindbergh lands in Paris (1927)

In 1919 a New York hotel owner named Raymond Orteig offered $25,000 to the first pilot to fly nonstop between New York and Paris. By 1927 famous aviators were lining up for it, and Charles Lindbergh was not one of them. He was a young former barnstormer flying the airmail between St. Louis and Chicago. Backers in St. Louis paid for a single-engine plane built by Ryan Airlines of San Diego, stripped of everything that wasn’t fuel: no radio, no gas gauge, no parachute. Lindbergh sat in a wicker chair and looked ahead through a periscope, because a fuel tank blocked his front window. He left Long Island on the morning of May 20 and flew about 3,600 miles. At 10:22 p.m. on May 21, after roughly 33 and a half hours in the air, he landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris. Tens of thousands of people swarmed the plane. He had gone 55 hours without sleep and came home a worldwide hero.

More events on May 21

Year	What happened
1542	Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto, the first European to reach the Mississippi River, died beside it in present-day Louisiana after a three-year hunt for gold.
1683	The Ashmolean opened in Oxford, England, often called the world’s first university museum.
1856	A pro-slavery mob sacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas, during the violence known as Bleeding Kansas.
1881	Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons founded the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C.
1901	Connecticut passed the first U.S. state law regulating motor vehicle speeds: 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads.
1932	Five years to the day after Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart landed in Ireland after flying solo from Newfoundland, the first woman to cross the Atlantic alone by air.
1972	Michelangelo’s Pietà was attacked and badly damaged inside St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.
1991	Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in a suicide bombing.
1994	The Flavr Savr tomato, the first genetically modified food approved for people to eat in the U.S., went on sale in grocery stores.
2017	Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus gave what it billed as its final performance.

Born on May 21

1844: Henri Rousseau, French painter of dreamlike jungle scenes, born in Laval.
1878: Glenn Curtiss, American aviation pioneer and aircraft builder, born in Hammondsport, New York.
1921: Andrei Sakharov, Soviet physicist and human rights advocate who won the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.