1821 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar).

Events

• February 23 - The Philadelphia College of Apothecaries founds the first pharmacy college.
• March 25 - Greece declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire, beginning the Greek War of Independence.
• July 10 - The United States takes possession of its newly-bought territory of Florida from Spain.
• July 28 - Peru declares independence from Spain.
• August 4 - Atkinson & Alexander publish the Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper.
• September 15 - Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica gain independence from Spain.
• September 27 - Mexico gains its independence from Spain.
• August 10 - Missouri is admitted as the 24th U.S. state.
• November 16 - American Old West: Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and sells his merchandise for a huge profit (he immediately planned to return the following year over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail).
• In the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlawed the John Cleland novel, Fanny Hill . The publisher, Peter Holmes, was convicted for printing a "lewd and obscene" novel.

Births

• January 8 - James Longstreet, Confederate General (d. 1904)
• February 3 - Elizabeth Blackwell, first female physician in the United States (d. 1910)
• February 11 - Hermann Allmers , writer (d. 1902)
• February 11 - Auguste Edouard Mariette, French Egyptologist who dug out the Sphinx (d. 1881)
• February 17 - Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, better known as Lola Montez (d. 1861)
• February 19 - August Schleicher, German linguist (d. 1868)
• March 1 - Joseph Hubert Reinkens, German Old Catholic bishop (d. 1896)
• April 9 - Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, French poet and writer (d. 1867)
• May 8 - Jean Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross and recipient of the Nobel Prize in peace 1901 (d. 1910)
• May 8 – William Henry Vanderbilt, entrepreneur (d. 1885)
• May 17 - Sebastian Kneipp, naturopathist (d. 1897)
• July 18 - Pauline Garcia-Viardot, mezzo-soprano and composer (d. 1910)
• August 10 - Jay Cooke, financier (d. 1905)
• October 13 - Rudolf Virchow, German doctor, pathologist, biologist, and politician (d. 1902)
• October 21 - Thomas Lyon-Bowes, the Monster of Glamis and member of the British Royal Family
• November 11 - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian writer (d. 1881)
• Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, Canadian politician
• Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1902)

Deaths

• January 4 - Elizabeth Ann Seton, American saint (b. 1774)
• February 23 - John Keats, British poet (b. 1795)
• March 13 - John Hunter, second governor of New South Wales (b. 1737)
• May 5 - Napoleon I of France (b. 1769)
• May 19 - Camille Jordan, French politician (b. 1771)
• September 10 - Johann Dominicus Fiorillo, German painter and art historian