Template:On this day - May 21

Philip II of Spain

• 822 – In the Emirate of Córdoba (present-day Spain), Abd al-Rahman II is named the new Umayyad emir.
• 1403 – Henry III of Castile sends an embassy to the Tatars of Tamerlane (in present-day Uzbekistan) to try to secure an alliance against the Ottomans.
• 1499 – In Spain, the Catholic Monarchs issue a Royal Provision appointing Francisco de Bobadilla Governor of Hispaniola and granting liberties, pardons and other incentives to encourage settlement in America.
• 1499 – In Spain, the Catholic Monarchs issue the Leyes por la brevedad y orden de los pleitos (Laws for the brevity and order of lawsuits), to reform and speed up the administration of justice, combating judicial delays, ordering procedure and reducing appeals.
• 1527 – Birth of Philip II, King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Duke of Milan, Sovereign of the Netherlands, Duke of Burgundy, and King of England and Ireland iure uxoris (d. 1598).
• 1542 – Death of Hernando de Soto, Spanish adelantado and explorer, known as the Conqueror of the three Americas (b. 1500).
• 1565 – Birth of Juan de Oviedo, Spanish sculptor and architect (d. 1625).
• 1664 – Birth of Giulio Alberoni, Italian cardinal and adviser to Philip V of Spain (d. 1752).
• 1814 – Death of Jordán de Asso, Spanish naturalist, jurist and historian.
• 1822 – In Mexico, Agustín de Iturbide is sworn in as emperor of the First Mexican Empire.
• 1879 – During the War of the Pacific, two Peruvian ironclads led by Miguel Grau Seminario try to lift the blockade imposed by the Chilean ships under the command of Arturo Prat at the Battle of Iquique.
• 1903 – The German squadron, under the command of Prince Henry of Prussia, the emperor's brother, arrives in Vigo (Spain).
• 1916 – Ramón Menéndez Pidal takes up his seat at the Royal Academy of History.
• 1920 – In Mexico, Venustiano Carranza (leader of the Mexican Revolution of 1910) is murdered.
• 1941 – Off Key West (Florida) the steamship Faja de Oro is sunk, the second Mexican oil tanker presumably sunk by the Axis powers, which led Mexico to abandon its neutrality and enter the Second World War.
• 1947 – At Paso de los Libres (Argentina) and Uruguaiana (Brazil) presidents Juan Domingo Perón and Eurico Gaspar Dutra inaugurate the Agustín P. Justo-Getúlio Vargas International Bridge (open to the public since two years earlier).
• 1963 – In the Cueva del Civil, in the village of Tírig (Spain), a group of French looters steal cave paintings by the crude method of knocking them off with a chisel.
• 1963 – In Moscow (Russia), Lomonosov University names Fidel Castro Doctor Honoris Causa.
• 1984 – In Paraguay Escolástico Covando (the longest-held political prisoner in America), sentenced in 1962 for taking part in a military conspiracy against the Paraguayan dictator Stroessner, regains his freedom.
• 2005 – In Antuco (Chile) the army's second worst peacetime tragedy occurs, when 45 soldiers die in a snowstorm.
• 2014 – Death of Jaime Lusinchi, Venezuelan physician and politician, President of Venezuela from 1984 to 1989 (b. 1924).