February 21

In literary history

• 1944The Armenian poet Missak Manouchian was shot at Fort Mont-Valérien with twenty-two comrades, his last letter asking his wife not to weep. The Nazis had plastered their faces across Paris to discredit the Resistance; it made them icons instead.

Writers born on February 21

• W.H. Auden (1907),
• David Foster Wallace (1962)

The Daily Canon for February 21

Musée des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden (1939).