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May 21

day of the year

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ2580
Source-derived summary

May 21 is the 141st day of the year (142nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 224 days remain until the end of the year.

Events

Pre-1600

293 – Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appoint Galerius as Caesar to Diocletian, beginning the period of four rulers known as the Tetrarchy.

878 – Syracuse, Sicily, is captured by the Muslim Aghlabids after a nine-month siege.

879 – Pope John VIII gives blessings to Branimir of Croatia and to the Croatian people, considered to be international recognition of the Croatian state.

996 – Sixteen-year-old Otto III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

1294 – Coronation of Michael IX Palaiologos as Byzantine Emperor.

1347 – Coronation of John VI Kantakouzenos as Byzantine Emperor by patriarch Isidore I of Constantinople at the Church of St. Mary of Blachernae.

1349 – Dušan's Code, the constitution of the Serbian Empire, is enacted by Dušan the Mighty.

1403 – Henry III of Castile sends Ruy González de Clavijo as ambassador to Timur to discuss the possibility of an alliance between Timur and Castile against the Ottoman Empire.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “May 21” as day of the year. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1600, 1294, 1347, 1349—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where year can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as day of the year. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2580. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1600, 1294, 1347 and 1349.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “May 21”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow May 21 primary sources, May 21 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “May 21”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from May 21” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.