How many days and weeks until May 21st?

On May 21st 1927 Charles Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St Louis at Le Bourget outside Paris at twenty-two minutes past ten in the evening, thirty-three and a half hours after leaving New York. A crowd estimated at a hundred thousand broke through the fences and carried him off the field. He had navigated by dead reckoning, kept awake by opening the window, and packed five sandwiches, of which he ate one.

Queen Victoria opened the Manchester Ship Canal on May 21st 1894: thirty-six miles of navigation dug largely by hand by some seventeen thousand men, at a cost of around £15 million. It turned a city forty miles inland into one of Britain’s busiest ports. The Manchester merchants who put up the money had simply grown tired of paying Liverpool’s dock charges, and this was their answer.

On May 21st 1471 Henry VI died in the Tower of London on the night Edward IV returned to the city, and the Lancastrian line ended with him. Every year on the anniversary, lilies from Eton and roses from King’s College, Cambridge, the two foundations he endowed, are laid at the spot.

Seven national associations met in Paris on May 21st 1904 and founded FIFA. The four British associations, who considered themselves the authority on the game, declined to attend.

Born on May 21st: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Alexander Pope and Elizabeth Fry — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a May 21st birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — emerald for the stone, Gemini for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

May birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual May birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

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Gemini constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Gemini for a May 21st birthday.

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Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the May birthstone and the lily of the valley — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

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Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on May 21st, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

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