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What happened in history on this day: July 21?
On July 21 in ...
- 230 - Saint Pontianus begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
- 365 - In the Greece - Crete - Knossos area, a large earthquake occurs. This earthquake affected the eastern Mediterranean region, including Italy, Greece, Palestine, and North Africa. Coastal towns in the region are leveled and a tsunami destroys the Egyptian port of Alexandria, and the famous lighthouse. Some 50,000 people may have been killed.
- 1403 - King Henry of England defeats army of Harry Hotspur and Earl of Worcester at battle of Shrewsbury.
- 1704 - 1900 English and 400 Dutch marines land on Gibraltar Isthmus, succeeding in isolating the rock from the mainland.
- 1804 - Birth of Victor Schoelcher in Guadeloupe; abolished french slavery.
- 1808 - Junta Barcelonesa in Spain authorizes peseta denomination coins.
- 1816 - Birth of Paul Julius, Baron von Reuter; founded Reuters news service.
- 1831 - Belgium gains independence from Netherlands, Leopold I made king.
- 1836 - First Canadian railroad opens, between Laprairie and Saint John, Québec.
- 1846 - Mormons found first English settlement in California (San Joaquin Valley).
- 1861 - First major battle of Civil War ends (Bull Run), Virginia - CSA wins.
- 1863 - Birth of C Aubrey Smith in London, England; actor (Prisoner of Zenda).
- 1864 - Birth of Frances Clara Folsom in Buffalo, New York, USA; spouse of US President Grover Cleveland.
- 1873 - Jesse James makes his first train robbery.
- 1880 - Compressed air accident kills 20 workers on Hudson River tunnel, New York, USA.
- 1885 - Birth of Frances Parkinson Keyes; novelist (Dinner at Antoine).
- 1896 - Birth of Jean Rivier in Villemomble, France; composer (Vénitienne).
- 1896 - The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, Inc. is founded in Washington, D.C., by the merger of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, the Women's Era Club of Boston, and the Colored Women's League of Washington, D.C.
- 1899 - Birth of Ernest Miller Hemmingway in Oak Park, Illinois, USA; American author (The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Death in the Afternoon, To Have and Have Not) and journalist (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1953, Nobel Prize in Literature 1954) (dies 1961).
- 1899 - Birth of Hart Crane; US poet (The Bridge).
- 1900 - Pope Leo XIII encyclical to the Greek-Melkite rite.
- 1901 - Birth of Allyn Joslyn in Milford, Pennsylvania, USA; actor (They Won't Forget, Cafe Society).
- 1904 - Camille Jenatzy sets world auto speed record at 65.79 MPH.
- 1911 - Birth of Marshall McLuhan in Canada; writer (The Medium is the Message).
- 1918 - Near Orleans, Massachusetts, USA, German submarine U-156 fires over 100 shells on tugboat Perth Amboy and the barges it is towing, sinking the barges and badly damaging the tug. All 32 people on the tug and barges are rescued. Efforts to sink the submarine fail.
- 1919 - Dirigible crashes through bank skylight killing 13 (Chicago, Illinois).
- 1920 - Birth of Isaac Stern in Kremenetz, Russia; violinist (debut San Francisco Symphony).
- 1921 - Birth of Billy Taylor in Greenville, North Carolina, USA; orchestra leader (David Frost Show).
- 1921 - Cleveland Indians (9) and New York Yankees (7) hit a record 16 doubles.
- 1922 - Birth of Kay Starr in Dougherty, Oklahoma, USA; singer ("Rock and Roll Waltz", "Club Oasis").
- 1923 - Philadelphia Phillies score 12 in 6th inning and beat Chicago Cubs 17-4.
- 1924 - Birth of Don Knotts in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA; actor (Andy Griffth Show, Three's Company).
- 1925 - John Thomas Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law, and fined US$100. Scopes' lawyer had recommended a guilty verdict, to allow for an appeal. In 1927, Tennessee Supreme Court overturns the verdict.
- 1926 - Birth of Norman Jewison; director (Moonstruck, ...And Justice For All).
- 1928 - H E Wood discovers asteroid #1096 Reunerta.
- 1930 - US Veterans Administration established.
- 1931 - Birth of Gene Littler; golfer (1961 US Open).
- 1931 - Reno, Nevada race track becomes first in US to use daily double wagering.
- 1933 - Birth of John Gardner; scholar/writer (Grendel, Sunlight Dialogues).
- 1934 - 113 degrees F (45 degrees C), near Gallipolis, Ohio (state record).
- 1935 - Birth of Kaye Stevens; American singer (Jerry Lewis Show).
- 1935 - C Jackson discovers asteroid #1358 Gaika.
- 1940 - The People's Assembly of Lithuania declares entry of country into the USSR.
- 1942 - Eight die as coal waste heap slides in river valley near Oakwood, Virginia.
- 1942 - Birth of Fred Hetzel; NBA star (San Francisco, Cincinnati, Milwaukee Bucks).
- 1942 - Birth of Patricia Elliot in Gunnison, Colorado, USA; actress (Renee - Empire, One Life to Live).
- 1943 - Birth of David Downing in New York City, New York, USA; actor (Backstairs at the White House).
- 1943 - Birth of Edward Herrmann in Washington, DC, USA; actor (Day of the Dolphin, Reds).
- 1944 - (0030 hours) In Berlin, on orders from General Erich Fromm, a firing squad shots and kills Colonel of the General Staff Mertz von Quirnheim, General Friedrich Olbricht, Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg, and Lieutenant Wernere von Haeften.
- 1944 - (0100) Adolf Hitler broadcasts a speech throughout occupied Europe. He tells of the unsuccessful attempt on his life, naming Klaus von Stauffenberg as the intended assassin. Hitler appoints Heinrich Himmler Commander-in-Chief of the Replacement Army, and in charge of punishing the coup conspirators.
- 1944 - American Marines land on Guam.
- 1944 - Japanese premier Hedeki Tojo resigns.
- 1944 - American forces recapture Guam.
- 1945 - Birth of Alton Maddox in New York, USA; black activist/attorney (Tawana Brawley case).
- 1945 - Birth of Leigh Lawson in Atherston, England; actress (Fire and Sword, Charlie Boy).
- 1945 - Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Athletics play 24 innings 1-1 tie.
- 1946 - Birth of Zbigniew Kaczmarek in Poland; lightweight (Olympic-gold-1976).
- 1946 - Delegates of 21 nations meet in Paris, France, for a Peace Conference, to attempt to settle on the language of peace treaties with Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Finland.
- 1947 - Birth of Cat Stevens AKA Yusuf Islam; rocker ("Peace Train", "Father and Son", "Cat's in the Cradle").
- 1947 - Birth of Wendell Burton in San Antonio, Texas, USA; actor (Lucas - The New Dick Van Dyke Show).
- 1948 - Arshile Gorky, abstract expressionist, dies at age 43.
- 1948 - Birth of Art Hindle in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; actor (Jeff - Dallas, Berrengers).
- 1949 - Birth of Ludmila Smirnova in the USSR; pairs figure skater (Olympic-silver-1972).
- 1949 - US Senate ratifies North Atlantic Treaty by a vote of 82-13.
- 1951 - Birth of Doug Collins; American basketball player (Olympic-silver-1972).
- 1951 - Birth of Slick Watts; NBA basketball player (Seattle SuperSonic).
- 1952 - Birth of Robin Williams in Chicago, Illinois, USA; comedian (Mork and Mindy, Awakenings, Genie - Aladdin).
- 1954 - In Geneva, Switzerland, an agreement is signed to partition Viet Nam at the 17th parallel, between the (north) Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and the (south) Republic of Viet Nam.
- 1955 - First submarine powered by liquid metal cooled reactor launched - USS Seawolf.
- 1955 - Birth of Henry Preistman; rocker (The Christians - "Harvest the World").
- 1955 - Birth of Tacho Ocheriski; singer ("Putting on the Ritz").
- 1956 - Cincinnati Reds' pitcher Brooks Lawrence loses after 13 straight wins.
- 1957 - Bernard Spooner, US inventor of bulletproof jacket, dies.
- 1957 - Birth of Jon Lovitz in Tarzana, California, USA; comedian (Saturday Night Live).
- 1959 - First atomic-powered merchant ship, Savannah, christened, at Camden, New Jersey, USA.
- 1960 - Birth of Lance Guest in Saratoga, California, USA; actor (Lance - Lou Grant).
- 1960 - The country of Katanga forms in Africa.
- 1961 - American NASA program launches Mercury 4 (Liberty Bell) with Gus Grissom, in space for 16 minutes, lands 303 miles downrange.
- 1962 - 160 civil right activists jailed after demonstration in Albany, Georgia, USA.
- 1962 - Birth of Ike Eisenmann in Houston, Texas, USA; actor (Scott - Fantastic Journey).
- 1964 - Birth of Susan Swift in Houston, Texas, USA; actress (Chisholms).
- 1965 - Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey sign Regional Co-Operation pact.
- 1966 - Gemini X returns to Earth.
- 1967 - Death of Basil Rathbone of a heart attack at age 75; actor (Sherlock Holmes in 12 films and hundreds of radio plays).
- 1967 - Jimmy Foxx, baseball hall of famer (Detroit Tigers/534 home runs), dies at 59.
- 1969 - Russia's Luna 15 impacts moon after 52 lunar orbits.
- 1972 - Two passenger trains collide head-on killing 76 (Seville, Spain).
- 1972 - In New York, 57 murders occur in 24 hours.
- 1972 - Jigme Dori Wangchuck, king of Bhutan, dies.
- 1973 - Hank Aaron becomes second major league player to hit 700 home runs.
- 1973 - USSR launches Mars 4 for fly-by (2600 km) of the red planet.
- 1975 - Billy Martin fired as Texas Rangers' manager.
- 1975 - New York Mets' Felix Milan hits four singles; erased by Joe Torres' four double plays.
- 1976 - First outbreak of "Legionnaire's Disease" kills 29 in Philadelphia.
- 1976 - Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British ambassador to Ireland, is assassinated.
- 1978 - US Postal Service and unions agree on a contract, averting mail strike.
- 1978 - World's strongest dog, 80-kg Saint Bernard, pulls 2909-kg load 27 metres.
- 1979 - N Chernykh discovers asteroids #2585 Irpedina and #3298.
- 1979 - National Women's Hall of Fame (Seneca Falls, New York) dedicated.
- 1979 - Death of Ludwig Renn (original name, Arnold Friedrich Vieth von Golssenau) in East Berlin, Germany; novelist (Krieg 1928, Nachkrieg 1930).
- 1980 - Jean-Claude Droyer climbs the Eiffel Tower in 2 hours 18 minutes.
- 1981 - Birth of Blake Lewis; American Idol finalist.
- 1981 - Tohui The Panda is born in Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, Mexico. It is the first Panda to ever be born and survive in captivity outside of China.
- 1982 - HMS Hermes, the Royal Navy flagship during the Falklands War, returns home to Portsmouth to a hero's welcome.
- 1982 - Death of Dave Garroway by suicide at age 69; broadcaster (Garroway at Large TV show, NBC Today Show).
- 1983 - The lowest temperature on earth is recorded in Vostok Station, Antarctica with -89.2 degrees C (-128.6 degrees F).
- 1983 - Polish government ends 19 months of martial law.
- 1983 - US announces Lebanon freed American hostage David Dodge.
- 1984 - In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in the first robot-related death in the United States.
- 1984 - James Fixx, runner and author, dies at age 43 of a heart attack.
- 1984 - Marita Koch of German Democratic Republic sets world women's mark for 200-metre, 21.71s.
- 1985 - Mickey Shaughnessy, actor (Chicago Teddy Bears), dies at age 65.
- 1985 - Vicki Vola, actress (Miss Miller - Mr District Attorney) dies at age 69.
- 1986 - In the California - Nevada border region, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake occurs.
- 1986 - Virginia Hewitt, actress (Carol - Space Patrol), dies at age 60.
- 1988 - ESA's Ariane-3 launches two communications satellites (one Indian).
- 1989 - Greg LeMond (US) wins Tour de France in fastest time.
- 1989 - Mike Tyson TKOs Carl "the Truth" Williams in 1:33 of first round.
- 1990 - Goodwill Games opens in Seattle, Washington.
- 1990 - Rock band Pink Floyds' "The Wall" is performed where the Berlin Wall once stood.
- 1995 - In Gansu, China, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake occurs. Fourteen people killed, at least 60 injured, 5,000 left homeless, 4,500 houses destroyed and 5,000 houses damaged in the Yongdeng area.
- 1995 - (to July 26) The People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China fires missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
- 1996 - Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River in Quebec, in one of Canada's most costly natural disasters.
- 1997 - The fully restored USS Constitution sailing ship (aka "Old Ironsides") celebrates her 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
- 2000 - (to July 23) G-8 Nations hold their 26th Annual Summit. Issues include AIDS, the 'digital divide', and halving world poverty by 2015.
- 2002 - Telecommunications giant WorldCom files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (the largest such filing in United States history).
- 2004 - Death of Edward B. Lewis, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (born 1918).
- 2005 - A terrorist attack on London, similar to the July 7 attacks, includes four attempted bomb attacks on three underground trains and a London bus. The bombs fail to explode properly, and only one injury is reported, later found to be unconnected.
- 2005 - Death of Long John Baldry at age 64 of a chest infectionin hospital in Vancouver, BC, Canada; blues singer ("Let the Heartaches Begin" (1967)), voice actor (Dr. Robotnik - Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog TV show).
- 2006 - New York Yankees player Alex Rodriguez records his 2000th career hit, and at the same time becomes the youngest player to bat 450 home runs. Later in the day, San Diego Padres catcher Mike Piazza also makes his 2000th hit.
- 2006 - Saint Louis, Missouri, is hit by two major derechos (violent windstorms) in a span of three days.
- 2007 - The final epic novel in J.K. Rowling's bestselling series Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is released, selling over 8 million copies in the first 24 hours.
- 2007 - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney serves as Acting President for two and a half hours, while President George W. Bush undergoes a colonoscopy procedure.
- 2008 - China and Russia sign an accord settling the border in the north east of China, ending long-standing dispute and tensions in the area.
- 2008 - Radovan Karadžic, the first president of the Republika Srpska, is arrested in Belgrade, Serbia on allegations of war crimes, following a 12-year long manhunt.
- 2010 - The United States announces new sanctions against North Korea aimed to prevent North Korea selling arms and from procuring luxury goods, as well as to put out of business North Korean entities operating illicitly overseas.
- 2010 - John E. Irving, one of the heads of the Irving business empire in Canada, dies in Saint John, New Brunswick at age 78.
- 2010 - The number of people using the Facebook website worldwide hits 500 million.
- 2010 - Death of John E. Irving in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, at age 78; Irving Oil executive, member of Order of Canada, business magnate.
- 2011 - Space Shuttle Atlantis lands successfully at Kennedy Space Center after completing STS-135, concluding NASA's space shuttle program.
- 2017 - Death of John Heard at age 71 in Palo Alto, California; actor (Home Alone movie (1990), Beaches movie (1988), Cutter's Way movie (1981), Big movie (1988), The Sopranos TV show).
- 2017 - Death of Nikolay Kamenskiy, Russian ski jumper (born 1931).
- 2017 - Death of Hrvoje èarinic, 4th Prime Minister of Croatia (born 1935).
- 2019 - General elections in Ukraine. Servant of the People party under Volodymyr Zelensky wins presidency with 43 percent of vote and 254 of 424 members of parliament, to 13 percent for For Life, 8 percent for Petro Poroshenko, 8 percent for Yulia Tymoshenko, and 5 percent for Svyartoslav Vakarchuk.
- 2019 - A mob of over 100 suspected triad members dressed in white and armed with batons attack commuters indiscriminately at MTR Yuen Long station in Hong Kong, injuring 45.
- 2020 - European leaders agree to create a 750 billion euro (US$858 billion) recovery fund to rebuild EU economies impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- 2021 - The International Olympic Committee awards Brisbane the right to host the 2032 Summer Olympics.
- 2022 - In Rome, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigns his government.
- 2022 - Death of Shonka Dukureh at age 44; gospel singer, actor (Big Mama Thornton - Elvis movie (2022)).
- 2022 - Death of An An at age 35 at a theme park in Hong Kong; oldest male giant panda under human care.
- 2023 - Death of Tony Bennett at age 96; American singer ("I Left My Heart in San Francisco" (1962), "Duets II" song (2011), 19 Grammy awards).
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