June 21

Events

Pre-1600

• 533 - A Byzantine expeditionary fleet under Belisarios sails from Constantinople to attack the Vandals in Africa, via Greece and Sicily.
• 1307 - Külüg Khan is enthroned as Khagan of the Mongols and Wuzong of the Yuan.
• 1529 - French forces are driven out of northern Italy by Spain at the Battle of Landriano during the War of the League of Cognac.
• 1582 - Sengoku period: Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful of the Japanese daimyōs, is forced to commit suicide by his own general Akechi Mitsuhide.

  1601–1900

• 1621 - Execution of 27 Czech noblemen on the Old Town Square in Prague as a consequence of the Battle of White Mountain.
• 1734 - In Montreal, New France, a slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique is put to death, having been convicted of setting the fire that destroyed much of the city.
• 1749 - Halifax, Nova Scotia, is founded.
• 1768 - James Otis Jr. offends the King and Parliament in a speech to the Massachusetts General Court.
• 1788 - New Hampshire becomes the ninth state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.
• 1791 - King Louis XVI and his immediate family begin the Flight to Varennes during the French Revolution.
• 1798 - Irish Rebellion of 1798: The British Army defeats Irish rebels at the Battle of Vinegar Hill.
• 1813 - Peninsular War: Wellington defeats Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vitoria.
• 1824 - Greek War of Independence: Egyptian forces capture Psara in the Aegean Sea.
• 1826 - Maniots defeat Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha in the Battle of Vergas.
• 1848 - In the Wallachian Revolution, Ion Heliade Rădulescu and Christian Tell issue the Proclamation of Islaz and create a new republican government.
• 1864 - American Civil War: The Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road begins.
• 1898 - The United States captures Guam from Spain. The few warning shots fired by the U.S. naval vessels are misinterpreted as salutes by the Spanish garrison, which was unaware that the two nations were at war.
• 1900 - Boxer Rebellion: China formally declares war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan, as an edict issued from the Empress Dowager Cixi.

  1901–present

• 1915 - The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down Oklahoma grandfather clause legislation which had the effect of denying the right to vote to blacks.
• 1919 - The Royal Canadian Mounted Police fire a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during the Winnipeg general strike.
• 1919 - Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet at Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed are the last casualties of World War I.
• 1921 - The Irish village of Knockcroghery was burned by British forces.
• 1929 - An agreement brokered by U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow ends the Cristero War in Mexico.
• 1930 - One-year conscription comes into force in France.
• 1940 - World War II: Italy begins an unsuccessful invasion of France.
• 1942 - World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and German forces; 33,000 Allied troops are taken prisoner.
• 1942 - World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by Japan against the United States mainland.
• 1945 - World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ends when the organized resistance of Imperial Japanese Army forces collapses in the Mabuni area on the southern tip of the main island.
• 1952 - The Philippine School of Commerce, through a republic act, is converted to Philippine College of Commerce, later to be the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
• 1957 - Ellen Fairclough is sworn in as Canada's first female Cabinet Minister.
• 1963 - Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini is elected as Pope Paul VI.
• 1964 - Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
• 1970 - Penn Central declares Section 77 bankruptcy in what was the largest U.S. corporate bankruptcy to date.
• 1973 - The Primer Congreso del Hombre Andino is inaugurated in Arica, Chile.
• 1973 - In its decision in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller test for determining whether something is obscene and not protected speech under the U.S. constitution.
• 1978 - The original production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Evita, based on the life of Eva Perón, opens at the Prince Edward Theatre, London.
• 1982 - John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
• 1985 - Braathens SAFE Flight 139 is hijacked on approach to Oslo Airport, Fornebu. Special forces arrest the hijacker and there are no fatalities.
• 1989 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, that American flag-burning is a form of political protest protected by the First Amendment.
• 1993 - Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on STS-57 to retrieve the European Retrievable Carrier satellite. It is also the first shuttle mission to carry the Spacehab module.
• 2000 - Section 28, outlawing the 'promotion' of homosexuality in the United Kingdom, is repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.
• 2001 - A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicts 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen.
• 2004 - SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.
• 2005 - Edgar Ray Killen, who had previously been unsuccessfully tried for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, is convicted of manslaughter 41 years afterwards.
• 2006 - Pluto's newly discovered moons are officially named Nix and Hydra.
• 2006 - A Yeti Airlines de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter crashes at Jumla Airport in Nepal, killing nine people.
• 2009 - Greenland assumes self-rule.
• 2012 - A boat carrying more than 200 migrants capsizes in the Indian Ocean between the Indonesian island of Java and Christmas Island, killing 17 people and leaving 70 others missing.
• 2012 - An Indonesian Air Force Fokker F27 Friendship crashes near Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, killing 11.
• 2025 - A hot air balloon catches fire mid-flight and crashes in Praia Grande, Santa Catarina, Brazil, killing 8 of the 21 on board.

  Births

Pre-1600

• 906 - Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Muhammad, Saffarid emir
• 1002 - Pope Leo IX
• 1226 - Bolesław V the Chaste of Poland
• 1521 - John II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Haderslev
• 1528 - Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Empress
• 1535 - Leonhard Rauwolf, German physician and botanist
• 1565 - Scipione Chiaramonti, Italian philosopher and astronomer

  1601–1900

• 1630 - Samuel Oppenheimer, German Jewish banker and diplomat
• 1636 - Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, French noble
• 1639 - Increase Mather, American minister and author
• 1676 - Anthony Collins, English philosopher and author
• 1706 - John Dollond, English optician and astronomer
• 1710 - James Short, Scottish-English mathematician and optician
• 1712 - Luc Urbain de Bouëxic, comte de Guichen, French admiral
• 1730 - Motoori Norinaga, Japanese poet and scholar
• 1732 - Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, German pianist and composer
• 1736 - Enoch Poor, American general
• 1741 - Prince Benedetto, Duke of Chablais
• 1750 - Pierre-Nicolas Beauvallet, French sculptor and illustrator
• 1759 - Alexander J. Dallas, American lawyer and politician, 6th United States Secretary of the Treasury
• 1763 - Pierre Paul Royer-Collard, French philosopher and academic
• 1764 - Sidney Smith, English admiral and politician
• 1774 - Daniel D. Tompkins, American lawyer and politician, 6th Vice President of the United States
• 1781 - Siméon Denis Poisson, French mathematician and physicist
• 1786 - Charles Edward Horn, English opera singer and composer
• 1792 - Ferdinand Christian Baur, German theologian and scholar
• 1797 - Wilhelm Küchelbecker, Russian poet and author
• 1798 - Alexander Thomson of Banchory, Scottish jurist, agriculturalist and religious activist
• 1802 - Karl Zittel, German theologian
• 1805 - Karl Friedrich Curschmann, German composer and singer
• 1805 - Charles Thomas Jackson, American physician and geologist
• 1811 - Matthew Simpson, American Methodist bishop and academic
• 1814 - Paweł Bryliński, Polish sculptor
• 1814 - Anton Nuhn, German anatomist and academic
• 1823 - Jean Chacornac, French astronomer
• 1825 - Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie, Irish economist and jurist
• 1825 - William Stubbs, English bishop and historian
• 1828 - Ferdinand André Fouqué, French geologist and academic
• 1828 - Nikolaus Nilles, German Catholic writer and teacher
• 1834 - Frans de Cort, Flemish poet and author
• 1836 - Luigi Tripepi, Italian theologian
• 1839 - Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Brazilian author, poet, and playwright
• 1845 - Samuel Griffith, Welsh-Australian politician, 9th Premier of Queensland
• 1845 - Arthur Cowper Ranyard, English astrophysicist and astronomer
• 1846 - Marion Adams-Acton, Scottish-English author and playwright
• 1846 - Enrico Coleman, Italian painter
• 1850 - Daniel Carter Beard, American author and illustrator, co-founded the Boy Scouts of America
• 1857 - Charles Alderton, American pharmacist, founded Dr. Pepper
• 1858 - Giuseppe De Sanctis, Italian painter
• 1858 - Medardo Rosso, Italian sculptor and educator
• 1859 - Henry Ossawa Tanner, American-French painter and illustrator
• 1860 - William Dobinson Halliburton, British physiologist and biochemist
• 1862 - Damrong Rajanubhab, Thai historian and author
• 1863 - Ludwig Lange, German physicist
• 1863 - Max Wolf, German astronomer and academic
• 1864 - Heinrich Wölfflin, Swiss historian and critic
• 1866 - Matt Kilroy, American baseball player
• 1867 - Oscar Florianus Bluemner, German-American painter and illustrator
• 1867 - William Brede Kristensen, Norwegian historian of religion
• 1868 - Edwin Stephen Goodrich, English zoologist and anatomist
• 1870 - Clara Immerwahr, Jewish-German chemist and academic
• 1870 - Anthony Michell, English-Australian engineer
• 1870 - Julio Ruelas, Mexican painter
• 1874 - Jacob Linzbach, Estonian linguist
• 1876 - Willem Hendrik Keesom, Dutch physicist and academic
• 1880 - Arnold Gesell, American psychologist and pediatrician
• 1880 - Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp, English economist and civil servant
• 1881 - Natalia Goncharova, Russian painter, costume designer, and illustrator
• 1882 - Ya'acov Ben-Dov, Israeli photographer and cinematographer
• 1882 - Lluís Companys, Spanish lawyer and politician, 123rd President of Catalonia
• 1882 - Adrianus de Jong, Dutch fencer and soldier
• 1882 - Rockwell Kent, American painter and illustrator
• 1883 - Feodor Gladkov, Russian author and educator
• 1884 - Claude Auchinleck, English field marshal
• 1887 - Norman L. Bowen, Canadian geologist and petrologist
• 1889 - Ralph Craig, American sprinter and sailor
• 1891 - Pier Luigi Nervi, Italian architect and engineer, co-designed the Pirelli Tower and Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption
• 1891 - Hermann Scherchen, German-Swiss viola player and conductor
• 1892 - Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian and academic
• 1893 - Alois Hába, Czech composer and educator
• 1894 - Milward Kennedy, English journalist and civil servant
• 1894 - Harry Schmidt, German mathematician and physicist
• 1896 - Charles Momsen, American admiral, invented the Momsen lung
• 1899 - Pavel Haas, Czech composer
• 1900 - Georges-Henri Bousquet, French economist and Islamologist