June 21
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
[edit] Births
- 1763 - Pierre Paul Royer-Collard, philosopher
- 1774 - Daniel D. Tompkins, entrepreneur, jurist, Congressman, Governor of New York, and the sixth Vice President of the United States
- 1805 - Charles Jackson, physician, chemist, pioneer geologist and mineralogist
- 1811 - Carlo Matteucci, physicist
- 1823 - Jean Chacornac, astronomer (d. 1873)
- 1839 - Machado de Assis, Brazilian writer (d. 1908)
- 1862 - Damrong Rajanubhab, Thai prince, administrator and historian (d. 1943)
- 1863 - Albert Sauveur, metallurgist (one of the founders of physical metallurgy)
- 1863 - Max Wolf, astronomer
- 1864 - Heinrich Wölfflin, art historian
- 1876 - William H. Keesom, physicist (pioneer in cryogenics)
- 1880 - Arnold Gesell, psychologist, pediatrician
- 1883 - Lluís Companys i Jover, President of Catalonia (d. 1940)
- 1884 - Claude Auchinleck, British Field Marshal (d. 1981)
- 1887 - Norman L. Bowen, petrologist (d. 1956)
- 1889 - Ralph Craig, American athlete (d. 1972)
- 1891 - Pier Luigi Nervi, architect (d. 1979)
- 1891 - Hermann Scherchen, German conductor (d. 1966)
- 1892 - Reinhold Niebuhr, Protestant theologian
- 1893 - Alois Hába, composer
- 1896 - Charles B. Momsen, inventor
- 1898 - Donald C. Peattie, botanist, writer
- 1903 - Al Hirschfeld, cartoonist (d. 2003)
- 1905 - Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher and playwright, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1964 (he refused to accept it) (d. 1980)
- 1911 - Ralph Wendell Burhoe, theologian and scientist, first American to win the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion
- 1912 - Mary McCarthy, writer (d. 1989)
- 1914 - Ralf Parland, writer
- 1914 - William Vickrey, economist, awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
- 1916 - Herbert Friedman, astronomer
- 1916 - Joseph Cyril Bamford, inventor and industrialist
- 1919 - Gower Champion, dancer and choreographer (d. 1980)
- 1919 - Gérard Pelletier, French journalist, politician and diplomat (d. 1997)
- 1919 - Vladimir Simagin, Chess International Grandmaster & Master, International Correspondence Chess Master, trainer
- 1921 - Helmut Heissenbüttel, German avant-garde novelist and poet
- 1921 - Judy Holliday, actress (d. 1965)
- 1921 - Jane Russell, actress
- 1925 - Maureen Stapleton, actress
- 1927 - Carl Stokes, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio (d. 1996)
- 1934 - Wulf Kristen, writer and recipient of the 1989 Heinrich Mann Prize
- 1935 - Françoise Sagan, writer
- 1939 - Ruben Berrios, politician
- 1942 - Henry Taylor, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet
- 1943 - Salomé, Spanish singer and Eurovision Song Contest winner
- 1944 - Ray Davies of The Kinks
- 1946 - Brenda Holloway, musician
- 1947 - Meredith Baxter, actress
- 1948 - Ian McEwan, writer
- 1948 - Lionel Rose, first aboriginal boxer to win a world title (in 1968)
- 1948 - Andrzej Sapkowski, Polish fantasy writer
- 1950 - Anne Carson, poet
- 1951 - Nils Lofgren, musician
- 1953 - Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan (twice), first female Muslim head of government
- 1954 - Robert Menasse, Austrian writer
- 1955 - Tim Bray, computer programmer
- 1955 - Michel Platini, French football player
- 1959 - Marcella Detroit, Singer, Musician & Song-writer (Shakespear's Sister)
- 1962 - Viktor Tsoi, Russian musician
- 1964 - Doug Savant, actor (Melrose Place, Desperate Housewives)
- 1966 - Rudi Bakhtiar, journalist
- 1976 - Nigel Lappin, Australian rules footballer
- 1973 - Juliette Lewis, actress
- 1981 - Brandon Flowers, singer/keyboardist (The Killers (band))
- 1982 - Prince William of Wales (son to Charles, Prince of Wales and his wife Diana)
[edit] Deaths
[edit] Events
- 524 - Battle of Vezerone:Burgundy triumphs over the French.
- 1665 - First soldiers of Le Régiment de Carignan-Salières arrive at Quebec to invade Iroquois territories.
- 1734 - In Montreal in New France (today primarily Quebec), a black slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique, was tortured then hanged by the French authorities in a public ceremony that involved her disgrace and the amputation of a hand.
- 1749 - Halifax Nova Scotia founded.
- 1788 - New Hampshire ratifies the Constitution and is thus admitted as the 9th state in the United States.
- 1798 - Irish Rebellion of 1798: British Army defeats Irish rebels at Battle of Vinegar Hill
- 1813 - Peninsular War: Battle of Vitoria
- 1813 - Laura Secord sets out to warn British forces of impending American attack at Queenston Ontario.
- 1824 - Greek War of Independence: Egyptian forces capture Psara in the Aegean Sea.
- 1859 - Franco-Austrian War: Battle of Solférino is fought. Witnessed by Henri Dunant, the results were the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross.
- 1864 - Maori Wars: The Tauranga Campaign ends.
- 1877 - The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants who were labour activists, are hanged in the Carbon County, Pennsylvania Prison.
- 1887 - Queen Victoria's golden jubilee
- 1898 - Guam becomes U.s Territory.
- 1915 - The U.S. Supreme Court hands down decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens.
- 1919 - Royal Canadian Mounted Police fire a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during Winnipeg General Strike.
- 1919 - Admiral Ludvig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed were the last casualties of the First World War.
- 1939 - The New York Yankees announce Lou Gehrig's retirement.
- 1940 - World War II: France surrenders to Germany.
- 1940 - First successful west to east navigation of Northwest Passage begins at Vancouver British Columbia.
- 1942 - World War II: Tobruk falls to German forces.
- 1942 - World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by the Japanese against USA mainland.
- 1945 - World War II: Battle of Okinawa ends.
- 1947 - A Seaman named Harold Dahl claims to have seen six UFOs near Maury Island. The next morning Dahl reported the first modern MIB encounter.
- 1957 - Ellen Louks Fairclough sworn in as Canada's first woman Cabinet Minister
- 1964 - Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
- 1965 - Folk rock band The Byrds release their highly influencial debut album Mr. Tambourine Man.
- 1973 - In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller Test, which now governs obscenity in U.S. law.
- 1982 - John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.
- 1982 - Fête de la Musique street music festival inaugurated in France by Jack Lang.
- 1989 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson that flag burning is protected speech under the United States Constitution.
- 2000 - Section 28 repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.
- 2003 - Deputy Justice Fazel Ahmed Manawi of the Afghan Supreme Court announces that Aftab editor Sayed Madawi and his deputy Ali Payam Sestani will be tried for "libelling Islam"
- 2003 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in J.K. Rowling's hugely popular Harry Potter series is published.
- 2004 - SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.
- 2005 - Four suicide bombers fail to detonate their bombs on London's underground and bus systems.
