21 June History


Month:                           Date:     

  • 217 BC    -    Carthaginian forces led by Hannibal destroy a Roman army under consul Gaius Flaminicy in a battle at Lake Trasimenus in central Italy.
  • 1314    -    The Scots, under Robert the Bruce, defeat Edward II's army at Bannockburn.
  • 1377    -    Richard II, who is still a child, succeeds his grandfather, Edward III.
  • 1667    -    The Peace of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War as the Dutch cede New Amsterdam to the English.
  • 1675    -    Christopher Wren begins work on rebuilding St. Paul's Cathedral in London after the Great Fire.
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  • 1791    -    The French royal family is arrested in Varennes.
  • 1834    -    C. H. McCormick patents the first practical reaper.
  • 1862    -    Union and Confederate forces skirmish at the Chickahominy Creek.
  • 1863    -    In the second day of fighting, Confederate troops fails to dislodge a Union force at the Battle of LaFourche Crossing.
  • 1887    -    Britain celebrates the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria.
  • 1900    -    General Arthur MacArthur offers amnesty to Filipinos rebelling against American rule.
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  • 1908    -    Mulai Hafid again proclaims himself the true sultan of Morocco.
  • 1911    -    Porforio Diaz, the ex-president of Mexico, exiles himself to Paris.
  • 1915    -    Germany uses poison gas for the first time in warfare in the Argonne Forest.
  • 1919    -    Germans scuttle their own fleet at Scapa Flow, Scotland.
  • 1939    -    Baseball legend Lou Gehrig is forced to quit baseball because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis–a disease which wastes muscles.
  • 1942    -    German General Erwin Rommel captures the port city of Tobruk in North Africa.
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  • 1945    -    Japanese forces on Okinawa surrender to American troops.
  • 1948    -    Dr. Peter Goldmark demonstrates his "long-playing" record.
  • 1958    -    A federal judge allows Little Rock, Arkansas to delay school integration.
  • 1963    -    France announces it will withdraw from the NATO fleet in the North Atlantic.
  • 1964    -    Three civil rights workers disappear in Meridian, Mississippi.
  • 1982    -    John Hinkley Jr. is found not guilty by reason of insanity for attempting to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.
  • 1995    -    The U.S. Senate votes against the nomination of Dr. Henry W. Foster for Surgeon General.

  • 21 June Birthdays

  • 1764    -    Willaim Sydney Smith, British seaman during the Napoleonic Wars.
  • 1859    -    Henry Ossawa Tanner, African-American painter.
  • 1880    -    Arnold Lucius Gesell, psychologist and pediatrician.
  • 1882    -    Rockwell Kent, artist, book illustrator.
  • 1892    -    Reinhold Niebuhr, Protestant theologian.
  • 1905    -    Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and existentialist.
  • 1911    -    Albert Hirschfield, illustrator.
  • 1912    -    Mary McCarthy, American novelist (Memories of Catholic Girlhood, The Group).
  • 1922    -    Judy Holliday, actress.
  • 1927    -    Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.
  • 1928    -    Judith Raskin, soprano.