21 June History
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.