21st July

Events

• 1298 - Battle of Falkirk (1298): England's Edward Longshank defeats William Wallace's Scottish rebels
• 1718 - Treaty of Passarowitz signed.
• 1774 - Russo-Turkish War, 1768-74: Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji ending six years of war.
• 1831 - Inauguration of Leopold I of Belgium, first king of the Belgians.
• 1861 - American Civil War: First Battle of Bull Run - At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war begins (Confederate victory).
• 1865 - In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots Dave Tutt dead in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.
• 1873 - At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American West (US$3,000 from the Rock Island Express).
• 1877 - A day after bloody rioting in Baltimore from Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of 9 rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh stage a sympathy strike that is met with an assault by the state militia - Pittsburgh then erupts into widespread rioting.
• 1925 - Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.
• 1931 - CBS's New York City station begins broadcasting the first regular seven days a week television schedule in the U. S. The first broadcast included Mayor James J. Walker, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin.
• 1944 - A day after the July 20 Plot to assassinate him, Adolf Hitler makes an announcement on German radio pledging that "accounts will be settled."
• 1944 - World War II: Battle of Guam - American troops land on Guam starting the battle (ends on August 10).
• 1954 - First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
• 1961 - Mercury program: Gus Grissom piloting the Mercury 4 capsule "Liberty Bell 7" becomes the second American to go into orbit around the Earth.
• 1970 - After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.
• 1984 - In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in apparently the first robot-related death in the United States.
• 1997 - The fully restored USS Constitution (aka "Old Ironsides") celebrates her 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
• 2002 - Telecom giant WorldCom files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the largest such filling in United States history.
• 2003 - The last old-style Volkswagen Beetle rolled of its production line in Pueblo, Mexico. It was car number 21,529,464 of the model, and was immediately shipped off to the company's museum in Wolfsburg, Germany. In true Mexican fashion, a mariachi band serenaded the last car in the 68-year-old history.

Births

• 1810 - Henri Victor Regnault chemist and physicist
• 1858 - Lovis Corinth, painter and graphic artist (+ 1925)
• 1870 - Emil Orlik, painter and graphic artist (+ 1932)
• 1893 - Hans Fallada, writer (+ 1947)
• 1899 - Hart Crane, poet (+ 1932)
• 1899 - Ernest Hemingway, author (+ 1961)
• 1903 - Roy Neuberger, financier & art collector
• 1911 - Marshall McLuhan, author (+ 1980)
• 1920 - Isaac Stern, violinist (+ 2001)
• 1924 - Don Knotts, actor
• 1926 - Norman Jewison, film director
• 1935 - Norbert Blüm, politician
• 1938 - Janet Reno, former Attorney General of the United States
• 1943 - Edward Herrmann, actor
• 1944 - Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator: A Democrat from Minnesota
• 1948 - Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), singer
• 1948 - Garry Trudeau, cartoonist
• 1952 - Robin Williams, comedian
• 1957 - Jon Lovitz, comedian
• 1968 - Brandi Chastain, American soccer player
• 1978 - Josh Hartnett, actor

Deaths

• 1425 - Manuel II Palaeologus, Byzantine Emperor
• 1796 - Robert Burns, poet
• 1833 - Robert G. Ingersoll, American political leader and orator, atheist, American Civil War Colonel
• 1870 - Joseph Strauss, composer
• 1938 - Owen Wister, author
• 1943 - Charlie Paddock, American athlete
• 1948 - David Wark Griffith, film director
• 1967 - Basil Rathbone, actor
• 1968 - Ruth St. Denis, dancer, choreographer
• 1982 - Dave Garroway, television host
• 1998 - Alan Shepard, astronaut
• 1998 - Robert Young, actor

Holidays and observances

• Belgium: National holiday (1831 - inauguration of Leopold I, first king of the Belgians)
• Bolivia: Martyrs' Day
• Guam: Liberation Day (1944)

July 20 - July 22 - June 21 - August 21 -- listing of all days

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