June 21 in History

Historical Events on June 21

533

A Byzantine expeditionary fleet under Belisarius 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, was forced to commit suicide by his own general Akechi Mitsuhide.
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 in 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 ratifies the Constitution of the United States and is admitted as the ninth state in the United States.
1791

King Louis XVI of France 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.
1854

The first Victoria Cross is awarded during the bombardment of Bomarsund in the Åland Islands.
1864

American Civil War: The Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road begins.
1898

The United States captures Guam from Spain.
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.
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 in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed are the last casualties of World War I.
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

The first successful west-to-east navigation of Northwest Passage begins at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
1942

World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and 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 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 Mickey Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
1970

Penn Central declares Section 77 bankruptcy, largest ever US corporate bankruptcy up to this date.
1973

In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller test for obscenity in U.S. law.
1982

John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
1989

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that American flag-burning was a form of political protest protected by the First Amendment.
2000

Section 28 (of the Local Government Act 1988), 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 acquitted for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, is convicted of manslaughter 41 years afterwards (the case had been reopened in 2004).
2006

Pluto's newly discovered moons are officially named Nix and Hydra.
2009

Greenland assumes self-rule.
2012

A boat carrying more than 200 refugees capsized in the Indian Ocean between the Indonesian island of Java and Christmas Island, killing 17 people and leaving 70 others missing.

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