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July 21: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – July 21 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
1. 21st July 1403: The battle of Shrewsbury was fought against King Henry IV by Percys.
2. 21st July 1542: Pope Paul III began the inquisition against Protestants.
3. 21st July 1545: During the French invasion, the first French troops landed on the coast of the Isle of Wight today.
4. 21st July 1588: The English fleet and the Spanish Armada had their first engagement off the Eddystone Rocks.
5. 21st July 1669: The Constitution of the English Colony Carolina by John Locke was approved today.
18th Century – What Happened on July 21 – The 1700s
6. 21st July 1718: A treaty between the Ottoman Empire, Austria, and the Republic of Venice, the Treaty of Passarowitz was signed today.
7. 21st July 1730: The death penalty for “sodomy” was imposed in the states of Holland.
8. 21st July 1749: Pieter Steyn became the pension advisor of Holland.
9. 21st July 1773: Jesuits were banned by Pope Clemens XIV.
10. 21st July 1774: The Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji was signed by Russia and the Ottoman Empire bringing an end to the Turkish War.
11. 21st July 1798: Napoleon Bonaparte won the Battle of Pyramids against the Mamluk rulers in Egypt. He had wiped out most of the Egyptian army.
19th Century – July 21 This Day That Year – The 1800s
12. 21st July 1831: Belgium gained independence from the Netherlands. Leopold I was made the King of Belgium.
13. 21st July 1836: The first Canadian Rail Road opened today. The service was between Laprairie and St John, Quebec.
14. 21st July 1853: Central Park in New York was created when the New York State Legislature earmarked over 750 acres of land for Manhattan Island.
15. 21st July 1861: The first battle of Bull Run, the first major battle in the US Civil War was fought near Manassas which the Confederates won.
16. 21st July 1865: In what is regarded as the first true western showdown, Wild Bill Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in the market square of Springfield Missouri today.
17. 21st July 1866: There was an outbreak of Cholera in London which killed hundreds of people.
18. 21st July 1873: The first train robbery by the gang of Jesse James and James Younger occurred at Adair in Iowa.
19. 21st July 1880: Twenty workers lost their lives in the compressed air accident on the Hudson River Tunnel in New York.
20. 21st July 1884: The first cricket test match was at Lords on this day.
21. 21st July 1888: In the Wimbledon women’s tennis championship Lottie Dod successfully defended her title beating Blanche Bingley-Hillyard 6-3, 6-3.
22. 21st July 1896: In Washington D.C. National Federation of Colored Women was established today.
23. 21st July 1897: The Tate Gallery was opened in London today.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day July 21st – The 1900
24. 21st July 1904: The 4,607-mile trans-Siberian railway was completed today. It took 13 years to build the railway.
25. 21st July 1904: Camille Jenatzy established a world auto speed record of 64.79 MPH.
26. 21st July 1913: A new constitutional system electoral law was announced by the Egyptian government today.
27. 21st July 1915: American President Woodrow Wilson sent the third Lusitania note to Germany warning them that future infringement of American rights would be deemed deliberately ‘unfriendly’.
28. 21st July 1917: During the Russian Revolution Socialist Alexander Kerensky became the Prime Minister of Russia.
29. 21st July 1918: Nauset Beach in Orleans Massachusetts was shelled by U-156.
30. 21st July 1919: In Chicago, Illinois, a dirigible crashed through the skylight of a bank killing 13 people.
31. 21st July 1921: US William Mitchell, to prove his contention that air power is superior to sea power, demonstrated how bombs can sink a captured German battleship.
32. 21st July 1925: John T Scopes was fined $100 and costs in the “Scopes monkey trial” in Dayton, Tennessee after he was proven guilty of teaching evolution.
33. 21st July 1930: The US Veterans Administration was formed today.
34. 21st July 1931: Reno race track became the first race track in the US to use daily double wagering.
35. 21st July 1933: Haifa Harbor in Palestine was opened today.
36. 21st July 1940: Soviet Union today has annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
37. 21st July 1941: In Ukraine 200 Jewish Torahs were burned today.
38. 21st July 1941: The building of the Majdanek concentration camp was ordered by Himmler today.
39. 21st July 1942: The slide of a waste dump in the river valley near Oakwood in Vancouver left 8 people dead.
40. 21st July 1944: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill traveled to France to meet Montgomery.
41. 21st July 1944: General Koiso became the Prime Minister of Japan today.
42. 21st July 1944: Hitler was today warned by Field Marshall Gunther von Kluge about the impending collapse of the front in Normandy.
43. 21st July 1947: In Indonesia the first political elections began today.
44. 21st July 1949: The North Atlantic Treaty was today ratified by the US Senate by a vote of 82-13 (NATO).
45. 21st July 1951: Dalai Lama returned to Tibet today.
46. 21st July 1952: A massive earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck Kern County California today. 14 people were killed in the quake.
47. 21st July 1952: Premier of Persia, Ghavam es-Sultaneh resigned from office today.
48. 21st July 1954: France agreed to the independence of North and South Vietnam at Geneva today.
49. 21st July 1955: The first submarine powered by a liquid metal-cooled nuclear reactor “USS Seawolf” was launched today.
50. 21st July 1956: An atmospheric nuclear test was conducted by the US today at Enwetak.
51. 21st July 1957: Althea Gibson, an African American tennis player and professional golfer became the first black to win a major tennis tournament.
52. 21st July 1959: The first nuclear-powered merchant ship NS Savanna which was built for $46.9 million was launched today.
53. 21st July 1960: Sirimavo Bandaranaike was elected as Prime Minister of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and became the world’s first female head of state today.
54. 21st July 1960: In Africa, the Country of Katanga was formed today.
55. 21st July 1962: In Albany Georgia, 160 civil rights activists were jailed after they held a demonstration.
56. 21st July 1962: A battle between Chinese forces and Indian forces took place on the India-China border.
57. 21st July 1964: In cricket, Arnold Long took eleven catches in a match between Surrey and Sussex today.
58. 21st July 1964: Race riots broke out between Chinese and Malay groups in Singapore. 24 people were killed and 454 injured in the riots.
59. 21st July 1966: Gemini X returned to Earth today.
60. 21st July 1966: USSR conducted a nuclear test at Eastern Kazak/Semipalatinsk USSR.
61. 21st July 1969: Neil Armstrong became the first person to step on the moon at 2:56:15 AM GMT.
62. 21st July 1970: USSR conducted nuclear test Eastern Kazakh/Semipalatinsk USSR.
63. 21st July 1970: Libya today ordered that all Jewish property be confiscated.
64. 21st July 1970: Aswan High Dam was opened today in Egypt. It enables human control of flooding of the Nile River.
65. 21st July 1971: Nuclear test conducted by the US at its Nevada test site.
66. 21st July 1972: In Spain, two passenger trains collided head-on killing 76 people.
67. 21st July 1972: The Provisional Irish Republican Army exploded 22 bombs within 75 minutes in Belfast. Six civilians, 2 British Army Soldiers, and one UDA volunteer were killed and 130 people were injured in what was called ’Bloody Friday’.
68. 21st July 1973: France today performed a nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific.
69. 21st July 1974: Two Articles of Impeachment against President Richard Nixon was today approved by the US House of Judiciary.
70. 21st July 1977: In Sri Lanka Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike lost the general elections.
71. 21st July 1977: In India, Sanjiva Reddy was elected as the 6th President of India.
72. 21st July 1978: US Postal Service and the Unions agreed on a contract for averting mail strike.
73. 21st July 1983: The Polish government today ended the 19-month-long Marshall Law today.
74. 21st July 1988: Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts accepted the Democratic nomination for President.
75. 21st July 1994: In England, Tony Blair emerged as the winner of the leadership election of the British Labor Party. This paved the way for him to become the Prime Minister in 1997.
21st Century – July 21 This Day In History – The 2000s
76. 21st July 2002: Telecom giant WorldCom filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It was then the largest such filing in the history of the United States.
77. 21st July 2005: Exactly two weeks after the July 7th bombings, London’s Public transport system was targeted by four terrorist bombers. All four bombs failed to detonate. All four bombers were captured.
78. 21st July 2007: The final book of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” was published worldwide. 11 million copies were sold within 24 hours of publication.
79. 21st July 2014: The Israeli Defense Forces, after 3 weeks struck 2800 targets in Gaza, whereas Gaza had fired 1497 rockets at Israel.
80. 21st July 2018: After a campaign from activists, India scrapped taxes on sanitary products.
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