21 June - Definition and Overview

June 21 is the 172nd day of the year (173rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 193 days remaining. June 21 is the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, so is the day of the year with the longest hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere, and the shortest in the southern hemisphere.

Events

1600-1899

• 1665 - First soldiers of Le Régiment de Carignan-Salières arrive at Quebec to invade Iroquois territories.
• 1734 - In Montreal in New France (today primarily Quebec), a black slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique, was tortured then hanged by the French authorities in a public ceremony that involved her disgrace and the amputation of a hand.
• 1749 - Halifax Nova Scotia founded.
• 1788 - New Hampshire ratifies the Constitution and is thus admitted as the 9th state in the United States.
• 1813 - Peninsular War: Battle of Vitoria
• 1813 - Laura Secord sets out to warn British forces of impending American attack at Queenston Ontario.
• 1824 - Greek War of Independence: Egyptian forces capture Psara in the Aegean Sea.
• 1859 - Franco-Austrian War: Battle of Solférino is fought. Witnessed by Henri Dunant, the results were the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross.
• 1864 - Maori Wars: The Tauranga Campaign ends.
• 1877 - The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants who were labour activists, are hanged in the Carbon County, Pennsylvania Prison.
• 1887 - Queen Victoria's golden jubilee

1900-1999

• 1915 - The U.S. Supreme Court hands down decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens.
• 1919 - Royal Canadian Mounted Police fire a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during Winnipeg General Strike.
• 1919 - Admiral Ludvig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed were the last casualties of the First World War.
• 1940 - World War II: France surrenders to Germany.
• 1940 - First successful west to east navigation of Northwest Passage begins at Vancouver British Columbia.
• 1942 - World War II: Tobruk falls to 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 the Japanese against USA mainland.
• 1945 - World War II: Battle of Okinawa ends.
• 1957 - Ellen Louks Fairclough sworn in as Canada's first woman Cabinet Minister
• 1964 - Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Cheney and Mickey Schwerner are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
• 1965 - Folk rock band The Byrds release their highly influencial debut album Mr. Tambourine Man.
• 1973 - In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller Test, which now governs obscenity in U.S. law.
• 1982 - John Hinckley is found not guily by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.
• 1982 - Fête de la Musique street music festival inaugurated in France by Jack Lang.
• 1989 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson that flag burning is protected speech under the United States Constitution.

2000-2099

• 2000 - Section 28 repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.
• 2003 - Deputy Justice Fazel Ahmed Manawi of the Afghan Supreme Court announces that Aftab editor Sayed Madawi and his deputy Ali Payam Sestani will be tried for "libelling Islam"
• 2004 - SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.

Births

1000-1899

• 1002 - Pope Leo IX
• 1731 - Martha Washington, wife of first President of the United States, George Washington
• 1781 - Siméon-Denis Poisson, mathematician, physicist (d. 1840)
• 1736 - Enoch Poor, Brigadier General in the Continental Army (d. 1780)
• 1763 - Pierre Paul Royer-Collard, philosopher
• 1805 - Charles Jackson, physician, chemist, pioneer geologist and mineralogist
• 1811 - Carlo Matteucci, physicist
• 1823 - Jean Chacornac, astronomer (d. 1873)
• 1839 - Machado de Assis, Brazilian writer (d. 1908)
• 1862 - Damrong Rajanubhab, Thai prince, administrator and historian (d. 1943)
• 1863 - Albert Sauveur, metallurgist (one of the founders of physical metallurgy)
• 1863 - Max Wolf, astronomer
• 1876 - William H. Keesom, physicist (pioneer in cryogenics)
• 1880 - Arnold Gesell, psychologist, pediatrician
• 1883 - Lluís Companys i Jover, President of Catalonia (d. 1940)
• 1884 - Claude Auchinleck, British Field Marshal (d. 1981)
• 1887 - Norman L. Bowen, petrologist (d. 1956)
• 1889 - Ralph Craig, American athlete (d. 1972)
• 1891 - Pier Luigi Nervi, architect (d. 1979)
• 1891 - Hermann Scherchen, German conductor (d. 1966)
• 1892 - Reinhold Niebuhr, Protestant theologian
• 1896 - Charles B. Momsen, inventor
• 1898 - Donald C. Peattie, botanist, writer

1900-1999

• 1903 - Al Hirschfeld, cartoonist (d. 2003)
• 1905 - Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher and playwright, recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature 1964 (he refused to accept it) (d. 1980)
• 1912 - Mary McCarthy, writer (d. 1989)
• 1914 - William Vickrey, economist, awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
• 1916 - Herbert Friedman, astronomer
• 1919 - Gower Champion, dancer and choreographer (d. 1980)
• 1919 - Gérard Pelletier, French journalist, politician and diplomat (d. 1997)
• 1919 - Vladimir Simagin, Chess International Grandmaster & Master, International Correspondence Chess Master, trainer
• 1921 - Judy Holliday, actress (d. 1965)
• 1921 - Jane Russell, actress
• 1925 - Maureen Stapleton, actress
• 1934 - Wulf Kristen, writer and recipient of the 1989 Heinrich Mann Prize
• 1935 - Françoise Sagan, writer
• 1939 - Ruben Berrios, politician
• 1942 - Henry Taylor, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet
• 1944 - Ray Davies of The Kinks
• 1946 - Brenda Holloway, musician
• 1948 - Ian McEwan, writer
• 1948 - Lionel Rose, first aboriginal boxer to win a world title (in 1968)
• 1948 - Andrzej Sapkowski, Polish fantasy writer
• 1950 - Anne Carson, poet
• 1951 - Nils Lofgren, musician
• 1953 - Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan (twice), first female Muslim head of government
• 1956 - Michel Platini, French football player
• 1964 - Yuri Kruppa, Chess International Grandmaster
• 1964 - Valeriy Neverov, Chess International Grandmaster
• 1964 - Doug Savant, actor (Melrose Place, Desperate Housewives)
• 1966 - Rudi Bakhtiar, journalist
• 1971 - Sunofone-J.R.Liendo, creator of "Red Dragon"chess variant
• 1973 - Juliette Lewis, actress
• 1982 - Prince William of Wales (son to Charles, Prince of Wales and his wife Diana)
• 1983 - Nadia Yvonne Lopez Ayuso, Mexican singer (La Acedemia contestant)

Deaths

1300-1899

• 1377 - King Edward III of England
• 1527 - Niccolo Machiavelli, historian and political author, age 53
• 1582 - Oda Nobunaga, Japanese warlord (daimyo) (b. 1534)
• 1652 - Inigo Jones, architect (b. 1573)
• 1824 - Étienne Aignan, translator, political writer, librettist, playwright, member of the Académie française (b. 1773)

1900-1999

• 1908 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer (b. 1844)
• 1914 - Bertha von Suttner, winner of 1905 Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1843)
• 1934 - Thorne Smith, author ("Topper" books and others)
• 1951 - Charles Dillon Perrine, astronomer (b. 1867)
• 1952 - Wilfrid 'Wop' May, aviation pioneer
• 1964 - Andrew Goodman, civil rights activist
• 1964 - James Cheney, civil rights activist
• 1964 - Mickey Schwerner, civil rights activist
• 1969 - Maureen Connolly, tennis star
• 1970 - Sukarno, Indonesian President
• 1976 - Margaret Herrick, Librarian and director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences credited with naming the Oscar (b. 1902)
• 1980 - Bert Kaempfert, German orchestra leader and songwriter
• 1985 - Tage Erlander, Swedish Prime Minister
• 1990 - Ross Munro, journalist, Canadian Press war correspondent, editor, publisher

2000-2099

• 2001 - Carroll O'Connor, American actor
• 2001 - John Lee Hooker, blues musician
• 2003 - Roger Neilson, legendary Canadian hockey coach

Holidays and Observances

• Summer solstice (Northern hemisphere) and Winter solstice (Southern hemisphere)
• National Aboriginal Day in Canada (starting in 1996)
• Midsummer - Neopagan festival - Litha
• National holiday of Greenland
• Fête de la Musique in France, Belgium and Switzerland.

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