Today in History

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YEARDAYEVENT
365Jul 21An earthquake, whose epicenter was in Crete, leveled the Egyptian Port of Alexandria as well as the Roman outpost of Leptis Magna in Libya. Some 50,000 people died. The ancient Egyptian city, known as Leukaspis or Antiphrae, was hidden for centuries after it was nearly wiped out by the tsunami. When Chinese engineers began cutting into the sandy coast to build the roads for a new resort in 1986, they struck the ancient tombs and houses of the town founded in the second century B.C.
1160Jul 21Peterus Lombardus, Italian theologian, bishop of Paris, died.
1403Jul 21Henry IV defeated the Percys in the Battle of Shrewsbury in England. Henry IV fought down an insurrection from Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland and Ralph Neville, the Earl of Westmorland, the same men who had helped him overthrow Richard II. Henry Percy (39), [Harry Hotspur] was killed in the battle.
1425Jul 21Manuel Palaeologus, Byzantine Emperor (1391-1425), writer, died. He ended his days after signing a humiliating peace with the Ottoman Turks.
1515Jul 21St. Philippus Nerius, [Philippo Neri], Italian merchant, priest, was born.
1542Jul 21Pope Paul III launched the Inquisition against Protestants (Sanctum Officium). Alleged heretics were tried and tortured in an effort to stem the spread of the Reformation.
1620Jul 21Jean Picard, French astronomer, was born
1664Jul 21Matthew Prior, English poet, was born.
1667Jul 21The Peace of Breda ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War and ceded Dutch New Amsterdam to the English. The South American country of Surinam, formerly Dutch Guiana, including the nutmeg island of Run was ceded by England to the Dutch in exchange for New York in 1667 after the second Anglo-Dutch War.
1669Jul 21John Locke’s Constitution of English colony Carolina was approved.
1676Jul 21Anthony Collins, English philosopher (A discourse on free-thinking), was born.
1683Jul 21Lord William Russell, English plotter against Charles II, was beheaded.
1711Jul 21Russia and Turkey signed the Treaty of Pruth, ending the year-long Russo-Turkish War.
1718Jul 21The Turkish threat to Europe was eliminated with the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz between Austria, Venice and the Ottoman Empire.
1730Jul 21States of Holland put a death penalty on “sodomy.”
1773Jul 21Pope Clement XIV abolished the Jesuit order. He disbanded, defrocked, and stripped them of their sustenance. They were ignored by other orders and denounced as schemers and plotters. The Jesuits finally regained respectability in 1814after flourishing underground.
1796Jul 21Robert Burns (b.1759), Scottish poet and a lyricist (Auld Lang Syne), died. In 2009 Robert Crawford authored “The Bard: Robert Burns.”
1798Jul 21Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Arab Mameluke warriors at the Battle of the Pyramids, becoming the master of Egypt.
1804Jul 21Victor Schoelcher, abolished French slavery, was born in Guadeloupe.
1816Jul 21Paul Julius Baron von Reuter (d.1899), founder of the British news agency bearing his name, was born in Hesse, Germany, as Israel Beer Josaphat.
1831Jul 21Belgium became independent as Leopold I was proclaimed King of the Belgians.
1846Jul 21Mormons founded the 1st English settlement in the San Joaquin Valley of Calif.
1865Jul 21Wild Bill Hickok killed gunman Dave Tutt in Springfield, Illinois, in the first formal quick-draw duel.
1866Jul 21A cholera-epidemic killed hundreds in London.
1870Jul 21Josef Strauss (42), Austrian composer (Dynamids), died.
1873Jul 21At Adair, Iowa, more than seven years after the Liberty holdup, the James-Younger gang made their first train robbery. See 1866 for the 1st US train robbery.
1877Jul 21-27The US army broke a railroad strike.
1881Jul 21Frederick Dick, physician, was born.
1896Jul 21Mary Church Terrell founded the National Association of Colored Women in Washington, D.C.
1897Jul 21The Tate Gallery opened in England.
1898Jul 21Spain ceded Guam to US.
1899Jul 21Ernest Hemingway (d.1961), American novelist and short-story writer, was born in Oak Park, Ill. “Never confuse motion with action.”
1903Jul 21Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson arrived in Cleveland with his mechanic Sewell Croker escorted by a fleet of new Winton automobiles. They were enroute to NYC from San Francisco in a $2,500 Winton touring car.
1904Jul 21After 13 years, the 4,607-mile Trans-Siberian railway was completed.
1911Jul 21Marshall McLuhan (d.1980), English professor and communication theorist, author of “The Medium is the Message,” was born. He wrote the book:  “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.”
1918Jul 21The residents and coastguardsmen of Orleans, Massachusetts, were amazed to see the German U-boat, U-156, firing at an American tug and four barges just off shore.
1919Jul 21The British House of Lords ratified the Versailles Treaty.
1920Jul 21Isaac Stern, violinist, was born in Kreminiecz, Russia.
   
1921Jul 21Billy Taylor, jazz pianist, was born.
1922Jul 21Djemal Pasha, dictator of Turkey, was murdered.
1924Jul 21Don Knotts (d.2006), later film and TV star (The Andy Griffith Show, Matlock, Three’s Company), was born in Morgantown, West Virginia.
1925Jul 21The so-called “Monkey Trial” ended in Dayton, Tenn., with John T. Scopes convicted of violating state law for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100. The conviction was later overturned on a technicality.
1926Jul 21Norman Jewison, director (Moonstruck, …and Justice For All), was born.
1930Jul 21President Herbert Hoover signed an executive order establishing the Veterans Administration.
1933Jul 21Haifa Harbor in Palestine opened.
1938Jul 21Paul Hindemith & Leonide Massines ballet premiered in London.
1940Jul 21The new USSR-organized parliaments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania held simultaneous sessions. They declared their countries to be soviet socialist republics and applied for admission to the USSR.
1941Jul 21France accepted Japan’s demand for military control of Indochina.
1943Jul 21Edward Herrmann, actor (Day of the Dolphin, Reds), was born in Wash., DC.
1944Jul 21Paul Wellstone, (Sen-D-Minnesota), was born.
1947Jul 21Life Magazine featured the photo of a drunk on a motorcycle from the Jul 4 gathering in Hollister, Ca. The photo was later revealed to have been set up for effect.
1948Jul 21Garry Trudeau, political cartoonist (Doonesbury), was born.
1949Jul 21The US Senate ratified the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) 82-13.
1951Jul 21Dalai Lama returned to Tibet.
1952Jul 21Robin Williams, American comedian and actor, was born in Chicago, Ill.
1954Jul 21France surrendered North Vietnam to the Communists at Geneva. The French signed an armistice, the Geneva Accords, with the Viet Minh that ended the war but divided Vietnam into two countries. This led to almost a million anti-Communists in the north to flee to the south.
1955Jul 21During the Geneva summit, President Eisenhower presented his “open skies” proposal under which the United States and the Soviet Union would trade information on each other’s military facilities and allow aerial reconnaissance.
1959Jul 21The 1st atomic powered merchant ship, NS Savannah, was christened at Camden, NJ. In 1995 it was docked as part of the Navy’s James River Reserve Fleet at Fort Eustis, Va. Soviets launched the world’s 1st operational nuclear surface ship in 1958. The NS Savannah served until 1971.
1960Jul 21Germany passed the Volkswagen law legislation privatizing Volkswagen. It capped a shareholder’s voting rights at 20%, regardless of the number of shares held, and required a majority of 80% for “important decisions.” It also gave Lower Saxony, the state in which Volkswagen is based, a controlling minority stake in the automaker. In 2007 the European Court ruled that the VW law had to go.
1961Jul 21Capt. Virgil “Gus” Grissom became the second American to rocket into a suborbital pattern around the Earth, flying on the Mercury 4 Liberty Bell 7. The Mercury capsule sank in the Atlantic, 302 miles from Cape Canaveral and Grissom was rescued by helicopter. The space capsule was recovered in 1999.
1962Jul 21160 civil right activists were jailed after demonstration in Albany, Ga.
1966Jul 21Gemini X returned to Earth.
1967Jul 21Basil Rathbone (75), actor (Sherlock Holmes), died of heart attack
1969Jul 21Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin blasted off from the moon aboard the lunar module.
1970Jul 21Libya ordered the confiscation of all Jewish property.
1972Jul 21A total of 22 IRA-bombs exploded in Belfast killing 9 people including two soldiers. 130 civilians were injured in what came to be called Bloody Friday.
1973Jul 21“Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” reached the top spot on the “Billboard” pop-singles chart, becoming Jim Croce’s first big hit. He died in a plane crash on September 20.
1976Jul 21“Legionnaire’s Disease” struck in Philadelphia, Pa. 29 people died from the disease. The disease was first identified after an outbreak at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. It was identified as Legionella pneumophila and found to infest water systems in general and the hotel ventilation system in this case.
1978Jul 21In Bolivia Gen’l. Juan Pereda Asbun overthrew Pres. Banzer in a coup.
1980Jul 21Draft registration began in the United States for 19- and 20-year-old men.
1982Jul 21Dave Garroway (b.1913), former TV host of the “Today Show” (1952-1961, committed suicide.
1983Jul 21The coldest temperature ever measured on Earth was -128.6 Fahrenheit (-89.2 Celsius) at Vostok, Antarctica.
1984Jul 21In Jackson, Michigan, a male die-cast operator (34) was pinned by a hydraulic Unimate robot. He died after 5 days. This was the 1st documented case of a robot killing a human in US.
1986Jul 21Gary Lee Davis (1944-1997) and his wife, Rebecca, abducted, raped and killed Virginia May (32) in Byers, Colorado. After exhausting all appeals he was executed by lethal injection on Oct 13, 1997. Rebecca was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
1987Jul 21Defying a threatened veto by President Reagan, the Senate approved a trade bill containing a provision requiring companies to give 60 days’ notice to employees of impending plant closings and large-scale layoffs. Reagan vetoed the bill, but ended up allowing a separate plant-closing notice measure to become law.
1988Jul 21Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Atlanta, declaring, “this election isn’t about ideology; it’s about competence.”
1989Jul 21The State Department confirmed an ABC News report that Felix S. Bloch, a veteran U.S. diplomat, was being investigated as a possible Soviet spy. Bloch was never charged with espionage, but was fired from his job in 1990.
1990Jul 21A day after Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan announced his retirement, President Bush convened a meeting with key administration officials to begin finding a replacement.
1991Jul 21US Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third met with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, trying to persuade the Israelis to agree to the talks.
1992Jul 21Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin met in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who said afterward that he’d accepted Rabin’s invitation to visit Israel.
1993Jul 21More rain set back cleanup and recovery efforts in parts of the Midwest; Transportation Secretary Federico Pena examined flood damage along the Mississippi in Keokuk, Iowa.
1994Jul 21Hugh Scott (93) former US Senate Republican leader died in Falls Church, Va.
1995Jul 21At a 16-nation conference in London, the United States and NATO allies warned Bosnian Serbs that further attacks on UN safe havens would draw a “substantial and decisive response.”
1996Jul 21There was a review of “Please Kill Me” by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, a historical chronicle of the American punk-rock movement.
1997Jul 21The General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Philadelphia voted to require all Episcopal dioceses to ordain women.
1998Jul 21President Clinton announced a crackdown on nursing homes that were lax about quality and on states that do a poor job of regulating them.
1999Jul 21Navy divers found the bodies of John F. Kennedy Junior, his wife, Carolyn, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, in the wreckage of Kennedy’s plane in the Atlantic Ocean off Martha’s Vineyard.
2000Jul 21Group of Eight leaders met for an economic summit on the Japanese island of Okinawa, where President Clinton also sought to soothe long-simmering tensions over the huge American military presence.
2001Jul 21In Genoa, Italy, site of a Group of Eight meeting, a 2nd day of violent protests turned the city into a war zone of rolling riots despite pleas for calm from protest leaders and global summit leaders alike.
2002Jul 21In south central Oregon an 87,000 acre wildfire burned along a mile-long front.
2003Jul 21President Bush said he was working to persuade more nations to help in Iraq.
2004Jul 21Pres. Bush sketched out a 2nd-term domestic agenda, telling campaign donors he would shift focus to improving high school education and expanding access to health care.
2005Jul 21The House voted to extend the USA Patriot Act.
2006Jul 21In NYC residents of Queens suffered through a 5th day of power blackouts. ConEdison said power blackouts in Queens had affected some 25,000 customers.
2007Jul 21Doctors removed five small growths from President Bush’s colon after he temporarily transferred the powers of his office to Vice President Dick Cheney under the rarely invoked 25th Amendment.
2008Jul 21The US FDA issued an advisory for consumers to avoid eating uncooked jalapeno peppers after it found a jalapeno grown in Mexico in a Texas border town warehouse that tested positive with the same strain of salmonella that was earlier associated with tomatoes.
2009Jul 21The US Senate voted to stop production of the F-22 fighter plane, handing President Barack Obama a victory as he tries to rein in defense spending.
2010Jul 21The leaders of Egypt and Turkey met in Cairo to discuss stuttering international efforts to coax Israeli and Palestinian leaders back to the negotiating table.
2011Jul 21The US Justice Department said US authorities have arrested nearly 2,000 people on narcotics charges in a 20-month sting targeting Mexico’s La Familia Michoacana drug cartel. The arrests and charges were carried out in 12 states and the US capital Washington in a major operation dubbed “Project Delirium.”
2012Jul 21In San Diego, Ca., active US service members marched for the first time in full uniform at the city’s Gay Pride Parade.
2013Jul 21Bahrain said authorities have arrested three suspects in connection with a bombing last week outside a mosque near the royal residences. No one was injured in the July 17 blast.
2014Jul 21In Boston Azamat Tazhayakov (20), a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was convicted of trying to protect Tsarnaev by agreeing with another friend to get rid of a backpack and disabled fireworks three days after the April 15, 2013, attack.
 Source: Timelines of History

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