June 21

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 today is the day of the year with the longest hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere, and the shortest in the southern hemisphere.

Table of contents

1 Events 2 Births 3 Deaths 4 Holidays and Observances

Events

• 1665 - First soldiers of Le Régiment de Carignan-Salières arrive at Quebec 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 - Laura Secord sets out to warn British forces of impending American attack at Queenston Ontario.
• 1887 - Queen Victoria's golden jubilee
• 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 Winnepeg 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 - France surrenders to Germany.
• 1940 - First successful west to east navigation of Northwest Passage begins at Vancouver British Columbia.
• 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.
• 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.
• 2000 - Section 28 repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.

Births

• 356 BC - Alexander the Great
• 1731 - Martha Washington
• 1839 - Machado de Assis, Brazilian writer (+ 1908)
• 1884 - Claude Auchinleck, British Field Marshal (+ 1981)
• 1887 - Norman L. Bowen, petrologist (+ 1956)
• 1891 - Pier Luigi Nervi, architect (+ 1979)
• 1903 - Al Hirschfield, cartoonist
• 1905 - Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher and playwright, recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature 1964 (+ 1980)
• 1912 - Mary McCarthy, writer (+ 1989)
• 1919 - Gower Champion, dancer and choreographer (+ 1980)
• 1921 - Judy Holliday, actress (+ 1965)
• 1921 - Jane Russell, actress
• 1925 - Maureen Stapleton, actress
• 1934 - Wulf Kristen, writer and recipient of the Heinrich Mann Prize 1989
• 1935 - Francoise Sagan, writer
• 1939 - Ruben Berrios, politician
• 1944 - Ray Davies of The Kinks
• 1951 - Nils Lofgren, musician
• 1956 - Michel Platini, French football player
• 1973 - Juliette Lewis, actress
• 1982 - Prince William of Wales (son to Prince Charles and Princess Diana)

Deaths

• 1377 - King Edward III of England
• 1527 - Niccolo Machiavelli, historian and political author, age 53
• 1652 - Inigo Jones, architect
• 1908 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer
• 1934 - Thorne Smith, author ("Topper_books" books and others)
• 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
• 1990 - Ross Munro, journalist, Canadian Press war correspondent, editor, publisher
• 2001 - Carroll O'Connor, actor, age 76
• 2001 - John Lee Hooker, blues musician, age 83

Holidays and Observances

• Summer solstice (Northern hemisphere) and Winter solstice (Southern hemisphere)
• National Aboriginal Day in Canada (starting in 1996)
• Midsummer - Neopagan festival.

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See Also:

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

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December