What Happened on July 21st in History

The United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty.

The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, and the U.S. House of Representatives is the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have...

Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 3505 disappears while flying from Vancouver to Tokyo. The aircraft and its 37 occupants are never found.

Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 3505 was a scheduled flight operated by Canadian Pacific Air Lines for the United Nations from Vancouver, Canada, to Tokyo, Japan. On 21 July 1951, the Douglas C-54...

The 7.3 Mw  Kern County earthquake strikes Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing 12 and injuring hundreds.

The 1952 Kern County earthquake occurred on July 21 in the southern San Joaquin Valley and measured 7.3 on the moment magnitude scale. The main shock occurred at 4:52 am Pacific Daylight Time,...

First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

The First Indochina War, known alternatively internationally as the French Indochina War, was fought in French Indochina between France and the Viet Minh and their respective allies, from 19...

NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative.

NS Savannah was the first nuclear-powered merchant ship, launched on July 21, 1959, two years after the Soviet ice-breaker Lenin, the first nuclear-powered civilian vessel. A demonstration project...

Elijah Jerry "Pumpsie" Green becomes the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last team to integrate. He came in as a pinch runner for Vic Wertz and stayed in as shortstop in a 2–1 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

Elijah Jerry "Pumpsie" Green was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) infielder who played with the Boston Red Sox (1959–62) and New York Mets (1963). A switch-hitter who threw right-handed, he...

Sirimavo Bandaranaike is sworn in as prime minister of Ceylon, becoming the world's first democratically elected female head of government.

Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike, commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was a Sri Lankan stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1960 to 1965, from 1970 to 1977, and from 1994...

Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 4 Mission: Gus Grissom piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).

Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and...

Alaska Airlines Flight 779 crashes near Shemya Air Force Base in Shemya, Alaska killing six.

Alaska Airlines Flight 779 was a contract cargo flight operated on 21 July 1961 by an Alaska Airlines Douglas DC-6A that crashed short of the runway at Shemya Air Force Base with the loss of all six...

A series of racial riots break out in Singapore. In the next six weeks, 23 die with 454 others injured.

The 1964 race riots in Singapore were a series of communal disturbances and racial conflicts between the Malay and Chinese communities in Singapore. They occurred just months after Singapore's...

Apollo program: At 02:56 UTC, astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to walk on the Moon, followed 19 minutes later by Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived in 1960 in the...

After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.

The Aswan High Dam, often called simply Aswan Dam, is one of the world's largest embankment dams, which was built between 1960 and 1970 across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt. The project was developed by...

The Troubles: Bloody Friday: The Provisional IRA detonate 22 bombs in central Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom in the space of 80 minutes, killing nine and injuring 130.

The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began...

In Lillehammer, Norway, Mossad agents kill a waiter whom they mistakenly thought was involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre.

The Lillehammer affair was the murder of Ahmed Bouchikhi, a Moroccan waiter, by Mossad agents in Lillehammer, Norway, on 21 July 1973. The Israeli agents had mistaken their target for Ali Hassan...

Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, is assassinated by the Provisional IRA.

Christopher Thomas Ewart Ewart-Biggs was the British ambassador to Ireland, an author and senior Foreign Office liaison officer with MI6. He served as a British ambassador to Ireland on July 9, 1976...

The start of the four-day-long Libyan–Egyptian War.

The Egyptian–Libyan War, also known as the Four Day War, was a short border war fought between Libya and Egypt that lasted from 21 to 24 July 1977. The conflict stemmed from a deterioration in...

Jay Silverheels, a Mohawk actor, becomes the first Native American to have a star commemorated in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Jay Silverheels was a First Nations and Mohawk actor and athlete, descended from three Iroquois nations. He was well known for his role as Tonto, the Native American companion of the Lone Ranger in...

The world's lowest temperature in an inhabited location is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F).

The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth is −89.2 °C at the then-Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica on 21 July 1983 by ground measurements.

Taiwan's military police forces mainland Chinese illegal immigrants into sealed holds of a fishing boat Min Ping Yu No. 5540 for repatriation to Fujian, causing 25 people to die from suffocation.

The Republic of China Military Police, referred to informally as the Taiwanese Military Police is a military police force operating under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Defense of...

Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army begins firing missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.

The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, also called the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, or the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, was the effect of a series of missile tests conducted by the People's Republic of...

At the conclusion of a fireworks display on Okura Beach in Akashi, Hyōgo, Japan, 11 people are killed and more than 120 are injured when a pedestrian footbridge connecting the beach to JR Asagiri Station becomes overcrowded and people leaving the event fall down in a domino effect.

Akashi is a city in southern Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. As of 1 February 2024, the city had an estimated population of 305,925 in 137,288 households and a population density of 6,200 people per km2....

Four attempted bomb attacks by Islamist extremists disrupt part of London's public transport system.

On 21 July 2005, four attempted bomb attacks by four Islamist extremists disrupted part of London's public transport system as a follow-up attack to the 7 July 2005 London bombings two weeks...

Ram Baran Yadav is declared the first President of Nepal.

Dr. Ram Baran Yadav is a Nepali politician and physician who served as the first president of Nepal from 23 July 2008 to 29 October 2015, following the declaration of republic in 2008. Previously,...

U.S. President Barack Obama signs the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Barack Hussein Obama II is an American former politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American...

NASA's Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program and for research in aeronautics and...

Erden Eruç completes the first solo human-powered circumnavigation of the world.

Erden Eruç is a Turkish-American adventurer who became the first person in history to complete an entirely solo and entirely human-powered circumnavigation of the Earth on 21 July 2012 in Bodega...

Yuen Long attack or "721 incident" in Hong Kong. Triad members indiscriminately beat civilians returning from protests while police failed to take action.

The 2019 Yuen Long attack, also known as the 721 incident, refers to a mob attack that occurred in Yuen Long, a town in the New Territories of Hong Kong, on the evening of 21 July 2019. It took...

The Barbenheimer phenomenon begins as two major motion pictures, Greta Gerwig's fantasy comedy Barbie and Christopher Nolan's epic biographical thriller Oppenheimer, are released in theaters on the same day and audiences, instead of creating a rivalry between the extremely dissimilar films, instead attend and praise both as an informal, surreal double feature.

Barbenheimer was a cultural phenomenon that preceded and surrounded the simultaneous theatrical release of two major studio films—Barbie by Warner Bros. Pictures and Oppenheimer by Universal...

U.S. President Joe Biden announces he will no longer seek a second term and withdraws from the 2024 election, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as she launches her own presidential campaign.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is an American former politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented Delaware in the United...

A Bangladesh Air Force Chengdu FT-7BGI crashes shortly after takeoff into Milestone School campus in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 35 people and injuring 173.

The Bangladesh Air Force is the aerial warfare branch of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, responsible for defending the airspace of Bangladesh and supporting national security operations. Operating...