June 21st in History

Michael Dobson | June 21

SpaceShipOne after its successful flight into space, June 21, 2004. (Photo: D. Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Today in History

  • The Molly Maguires are hanged (1877)
  • World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ends (1945)
  • Three civil rights workers are murdered in Mississippi by member of the Ku Klux Klan (1964)
  • John Hinckley is found not guilty of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by reason of insanity (1982)
  • The first privately funded spacecraft achieves spaceflight (2004)

Birthdays

  • Increase Mather, minister (1639)
  • Claude Auchinleck, British field marshal (1884)
  • Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian (1892)
  • Al Hirschfeld, illustrator (1902)
  • Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher (1905)
  • Wilhelm Gliese, astronomer (1915)
  • Judy Holliday, actress and singer (1921)
  • Jane Russell, actress and singer (1921)
  • Maureen Stapleton, actress (1925)
  • Lalo Schifrin, composer (1932)
  • Bernie Kopell, actor (1933)
  • Ron Ely, actor (1938)
  • Joe Flaherty, actor and screenwriter (1941)
  • Meredith Baxter, actress (1947)
  • Michael Gross, actor (1947)
  • Nils Lofgren, singer-songwriter and guitarist (1951)
  • Berkeley Breathed, comic strip artist (1957)
  • Chris Pratt, actor (1979)
  • Edward Snowden, released NSA documents (1983)

Deaths

  • Niccolo Machiavelli, author (1527)
  • Aloysius Gonzaga, saint (1591)
  • John Smith, explorer (1631)
  • Inigo Jones, architect (1652)
  • Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexican general and politician (1876)
  • Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer (1908)
  • Thorne Smith, author (1934)
  • James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, civil rights activists (1964)
  • Sukarno, Indonesian president (1970)
  • Ettore Boiardi, founder of Chef Boyardee (1985)
  • Al Campanis, baseball player and manager (1998)
  • John Lee Hooker, singer-songwriter (2001)
  • Carroll O’Connor, actor (2001)
  • Leon Uris, author (2003)
  • Kermit Love, puppeteer (2008)

Holidays and Celebrations

  • Day of the Martyrs (Togo)
  • Father’s Day (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Uganda, United Arab Emirates)
  • Go Skateboarding Day
  • International Yoga Day
  • National Aboriginal Day (Canada)
  • World Humanist Day (international)
  • World Hydrography Day (international)

June 21 is the 172nd day of the year (173rd in leap years). There are 193 days remaining until the end of the year.