On July 21st...

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1588 The English Fleet engaged the Spanish Armada off the Eddystone Rocks,

1718 The Ottoman Empire, Austria, and the Republic of Venice signed the Treaty of Passarowitz.

1774 Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji, ending the Russo-Turkish War.

1798 Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Egyptian Army in the Battle of Embabeh.

1831 Leopold became the first King of Belgium.

1836 The first Canadian railroad opened, between Laprairie and St. John, Quebec.

1861 The First Battle of Bull Run took place.

1864 Frances Folsom, wife of U. S. President Grover Cleveland, was born.

1873 The Jesse James and James Younger gang robbed its first train, at Adair, Iowa.

1880 A compressed air accident killed 20 men working on the Hudson River Tunnel in New York.

1896 Charlotte Cooper and Harold Mahony won their respective singles championships at Wimbledon.

1897 The Tate Gallery opened in London, England.

1899 Author Ernest Hemingway was born.

1904 The Trans-Siberian Railway was completed.
1904 Camille Jenatzy set a world auto speed record of 65.79 miles per hour.

1919 A dirigible crashed through a bank skylight in Chicago, Illinois, killing 13 persons.

1921 Frederick Banting began testing insulin on dogs.

1924 Actor Don Knotts was born.

1925 Tennessee teacher John Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution and fined $100.

1930 The United States Veterans Administration was formed.

1940 The Soviet Union annexed Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

1942 A coal waste heap slid down a river valley near Oakwood, Virginia, killing 8 persons.

1944 U. S. troops recaptured Guam from the Japanese.
1944 U. S. Senator Paul Wellstone was born.

1945 The Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia A's played to a 24-inning 1-1 tie.

1946 Jesus T. Pinerol became the first native-born Governor of Puerto Rico.

1948 Singer Cat Stevens was born.
1948 Cartoonist Garry Trudeau was born.
1948 Film director D. W. Griffith died.

1949 The U. S. Senate ratified the North Atlantic Treaty.

1951 The Dalai Lama returned to Tibet.

1952 A magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed 14 persons in Kern County, California.
1952 Comedian Robin Williams was born.

1957 Althea Gibson became the first black to win a major U. S. tennis tournament.
1957 Lionel Herbert won the PGA Championship.

1959 David Ben-Gurion resumed the premiership of Israel.
1959 Mamie Doud Eisenhower christened the world's first atomic-powered merchant vessel, the N.S. Savannah, in Camden, New Jersey.

1960 Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike was sworn in as the first woman Prime Minister in the world, of Ceylon.

1961 Virgil "Gus" Grissom became the second American to be launched into space.

1962 Sixty-nine persons were killed when the Amritsar-Howrah mail train ran into a standing freight train at Dumraon, Bihar State, India.

1963 Jack Nicklaus won the PGA Championship.

1967 Actor Basil Rathbone died.

1968 Jan Janssen won the Tour de France.
1968 Julius Boros won the PGA Championship.

1970 Egypt's Aswan High Dam opened.

1972 Two passenger trains collided head-on in Seville, Spain, killing 76 persons.
1972 The Provisional Irish Republican Army exploded 22 bombs in Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing 7 persons and injuring 130 others.

1974 Eddy Merckx won the Tour de France.
1974 Sandra Haynie won the U. S. Women's Golf Open.

1978 Juan Pereda Asbún declared himself President of Bolivia after deposing Hugo Banzer Suárez in a military coup.

1979 The National Women's Hall of Fame was dedicated in Seneca Falls, New York.
1979 Seve Ballesteros won the British Open.

1985 Bernard Hinault won the Tour de France.
1985 Sandy Lyle won the British Open.

1989 Mike Tyson KO'd Carl Williams in 1:33 for the heavyweight boxing title.

1990 The Goodwill Games opened in Seattle, Washington.

1991 Ian Baker-Finch won the British Open.

1996 Bjarne Riis won the Tour de France.
1996 Tom Lehman won the British Open.

1997 The USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") sailed under its own "power" for the first time in 116 years.

1998 Astronaut Alan Shepard died.
1998 Actor Robert Young died.

2002 Ernie Els won the British Open.

2011 NASA's Space Shuttle program ended with the landing of Atlantis.

2013 Chris Froome won the Tour de France.
2013 Phil Mickelson won the British Open.

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This page was last updated on July 20, 2018.