July 21st is

National Junk Food Day

ASPCA No Pet Store Puppies Day

USATWA Tug-of-War Tournament Day

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MORE! Georg Brandt, Janet Reno and Robin Williams, click

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World Festivals and National Holidays

Australia – Lamington Day (dessert inspired by
Queensland Governor Lord Lamington)

Belgium – National Day

East Timor –
Parliamentary Elections Public Holiday

Guam – Liberation Day

Guadelupe and Sint Maarten –
Victor Schoelcher Day (abolition of slavery) *

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On This Day in HISTORY

356 BC – The Ephesus Temple of Artemis, one of the ancient world’s Seven Wonders, is destroyed by arson fire set by Herostratus, the first recorded person to commit a criminal or evil act to gain notoriety. His name becomes a metonym (synonymous for an act or idea, like Benedict Arnold for traitor) of his time 

Artist’s conception of the Ephesus Temple of Artemis

365 – Alexandria, Egypt is devastated by a tsunami from a 8.5 earthquake on Crete

1403 – The Battle of Shrewsbury is waged by the army of Lancastrian King Henry IV against a rebel army led by Harry “Hotspur” Percy of Northumberland; the King is victorious, and the Percy rebellion is crushed. Shrewsbury is the first battle in which English archers are used by both sides, demonstrating the deadly effectiveness of the longbow

1588 – At daybreak, the English fleet, which maneuvered upwind during the night to gain the weather gage, a significant advantage, engages the Spanish Armada off Plymouth near the Eddystone Rocks. The Armada maintains a crescent formation, with galleons and great ships at the center and tips of the crescent’s horns. Sir Francis Drake leads the attack from the north, while Charles Howard comes from the south with the bulk of the fleet, both groups using their superior speed and maneuverability to stay out of range of the Spanish grappling hooks. But the English cannon are ineffective at that range, and darkness falls, ending the first day in stalemate

1645 – Qing regent Dorgon orders Han men to braid their hair into queue like Manchus

1653 – Sarah Good born, one of the first three Puritan women accused of witchcraft and executed during the Salem witch trials

1656 – Elizabeth Key Grinstead wins her lawsuit, gaining freedom from slavery for herself and her baby son with the argument that her father was an Englishman and she is a baptized Christian. The Virginia House of Burgesses later passes laws that the status of children will follow that of the mother, not the father, abandoning English Common Law, which determines a child’s status based on the father, for the Roman partus sequitur ventrem, based on the mother’s status, which condemns all children born of enslaved women in Virginia to slavery

1669 – The colonists officially recognize the July 21, 1669, version of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina as the valid version. Since John Locke is in service to Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Lords Province of Carolina’s proprietor most involved in the conception of the constitution, it is widely accepted that Locke is much involved in the development of the Carolina Constitution

1673 – John Weaver born, English ballet master-choreographer called “the father of English pantomime”

Left: Frontispiece, Weaver’s Orchesography – Right: Coviello, Commedia dell’arte

1694 – Georg Brandt born, Swedish chemist and mineralogist who discovered cobalt, the first person to discover an element unknown in ancient times

1730 – A bill declaring sodomy a sin against nature is passed in the states of Holland, carrying the death penalty, but does not mention women

1798 – The Battle of the Pyramids: The French army under Napoleon Bonaparte scored a decisive victory against the forces of the local Mamluk rulers, wiping out almost the entire Egyptian army

The Battle of the Pyramids by François-Louis Watteau

1804 – Victor Schoelcher born, French abolitionist and writer; head of a government commission in 1848 which issues a decree of principles in April 1848, leading to abolishing slavery in all French colonies – His birthday is celebrated as Victor Schoelcher Day * on Guadelupe and Sint Maarten

1816 – Paul Julius Reuter born in Germany, British founder of Reuters news agency

1817 – Sir John Gilbert born, English painter and illustrator

‘With all their banners bravely spread’ by Sir John Gilbert – 1878

1831 – Leopold I becomes King of the Belgians as Belgium becomes independent of the Netherlands

1877 – The Great Railroad Strike: the strike begins July 14 when the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad cut workers wages for the third time in a year;  John Carroll, Governor of Maryland, calls out the National Guard to put down the strike in Baltimore. On July 21, as troops marched toward B & O’s Camden Yard, citizens of Baltimore attack them, and violent street battles erupt between the striking workers and the Maryland militia. The troopers fire on the crowd, killing 10 and wounding 25. The rioters injure several militiamen, damage train engine and cars, and burn part of the station before
President Rutherford B. Hayes sends federal troops to restore order

1897 – The Tate Gallery opens in London

1898 – Sara Carter born, American singer-songwriter, inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame (member of the Carter Family)

1899 – Hart Crane born, American poet

1899 – Ernest Hemingway born, American author and adventurer

1904 – Frenchman Louis Rigolly is the first man to break the 100 mph (161 km/h) barrier on land, driving a 15 liter Gobron-Brillié automobile in Ostend, Belgium

1911 – Marshall McLuhan born, Canadian communications theorist

1919 – Dutchman Anthony Fokker opens a new airplane factory outside Amsterdam in the Netherlands

1920 – Isaac Stern born, superb Polish violinist

(Music starts just after 1:35)

1922 – Kay Starr born, American jazz and pop singer; biggest hit was “Wheel of Fortune”; Billie Holiday called her “the only white woman who could sing the blues”

1925 – John Scopes is convicted of violating Tennessee law banning teaching Darwin’s
theory of evolution, but the judge sets his fine instead of the jury, so case is overturned

1930 – Helen Merrill born, internationally known American jazz vocalist

1930 – The U.S. Veteran’s Administration is established

1938 – Janet Reno born, American lawyer, first woman to serve as U.S. Attorney General (1993-2001)

1943 – The film Stormy Weather, starring Bill Robinson, Lena Horne and Fats Waller, premieres in the U.S.

1949 – The U.S. Senate votes 82-13 to ratify the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO)

1951 – Robin Williams, gifted actor and comedian, is born

1954 – France surrenders North Vietnam to communists under Ho Chi Minh, two month after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu

1957 – Althea Gibson becomes first black woman to win a major U.S. tennis title

1960 – In Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Sirima Bandaranaike becomes the world’s first woman Prime Minister

1961 – NASA’s Mercury 4 (Liberty Bell) launches with Gus Grissom aboard

1969 – Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin leave the moon

1970 – Aswan Dam on the Nile in Egypt completed after 11 years of construction

1973 – Jim Croce hits #1 on the U.S. singles charts with “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”

1979 – Robert Palmer releases “Bad Case Of Loving You”

1987 – Guns ’n Roses releases their first album “Appetite for Destruction”

1990 – The Wall – Live in Berlin concert performance by Roger Waters and guest artists commemorates the fall of the Berlin Wall eight months earlier, on a section of the former “no man’s land” near the Brandenburg Gate

1997 – The fully restored USS Constitution (aka “Old Ironsides”) celebrates her 200th birthday, setting sail for the first time in 116 years

2007 – J.K. Rowling’s final book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, is released

2010 – President Obama signs into law the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. lending and high finance rules since the 1930s

2011 – Space Shuttle Atlantis completes the last flight of NASA’s space shuttle program

2012 – Erden Eruç completes first solo human-powered circumnavigation of Earth

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