On This Day - What happened 21 July

The 365 Crete earthquake occurred at about sunrise on 21 July 365 in the Eastern Mediterranean, with an assumed epicentre near Crete. Geologists today estimate the undersea earthquake to have been a magnitude 8.0 or higher. The Crete earthquake was followed by a tsunami which devastated the southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, particularly Libya, Alexandria and the Nile Delta, killing thousands and hurling ships 3 km (1.9 mi) inland.

After the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–1718, the Treaty of Passarowitz confirmed the loss of the Banat, Serbia, and "Little Walachia" (Oltenia) to Austria. The Treaty also revealed that the Ottoman Empire was on the defensive and unlikely to present any further aggression in Europe.

This action (Battle of Balta) provoked the Ottoman Empire into the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 ended the war and provided freedom of worship for the Christian citizens of the Ottoman-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia.

Siegmund Haffner, approached them with a request for music for his sister’s wedding, Mozart happily obliged. Hard as we might imagine today, the resulting Haffner Serenade was planned to be played at Marie Elisabeth Haffner 's wedding on July 21, 1776 for talking, cooking, drinking guests. Once again, the Haffner Serenade is one of Mozart 's early achievements — a brilliant work, full of complexity and imagination, despite receiving little attention from the audience at its first performance.

Napoleon fought on 21 July, the Battle of the Pyramids.

After the Union rout at Bull Run and Winfield Scott's retirement, Lincoln appointed Major General George B. McClellan general-in-chief.

The Battle of Bezzecca was fought on 21 July 1866 between Italy and Austria, during the Third Italian Independence War.

Mylius-Erichsen's death cast a pall over the whole expedition, its results didn't receive the attention they deserved.

In Norfolk, Virginia, a white mob attacked a homecoming celebration for African-American veterans of World War I. At least 6 people were shot, and the local police called in Marines and Navy personnel to restore order.

On 21 July 1920, partly in response to the killing of Smyth and partly because of competition over jobs due to the high unemployment rate, loyalists marched on the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast and forced over 7,000 Catholic and left-wing Protestant workers from their jobs. Sectarian rioting broke out in response in Belfast and Derry, resulting in about 40 deaths and many Catholics and Protestants being expelled from their homes.

On 21 July, the fifth day of the rebellion, the Nationalists captured the central Spanish naval base, located in Ferrol, Galicia.

Philip was introduced to the House of Lords on 21 July 1948, immediately before his uncle Louis Mountbatten, who had been made Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Philip, like his sons Charles and Andrew and other royals (with the exception of the 1st Earl of Snowdon), ceased to be members of the House of Lords following the House of Lords Act 1999. He never spoke in the House.

Robin McLaurin Williams was born at St. Luke's Hospital, in Chicago, Illinois on July 21, 1951. His father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, was a senior executive in Ford Motor Company's Lincoln-Mercury Division. His mother, Laurie McLaurin, was a former model from Jackson, Mississippi. Through her, he was a great-great-grandson of Mississippi senator and governor Anselm J. McLaurin. Williams had two elder half-brothers; paternal half-brother Robert (also known as Todd) and maternal half-brother McLaurin. He had English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, French, and German ancestry.

At the International Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954, the new socialist French government and the Việt Minh made an agreement which effectively gave the Việt Minh control of North Vietnam above the 17th parallel. The south continued under Bảo Đại. The agreement was denounced by the State of Vietnam and by the United States. A year later, Bảo Đại would be deposed by his prime minister, Ngô Đình Diệm, creating the Republic of Vietnam.

As Guevara prepared for Bolivia, he secretly traveled back to Cuba on July 21, 1966 to visit Castro.

The flight plan called for a crew rest period before extravehicular activity, but Armstrong requested the EVA be moved to earlier in the evening, Houston time. When he and Aldrin were ready to go outside, Eagle was depressurized, the hatch was opened, and Armstrong made his way down the ladder. At the bottom of the ladder Armstrong said, "I'm going to step off the LM now". He turned and set his left boot on the lunar surface at 02:56 UTC July 21, 1969, then spoke the now-famous words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

About 19 minutes after Armstrong's first step, Aldrin joined him on the surface, becoming the second human to walk on the Moon. They began their tasks of investigating how easily a person could operate on the lunar surface. Armstrong unveiled a plaque commemorating the flight, and with Aldrin, planted the flag of the United States.

Pele won World Cup 1970 against Italy 4-1

On 21 July 1992, the Agreement on Friendship and Cooperation was signed by Tuđman and Izetbegović, establishing a military cooperation between the two armies.

The company was at work on a 32-bit OS, Microsoft Windows NT. It shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new modular kernel and the Win32 application programming interface (API), making porting from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows easier.

The Rock was named the number one contender for the WWE Undisputed Championship, which he won for a record-setting seventh time at Vengeance, on July 21, by defeating Kurt Angle and then-champion The Undertaker in a Triple Threat match.

On 21 July 2008, negotiations started again at the WTO's HQ in Geneva on the Doha round but stalled after nine days of negotiations over the refusal to compromise over the special safeguard mechanism. "Developing country members receive special and differential treatment with respect to other members' safeguard measures, in the form of a de minimis import volume exemption. As users of safeguards, developing country members receive special and differential treatment with respect to applying their own such measures, with regard to the permitted duration of extensions, and with respect to re-application of measures.

July 21, 2010, Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act enacted.

On July 21, 2010, Zuckerberg reported that the Facebook reached the 500 million-user mark.

On 21 July 2014, it was announced that the Duchess would be making her first solo trip, visiting the island of Malta on 20–21 September 2014, when the island was celebrating its 50th independence anniversary. However, her trip was cancelled, with the Duke taking her place, after the announcement of her second pregnancy in early September.

On 21 July 2017, bitcoin was trading at $2,748, up 52% from 14 July 2017's $1,835.

American Pickers host Mike Wolfe announced that his former co-host had been hospitalised after suffering a stroke.