History of Today 21 June: Important Events, Births and Deaths

Welcome to History of Today 21 June. On this page, you can read important historical events, famous births, notable deaths and general knowledge facts related to 21 June. This information is useful for UPSC, SSC, Banking, Railway, State PSC and other competitive exams.

Last updated on 21 June 2026, 01:02 AM

Important Events on 21 June in History

• 21 Jun 2025: A hot air balloon catches fire mid-flight and crashes in Praia Grande, Santa Catarina, Brazil, killing 8 of the 21 on board. Read more
• 21 Jun 2012: A boat carrying more than 200 migrants capsizes in the Indian Ocean between the Indonesian island of Java and Christmas Island, killing 17 people and leaving 70 others missing. Read more
• 21 Jun 2012: An Indonesian Air Force Fokker F27 Friendship crashes near Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, killing 11. Read more
• 21 Jun 2009: Greenland assumes self-rule. Read more
• 21 Jun 2006: Pluto's newly discovered moons are officially named Nix and Hydra. Read more
• 21 Jun 2006: A Yeti Airlines de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter crashes at Jumla Airport in Nepal, killing nine people. Read more
• 21 Jun 2005: Edgar Ray Killen, who had previously been unsuccessfully tried for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, is convicted of manslaughter 41 years afterwards (the case had been reopened in 2004). Read more
• 21 Jun 2004: SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight. Read more
• 21 Jun 2001: A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicts 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen. Read more
• 21 Jun 2000: Section 28 (of the Local Government Act 1988), outlawing the 'promotion' of homosexuality in the United Kingdom, is repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote. Read more
• 21 Jun 1993: Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on STS-57 to retrieve the European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA) satellite. It is also the first shuttle mission to carry the Spacehab module. Read more
• 21 Jun 1989: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, that American flag-burning is a form of political protest protected by the First Amendment. Read more
• 21 Jun 1985: Braathens SAFE Flight 139 is hijacked on approach to Oslo Airport, Fornebu. Special forces arrest the hijacker and there are no fatalities. Read more
• 21 Jun 1982: John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Read more
• 21 Jun 1978: The original production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Evita, based on the life of Eva Perón, opens at the Prince Edward Theatre, London. Read more
• 21 Jun 1973: The Primer Congreso del Hombre Andino is inaugurated in Arica, Chile. Read more
• 21 Jun 1973: In its decision in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller test for determining whether something is obscene and not protected speech under the U.S. constitution. Read more
• 21 Jun 1970: Penn Central declares Section 77 bankruptcy in what was the largest U.S. corporate bankruptcy to date. Read more
• 21 Jun 1964: Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Read more
• 21 Jun 1963: Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini is elected as Pope Paul VI. Read more
• 21 Jun 1957: Ellen Fairclough is sworn in as Canada's first female Cabinet Minister. Read more
• 21 Jun 1952: The Philippine School of Commerce, through a republic act, is converted to Philippine College of Commerce, later to be the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Read more
• 21 Jun 1945: World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ends when the organized resistance of Imperial Japanese Army forces collapses in the Mabuni area on the southern tip of the main island. Read more
• 21 Jun 1942: World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and German forces; 33,000 Allied troops are taken prisoner. Read more
• 21 Jun 1942: World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by Japan against the United States mainland. Read more
• 21 Jun 1941: Having defeated forces of Vichy France, Allied forces capture Damascus. Read more
• 21 Jun 1940: World War II: Italy begins an unsuccessful invasion of France. Read more
• 21 Jun 1930: One-year conscription comes into force in France. Read more
• 21 Jun 1929: An agreement brokered by U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow ends the Cristero War in Mexico. Read more
• 21 Jun 1921: The Irish village of Knockcroghery was burned by British forces. Read more
• 21 Jun 1919: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police fire a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during the Winnipeg general strike. Read more
• 21 Jun 1919: Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet at Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed are the last casualties of World War I. Read more
• 21 Jun 1915: The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down Oklahoma grandfather clause legislation which had the effect of denying the right to vote to blacks. Read more
• 21 Jun 1900: Boxer Rebellion: China formally declares war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan, as an edict issued from the Empress Dowager Cixi. Read more
• 21 Jun 1898: The United States captures Guam from Spain. The few warning shots fired by the U.S. naval vessels are misinterpreted as salutes by the Spanish garrison, which was unaware that the two nations were at war. Read more
• 21 Jun 1864: American Civil War: The Battle of Jerusalem Plank Road begins. Read more
• 21 Jun 1848: In the Wallachian Revolution, Ion Heliade Rădulescu and Christian Tell issue the Proclamation of Islaz and create a new republican government. Read more
• 21 Jun 1826: Maniots defeat Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha in the Battle of Vergas. Read more
• 21 Jun 1824: Greek War of Independence: Egyptian forces capture Psara in the Aegean Sea. Read more
• 21 Jun 1813: Peninsular War: Wellington defeats Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vitoria. Read more

Famous Births on 21 June

• 21 Jun 2011: Lil Bub, American celebrity cat (died 2019) Lil Bub, officially Lil BUB, was an American celebrity cat known for her unique physical appearance. Her photos were first posted to Tumblr in November 2011, before taking off after being featured on the social news website Reddit. "Lil Bub" on Facebook has over three million likes. Lil Bub starred in Lil Bub & Friendz, a documentary that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2013, and won the Tribeca Online Festival Best Feature Film. Read more
• 21 Jun 2007: Nanou Philips, Belgian ASMR social media personality Nanou Philips is a Belgian social media personality. Under the online handle Nanou ASMR, she produces ASMR content, which she is mostly known for, on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, in addition to other platforms. Besides ASMR, Philips also uploads vlogging content. Having done content creation since mid-childhood, she has amassed a large following online from her ASMR and vlogging content. Read more
• 21 Jun 2001: Alexandra Obolentseva, Russian chess player Alexandra Sergeevna Obolentseva is a Russian chess player. She was awarded the title Woman Grandmaster by FIDE in 2018. Obolentseva has won the World Youth Chess Championships, the World Schools Chess Championships and the European Schools Chess Championships in her age girls category. Read more
• 21 Jun 2000: Dylan Brown, New Zealand rugby league player Dylan Brown is a New Zealand professional rugby league footballer who plays as a five-eighth for the Newcastle Knights in the National Rugby League and New Zealand at international level. Read more
• 21 Jun 1999: Ky Rodwell, Australian rugby league player Ky Rodwell is an Australian professional rugby league footballer who plays as a prop and loose forward for Wakefield Trinity in the Super League. Read more
• 21 Jun 1998: Isabel Atkin, British-American freestyle skier Isabel "Izzy" Atkin is a former British-American freestyle skier who competed internationally for Great Britain.
  She won bronze in women's slopestyle at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, the first British Olympic medal in skiing. Read more
• 21 Jun 1997: Rebecca Black, American singer-songwriter Rebecca Renee Black is an American singer, songwriter, YouTuber, and DJ. She gained extensive media coverage when the music video for her 2011 debut single "Friday" went viral on YouTube and various social media sites. The song had a polarizing reaction as while it peaked at number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100, it was also panned by audiences and music critics, many of whom considered it "among the worst songs ever made". In 2013, Black released a follow-up single "Saturday" to similar commercial success and marginally improved reception. Read more
• 21 Jun 1997: Derrius Guice, American football player Derrius Guice is an American former professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the LSU Tigers, becoming the first player in Southeastern Conference (SEC) history with three career games of 250 or more rushing yards before being selected by the Washington Redskins in the second round of the 2018 NFL draft. Read more
• 21 Jun 1996: Tyrone May, Australian rugby league player Tyrone May is a Samoa international rugby league footballer who plays for Hull Kingston Rovers in the Super League. Primarily a stand-off, May has played in a number of other positions during his career, including centre, scrum-half, loose forward and fullback. Read more
• 21 Jun 1996: Scottie Scheffler, American golfer Scott Alexander Scheffler is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour. He is currently ranked world number one in the Official World Golf Ranking, a position he has held for over 175 weeks during his career. He has won four major championships. Read more
• 21 Jun 1994: Başak Eraydın, Turkish tennis player Başak Eraydın is a Turkish inactive tennis player. Read more
• 21 Jun 1993: Hungrybox, Argentine-American esports player Juan Manuel DeBiedma, better known by his alias Hungrybox, is an Argentine–American professional Super Smash Bros. player, streamer, tournament organizer and commentator. Recognized as one of the greatest and most successful Super Smash Bros. Melee players of all time, he is one of the "Five Gods of Melee" along with Adam "Armada" Lindgren, Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman, Joseph "Mang0" Marquez, and Kevin "PPMD" Nanney, and is regarded as the greatest Jigglypuff player in history. He is also an active competitor in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and has been a member of Team Liquid since 2015, becoming its co-owner in December 2021. He is currently ranked as the 3rd best Melee player in the world for 2025. Read more
• 21 Jun 1992: MAX, American singer, songwriter, actor, dancer and model Maxwell George Schneider, also known by his mononym Max, is an American singer and actor. He is best known for his 2016 single "Lights Down Low", which peaked within the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 and received triple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). A sleeper hit, the song emerged from his second album, Hell's Kitchen Angel (2016), which was released by DCD2 Records and narrowly entered the Billboard 200. He signed with Arista Records to release his third album, Color Vision (2020). Read more
• 21 Jun 1992: Hussein El Shahat, Egyptian professional footballer Hussein Ali El Shahat Ali Hassan is an Egyptian professional footballer who plays for Egyptian Premier League club Al Ahly as a winger. Read more
• 21 Jun 1991: Gaël Kakuta, French footballer Gaël Romeo Kakuta Mambenga is a professional footballer who plays as a winger for Greek Super League club AEL. Born in France, he represents the DR Congo national team. Read more
• 21 Jun 1991: Lee Min-young, South Korean singer-songwriter, actress, and entertainer Lee Min-young, known professionally as Min, is a South Korean singer, television personality, songwriter, and actress. She is best known as a former member of the South Korean girl group Miss A. Read more
• 21 Jun 1990: Ričardas Berankis, Lithuanian tennis player Ričardas Berankis is a Lithuanian former professional tennis player. He was the first and only Lithuanian to enter the ATP top 50 rankings, making him the highest ranked Lithuanian tennis player of all time. Berankis has reached two singles finals on the ATP World Tour, at the Los Angeles Open in 2012 and at the Kremlin Cup in 2017 and won one doubles title in Houston. He was also a prominent member of the Lithuania Davis Cup team. Read more
• 21 Jun 1990: Sergei Matsenko, Russian chess player Sergei Vadimovich Matsenko is a Russian chess grandmaster. Read more
• 21 Jun 1990: François Moubandje, Swiss footballer Jacques François Moubandje is a former professional footballer who played as a left back. Born in Cameroon, he represented the Switzerland national team. Read more
• 21 Jun 1990: Håvard Nordtveit, Norwegian footballer Håvard Nordtveit is a Norwegian former professional footballer who played as a defender or defensive midfielder. Read more
• 21 Jun 1990: Isabel Pires, Portuguese politician Isabel Cristina Rua Pires is a Portuguese politician and former member of the Assembly of the Republic, the national legislature of Portugal. A member of the Left Bloc, she has represented Lisbon from October 2015 to March 2022 and Porto from September 2023 to March 2024. She had also been a temporary substitute member of the Assembly from February 2023 to August 2023. Read more
• 21 Jun 1989: Abubaker Kaki, Sudanese runner Abubaker Kaki Khamis is a Sudanese runner who specialises in the 800 metres. He is a two-time World Indoor Champion over the distance and also won gold at the 2007 All-Africa Games. He represented Sudan at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics. He is a member of the Messiria ethnic minority. Read more
• 21 Jun 1988: Allyssa DeHaan, American basketball and volleyball player Allyssa DeHaan is an American former collegiate basketball and volleyball player. She played for Michigan State University from 2006 to 2010. Read more
• 21 Jun 1988: Alejandro Ramírez, American chess player Alejandro Tadeo Ramírez Álvarez is a Costa Rican-American chess Grandmaster and commentator. At the age of 15, he became the first Central American to achieve the title of Grandmaster and was the second youngest chess grandmaster in the world at the time. Born in Costa Rica, he represented Costa Rica before switching to the United States in 2011. Read more
• 21 Jun 1988: Paolo Tornaghi, Italian footballer Paolo Tornaghi is an Italian footballer who plays as a goalkeeper. Read more
• 21 Jun 1988: Thaddeus Young, American basketball player Thaddeus Charles Young Sr. is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, before being selected 12th overall in the 2007 NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. In 2018, Young became the 5th player in NBA history with at least 800 games to average 13.5 points, 5.9 Rebounds, 1.4 steals, 49% FGS, and 30% 3PT FGS, after Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James. Read more
• 21 Jun 1987: Pablo Barrera, Mexican footballer Pablo Edson Barrera Acosta is a Mexican former professional footballer who played as a winger. Read more
• 21 Jun 1987: Sebastian Prödl, Austrian footballer Sebastian Prödl is an Austrian former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. A full international from 2007 to 2018, he represented the Austria national team at UEFA Euro 2008 and UEFA Euro 2016. Read more
• 21 Jun 1987: Dale Thomas, Australian footballer Dale Robert Jordan “Daisy” Thomas is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Collingwood Football Club and Carlton Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Thomas was a priority pick in 2005, where he then played with the Collingwood Football Club from 2006 to 2013 before transferring to Carlton in 2014. Read more
• 21 Jun 1987: Kim Ryeo-wook, South Korean singer Kim Ryeo-wook, better known by the mononym Ryeowook, is a South Korean singer, songwriter, and musical actor. He is best known as a member of boy group Super Junior and its subgroups, Super Junior-K.R.Y. and Super Junior-M. Along with four other Super Junior members, he is one of the first Korean artists to appear on Chinese postage stamps. He began a solo career in 2016 with his first EP The Little Prince. Read more
• 21 Jun 1986: Kathleen O'Kelly-Kennedy, Australian wheelchair basketball player Kathleen O'Kelly-Kennedy is an Australian 4.0 point wheelchair basketball player who plays forward-centre. She was part of the bronze medal-winning Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing. Read more
• 21 Jun 1986: Hideaki Wakui, Japanese baseball player Hideaki Wakui is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Chunichi Dragons of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). He has previously played in NPB for the Seibu Lions / Saitama Seibu Lions, Chiba Lotte Marines, and Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. Read more
• 21 Jun 1985: Kris Allen, American musician, singer and songwriter Kristopher Neil Allen is an American singer, songwriter, and the winner of the eighth season of American Idol. Read more
• 21 Jun 1985: Lana Del Rey, American singer-songwriter Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, known professionally as Lana Del Rey, is an American singer-songwriter. Her music is noted for its melancholic exploration of glamor and romance, with frequent references to pop culture and 1950s–1970s Americana. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an MTV Video Music Award, three MTV Europe Music Awards, two Brit Awards, two Billboard Women in Music awards, and a Satellite Award, in addition to nominations for 11 Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Variety honored her at their Hitmakers Awards for being "one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the 21st century". In 2023, Rolling Stone placed Del Rey on their list of the "200 Greatest Singers of All Time", while Rolling Stone UK named her as the "greatest American songwriter of the 21st century". Read more
• 21 Jun 1985: Sentayehu Ejigu, Ethiopian runner Sentayehu Ejigu Tamerat is an Ethiopian long-distance runner, who specializes in the 3000 and 5000 metres. She represented Ethiopia at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Read more
• 21 Jun 1985: Byron Schammer, Australian footballer Byron Schammer is an Australian rules footballer currently playing with the Claremont Football Club in the West Australian Football League (WAFL). He previously played with the Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League. Read more
• 21 Jun 1983: Edward Snowden, American activist and academic Edward Joseph Snowden is a former United States National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Read more
• 21 Jun 1982: Lee Dae-ho, South Korean baseball player Lee Dae-ho is a South Korean professional baseball player who played as a first baseman. During his career, he played for the Lotte Giants of the KBO League, Orix Buffaloes and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), and the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball (MLB). Read more
• 21 Jun 1982: William, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne William, Prince of Wales, is the heir apparent to the British throne. He is the elder son of King Charles III and Diana, Princess of Wales. Read more
• 21 Jun 1982: Jussie Smollett, American actor and singer Jussie Smollett is an American actor, filmmaker and singer. He began his career as a child actor in 1991 debuting in The Mighty Ducks (1992). From 2015 to 2019, Smollett portrayed musician Jamal Lyon in the Fox drama series Empire. Read more
• 21 Jun 1981: Yann Danis, Canadian ice hockey player Yann Joseph Richard Danis is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Montreal Canadiens, New York Islanders, Edmonton Oilers, and New Jersey Devils. He played in the butterfly style of goaltending. Read more
• 21 Jun 1981: Garrett Jones, American baseball player Garrett Thomas Jones is an American former professional baseball first baseman and right fielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Minnesota Twins, Pittsburgh Pirates, Miami Marlins, and New York Yankees, and in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Yomiuri Giants. Read more
• 21 Jun 1981: Brandon Flowers, American singer-songwriter Brandon Richard Flowers is an American musician. He serves as the co-founder, lead vocalist, primary songwriter, keyboardist, and occasional bassist of the Las Vegas–based rock band the Killers, which he formed with Dave Keuning in 2001. Read more
• 21 Jun 1981: Brad Walker, American pole vaulter Brad Walker is an American pole vaulter. He was the American recordholder and was the 2007 World Champion in the event. Read more
• 21 Jun 1980: Michael Crocker, Australian rugby league player and sportscaster Michael "Croc" Crocker is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s. An Australian international and Queensland State of Origin representative forward, he played his club football in the National Rugby League for the Sydney Roosters, Melbourne Storm and the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Crocker played in 5 Grand Finals during his career, including three consecutive Grand Final appearances between 2002 and 2004, including one victory in 2002. Read more
• 21 Jun 1980: Łukasz Cyborowski, Polish chess player Łukasz Cyborowski is a Polish chess Grandmaster (2003). Read more
• 21 Jun 1980: Richard Jefferson, American basketball player Richard Allen Jefferson Jr. is an American former professional basketball player who played small forward. He played for eight teams during his 17-season career in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Read more
• 21 Jun 1980: Sendy Rleal, Dominican baseball player Sendy Rleal Aquino is a former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Baltimore Orioles in 2006, and in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) for the Sinon Bulls in 2010. Read more
• 21 Jun 1979: Kostas Katsouranis, Greek footballer Kostas Katsouranis is a Greek former professional footballer. A versatile midfielder, who won the Super League Greek Footballer of the Year Award in 2005 and 2013, as well as the Cosme Damião Award for Footballer of the Year in 2008. Read more
• 21 Jun 1979: Chris Pratt, American actor Christopher Michael Pratt is an American actor and producer. His films as a leading actor have grossed over $14.1 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing film stars of all time. Pratt was one of the world's highest-paid actors annually from 2015 to 2017. Through starring in blockbuster franchises and big-budget films, he has established himself as one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. Read more
• 21 Jun 1978: Thomas Blondeau, Flemish writer (died 2013) Thomas Blondeau was a Flemish writer, poet and journalist. He studied literature at the University of Leuven and the University of Leiden. He wrote for newspapers including Mare, Deng, De Revisor, De Standaard and Dif. Read more
• 21 Jun 1978: Matt Kuchar, American golfer Matthew Gregory Kuchar is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and formerly the Nationwide Tour. He has won nine times on the PGA Tour. Kuchar briefly enjoyed success in the early 2000s before suffering a slump where he struggled to maintain his playing status on the PGA Tour. He rejuvenated himself and built a new, one-plane swing from 2008 onward leading to improved results. Kuchar was the PGA Tour's leading money winner in 2010. Read more
• 21 Jun 1978: Cristiano Lupatelli, Italian footballer Cristiano Lupatelli is an Italian professional football coach and former player who is the goalkeeping coach of club Juventus U23. As a player, he was a goalkeeper; he is known for his trademark goatee and sideburns with his bald head. Read more
• 21 Jun 1978: Dejan Ognjanović, Montenegrin footballer Dejan Ognjanović is a Montenegrin former professional footballer who played as a defender. On the international level, he represented FR Yugoslavia most notably at the 2001 Kirin Cup as well as Montenegro from 2008 to 2010. Read more
• 21 Jun 1978: Rim'K, French rapper Abdelkrim Brahmi, known professionally as Rim'K is a French rapper of Algerian origins. Rim'k is a member of the group 113, alongside Mokobé and AP, and the supergroup Mafia K-1 Fry. He also has a group called Maghreb United. Read more
• 21 Jun 1977: Michael Gomez, Irish boxer Michael Gomez is a former professional boxer who competed from 1995 to 2009. He was born to an Irish Traveller family in Longford, Ireland, spending his early years in Dublin before moving to London and later Manchester, England, with his family at the age of nine. In boxing he was affectionately known as "The Predator", "The Irish Mexican" and "The Mancunian Mexican". Read more
• 21 Jun 1977: Al Wilson, American football player Aldra Kauwa Wilson is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker for eight seasons with the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Tennessee Volunteers, earning consensus All-American honors. Wilson was selected by the Denver Broncos in the first round of the 1999 NFL draft, and played his entire professional career for the Broncos. He was a five-time Pro Bowl selection and a two-time All-Pro selection. Read more
• 21 Jun 1976: Shelley Craft, Australian television host Shelley Craft is an Australian television personality. Read more
• 21 Jun 1976: Mike Einziger, American guitarist and songwriter Michael Aaron Einziger is an American musician, songwriter and producer. He is best known for being co-founder and guitarist of the rock band Incubus, and has also co-written, produced and collaborated with a wide array of artists including Pharrell Williams, Hans Zimmer, Skrillex, Tyler the Creator, Avicii, Damian Marley, Jason Schwartzman and Steve Martin among many others. Incubus has sold over 23 Million albums worldwide, and in 2013, Einziger co-wrote the hit song "Wake Me Up", alongside Avicii and Aloe Blacc. As an entrepreneur, Einziger is the co-founder and co-chairman of the wireless technology platform MIXhalo, and also the co-founder and CEO of the biotechnology startup Versicolor Technologies. Einziger received his education at Harvard University. Read more
• 21 Jun 1976: Nigel Lappin, Australian footballer and coach Nigel Lappin is a former professional Australian rules footballer. Lappin is currently serving as an assistant coach with the Geelong Football Club. Read more
• 21 Jun 1975: Brian Simmons, American football player Brian Eugene Simmons is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker for 10 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the University of North Carolina, and earned All-American honors. He was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals 17th overall in the 1998 NFL draft, and he played professionally for the Bengals and New Orleans Saints of the NFL. Read more
• 21 Jun 1974: Rob Kelly, American football player Robert James Kelly III is an American former professional football player who was a safety for four seasons with the New Orleans Saints in the National Football League (NFL) and one on the injured reserve list for the New England Patriots. He played college football for the Ohio State Buckeyes. Read more
• 21 Jun 1974: Craig Lowndes, Australian race car driver Craig Andrew Lowndes is an Australian racing car driver in the Repco Supercars Championship racing for Team 18. He is also a TV commentator. Read more
• 21 Jun 1974: Flavio Roma, Italian footballer Flavio Roma is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Read more
• 21 Jun 1973: Juliette Lewis, American actress and singer-songwriter Juliette Lake Lewis is an American actress, singer and musician. She is known for her portrayals of offbeat characters, often in films with dark plots, themes, and settings. Lewis gained prominence in American cinema during the early 1990s, appearing in various independent and arthouse films. Lewis's accolades include nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Read more
• 21 Jun 1973: John Mitchell, English guitarist, vocalist and songwriter John Mitchell is an Irish musician and record producer. He primarily plays guitar and has been a member of the bands It Bites, Arena, Frost*, Kino, A, The Urbane, and Asia, as well as pursuing a solo career with the Lonely Robot project. Read more
• 21 Jun 1972: Nobuharu Asahara, Japanese sprinter and long jumper Nobuharu Asahara is a former Japanese athlete who specialized in the 100 meters and long jump. He won the 100 m at the Japanese national championship on five occasions in 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001 and 2002, and he took part in the Olympics four times in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. He represented Japan six times at the World Championships in Athletics. Read more
• 21 Jun 1972: Neil Doak, Northern Irish cricketer and rugby player Neil George Doak is a Northern Irish former cricketer and rugby union player. He is the former head coach of the Ireland U20 rugby union team. Read more
• 21 Jun 1972: Irene van Dyk, South African-New Zealand netball player Irene van Dyk is a former netball international who represented both New Zealand and South Africa. Between 2000 and 2014 she made 145 senior appearances for New Zealand. She was a member of the New Zealand teams that won the 2003 World Netball Championships and the 2006 and 2010 Commonwealth Games titles. Between 1994 and 1999 she made 72 senior appearances for South Africa. She was member of the South Africa team that were silver medallists at the 1995 World Netball Championships. She captained South Africa at the 1999 World Netball Championships. During her international netball career, she scored 5917 goals from 6572 attempts at 90%. Van Dyk remains the world's most capped netball international. She was the 2003 New Zealand Sportswoman of the Year. Between 2003 and 2013, van Dyk played for Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic. In 2005 and 2006, she was a member of the Magic team that won two successive National Bank Cup titles and in 2012, she was a member of the Magic team that won the ANZ Championship. In 2009, van Dyk was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to netball. In 2022, she was included on a list of the 25 best players to feature in netball leagues in New Zealand since 1998. In 2024 she was inducted into the Netball New Zealand Hall of Fame. Read more
• 21 Jun 1972: Tomáš Valášek, Slovak diplomat and politician Tomáš Valášek is a Slovak diplomat and politician. From 2013 to 2017 he served as the ambassador of Slovakia to NATO. From 2020 he is a Member of the National Council. Read more
• 21 Jun 1971: Tyronne Drakeford, American football player Tyronne James Drakeford is an American former professional football player who was a cornerback in the National Football League (NFL). He played for the San Francisco 49ers, New Orleans Saints, and Washington Redskins. He played college football for the Virginia Tech Hokies and was selected in the second round of the 1994 NFL draft. Read more
• 21 Jun 1970: Eric Reed, American pianist and composer Eric Scott Reed is an American jazz pianist and composer. His group Black Note released several albums in the 1990s. Read more
• 21 Jun 1968: Sonique, English singer-songwriter and DJ Sonia Marina Clarke, better known by her stage name Sonique, is an English singer, musician and DJ. She came to public attention as a member of dance band S'Express during the early 1990s, but achieved greater success as a solo artist in the early-to mid 2000s. During this period, she achieved UK top 20 hits with "It Feels So Good", "Sky", "I Put a Spell on You" and "Can't Make Up My Mind", and won the 2001 BRIT Award for British female solo artist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1967: Jim Breuer, American comedian, actor, and producer James Breuer is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 1998 and starred in the film Half Baked (1998). Read more
• 21 Jun 1967: Derrick Coleman, American basketball player and sportscaster Derrick Demetrius Coleman is an American former professional basketball player. Coleman attended Syracuse University and was selected first overall in the 1990 NBA draft by the New Jersey Nets. Read more
• 21 Jun 1967: Pierre Omidyar, French-American businessman, founded eBay Pierre Morad Omidyar is a French-born Iranian-American billionaire. A technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and philanthropist, he is the founder of eBay, where he served as chairman from 1998 to 2015. Omidyar is the grandson of the Imperial Iranian Army General Mahmud Mir-Djalali, who was instrumental in the 1921 rise of the Pahlavi Dynasty, the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, and the building out of Iran's Mechanized Artillery Forces and Defense Industries. As of 2023, Forbes ranked Omidyar as the 245th-richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $8.7 billion. Read more
• 21 Jun 1967: Carrie Preston, American actress, director, and producer Carrie Preston is an American actress, director, and producer. She is best known for her roles as Arlene Fowler in the HBO fantasy drama series True Blood (2008–2014) and as Elsbeth Tascioni in the CBS legal drama series The Good Wife (2010–2016) and the two spinoffs The Good Fight (2017–2022) and Elsbeth (2024–present). For her work on The Good Wife, Preston received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Read more
• 21 Jun 1967: Yingluck Shinawatra, Thai businesswoman and politician, 28th Prime Minister of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra is a Thai businesswoman, politician and a member of the Pheu Thai Party who was the 28th prime minister of Thailand from 2011 to 2014. Yingluck was Thailand's first female prime minister and its youngest in over 60 years since the Siamese revolution of 1932. She was removed from office on 7 May 2014 by a Constitutional Court decision. Read more
• 21 Jun 1966: Gretchen Carlson, American model and TV journalist, Miss America 1989 Gretchen Elizabeth Carlson is an American broadcast journalist, writer, and television personality. Read more
• 21 Jun 1965: David Beerling, English biologist and academic David John Beerling FLSW is the Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Climate change mitigation and Sorby Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences (APS) at the University of Sheffield, UK. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. Read more
• 21 Jun 1965: Yang Liwei, Chinese general, pilot, and astronaut Yang Liwei is a Chinese major general, former military pilot, and former taikonaut of the People's Liberation Army. Read more
• 21 Jun 1965: Ewen McKenzie, Australian rugby player and coach Ewen James Andrew McKenzie is an Australian professional rugby union coach and a former player. A prop, he played for Australia's World Cup winning team in 1991 and earned 51 caps for the Wallabies during his test career. He played nine seasons for the NSW Waratahs and two for the ACT Brumbies. Read more
• 21 Jun 1965: Lana Wachowski, American director, producer, and screenwriter Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski are American film and television directors, writers and producers. Together known as the Wachowskis, the sisters are both trans women and have worked as a writing and directing team throughout most of their careers. They made their directing debut with Bound (1996), and achieved fame with The Matrix (1999), a major box-office success for which they won the Saturn Award for Best Director. They wrote and directed two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, and were involved in the writing and production of other works in the Matrix franchise. Read more
• 21 Jun 1964: David Morrissey, English actor and director David Mark Joseph Morrissey is an English actor and filmmaker. He had numerous small roles in films and television series throughout the 1990s before achieving wider recognition for playing Gordon Brown in The Deal (2003), Stephen Collins in State of Play (2003), The Governor in the third, and fourth seasons of The Walking Dead (2012–2015), and DCS Ian St Clair in Sherwood (2022–present). He has also acted extensively on stage with companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre. Read more
• 21 Jun 1964: Valeriy Neverov, Ukrainian chess player Valeriy Neverov is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster (1991) and four-time Ukrainian Chess Champion. Read more
• 21 Jun 1964: Dimitris Papaioannou, Greek director and choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou is an Athenian born on 21 June 1964 who emerged from the Greek underground art scene as a defining figure. Starting as a comics creator, he became a director, choreographer, performer, and designer of sets, costumes, and lighting. His hybrid creations gained a growing dedicated audience in Greece, and in 2004 he became the youngest artist to have been assigned to direct the biggest show on earth: the Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies. A decade later, in 2015, he was discovered by European programmers and was invited to tour. Read more
• 21 Jun 1964: Dean Saunders, Welsh footballer and manager Dean Nicholas Saunders is a Welsh football manager and former professional footballer. Read more
• 21 Jun 1964: Doug Savant, American actor Douglas Peter Savant is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Matt Fielding in the Fox prime time soap opera Melrose Place (1992–97), Tom Scavo in ABC comedy-drama Desperate Housewives (2004–12), and as Sgt. O'Neal in Godzilla (1998). Read more
• 21 Jun 1963: Dario Marianelli, Italian pianist and composer Dario Marianelli is an Italian composer. Read more
• 21 Jun 1963: Mike Sherrard, American football player Michael Watson Sherrard is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for the Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants, and Denver Broncos. He played college football for the UCLA Bruins. Sherrard was selected in the first round of the 1986 NFL draft. Read more
• 21 Jun 1962: Shōhei Takada, Japanese shogi player and theoretician Shōhei Takada is a Japanese retired professional shogi player who achieved the rank of 7-dan. Read more
• 21 Jun 1962: Viktor Tsoi, Russian singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1990) Viktor Robertovich Tsoi was a Soviet singer-songwriter and actor who co-founded Kino, one of the most popular and influential bands in the history of Russian music. Read more
• 21 Jun 1961: Manu Chao, French singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Manu Chao is a French-Spanish musician. He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Arabic, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Greek and occasionally in other languages. Chao began his musical career in Paris, busking and playing with groups such as Hot Pants and Los Carayos, which combined a variety of languages and musical styles. With friends and his brother Antoine Chao, he founded the band Mano Negra in 1987, achieving considerable success, particularly in Europe. He became a solo artist after its breakup in 1995 and since then has toured regularly with his live band, Radio Bemba Sound System. Read more
• 21 Jun 1961: Sascha Konietzko, German keyboard player and producer Sascha Kegel Konietzko, also known as Sascha K and Käpt'n K, is a German musician and record producer. He is the founder and frontman of the industrial band KMFDM. Read more
• 21 Jun 1961: Joko Widodo, Indonesian businessman and politician, 7th President of Indonesia Joko Widodo, often known mononymously as Jokowi, is an Indonesian politician and businessman who served as the seventh president of Indonesia from 2014 to 2024. Previously a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), he was the country's first president not to emerge from the political or military elite. Before becoming president, he served as mayor of Surakarta from 2005 to 2012 and as governor of Jakarta from 2012 to 2014. Read more
• 21 Jun 1961: Kip Winger, American rock singer-songwriter and musician Charles Frederick "Kip" Winger is an American musician, songwriter and composer. He is best known as the frontman, lead singer and bass player of the rock band Winger, but also runs parallel careers as a solo rock artist and contemporary classical composer. He initially gained notability as a member of Alice Cooper's band, contributing bass to his Constrictor (1986) and Raise Your Fist and Yell (1987) albums. Read more
• 21 Jun 1961: Iztok Mlakar, Slovenian actor and singer-songwriter Iztok Mlakar is a Slovenian singer-songwriter and theatre actor. Styled as the "bard of the Slovenian Littoral", he is best known for his ironic chansons in the Littoral dialect of Slovene. Together with Adi Smolar, Mlakar is among the best-known singer-songwriters in Slovenia since 1990. Read more
• 21 Jun 1960: Kate Brown, American politician, 38th Governor of Oregon Katherine Brown is an American politician and attorney who served as the 38th governor of Oregon from 2015 to 2023. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Read more
• 21 Jun 1960: Karl Erjavec, Slovenian politician Karl Viktor Erjavec is a Slovenian lawyer and politician who served in the government of Slovenia as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2018. He was the president of the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia, having held the position from 2005 to January 2020 and again from December 2020 until March 2021. He was Minister of Defense from 2004 to 2008 and 2018 to 2020 and Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning from 2008 to 2010. Read more
• 21 Jun 1959: John Baron, English captain and politician John Charles Baron is a British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Basildon and Billericay, previously Billericay, from 2001 to 2024. He has frequently rebelled against his party, specifically in his calling for a referendum on the European Union (EU) before the 2015 election and in opposing military intervention in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Read more
• 21 Jun 1959: Tom Chambers, American basketball player and sportscaster Thomas Doane Chambers is an American former professional basketball player. He played 16 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), where he was a four-time NBA All-Star. He was a two-time All-NBA Second Team selection during his career. He played for the San Diego Clippers, Seattle Supersonics, Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz, Charlotte Hornets, and Philadelphia 76ers. Read more
• 21 Jun 1959: Marcella Detroit, American singer-songwriter and guitarist Marcella Levy, known professionally as Marcy Levy and Marcella Detroit, is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. She co-wrote the 1977 Eric Clapton hit "Lay Down Sally" and released her debut studio album Marcella in 1982. She joined Shakespears Sister in 1988 with ex-Bananarama member Siobhan Fahey. Their first two studio albums, Sacred Heart (1989) and Hormonally Yours (1992), both reached the top 10 of the UK Albums Chart. Detroit sang the lead vocals on their biggest hit, "Stay", which spent eight consecutive weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart in 1992. Detroit left the band in 1993 and had a UK top 20 hit with "I Believe" in 1994. She formed the Marcy Levy Band in 2002, and finished third in the 2010 ITV series Popstar to Operastar. Read more
• 21 Jun 1959: Kathy Mattea, American singer-songwriter and guitarist Kathleen Alice Mattea is an American country music and bluegrass singer. Active since 1984 as a recording artist, she has charted more than 30 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including four that reached No. 1: "Goin' Gone", "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses", "Come from the Heart", and "Burnin' Old Memories", plus 12 more that charted within the top ten. She has released 14 studio albums, two Christmas albums, and one greatest hits album. Most of her material was recorded for Universal Music Group Nashville's Mercury Records Nashville division between 1984 and 2000, with later albums being issued on Narada Productions, her own Captain Potato label, and Sugar Hill Records. Among her albums, she has received five gold certifications and one platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). She has collaborated with Dolly Parton, Michael McDonald, Tim O'Brien, and her husband, Jon Vezner. Mattea is also a two-time Grammy Award winner: in 1990 for "Where've You Been", and in 1993 for her Christmas album Good News. Her style is defined by traditional country, bluegrass, folk, and Celtic music influences. She was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2025. Read more
• 21 Jun 1958: Víctor Montoya, Bolivian journalist and author Víctor Montoya is a Bolivian writer, cultural journalist, and pedagogue. Imprisoned by the dictatorship in his native Bolivia, he became an exile following a campaign by Amnesty International in 1977. Read more
• 21 Jun 1958: Gennady Padalka, Russian colonel, pilot, and astronaut Gennady Ivanovich Padalka is a Russian Air Force officer and Roscosmos cosmonaut. Padalka is the only person to have served as commander of the International Space Station (ISS) four times. He previously held the record for the most time spent in space at 878 days until Oleg Kononenko broke this record on February 4, 2024 at 07:30:08 UTC and is currently at 2nd position. He worked on both Mir and the International Space Station. Read more
• 21 Jun 1957: Berkeley Breathed, American author and illustrator Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed is an American cartoonist, children's book author, director, and screenwriter, known for his comic strips Bloom County, Outland, and Opus. Bloom County earned Breathed the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1987. Read more
• 21 Jun 1957: Luis Antonio Tagle, Filipino cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle is a Filipino prelate of the Catholic Church, and has been the pro-prefect for the Section for First Evangelization and New Particular Churches of the Dicastery for Evangelization since December 8, 2019. He previously served as the 32nd archbishop of Manila from 2011 to 2020, and earlier on as bishop of Imus from 2001 to 2011. Tagle is the current cardinal bishop of Albano and also serves as the president of the Catholic Biblical Federation, grand chancellor of the Pontifical Urbaniana University, president of the Interdicasterial Commission for Consecrated Religious, and as a member of various departments and dicasteries in the Roman Curia. He is often referred to by his nickname, Chito. Read more
• 21 Jun 1956: Rick Sutcliffe, American baseball player and broadcaster Richard Lee Sutcliffe, nicknamed "the Red Baron", is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Chicago Cubs, Baltimore Orioles, and St. Louis Cardinals between 1976 and 1994. Sutcliffe is currently a broadcaster for ESPN and Marquee Sports Network. Read more
• 21 Jun 1955: Tim Bray, Canadian software developer and businessman Timothy William Bray is a Canadian software developer, environmentalist and political activist and one of the co-authors of the original XML specification. He worked for Amazon Web Services from December 2014 until May 2020 when he quit due to concerns over the terminating of whistleblowers. Previously he has been employed by Google, Sun Microsystems and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Bray has also founded or co-founded several start-ups, such as Antarctica Systems. Read more
• 21 Jun 1955: Michel Platini, French footballer and manager Michel François Platini is a French football administrator and former player and manager. Regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, Platini won the Ballon d'Or three times in a row, in 1983, 1984 and 1985, and came seventh in the FIFA Player of the Century vote. In recognition of his achievements, he was named a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1985 and became an Officer in 1998. As the president of UEFA in 2015 he was banned from involvement in football under FIFA's organisation, over ethics violations. The ban lasted until 2023. Read more
• 21 Jun 1954: Már Guðmundsson, Icelandic economist, former Governor of Central Bank of Iceland Már Guðmundsson is an Icelandic economist and policy maker. He was the Governor of the Central Bank of Iceland from 2009 to 2019. Read more
• 21 Jun 1954: Mark Kimmitt, American general and politician, 16th Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Mark Traecey Patrick Kimmitt is a retired American general and former diplomat. He served as the 16th Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs under George W. Bush from August 2008 to January 2009. Before he joined the State Department, he was a brigadier general in the United States Army and served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East. Kimmitt has also served as deputy director for strategy and plans for the United States Central Command and deputy director for operations/chief military spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq; he also served at NATO's SHAPE headquarters in Belgium. Read more
• 21 Jun 1954: Robert Menasse, Austrian author and academic Robert Menasse is an Austrian writer. Read more
• 21 Jun 1953: Benazir Bhutto, Pakistani politician, Prime Minister of Pakistan (died 2007) Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani stateswoman and politician who served as the prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990, and again from 1993 to 1996. She was the first woman elected to head a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country. Ideologically a liberal and a secularist, she chaired or co-chaired the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from the early 1980s until her assassination in 2007. Read more
• 21 Jun 1953: Augustus Pablo, Jamaican producer and musician (died 1999) Horace Michael Swaby, also known as Augustus Pablo, was a Jamaican roots reggae and dub composer, performer, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. He was active from the 1970s until his death. He was known for playing the melodica. Read more
• 21 Jun 1952: Judith Bingham, English singer-songwriter Judith Bingham is an English composer and mezzo-soprano singer. She was a member of the BBC Singers from 1983 to 1995. She is a Fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music. Bingham won the 1977 BBC Young Composer Award, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2020 for services to music. Read more
• 21 Jun 1952: Jeremy Coney, New Zealand cricketer and sportscaster Jeremy Vernon Coney is a former New Zealand cricketer and current cricket commentator. An all-rounder, between 1974 and 1987 he played 52 Test matches and 88 One Day Internationals (ODIs) for New Zealand, of which he was captain in 15 Tests and 25 ODIs. Read more
• 21 Jun 1952: Patrick Dunleavy, English political scientist and academic Patrick John Dunleavy is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Public Policy within the Government Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He was also Co-Director of the Democratic Audit and the Chair of the LSE Public Policy Group. In addition Dunleavy is an ANZSOG Institute for Governance Centenary Chair at the University of Canberra, Australia. Read more
• 21 Jun 1952: Kōichi Mashimo, Japanese director and screenwriter Kōichi Mashimo is a Japanese former anime director and the founder of the animation studio Bee Train. Since the creation of the studio, Mashimo directed or otherwise participated in a large number of the studio's works, for example, as a member of the art or sound department. Read more
• 21 Jun 1952: Ginny Ruffner, American artist Ginny Carol Ruffner was an American glass artist based in Seattle, Washington. She is known for her use of the lampworking technique and for her use of borosilicate glass in her painted glass sculptures. Read more
• 21 Jun 1951: Jim Douglas, American academic and politician, 80th Governor of Vermont James Holley Douglas is an American politician from the state of Vermont. A Republican, he served as the 80th governor of Vermont from 2003 to 2011. On August 27, 2009, Douglas announced that he would not seek re-election for a fifth term in 2010. He left the office in January 2011. Read more
• 21 Jun 1951: Terence Etherton, English lawyer and judge Terence Michael Elkan Barnet Etherton, Baron Etherton was a British judge and member of the House of Lords. He served as the Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice from 2016 to 2021 and Chancellor of the High Court from 2013 to 2016. Read more
• 21 Jun 1951: Alan Hudson, English footballer Alan Anthony Hudson is an English former footballer who played for Arsenal, Chelsea, Stoke City and the Seattle Sounders as well as the England national football team. Read more
• 21 Jun 1951: Nils Lofgren, American singer-songwriter and guitarist Nils Hilmer Lofgren is an American rock musician, recording artist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Along with his work as a solo artist, he has been a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band since 1984, a member of Crazy Horse, and the founder and frontman of the band Grin. In 2014, Lofgren was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band. Read more
• 21 Jun 1951: Lenore Manderson, Australian anthropologist and academic Lenore Hilda Manderson is an Australian medical anthropologist. She is professor of medical anthropology in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, and the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Arts, at Monash University, Australia. Read more
• 21 Jun 1951: Mona-Lisa Pursiainen, Finnish sprinter (died 2000) Eivor Mona-Lisa Pursiainen, née Strandvall, was a Finnish female sprinter, who was especially successful in 1973–1974, being ranked #2 in the world over 100 metres and # 3, over 200 metres and 400 metres in 1973. In 1974, she was ranked #7 in the 100 metres and #6 in the 200 metres. She won 100 metres and 200 metres at the 1973 Summer Universiade held in Moscow. She won a bronze medal in the 200 metres at the 1974 European Athletics Championships, as well as a silver medal in the 4 x 400 metres relay, and helped Finland to a National Record of 3:25.7. She would take two silver medals over the 100 metres and 200 metres at the 1975 Summer Universiade in Rome. Read more
• 21 Jun 1950: Anne Carson, Canadian poet and academic Anne Patricia Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator, classicist, and professor. Read more
• 21 Jun 1950: Joey Kramer, American rock drummer and songwriter Joseph Michael Kramer is an American musician best known as the drummer of the hard rock band Aerosmith, which was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. Read more
• 21 Jun 1950: Enn Reitel, Scottish actor and screenwriter Enn Reitel is a Scottish actor who specialises in voice work in films, television series, and video games. Read more
• 21 Jun 1950: Trygve Thue, Norwegian guitarist and record producer (died 2022) Trygve Thue was a Norwegian guitarist and music producer, and an original member of the Norwegian band Saft. He was the brother of the folk singer Ove Thue. Read more
• 21 Jun 1950: John Paul Young, Scottish-Australian singer-songwriter John Inglis Young, OAM, known professionally as John Paul Young, is an Australian pop singer who is best known for having a worldwide hit with "Love Is in the Air" in 1978. His career was boosted by regular appearances as a performer and guest host on Countdown, a 1974–1987 TV series for Australia's national broadcaster ABC.
  Besides "Love Is in the Air", Young had top ten chart success in Germany and the Netherlands with "Standing in the Rain", released in 1977, and four other top ten hits in South Africa, including No. 1 hits "Yesterday's Hero" in 1975, and "I Hate the Music" in 1976. Read more
• 21 Jun 1949: John Agard, Guyanese-English author, poet, and playwright John Agard FRSL is a Guyanese-born British playwright, poet and children's writer. In 2012, he was selected for the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was awarded BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2021. Read more
• 21 Jun 1949: Derek Emslie, Lord Kingarth, Scottish lawyer and judge Derek Robert Alexander Emslie, Lord Kingarth is a judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland, sitting in the High Court of Justiciary and the Inner House of the Court of Session. He is the son of former Lord President George Emslie, Baron Emslie, and younger brother of fellow judge Nigel Emslie, Lord Emslie, and older brother of rhino conservationist Dr Richard Emslie. Read more
• 21 Jun 1948: Jovan Aćimović, Serbian footballer and manager Jovan "Kule" Aćimović is a Serbian former footballer who played as a midfielder. Read more
• 21 Jun 1948: Ian McEwan, British novelist and screenwriter Ian Russell McEwan is a British novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him at number 35 on its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945", and The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 19 out of "the 100 most powerful people in British culture". Read more
• 21 Jun 1948: Andrzej Sapkowski, Polish author and translator Andrzej Sapkowski is a Polish fantasy writer. He is best known for his series of books The Witcher, which revolves around the eponymous monster hunter, or "witcher", Geralt of Rivia. The saga has been popularized through video games, television, stage, comic books and translated into 37 languages making him the second most-translated Polish science fiction and fantasy writer after Stanisław Lem. Read more
• 21 Jun 1948: Philippe Sarde, French composer and conductor Philippe Sarde is a French film composer. Considered among the most versatile and talented French film composers of his generation, Sarde has scored over two hundred films, film shorts, and television mini-series. He received an Academy Award nomination for Tess (1979), and twelve César Award nominations, winning for Barocco (1976). In 1993, Sarde received the Joseph Plateau Music Award. Read more
• 21 Jun 1947: Meredith Baxter, American actress Meredith Ann Baxter is an American actress and producer. She is known for her roles on the CBS sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie (1972–1973), ABC drama series Family (1976–1980) and the NBC sitcom Family Ties (1982–1989). A five-time Emmy Award nominee, one of her nominations was for playing the title role in the 1992 TV film A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story. Read more
• 21 Jun 1947: Shirin Ebadi, Iranian lawyer, judge, and activist, Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian Nobel laureate, lawyer, writer, teacher and a former judge and founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. In 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her pioneering efforts for democracy and women's, children's, and refugee rights. She was the first Iranian to receive the award. Read more
• 21 Jun 1947: Michael Gross, American actor Michael Edward Gross is an American television, film, and stage actor. He is notable for playing Steven Keaton on the sitcom Family Ties (1982–1989) and survivalist Burt Gummer in the Tremors film franchise, being the only actor to appear in all the films and the television show. Read more
• 21 Jun 1947: Joey Molland, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2025) Joseph Charles Molland II was an English singer-songwriter and guitarist whose recording career spanned five decades. He was best known as a member of Badfinger, the most successful of the acts he performed with. Molland was the last surviving member from the band's classic line-up. Read more
• 21 Jun 1947: Wade Phillips, American football coach Harold Wade Phillips is an American football coach. He has served as the head coach of the Denver Broncos, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys, Houston Roughnecks, and San Antonio Brahmas. He has also served as an interim head coach for the New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, and Houston Texans. Additionally, Phillips has long been considered to be among the best defensive coordinators in the NFL. In his long career, he has served as defensive coordinator in eight separate stints with seven different franchises. Multiple players under Phillips' system have won Defensive Player of the Year: Reggie White, Bryce Paup, Bruce Smith, J. J. Watt, and Aaron Donald. Others under Phillips have won Defensive Rookie of the Year: Mike Croel and Shawne Merriman. In Phillips' lone Super Bowl victory, a defensive player would be named Super Bowl MVP: Von Miller. Read more
• 21 Jun 1947: Fernando Savater, Spanish philosopher and author Fernando Fernández-Savater Martín is a Spanish philosopher, essayist and author. Read more
• 21 Jun 1946: Per Eklund, Swedish race car driver Per Torsten Eklund is a Swedish Rally and Rallycross driver. His nickname is "Pekka". In rallying he never made it to the very top but he has been very successful in his later rallycross career. Read more
• 21 Jun 1946: Kate Hoey, Northern Irish-British academic and politician, Minister for Sport and the Olympics Catharine Letitia Hoey, Baroness Hoey, better known as Kate Hoey, is a Northern Irish politician and life peer who served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Home Affairs from 1998 to 1999 and Minister for Sport from 1999 to 2001. During the 1970s Hoey was involved in radical far-left groups but by the end of the decade became involved with the Labour Party. Hoey remained a member of the Labour Party for several decades while she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Vauxhall from 1989 to 2019, but resigned from the party in 2020. Read more
• 21 Jun 1946: Brenda Holloway, American singer-songwriter Brenda Holloway is an American soul singer who was a recording artist for Motown Records during the 1960s. Her best-known recordings are the hits "Every Little Bit Hurts", "When I'm Gone", and "You've Made Me So Very Happy". The latter, which she co-wrote, was later widely popularized when it became a Top Ten hit for Blood, Sweat & Tears. She left Motown after four years, at the age of 22, and largely retired from the music industry until the 1990s, after her recordings had become popular on the British "Northern soul" scene. Read more
• 21 Jun 1946: Trond Kirkvaag, Norwegian actor, director, and screenwriter (died 2007) Trond Georg Kirkvaag was a Norwegian comedian, actor, impressionist, screenwriter, author, director and television host. During his 39 years at the Norwegian TV network, NRK, he produced numerous comedy television series. After his death he was widely hailed by his colleagues as possibly the greatest Norwegian TV comedian in history. He was the son of NRK journalist and television host Rolf Kirkvaag. Read more
• 21 Jun 1946: Malcolm Rifkind, Scottish lawyer and politician, Secretary of State for Scotland Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind is a British politician who served in the cabinets of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1986 to 1997, and most recently as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament from 2010 to 2015. Read more
• 21 Jun 1946: Maurice Saatchi, Baron Saatchi, Iraqi-British businessman, founded M&C Saatchi and Saatchi & Saatchi Maurice Nathan Saatchi, Baron Saatchi is a British businessman, and with his brother, Charles, co-founder of the advertising agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and M&C Saatchi. Read more
• 21 Jun 1945: Robert Dewar, English-American computer scientist and academic (died 2015) Robert Berriedale Keith Dewar was an American computer scientist and educator. He helped to develop programming languages and compilers and was an outspoken advocate of freely licensed open-source software. He was a cofounder, CEO, and president of the AdaCore software company. He was also an enthusiastic amateur performer and musician, especially with the Village Light Opera Group in New York City. Read more
• 21 Jun 1945: Adam Zagajewski, Polish author and poet (died 2021) Adam Zagajewski was a Polish poet, novelist, translator, and essayist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1944: Ray Davies, English singer-songwriter and guitarist Sir Raymond Douglas Davies is an English musician. He was the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and primary songwriter for the rock band the Kinks, with his younger brother Dave providing lead guitar and backing vocals; the Davies brothers were the band's only consistent members. He has also acted in, directed and produced shows for theatre and television. Known for focusing his lyrics on rock bands, English culture, nostalgia and social satire, he is often referred to as the "Godfather of Britpop", though he disputes this title. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Kinks in 1990. After the dissolution of the Kinks in 1996, he embarked on a solo career. Read more
• 21 Jun 1944: Jon Hiseman, English drummer (died 2018) Philip John Albert "Jon" Hiseman was an English drummer, recording engineer, record producer, and music publisher. He played with the Graham Bond Organisation, with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and later formed what has been described as the "seminal" jazz rock/progressive rock band, Colosseum. He later formed Colosseum II in 1975. Read more
• 21 Jun 1944: Tony Scott, English-American director and producer (died 2012) Anthony David Leighton Scott was an English film director and producer. He made his theatrical film debut with The Hunger (1983) and went on to direct highly successful action and thriller films such as Top Gun (1986), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Days of Thunder (1990), The Last Boy Scout (1991), True Romance (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Enemy of the State (1998), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) and Unstoppable (2010). Read more
• 21 Jun 1943: Diane Marleau, Canadian accountant and politician, Canadian Minister of Health (died 2013) Diane Marleau, was a Canadian politician. She represented the riding of Sudbury in the House of Commons of Canada from 1988 to 2008, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Jean Chrétien. Marleau was a member of the Liberal Party of Canada. Read more
• 21 Jun 1943: Brian Sternberg, American pole vaulter (died 2013) Brian Sternberg was a world record holder in the men's pole vault who was paralyzed from the neck down after a trampoline accident in 1963. Read more
• 21 Jun 1942: Clive Brooke, Baron Brooke of Alverthorpe, English businessman and politician Clive Brooke, Baron Brooke of Alverthorpe is a British trade unionist, and Labour Member of the House of Lords. Read more
• 21 Jun 1942: Norbert Brunner, Swiss Catholic bishop Norbert Brunner is a Swiss prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sion in Switzerland from 1995 to 2014. He was the elected President of the Swiss Bishops Conference for the term 2010–2012. Read more
• 21 Jun 1942: Paul Chernoff, American mathematician and poet (died 2017) Paul Robert Chernoff was an American mathematician, specializing in functional analysis and the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. He is known for Chernoff's Theorem, a mathematical result in the Feynman path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. He was also the author of limericks. Read more
• 21 Jun 1942: Marjorie Margolies, American journalist and politician Marjorie Margolies is a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Fels Institute of Government and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a former journalist and a Democratic politician. From 1993 to 1995, she was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district. Read more
• 21 Jun 1942: Henry S. Taylor, American author and poet (died 2024) Henry Splawn Taylor was an American poet, academic, and translator. The author of more than 15 books of poems, translation, and nonfiction, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1986. Read more
• 21 Jun 1942: Flaviano Vicentini, Italian cyclist (died 2002) Flaviano Vicentini was an Italian road race cyclist who was active between 1963 and 1971. After becoming the world champion in 1963 as amateur, he turned professional. He then won the Grand Prix de Cannes in 1966 and the Giro del Lazio in 1969. In 1968 and 1969 he also won one stage at the Volta a Catalunya. Read more
• 21 Jun 1942: Togo D. West Jr., American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 3rd United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs (died 2018) Togo Dennis West Jr. was an American attorney and Army officer who served as the third secretary of veterans affairs in the administration of President Bill Clinton from 1998 until his resignation in 2000. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second African American to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. West previously served as the 16th secretary of the army from 1993 to 1998, as General Counsel of the Department of Defense from 1980 to 1981, and as General Counsel of the Navy from 1977 to 1979. Read more
• 21 Jun 1941: Aloysius Paul D'Souza, Indian Catholic bishop Aloysius Paul D'Souza is the former Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mangalore. He was consecrated on 8 November 1996, succeeding his predecessor Basil Salvadore D'Souza. Read more
• 21 Jun 1941: Joe Flaherty, American-Canadian actor, producer, and screenwriter (died 2024) Joseph Flaherty was an American actor, writer, and comedian. In television, Flaherty starred on the Canadian sketch comedy SCTV from 1976 to 1984 and as Harold Weir on Freaks and Geeks (1999). His film roles include the heckler in Happy Gilmore (1996). Read more
• 21 Jun 1941: Lyman Ward, Canadian actor Lyman Ward is a Canadian actor best known for his roles in Creature (1984), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), and Milk and Honey (1988). Read more
• 21 Jun 1940: Mariette Hartley, American actress and television personality Mary Loretta Hartley is an American film and television actress. She is possibly best known for her roles in film as Elsa Knudsen in Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962), Susan Clabon in Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), and Betty Lloyd in John Sturges' Marooned (1969). She has appeared extensively on television, with notable roles as Claire Morton in the ABC soap opera Peyton Place (1965), various roles in the CBS television Western drama series Gunsmoke, and a series of commercials with James Garner in the 1970s and 1980s. Read more
• 21 Jun 1940: Michael Ruse, Canadian philosopher and academic Michael Escott Ruse was a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specialised in the philosophy of biology and worked on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcation problem within science. Ruse began his career teaching at the University of Guelph and spent many years at Florida State University. Read more
• 21 Jun 1938: Don Black, English songwriter Donald Blackstone, known professionally as Don Black, is an English lyricist. His works have included numerous musicals, movie, television themes and hit songs. He has provided lyrics for John Barry, Charles Strouse, Matt Monro, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Quincy Jones, Hoyt Curtin, Lulu, Jule Styne, Henry Mancini, Meat Loaf, Michael Jackson, Robbie Williams, Elmer Bernstein, Michel Legrand, Hayley Westenra, Ennio Morricone, A. R. Rahman, Marvin Hamlisch and Debbie Wiseman. Read more
• 21 Jun 1938: John W. Dower, American historian and author John W. Dower is an American author and historian. His 1999 book Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II won the U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction, the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, the Bancroft Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Mark Lynton History Prize, and the John K. Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association. Read more
• 21 Jun 1938: Michael M. Richter, German mathematician and computer scientist (died 2020) Michael M. Richter was a German mathematician and computer scientist. Richter is well known for his career in mathematical logic, in particular non-standard analysis, and in artificial intelligence, in particular in knowledge-based systems and case-based reasoning. He is worldwide known as pioneer in case-based reasoning. Read more
• 21 Jun 1937: John Edrich, English cricketer and coach (died 2020) John Hugh Edrich, was an English first-class cricketer who, during a career that ran from 1956 to 1978, was considered one of the best batsmen of his generation. Born in Blofield, Norfolk, Edrich came from a cricketing family, his four cousins, Eric Edrich, Bill Edrich, Geoff Edrich and Brian Edrich, all having played first-class cricket. He was educated at the private Bracondale School between the ages of eight and seventeen, during which time he played cricket at weekends and was coached by former cricketer C. S. R. Boswell. Read more
• 21 Jun 1935: Françoise Sagan, French author and playwright (died 2004) Françoise Sagan was a French playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. Sagan was known for works with strong romantic themes involving wealthy and disillusioned bourgeois characters. Her best-known novel was her first, Bonjour Tristesse (1954), which was written when she was a teenager. Read more
• 21 Jun 1934: Josef Stoer, German mathematician Josef Stoer is a German mathematician specializing in numerical analysis and professor emeritus of the Institut für Mathematik of Universität Würzburg. Read more
• 21 Jun 1933: Bernie Kopell, American actor and comedian Bernard Morton Kopell is an American character actor known for his roles as Siegfried in Get Smart from 1966 to 1969 and as Dr. Adam Bricker ("Doc") on The Love Boat from 1977 to 1986. Read more
• 21 Jun 1932: Bernard Ingham, English journalist and civil servant (died 2023) Sir Bernard Ingham was a British journalist and civil servant. He was Margaret Thatcher's chief press secretary throughout her time as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. Read more
• 21 Jun 1932: Lalo Schifrin, Argentinian pianist, composer, and conductor (died 2025) Boris Claudio "Lalo" Schifrin was an Argentine and American pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. Initially prominent as a jazz composer, he was best known for his large body of film and television scores, which incorporates jazz and Latin American musical elements alongside traditional orchestration. Read more
• 21 Jun 1932: O.C. Smith, American R&B/jazz singer (died 2001) Ocie Lee Smith, known professionally as O. C. Smith, was an American singer. His recording of "Little Green Apples" went to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968 and sold over one million records. Read more
• 21 Jun 1931: Zlatko Grgić, Croatian-Canadian animator, director, and screenwriter (died 1988) Zlatko Grgić was a Croatian animator who emigrated to Canada in the late 1960s. Read more
• 21 Jun 1931: Margaret Heckler, American journalist, lawyer, and politician, 15th United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (died 2018) Margaret Mary Heckler was an American politician and diplomat who represented Massachusetts's 10th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1967 until 1983. A member of the Republican Party, she also served as the 15th United States secretary of health and human services from 1983 to 1985, as well as United States ambassador to Ireland from 1986 to 1989. Read more
• 21 Jun 1931: David Kushnir, Israeli Olympic long-jumper (died 2020) David Kushnir was an Israeli Olympic long-jumper and track and field coach. Read more
• 21 Jun 1930: Gerald Kaufman, English journalist and politician, Shadow Foreign Secretary (died 2017) Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman was a British politician and author who served as a minister throughout the Labour government of 1974 to 1979. Elected as a member of parliament (MP) at the 1970 general election, he became Father of the House in 2015 and served until his death in 2017. Read more
• 21 Jun 1930: Mike McCormack, American football player and coach (died 2013) Michael Joseph McCormack Jr. was an American professional football player, coach, and executive in the National Football League (NFL). He played as an offensive tackle with the Cleveland Browns from 1954 through 1962 and served as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Colts, and Seattle Seahawks. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1984. Read more
• 21 Jun 1928: Wolfgang Haken, German-American mathematician and academic (died 2022) Wolfgang Haken was a German American mathematician who specialized in topology, in particular 3-manifolds. Read more
• 21 Jun 1928: Fiorella Mari, Brazilian-Italian actress (died 1983) Fiorella Colpi, known professionally as Fiorella Mari, was a Brazilian-born Italian actress. Read more
• 21 Jun 1928: Margit Bara, Hungarian actress (died 2016) Margit Bara was a Hungarian film actress. She appeared in 25 films between 1956 and 1975. She retired from acting in 1977 and later in 1992 received the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary and in 2002 she was awarded the Kossuth Prize. Read more
• 21 Jun 1927: Carl Stokes, American lawyer, politician, and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Seychelles (died 1996) Carl Burton Stokes was an American politician and diplomat of the Democratic Party who served as the 51st mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. Elected on November 7, 1967, and taking office on January 1, 1968, he was one of the first black elected mayors of a major U.S. city. Read more
• 21 Jun 1926: Fred Cone, American football player (died 2021) Fred Cone was an American professional football player who was a fullback and placekicker in the National Football League (NFL) for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys. He played college football for the Clemson Tigers. He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. Read more
• 21 Jun 1926: Conrad Hall, French-American cinematographer (died 2003) Conrad Lafcadio Hall, ASC was a French Polynesian-born American cinematographer. Named after writers Joseph Conrad and Lafcadio Hearn, he became widely prominent as a cinematographer earning numerous accolades including three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards and five American Society of Cinematographers Awards. Read more
• 21 Jun 1925: Larisa Avdeyeva, Russian mezzo-soprano (died 2013) Larisa Ivanovna Avdeyeva or Avdeeva was a Soviet and Russian mezzo-soprano, who starred with the Bolshoi Opera for thirty years. She was awarded the title of People’s Artist of the RSFSR in (1964). Read more
• 21 Jun 1925: Stanley Moss, American poet, publisher, and art dealer (died 2024) Stanley Moss was an American poet, publisher, and art dealer. Read more
• 21 Jun 1925: Giovanni Spadolini, Italian journalist and politician, 45th Prime Minister of Italy (died 1994) Giovanni Spadolini was an Italian politician and statesman, who served as the 44th prime minister of Italy. He had been a leading figure in the Republican Party and the first head of a government to not be a member of Christian Democrats since 1945. He was also a newspaper editor, journalist and historian. He is considered a highly respected intellectual for his literary works and his cultural dimension. Read more
• 21 Jun 1925: Maureen Stapleton, American actress (died 2006) Lois Maureen Stapleton was an American actress. She received numerous accolades, becoming one of the few actors to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, winning an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Tony Awards. She also received a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as a nomination for a Grammy Award. Read more
• 21 Jun 1924: Pontus Hultén, Swedish art collector and historian (died 2006) Karl Gunnar Vougt Pontus Hultén was a Swedish art collector and museum director. Pontus Hultén is regarded as one of the most distinguished museum professionals of the twentieth century. He was the pioneering former head of the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm and in the 1970s he was invited to participate in the creation of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, where he was the first director of the Musée National d'Art Moderne (MNAM) in 1974–1981. Read more
• 21 Jun 1924: Ezzatolah Entezami, Iranian actor (died 2018) Ezzatollah Entezami, or Ezzatolah Entezami was an Iranian actor. Read more
• 21 Jun 1924: Wally Fawkes, British-Canadian jazz clarinetist and satirical cartoonist (died 2023) Walter Ernest Fawkes, also known as Trog when signing cartoons, was a Canadian-British jazz clarinettist and satirical cartoonist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1924: Jean Laplanche, French psychoanalyst and academic (died 2012) Jean Laplanche was a French author, psychoanalyst and winemaker. Laplanche is best known for his work on psychosexual development and Sigmund Freud's seduction theory, and wrote more than a dozen books on psychoanalytic theory. The journal Radical Philosophy described him as "the most original and philosophically informed psychoanalytic theorist of his day." Read more
• 21 Jun 1923: Jacques Hébert, Canadian journalist and politician (died 2007) Jacques Hébert, was a Canadian author, journalist, publisher, Senator and world traveller who visited more than 130 countries. Read more
• 21 Jun 1922: Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Burkinabé historian, politician and writer (died 2006) Joseph Ki-Zerbo was a Burkinabé historian, politician and writer. He is recognized as one of Africa's foremost thinkers. Read more
• 21 Jun 1921: Judy Holliday, American actress and singer (died 1965) Judy Holliday was an American actress, comedian, singer, and songwriter. Read more
• 21 Jun 1921: Jane Russell, American actress and singer (died 2011) Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was an American actress, model, and singer. She was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s and starred in more than 20 films. Read more
• 21 Jun 1921: William Edwin Self, American actor, producer, and production manager (died 2010) William Edwin Self was an American television and film producer who began his career as an actor. Read more
• 21 Jun 1920: Hans Gerschwiler, Swiss figure skater (died 2017) Hans Gerschwiler was a Swiss figure skater. He was the 1948 Olympic silver medalist Read more
• 21 Jun 1919: Antonia Mesina, Italian martyr and saint (died 1935) Antonia Mesina was a 15 year old Italian Roman Catholic and part of Catholic Action. Mesina was murdered in mid-1935 after she attempted to fend off a would-be rapist and suffered 74 strikes with a stone before she died. She was beatified in 1987. Read more
• 21 Jun 1919: Gérard Pelletier, Canadian journalist and politician (died 1997) Gérard Pelletier was a Canadian politician, diplomat and journalist from Quebec best known for his association with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau that started decades before their entries to the political arena. A long time personal confidant of Trudeau, Pelletier served in Trudeau's cabinet and then in two key diplomatic postings. Read more
• 21 Jun 1919: Vladimir Simagin, Russian chess player and coach (died 1968) Vladimir Simagin was a Russian chess grandmaster. He was three times Moscow champion, helped to train Vasily Smyslov to the World Championship, and made many significant contributions to chess openings. He died of a heart attack while playing in the Kislovodsk tournament. Read more
• 21 Jun 1919: Paolo Soleri, Italian-American architect, designed the Cosanti (died 2013) Paolo Soleri was an Italian architect and urban planner. He established the educational Cosanti Foundation and Arcosanti. Soleri was a lecturer in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and a National Design Award recipient in 2006. He coined the concept of 'arcology' – a synthesis of architecture and ecology as the philosophy of democratic society. He died at home of natural causes on 9 April 2013 at the age of 93. Read more
• 21 Jun 1918: Robert A. Boyd, Canadian engineer (died 2006) Robert A. Boyd was a Canadian electric engineer and utility executive. He successfully led the construction of the first phase of the James Bay hydroelectric project, a large dam complex built in northern Quebec by Hydro-Québec during the 1970s and early 1980s. Read more
• 21 Jun 1918: James Joll, English historian, author, and academic (died 1994) James Bysse Joll FBA was a British historian and university lecturer whose works included The Origins of the First World War and Europe Since 1870. He also wrote on the history of anarchism and socialism. Read more
• 21 Jun 1918: Eddie Lopat, American baseball player, coach, and manager (died 1992) Edmund Walter Lopat was an American Major League Baseball pitcher, coach, manager, front office executive, and scout. He was sometimes known as "the Junk Man", but better known as "Steady Eddie", a nickname later given to Eddie Murray. He was born in New York City. Read more
• 21 Jun 1918: J. Clyde Mitchell, British sociologist and anthropologist (died 1995) James Clyde Mitchell was a British sociologist and anthropologist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1918: Dee Molenaar, American mountaineer (died 2020) Dee Molenaar was an American mountaineer, author and artist. He is best known as the author of The Challenge of Rainier, first published in 1971 and considered the definitive work on the climbing history of Mount Rainier. Read more
• 21 Jun 1918: Robert V. Roosa, American economist and banker (died 1993) Robert Vincent Roosa was an American economist and banker. He served as Treasury Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs during the Kennedy administration from 1961 to 1964. He believed the U.S. dollar should be the world's leading currency and reference point because the United States was the leading political and economic power. Read more
• 21 Jun 1918: Tibor Szele, Hungarian mathematician and academic (died 1955) Tibor Szele was a Hungarian mathematician, working in combinatorics and abstract algebra. Read more
• 21 Jun 1918: Josephine Webb, American engineer (died 2017) Josephine Webb was an American electrical engineer who obtained two patents for oil circuit breaker contact design, known colloquially as "switchgear". She designed an eighteen-inch, full newspaper size fax machine with superior resolution. She co-founded Webb Consulting Company with her husband, also an electrical engineer. She was one of the first female electrical engineers, and considered a pioneer by the Society of Women Engineers. At Purdue University, she was one out of a total of five women engineers. Read more
• 21 Jun 1916: Joseph Cyril Bamford, English businessman, founded J. C. Bamford (died 2001) Joseph Cyril Bamford, CBE was a British businessman. He was the founder of J.C. Bamford Excavators Limited (JCB), a manufacturer of heavy equipment. Read more
• 21 Jun 1916: Tchan Fou-li, Chinese photographer (died 2018) Tchan Fou-li was a Hong Kong photographer who worked to develop distinctive Chinese forms of photography and to establish photography as a serious art form in Hong Kong. He is known for his photographs, described as evoking the artistic values and composition of Chinese landscape paintings. A New York Times reviewer called him "one of the great visual artists of his time" because of his "carefully crafted images that celebrate the beauty of the human condition and the majesty of nature." Read more
• 21 Jun 1916: Herbert Friedman, American physicist and astronomer (died 2000) Herbert Friedman was an American physicist and astronomer who did research in X-ray astronomy. During his career Friedman published hundreds of scientific papers. One such example is "Ultraviolet and X Rays from the Sun". Friedman worked at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) for the entirety of his professional career, from 1940-1980. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1960. He received the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1964. That same year, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
  In 1987 he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics “for pioneering investigations in solar X-rays”. Read more
• 21 Jun 1916: Buddy O'Connor, Canadian ice hockey player (died 1977) Herbert William "Buddy" O'Connor was a Canadian professional ice hockey centre who played for the Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers in the National Hockey League between 1941 and 1951. He won the Hart Trophy and Lady Byng Trophy in 1948. Read more
• 21 Jun 1915: Wilhelm Gliese, German soldier and astronomer (died 1993) Wilhelm Gliese was a German astronomer who specialized in the study and cataloging of nearby stars. Read more
• 21 Jun 1914: William Vickrey, Canadian-American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1996) William Spencer Vickrey was a Canadian-American economist. He was a lifelong faculty member at Columbia University. A theorist who worked on public economics and mechanism design, Vickrey primarily discussed public policy problems. He originated the Vickrey auction, introduced the concept of congestion pricing in networks, formalized arguments for marginal cost pricing, and contributed to optimal income taxation. James Tobin described him as "an applied economist's theorist, as well as a theorist's applied economist." Read more
• 21 Jun 1913: Madihe Pannaseeha Thero, Sri Lankan monk and scholar (died 2003) Most Venerable Madihe Pannaseeha Mahathera was an eminent Sri Lankan Buddhist monk, who was the Mahanayaka of Amarapura sect from July 13, 1969, until his death on September 9, 2003. Read more
• 21 Jun 1913: Luis Taruc, Filipino political activist (died 2005) Luis Mangalus Taruc was a Filipino political figure and rebel during the agrarian unrest of the 1930s until the end of the Cold War. He was the leader of the Hukbalahap group between 1942 and 1950. His involvement with the movement came after his initiation to the problems of agrarian Filipinos when he was a student in the early 1930s. During World War II, Taruc led the Hukbalahap in guerrilla operations against the Japanese occupants of the Philippines. Read more
• 21 Jun 1912: Kazimierz Leski, Polish pilot and engineer (died 2000) Kazimierz Leski, nom de guerre Bradl, was a Polish engineer, co-designer of the Polish submarines ORP Sęp (1938) and ORP Orzeł, a fighter pilot, and an officer in World War II Home Army's intelligence and counter-intelligence. Read more
• 21 Jun 1912: Mary McCarthy, American novelist and critic (died 1989) Mary Therese McCarthy was an American novelist, critic and political activist, best known for her novel The Group, her marriage to critic Edmund Wilson, her intimate friendship with her colleague Hannah Arendt and her storied feud with playwright Lillian Hellman. McCarthy was the winner of the Horizon Prize in 1949 and was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships, in 1949 and 1959. She was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy in Rome. In 1973, she delivered the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, the Netherlands, under the title Can There Be a Gothic Literature? The same year she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She won the National Medal for Literature and the Edward MacDowell Medal in 1984. McCarthy held honorary degrees from Bard, Bowdoin, Colby, Smith College, Syracuse University, the University of Maine at Orono, the University of Aberdeen, and the University of Hull. Read more
• 21 Jun 1912: Vishnu Prabhakar, Indian author and playwright (died 2009) Vishnu Prabhakar was a Hindi writer. He had several short stories, novels, plays and travelogues to his credit. Prabhakar's works have elements of patriotism, nationalism and messages of social upliftment. He was the First Sahitya Academy Award winner from Haryana. Read more
• 21 Jun 1911: Irving Fein, American producer and manager (died 2012) Irving Fein was an American television and film producer, and the manager of entertainers Jack Benny and George Burns. Read more
• 21 Jun 1910: Aleksandr Tvardovsky, Russian poet and author (died 1971) Aleksandr Trifonovich Tvardovsky was a Soviet poet and writer and chief editor of Novy Mir literary magazine from 1950 to 1954 and 1958 to 1970. During his editorship, the magazine published One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He is best known for his epic poem Vasili Tyorkin. Read more
• 21 Jun 1908: William Frankena, American philosopher and academic (died 1994) William Klaas Frankena was an American moral philosopher. He was a member of the University of Michigan's department of philosophy for 41 years (1937–1978), and chair of the department for 14 years (1947–1961). Read more
• 21 Jun 1908: Helmut Ulm, German mathematician (died 1975) Helmut Ulm was a German mathematician who established the classification of countable periodic abelian groups by means of their Ulm invariants. Read more
• 21 Jun 1906: Grete Sultan, German-American pianist (died 2005) Grete Sultan was a German-American pianist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1905: Jacques Goddet, French journalist (died 2000) Jacques Goddet was a French sports journalist and director of the Tour de France road cycling race from 1936 to 1986. Read more
• 21 Jun 1905: Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and author (died 1980) Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism. His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution." Read more
• 21 Jun 1903: Hermann Engelhard, German runner and coach (died 1984) Hermann Engelhard was a German middle-distance runner who won two medals at the 1928 Summer Olympics. Read more
• 21 Jun 1903: Al Hirschfeld, American caricaturist, painter and illustrator (died 2003) Albert Hirschfeld was an American caricaturist best known for his black-and-white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. Read more
• 21 Jun 1900: Georges-Henri Bousquet, French economist and Islamologist (died 1978) Georges-Henri Bousquet was a 20th-century French jurist, economist and Islamologist. He was a professor of law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Algiers where he was a specialist in the sociology of North Africa. He is also known for his translation work of the great Muslim authors, Al-Ghazali, a theologian who died in 1111 and Tunisian historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). He was known as a polyglot, spoke several European languages and Eastern ones. Read more
• 21 Jun 1899: Pavel Haas, Czech composer (died 1944) Pavel Haas was a Czech composer who was murdered during the Holocaust. He was an exponent of Leoš Janáček's school of composition, and also utilized elements of folk music and jazz. Although his output was not large, he is notable particularly for his song cycles and string quartets. Read more
• 21 Jun 1896: Charles Momsen, American admiral, invented the Momsen lung (died 1967) Charles Bowers Momsen, nicknamed "Swede", was born in Flushing, New York. He was an American pioneer in submarine rescue for the United States Navy, and he invented the underwater escape device later called the "Momsen lung", for which he received the Navy Distinguished Service Medal in 1929. In May 1939, Momsen directed the rescue of the crew of Squalus (SS-192). Read more
• 21 Jun 1894: Milward Kennedy, English journalist and civil servant (died 1968) Milward Rodon Kennedy Burge was an English civil servant, journalist, crime writer and literary critic. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford. He served with British Military Intelligence in World War I and then worked for the International Labour Organization and the Egyptian government. He was London editor of the Empire Digest and reviewed mystery fiction for The Sunday Times and The Guardian. He retired in the 1960s to West Sussex. Burge married Georgina Lee in 1921 and after her death married Eveline Schrieber Billiat in 1926. He also wrote under the pseudonym Evelyn Elder. Read more
• 21 Jun 1894: Harry Schmidt, German mathematician and physicist (died 1951) Harry Schmidt was a German mathematician. Core areas of his research were experimental physics, as well as the theory of boundary layers and wings in aerodynamics. Read more
• 21 Jun 1893: Alois Hába, Czech composer and educator (died 1973) Alois Hába was a Czech composer, music theorist and teacher. He belongs to the important discoverers in modern classical music, and to the major composers of microtonal music, especially using the quarter-tone scale, though he used others such as sixth-tones, fifth-tones, and twelfth-tones. From the other microtonal conceptions, he discussed a "three-quarter tone" system in his theoretical works but he used scales in this tuning in sections of some of his compositions. In his prolific career, Hába composed three operas, an enormous collection of chamber music including 16 string quartets, piano, organ and choral pieces, some orchestral works and songs. He also had special keyboard and woodwind instruments constructed that were capable of playing quarter-tone scales. Read more
• 21 Jun 1892: Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian and academic (died 1971) Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of America's leading public intellectuals for several decades of the 20th century and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. A public theologian, he wrote and spoke frequently about the intersection of religion, politics, and public policy, with his most influential books including Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man. Read more
• 21 Jun 1891: Pier Luigi Nervi, Italian architect and engineer, co-designed the Pirelli Tower and Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption (died 1979) Pier Luigi Nervi was an Italian engineer and architect. He studied at the University of Bologna graduating in 1913. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946 to 1961 and was known as a structural engineer and architect and for his innovative use of reinforced concrete, especially with numerous notable thin shell structures worldwide. Read more
• 21 Jun 1891: Hermann Scherchen, German-Swiss viola player and conductor (died 1966) Hermann Scherchen was a German conductor, who was principal conductor of the city orchestra of Winterthur from 1922 to 1950. He promoted contemporary music, beginning with Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, followed by works by Richard Strauss, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Edgard Varèse, later Iannis Xenakis, Luigi Nono and Leon Schidlowsky. He usually conducted without using a baton. Read more
• 21 Jun 1889: Ralph Craig, American sprinter and sailor (died 1972) Ralph Cook Craig was an American track and field athlete. He was the winner of the sprint double at the 1912 Summer Olympics. Read more
• 21 Jun 1887: Norman L. Bowen, Canadian geologist and petrologist (died 1956) Norman Levi Bowen FRS was a Canadian geologist. Bowen "revolutionized experimental petrology and our understanding of mineral crystallization". Beginning geology students are familiar with Bowen's reaction series depicting how different minerals crystallize under varying pressures and temperatures." Read more
• 21 Jun 1884: Claude Auchinleck, English field marshal (died 1981) Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck was a British Indian Army commander who saw active service during the world wars. A career soldier who spent much of his military career in India, he rose to become commander-in-chief of the Indian Army by early 1941 during the Second World War. In July 1941 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Middle East Theatre, but after initial successes, the war in North Africa turned against the British-led forces under his command and he was relieved of the post in August 1942 during the North African campaign. Read more
• 21 Jun 1883: Feodor Gladkov, Russian author and educator (died 1958) Fyodor Vasilyevich Gladkov was a Soviet and Russian socialist realist writer, best known for his 1925 novel Cement. Gladkov joined a Marxist group in 1904, and in 1905 went to Tiflis and was arrested there for revolutionary activities. He was sentenced to three years' exile. He then moved to Novorossiysk. Among other positions, he served as the editor of the newspaper Krasnoye Chernomorye, secretary of the journal Novy Mir, special correspondent for Izvestia, and director of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow from 1945 to 1948. He received the Stalin Prize for his literary accomplishments, and is considered a classic writer of Soviet Socialist Realist literature. Read more
• 21 Jun 1882: Ya'acov Ben-Dov, Israeli photographer and cinematographer (died 1968) Yaacov Ben-Dov was an Israeli photographer and a pioneer of Jewish cinematography in Palestine. Read more
• 21 Jun 1882: Lluís Companys, Spanish lawyer and politician, 123rd President of Catalonia (died 1940) Lluís Companys i Jover was a Catalan politician from Spain who served as president of Catalonia from 1934 and during the Spanish Civil War. Read more
• 21 Jun 1882: Adrianus de Jong, Dutch fencer and soldier (died 1966) Adrianus Egbert Willem "Adriaan" "Arie" de Jong was a fencer who competed at five Olympic Games. Read more
• 21 Jun 1882: Rockwell Kent, American painter and illustrator (died 1971) Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager. Read more
• 21 Jun 1881: (O.S.) Natalia Goncharova, Russian painter, costume designer, and illustrator (died 1962) Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 1582 and 1923. Before as well as after the legal change, writers used the dual dating convention to specify a given day by giving its date according to both styles of dating. Read more
• 21 Jun 1880: Arnold Gesell, American psychologist and pediatrician (died 1961) Arnold Lucius Gesell was an American psychologist, pediatrician and professor at Yale University known for his research and contributions to the fields of child hygiene and child development. Read more
• 21 Jun 1880: Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp, English economist and civil servant (died 1941) Josiah Charles Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp was an English industrialist, economist, civil servant, statistician, writer, and banker. He was a director of the Bank of England and chairman of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Read more
• 21 Jun 1876: Willem Hendrik Keesom, Dutch physicist and academic (died 1956) Willem Hendrik Keesom was a Dutch physicist who, in 1926, invented a method to freeze liquid helium.
  He also developed the first mathematical description of dipole–dipole interactions in 1921. Thus, dipole–dipole interactions are also known as Keesom interactions.
  He was previously a student of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, who had discovered superconductivity. Read more
• 21 Jun 1874: Jacob Linzbach, Estonian linguist (died 1953) Jakob Linzbach was an Estonian linguist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1870: Clara Immerwahr, Jewish-German chemist and academic (died 1915) Clara Helene Immerwahr was a German chemist. She was the first German woman to be awarded a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Breslau, and is credited with being a pacifist as well as a "heroine of the women's rights movement". From 1901 until her death from suicide in 1915, she was married to the eventual Nobel Prize-winning chemist Fritz Haber. Read more
• 21 Jun 1870: Anthony Michell, English-Australian engineer (died 1959) Anthony George Maldon Michell FRS was an Australian mechanical engineer of the early 20th century. Read more
• 21 Jun 1870: Julio Ruelas, Mexican painter (died 1907) Julio Ruelas was a Mexican graphic artist, painter, draughtsman and printmaker. Ruelas was the principal illustrator of the Revista Moderna magazine and is most associated with Mexican symbolism. A number of his works are on display at the Museum of the City of Mexico and in the Zacatecas museum. Artistically, he was noted for creating etched images depicting his own face, incorporating black, twisted lines to give an impression of being tormented. Read more
• 21 Jun 1868: Edwin Stephen Goodrich, English zoologist and anatomist (died 1946) Edwin Stephen Goodrich FRS, was an English zoologist, specialising in comparative anatomy, embryology, palaeontology, and evolution. He held the Linacre Chair of Zoology in the University of Oxford from 1921 to 1946. He served as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science from 1920 until his death. Read more
• 21 Jun 1867: Oscar Florianus Bluemner, German-American painter and illustrator (died 1938) Oscar Bluemner, born Friedrich Julius Oskar Blümner and after 1933 known as Oscar Florianus Bluemner, was a Prussian-born American Modernist painter. Read more
• 21 Jun 1867: William Brede Kristensen, Norwegian historian of religion (died 1953) William Brede Kristensen was a Norwegian born, Dutch theologian, professor and historian of religion. Read more
• 21 Jun 1866: Matt Kilroy, American baseball player (died 1940) Matthew Aloysius "Matches" Kilroy was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. During his rookie season in 1886, he had 513 strikeouts, which remains the MLB single-season record. Read more
• 21 Jun 1864: Heinrich Wölfflin, Swiss historian and critic (died 1945) Heinrich Wölfflin was a Swiss art historian, esthetician and educator, whose objective classifying principles were influential in the development of formal analysis in art history in the early 20th century. He taught at the University of Basel, the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in the generation that saw German art history's rise to pre-eminence. His three most important books, still consulted, are Renaissance und Barock (1888), Die Klassische Kunst, and Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Read more
• 21 Jun 1863: Ludwig Lange, German physicist (died 1936) Ludwig Lange was a German physicist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1863: Max Wolf, German astronomer and academic (died 1932) Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory from 1902 until his death in 1932. Read more
• 21 Jun 1862: Damrong Rajanubhab, Thai historian and author (died 1943) Prince Tisavarakumara, the Prince Damrong Rajanubhab was the founder of the modern Thai educational system as well as the modern provincial administration. He was an autodidact, a (self-taught) historian, and one of the most influential Thai intellectuals of his time. Read more
• 21 Jun 1860: William Dobinson Halliburton, British physiologist and biochemist (died 1931) William Dobinson Halliburton FRS was a British physiologist, noted for being one of the founders of the science of biochemistry. Read more
• 21 Jun 1859: Henry Ossawa Tanner, American-French painter and illustrator (died 1937) Henry Ossawa Tanner was an American artist who spent much of his career in France. He became the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study at the Académie Julian and gained acclaim in French artistic circles. In 1923, the French government elected Tanner chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Read more
• 21 Jun 1858: Giuseppe De Sanctis, Italian painter (died 1924) Giuseppe De Sanctis was an Italian painter, primarily of portraits and cityscapes. Read more
• 21 Jun 1858: Medardo Rosso, Italian sculptor and educator (died 1928) Medardo Rosso was an Italian sculptor. He is considered, like his contemporary and admirer Auguste Rodin, to have been an artist working in a post-Impressionist style. Read more
• 21 Jun 1857: Charles Alderton, American pharmacist, founded Dr. Pepper (died 1941) Charles Courtice Alderton was an American pharmacist and the inventor of the carbonated soft drink Dr Pepper. Read more
• 21 Jun 1850: Daniel Carter Beard, American author and illustrator, co-founded the Boy Scouts of America (died 1941) Daniel Carter "Uncle Dan" Beard was an American illustrator, author, youth leader, Georgist and social reformer who founded the Sons of Daniel Boone in 1905, which Beard later merged with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Read more
• 21 Jun 1846: Marion Adams-Acton, Scottish-English author and playwright (died 1928) Marion Jean Catherine Adams-Acton was a Scottish novelist who wrote under the pseudonym "Jeanie Hering". Read more
• 21 Jun 1846: Enrico Coleman, Italian painter (died 1911) Enrico Coleman was an Italian painter of British nationality. He was the son of the English painter Charles Coleman and brother of the less well-known Italian painter Francesco Coleman. He painted, in oils and in watercolours, the landscapes of the Campagna Romana and the Agro Pontino; he was a collector, grower and painter of orchids. Because of his supposedly Oriental air, he was known to his friends as "Il Birmano", the Burmese. Read more
• 21 Jun 1845: Samuel Griffith, Welsh-Australian politician, 9th Premier of Queensland (died 1920) Sir Samuel Walker Griffith was an Australian judge and politician who served as the inaugural Chief Justice of Australia, in office from 1903 to 1919. He also served a term as Chief Justice of Queensland and two terms as Premier of Queensland, and played a key role in the drafting of the Australian Constitution. Read more
• 21 Jun 1845: Arthur Cowper Ranyard, English astrophysicist and astronomer (died 1894) Arthur Cowper Ranyard was an English astrophysicist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1839: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Brazilian author, poet, and playwright (died 1908) Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, sometimes called Bruxo do Cosme Velho, was a pioneer Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright and short story writer, widely regarded as the greatest writer of Brazilian literature. In 1897, he founded and became the first President of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. He was multilingual, having taught himself French, English, German and Greek later in life. Read more
• 21 Jun 1836: Luigi Tripepi, Italian theologian (died 1906) Luigi Tripepi was an Italian Roman Catholic cardinal and poet. He was one of the most important Roman Catholic apologists of the 19th century. Read more
• 21 Jun 1834: Frans de Cort, Flemish poet and author (died 1878) Frans Jozef de Cort, was a Flemish writer. Read more
• 21 Jun 1828: Ferdinand André Fouqué, French geologist and academic (died 1904) Ferdinand André Fouqué was a French geologist and petrologist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1828: Nikolaus Nilles, German Catholic writer and teacher (died 1907) Nikolaus Nilles was a Roman Catholic writer and teacher. Read more
• 21 Jun 1825: Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie, Irish economist and jurist (died 1882) Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie was an Irish jurist and economist. He was professor of jurisprudence and political economy in Queen's College, Belfast, noted for challenging the Wages-Fund doctrine and for addressing contemporary agrarian policy questions. A critic of Ricardian orthodoxy, he said that it had sidelined consumer behaviour and demand. He developed the idea of consumer sovereignty, but insisted that the analysis of demand should be based on historical and comparative institutional work. Read more
• 21 Jun 1825: William Stubbs, English bishop and historian (died 1901) William Stubbs was an English historian and Anglican bishop. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford between 1866 and 1884. He was Bishop of Chester from 1884 to 1889 and Bishop of Oxford from 1889 to 1901. Read more
• 21 Jun 1823: Jean Chacornac, French astronomer (died 1873) Jean Chacornac was a French astronomer and discoverer of a comet and several asteroids. Read more
• 21 Jun 1814: Paweł Bryliński, Polish sculptor (died 1890) Paweł Bryliński was a Polish folk-sculptor. He is perhaps best known for a series of works concerning Holy Week. Read more
• 21 Jun 1814: Anton Nuhn, German anatomist and academic (died 1889) Anton Nuhn was a German anatomist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1811: Matthew Simpson, American Methodist bishop and academic (died 1884) Matthew Simpson was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1852 and based mainly in Philadelphia. During the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War, most evangelical denominations in the North, especially the Methodists, were initially strong supporters of radical policies that favored the Freedmen and distrusted the Southern whites. However, by the late 1860s in border state conferences, the MEC North moved well away from their work with the Freedmen's Bureau and often sided with the grievances of Southern white members. Bishop Simpson played a leading role in mobilizing the Northern Methodists for the cause. His biographer calls him the "High Priest of the Radical Republicans." Read more
• 21 Jun 1805: Karl Friedrich Curschmann, German composer and singer (died 1841) Karl Friedrich Curschmann was a German song composer and singer. Read more
• 21 Jun 1805: Charles Thomas Jackson, American physician and geologist (died 1880) Charles Thomas Jackson was an American physician and scientist who was active in medicine, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. Read more
• 21 Jun 1802: Karl Zittel, German theologian (died 1871) Karl Zittel was a German theologian, who was a prominent figure in 19th century Liberal Protestantism. He was the father of paleontologist Karl Alfred von Zittel (1839–1904). Read more

Notable Deaths on 21 June

• 21 Jun 2024: Frederick Crews, American essayist and literary critic (born 1933) Frederick Campbell Crews was an American essayist and literary critic. Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, Crews was the author of numerous books, including The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Later Novels of Henry James (1957), E. M. Forster: The Perils of Humanism (1962), and The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes (1966), a discussion of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He received popular attention for The Pooh Perplex (1963), a book of satirical essays parodying various schools of literary criticism. Initially a proponent of psychoanalytic literary criticism, Crews later rejected psychoanalysis, becoming a critic of Sigmund Freud and his scientific and ethical standards. Crews was a prominent participant in the "Freud wars" of the 1980s and 1990s, a debate over the reputation, scholarship, and impact on the 20th century of Freud, who founded psychoanalysis. In 2017, he published Freud: The Making of an Illusion. Read more
• 21 Jun 2023: Winnie Ewing, Scottish politician (born 1929) Winifred Margaret Ewing was a Scottish lawyer and politician who figured prominently in the Scottish National Party. Read more
• 21 Jun 2018: Charles Krauthammer, American columnist and conservative political commentator (born 1950) Charles Krauthammer was an American political columnist and psychiatrist. A moderate liberal who turned independent conservative as a political pundit, Krauthammer won the Pulitzer Prize for his columns in The Washington Post in 1987. His weekly column was syndicated to more than 400 publications worldwide. While in his first year studying medicine at Harvard Medical School, Krauthammer became permanently paralyzed from the waist down after a diving board accident that severed his spinal cord at cervical spinal nerve 5. After spending 14 months recovering in a hospital, he returned to medical school, graduating to become a psychiatrist involved in the creation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders III in 1980. He joined the Carter administration in 1978 as a director of psychiatric research, eventually becoming the speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale in 1980. Read more
• 21 Jun 2016: Pierre Lalonde, Canadian television host and singer (born 1941) Pierre Lalonde was a Canadian singer and television host, who was sometimes also billed as Peter Martin in the United States. Read more
• 21 Jun 2015: Darryl Hamilton, American baseball player and sportscaster (born 1964) Darryl Quinn Hamilton was an American professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1988 and 2001 for the Milwaukee Brewers, Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants, Colorado Rockies, and New York Mets. Hamilton prepped at Louisiana State University Laboratory School in Baton Rouge and then attended Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Read more
• 21 Jun 2015: Veijo Meri, Finnish author and poet (born 1928) Veijo Väinö Valvo Meri was a Finnish writer. Much of his work focuses on war and its absurdity. The work is anti-war and has dark humor. Read more
• 21 Jun 2015: Remo Remotti, Italian actor, playwright, and poet (born 1924) Remo Remotti was an Italian actor, playwright, artist and poet. Read more
• 21 Jun 2015: Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, German soldier and politician (born 1932) Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski was a politician and trader in the German Democratic Republic. He was director of a main department ('Hauptverwaltungsleiter') in the Ministry for Foreign Trade and German Domestic Trade (1956–62), the Deputy Minister for External Trade (1967–75), and head of the GDR's Kommerzielle Koordinierung. Read more
• 21 Jun 2015: Gunther Schuller, American horn player, composer, and conductor (born 1925) Gunther Alexander Schuller was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician. Read more
• 21 Jun 2014: Yozo Ishikawa, Japanese politician, Japanese Minister of Defense (born 1925) Yozo Ishikawa was a Japanese lawmaker and a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He served as director general of the now-defunct defense agency of Japan in 1990. Read more
• 21 Jun 2014: Walter Kieber, Austrian-Liechtenstein politician, 7th Prime Minister of Liechtenstein (born 1931) Walter Kieber was a lawyer and politician from Liechtenstein who served as Prime Minister of Liechtenstein from 1974 to 1978. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister of Liechtenstein from 1970 to 1974 and again from 1978 to 1980. Read more
• 21 Jun 2014: Wong Ho Leng, Malaysian lawyer and politician (born 1959) Wong Ho Leng was a Malaysian politician. He was the opposition leader of the Sarawak State Assembly from May 2006 to June 2013. He was also the state chairman of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) from 2001 until 10 June 2013. He was the Member of the State Legislative Assembly of Sarawak for the seat of Bukit Assek until his death on 21 June 2014. Read more
• 21 Jun 2013: James P. Gordon, American physicist and academic (born 1928) James Power Gordon was an American physicist known for his work in the fields of optics and quantum electronics. His contributions include the design, analysis and construction of the first maser in 1954 as a doctoral student at Columbia University under the supervision of C. H. Townes, development of the quantal equivalent of Shannon's information capacity formula in 1962, development of the theory for the diffusion of atoms in an optical trap in 1980, and the discovery of what is now known as the Gordon-Haus effect in soliton transmission, together with H. A. Haus in 1986. Gordon was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences. Read more
• 21 Jun 2013: Elliott Reid, American actor and screenwriter (born 1920) Edgeworth Blair "Elliott" Reid was an American actor. Read more
• 21 Jun 2012: Richard Adler, American composer and producer (born 1921) Richard Adler was an American lyricist, writer, composer and producer of several Broadway shows. He is best known for his work with Jerry Ross on the musicals The Pajama Game (1954) and Damn Yankees (1955). Read more
• 21 Jun 2012: Abid Hussain, Indian economist and diplomat, Indian Ambassador to the United States (born 1926) Abid Hussain was an Indian economist, civil servant and diplomat. He was India's ambassador to the United States of America from 1990 to 1992 and a member of the Planning Commission from 1985 to 1990. Read more
• 21 Jun 2012: Sunil Janah, Indian photographer and journalist (born 1918) Sunil Janah was an Indian-American photojournalist and documentary photographer who worked in India in the 1940s. Janah documented India's independence movement, its peasant and labour movements, famines and riots, rural and tribal life, as well as the years of rapid urbanization and industrialization. He was best known for his coverage of the Bengal famine of 1943. Read more
• 21 Jun 2012: Anna Schwartz, American economist and author (born 1915) Anna Jacobson Schwartz was an American economist who worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York City and a writer for The New York Times. Paul Krugman has said that Schwartz is "one of the world's greatest monetary scholars." Read more
• 21 Jun 2011: Robert Kroetsch, Canadian author and poet (born 1927) Robert Paul Kroetsch was a Canadian novelist, poet and nonfiction writer. In his fiction and critical essays, as well as in the journal he co-founded, boundary 2, he was an influential figure in Canada in introducing ideas about postmodernism. Read more
• 21 Jun 2010: Russell Ash, English author (born 1946) Russell Ash was the British author of the Top 10 of Everything series of books, as well as Great Wonders of the World, Incredible Comparisons and many other reference, art and humour titles, most notably his series of books on strange-but-true names, Potty, Fartwell & Knob, Busty, Slag and Nob End and Big Pants, Burpy and Bumface. Once described as 'the human Google', his obituary in The Times stated that 'In the age of the internet, it takes tenacity and idiosyncratic intelligence to make a living from purveying trivial information. Russell Ash did just that'. Read more
• 21 Jun 2010: Irwin Barker, Canadian actor and screenwriter (born 1956) Irwin Barker was a Canadian comedian and writer. He wrote for This Hour Has 22 Minutes and The Rick Mercer Report, and was nominated for four Gemini Awards as a writer and one as stand-up performer for his 2005 performance at the Halifax Comedy Festival. Barker was also nominated for three Writers' Guild of Canada Screenwriter's awards, and won the award in 2008. He was a regular writer and contributor for CBC Radio's The Debaters. Read more
• 21 Jun 2010: İlhan Selçuk, Turkish lawyer, journalist, and author (born 1925) İlhan Selçuk was a Turkish lawyer, journalist, author, novelist and editor. Read more
• 21 Jun 2008: Scott Kalitta, American race car driver (born 1962) Scott D. Kalitta was an American drag racer who competed in the Funny Car and Top Fuel classes in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Full Throttle Drag Racing Series. He had 17 career Top Fuel wins and one career Funny Car win. At the time of his death due to an accident during race qualifying, he was one of 14 drivers to win in both divisions. He was the son of veteran NHRA driver and crew chief Connie Kalitta. Read more
• 21 Jun 2007: Bob Evans, American businessman, founded Bob Evans Restaurants (born 1918) Robert Lewis Evans was an American restaurateur and marketer of pork sausage products. He founded a restaurant chain bearing his name. The company also owns Owens Country Sausage. Read more
• 21 Jun 2006: Jared C. Monti, American sergeant, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1975) Jared Christopher Monti was a soldier in the United States Army who received the United States military's highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor, for his actions in the War in Afghanistan. Read more
• 21 Jun 2005: Jaime Sin, Filipino cardinal (born 1928) Jaime Lachica Sin was a Filipino Catholic prelate who served as the 30th archbishop of Manila from 1974 until his retirement in 2003. He was elevated to the rank of cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1976. Read more
• 21 Jun 2004: Leonel Brizola, Brazilian engineer and politician, Governor of Rio de Janeiro (born 1922) Leonel de Moura Brizola was a Brazilian politician. Launched into politics by Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas in the 1930–1950s, Brizola was the only politician to serve as elected governor of two Brazilian states. An engineer by training, Brizola organized the youth wing of the Brazilian Labour Party and served as state representative for Rio Grande do Sul and mayor of its capital, Porto Alegre. Read more
• 21 Jun 2004: Ruth Leach Amonette, American businesswoman (born 1916) Ruth Leach Amonette was an American businesswoman, author, and educator. She was appointed as the first female executive and vice president at IBM in 1943, becoming one of only a few women in high-ranking corporate positions in the US at the time. She was renowned nationally for her work in business and as an educator. Read more
• 21 Jun 2003: Roger Neilson, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (born 1934) Roger Paul Neilson was a Canadian professional ice hockey coach, most notably in the NHL, where he served with eight teams. Known as "Captain Video" because of his technological contributions to the game, he is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in the builder category. Alongside his decorated coaching abilities, Neilson is commonly remembered today for his many antics which resulted in the creation of several NHL rules. Read more
• 21 Jun 2003: Leon Uris, American soldier and author (born 1924) Leon Marcus Uris was an American author of historical fiction who wrote many bestselling books, including Exodus and Trinity. Read more
• 21 Jun 2002: Timothy Findley, Canadian author and playwright (born 1930) Timothy Irving Frederick Findley was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials. Read more
• 21 Jun 2001: John Lee Hooker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1917) John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues that he developed in Detroit. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie. Hooker was ranked 35 in Rolling Stone's 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists, and has been cited as one of the greatest male blues vocalists of all time. Read more
• 21 Jun 2001: Soad Hosny, Egyptian actress and singer (born 1942) Soad Mohammad Kamal Hosny was an Egyptian actress. She was known as the "Cinderella of the Screen" and one of the most influential actresses in the Middle East and the Arab world. She is generally regarded as one of Egypt's most iconic female performers of the 20th-century, who played leading roles for many of the country's top directors, in a career spanning 83 films between 1959 and 1991, garnering several national and international accolades. Read more
• 21 Jun 2001: Carroll O'Connor, American actor and producer (born 1924) John Carroll O'Connor was an American actor whose television career spanned over four decades. He found widespread fame as Archie Bunker, the main character in the CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971–1979) and its continuation, Archie Bunker's Place (1979–1983). He later starred in the NBC/CBS television crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1988–1995), where he played the role of police chief William "Bill" Gillespie. In the late 1990s, he played Gus Stemple, the father of Jamie Buchman on Mad About You. In 1996, O'Connor was ranked number 38 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. He won five Emmys and one Golden Globe Award. Read more
• 21 Jun 2000: Alan Hovhaness, Armenian-American pianist and composer (born 1911) Alan Hovhaness was an American composer. He was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers, with his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies and 434 opus numbers. The true tally is well over 500 surviving works, since many opus numbers comprise two or more distinct works. Read more
• 21 Jun 1999: Kami, Japanese drummer (born 1973) Ukyou Kamimura , better known by his stage name Kami, was a Japanese musician best known as visual kei rock band Malice Mizer’s drummer. He died on June 21, 1999, in his sleep of a subarachnoid hemorrhage at the age of 27. Dir En Grey drummer Shinya cited Kami as one of the three greatest Japanese drummers. Read more
• 21 Jun 1998: Harry Cranbrook Allen, English historian (born 1917) Harry Cranbrook Allen was a British historian of the United States. Read more
• 21 Jun 1998: Anastasio Ballestrero, Italian cardinal (born 1913) Anastasio Alberto Ballestrero, religious name Anastasio del Santissimo Rosario, was an Italian cardinal and member of the Discalced Carmelites who served as the Archbishop of Turin from 1977 until his resignation in 1989. Ballestrero was elevated to the cardinalate in 1979 and became a leading progressive voice in the Italian episcopate during his time as the head of the Italian Episcopal Conference in the pontificate of the conservative Pope John Paul II. Ballestrero likewise was known for being reserved when it came to the Shroud of Turin as opposed to the enthusiasm of John Paul II for the relic. The cardinal allowed for testing of the shroud and announced that the relic itself was a product of the Middle Ages as opposed to the genuine burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Read more
• 21 Jun 1998: Al Campanis, American baseball player and manager (born 1916) Alexander Sebastian Campanis was an American executive in Major League Baseball (MLB). He had a brief major league playing career, as a second baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943; he was the first Greek player in MLB history. Campanis is most famous for his position as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1968 to 1987, from which he was fired on April 8, 1987, as a result of controversial remarks regarding black people in baseball made during an interview on Nightline two days earlier. Read more
• 21 Jun 1997: Shintaro Katsu, Japanese actor, singer, director, and producer (born 1931) Shintaro Katsu was a Japanese actor, singer, and filmmaker. He is known for starring in the Akumyo series, the Hoodlum Soldier series, the Hanzo the Razor series, and the Zatoichi series. Read more
• 21 Jun 1997: Fidel Velázquez Sánchez, Mexican trade union leader (born 1900) Fidel Velázquez Sánchez was the preeminent Mexican union leader of the 20th century. In 1936 he was one of the original founders, along with Vicente Lombardo Toledano, of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), the national labor federation most closely associated with the ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He replaced Lombardo as the leader of the CTM in 1941, then expelled him from it in 1948. He led the CTM, which grew increasingly corrupt and conservative, until his death in 1997. Read more
• 21 Jun 1994: William Wilson Morgan, American astronomer and astrophysicist (born 1906) William Wilson Morgan was an American astronomer and astrophysicist. The principal theme in Morgan's work was stellar and galaxy classification. He is also known for helping prove the existence of spiral arms in our galaxy. In addition to his scientific achievements he served as professor and astronomy director for the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin and was the managing editor for George Hale's Astrophysical Journal. Read more
• 21 Jun 1992: Ben Alexander, Australian rugby league player (born 1971) Ben Alexander, also known by the nickname "Boods", was an Australian rugby league footballer who played as a halfback or hooker for the Penrith Panthers in the New South Wales Rugby League premiership. He was the younger brother of his Penrith teammate Greg Alexander. Read more
• 21 Jun 1992: Arthur Gorrie, Australian hobby shop proprietor (born 1922) Arthur Dingwall Gorrie was an Australian hobbyist. He ran a small hobby shop in Woolloongabba and was involved with model aeronautical clubs including the Model Aeronautical Association of Australia and the Queensland Model Aeronautical Association from the early 1950s. He was involved with Toastmasters International and was honored by them on many occasions. He became a Distinguished Toastmaster in 1979 and Toastmaster of the Year on eight occasions. Read more
• 21 Jun 1992: Rudra Mohammad Shahidullah, Bangladeshi poet, author, and playwright (born 1956) Rudra Mohammad Shahidullah was a Bangladeshi poet noted for his revolutionary and romantic poetry. He is considered one of the leading Bengali poets of the 1970s. He received Munir Chaudhury Memorial Award in 1980 and Ekushey Padak in 2024 Read more
• 21 Jun 1992: Li Xiannian, Chinese captain and politician, President of China (born 1909) Li Xiannian was a Chinese Communist military and political leader, president of China from 1983 to 1988 under paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and then chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from 1988 until his death. He was a full member of the Politburo from 1956 to 1987, and of its Standing Committee from 1977 to 1987. Read more
• 21 Jun 1990: Cedric Belfrage, English journalist and author, co-founded the National Guardian (born 1904) Cedric Henning Belfrage was an English film critic, journalist, writer and political activist. He is best remembered as a co-founder of the radical US weekly National Guardian. Later Belfrage was referenced as a Soviet agent in the US intelligence Venona project, although it appears he had been working for British Security Co-ordination as a double agent. Read more
• 21 Jun 1990: June Christy, American singer (born 1925) June Christy was an American singer, known for her work in the cool jazz genre and for her silky smooth vocals. Her success as a singer began with The Stan Kenton Orchestra. She pursued a solo career from 1954 and is best known for her debut album Something Cool. After her death, she was hailed as "one of the finest and most neglected singers of her time." Read more
• 21 Jun 1988: Bobby Dodd, American football coach (born 1908) Robert Lee Dodd was an American college football player and coach, college baseball coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Georgia Tech from 1945 to 1966, compiling a record of 165–64–8. His teams won consecutive Southeastern Conference (SEC) title in 1951 and 1952, and his 1952 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team won the 1953 Sugar Bowl and was recognized as a national champion by a number of selectors though they finished second behind Michigan State in both major polls. Dodd was also Georgia Tech's head baseball coach from 1932 to 1939, tallying a mark of 43–64–2, and the school's athletic director from 1950 until 1976. All together, Dodd served Georgia Tech 57 years in various capacities. Read more
• 21 Jun 1987: Madman Muntz, American engineer and businessman, founded the Muntz Car Company (born 1914) Earl William "Madman" Muntz was an American businessman and engineer who sold and promoted cars and consumer electronics in the United States from the 1930s until his death in 1987. He was a pioneer in television commercials with his oddball "Madman" persona; an alter ego who generated publicity with his unusual costumes, stunts, and outrageous claims. Muntz also pioneered car stereos by creating the Muntz Stereo-Pak, better known as the 4-track cartridge, a predecessor to the 8-track cartridge developed by Lear Industries. Read more
• 21 Jun 1986: Assi Rahbani, Lebanese singer-songwriter and producer (born 1923) Assi Rahbani was a Lebanese composer, musician, conductor and producer. He was part of the Rahbani Brothers, with his brother Mansour Rahbani. He married Lebanese singer Nouhad Haddad, more famous by her stage name, Fairuz. Their son Ziad Rahbani was also an artist in music, theatre, and a political activist. Read more
• 21 Jun 1985: Hector Boyardee, Italian-American chef and businessman, founded Chef Boyardee (born 1897) Ettore Boiardi, also known as Hector Boyardee, was an Italian-American chef and entrepreneur, famous for his brand of food products, named Chef Boyardee. Read more
• 21 Jun 1985: Tage Erlander, Swedish lieutenant and politician, 25th Prime Minister of Sweden (born 1901) Tage Fritjof Erlander was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden and leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1946 to 1969. During his record-long premiership, Erlander was an architect of the "Swedish Model" and oversaw a major expansion of the welfare state (Folkhemmet), marked by social equality, economic growth, and the development of extensive public services. Referred to as "Sweden’s longest prime minister" for both his towering height and his unprecedented 23-year tenure as head of government, he was known for his moderation, pragmatism, self-ironic humour, and modesty. Read more
• 21 Jun 1981: Don Figlozzi, American illustrator and animator (born 1909) Don Figlozzi was an American animator and cartoonist. A veteran of Fleischer Studios and member of the National Cartoonists Society, he spent the first half of his career in animation and the second half at the New York Daily News, where his cartoons, signed "Fig," became a fixture. Historian Harvey Deneroff of the Savannah College of Art and Design suggests that Figlozzi may have created the first animations to be used on television. Read more
• 21 Jun 1980: Bert Kaempfert, German conductor and composer (born 1923) Bert Kaempfert was a German orchestra leader, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, arranger, and composer. He made easy listening and jazz-orientated records and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, including "Strangers in the Night", "Danke Schoen", "Moon over Naples" and "A Swingin' Safari". In 1961, Kaempfert was the first to produce professional music recordings by the Beatles. Read more
• 21 Jun 1976: Margaret Herrick, American librarian (born 1902) Margaret Florence Herrick, also known professionally as Margaret Gledhill, was an American librarian and the executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1971, the academy's library was named the Margaret Herrick Library in her honor. Read more
• 21 Jun 1970: Sukarno, Indonesian engineer and politician, 1st President of Indonesia (born 1901) Sukarno was an Indonesian statesman, activist, and revolutionary who served as the first president of Indonesia from 1945 to 1967. Read more
• 21 Jun 1970: Piers Courage, English race car driver (born 1942) Piers Raymond Courage was a British racing driver, who competed in Formula One from 1967 to 1970. Read more
• 21 Jun 1969: Maureen Connolly, American tennis player (born 1934) Maureen Catherine Connolly-Brinker, known as "Little Mo", was an American tennis player, the winner of nine major singles titles in the early 1950s. In 1953, she became the first woman to win a Grand Slam. She is also the only player in history to win a title without losing a set at all four major championships. The following year, in July 1954, a horseback riding accident seriously injured her right leg and ended her competitive tennis career at age 19. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 34. Read more
• 21 Jun 1968: Constance Georgina Tardrew, South African botanist (born 1883) Constance Georgina Adams, also known as Constance Georgina Tardrew, was a South African housewife and collector of botanical specimens. Known by the nicknames Connie and Daisy, Adams was born in Cape Town and spent her early childhood on a farm in Tulbagh before moving to Warrenton. She subsequently lived in Kimberley before getting married, settling in Johannesburg where she became active in the Housewives League of South Africa. Inspired by her parents' interest in botany, she became a successful collector for both the Albany Museum in Grahamstown and McGregor Museum in Kimberley. She also cultivated a friendship with the Director of the latter, Maria Wilman. She collected over 240 specimens, which were presented to the Albany Museum, McGregor Museum and the National Herbarium in Pretoria. Read more
• 21 Jun 1967: Theodore Sizer, American professor of the history of art (born 1892) Theodore Sizer was an American professor of the history of art at Yale University and a director of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. He was named the first Pursuivant of Arms for Yale University in 1963. Read more
• 21 Jun 1964: James Chaney, American civil rights activist (born 1943) James Earl Chaney was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three civil rights workers murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan on June 21, 1964. The others were Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York City. Read more
• 21 Jun 1964: Andrew Goodman, American civil rights activist (born 1943) Andrew Goodman was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three civil rights workers murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. Goodman was a volunteer for the Freedom Summer campaign that sought to register African Americans to vote in Mississippi and to set up Freedom Schools for black Southerners. His two fellow activists, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, worked for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Read more
• 21 Jun 1964: Michael Schwerner, American civil rights activist (born 1939) Michael Henry "Mickey" Schwerner was an American civil rights activist. He was one of three civil rights workers murdered in rural Neshoba County, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Schwerner and two co-workers, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, were killed in response to their civil rights work, which included promoting voting registration among African Americans, most of whom had been disenfranchised in the state since 1890. Read more
• 21 Jun 1957: Claude Farrère, French captain and author (born 1876) Claude Farrère, pseudonym of Frédéric-Charles Bargone, was a French Navy officer and writer. Many of his novels are based in exotic locations such as Istanbul, Saigon, or Nagasaki. Read more
• 21 Jun 1957: Johannes Stark, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1874) Johannes Stark was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1919 for his discovery of the Stark effect. Read more
• 21 Jun 1954: Gideon Sundback, Swedish-American engineer, developed the zipper (born 1880) Otto Fredrik Gideon Sundbäck was a Swedish-American electrical engineer, who is most commonly associated with his work in the development of the zipper. Read more
• 21 Jun 1952: Wop May, Canadian captain and pilot (born 1896) Wilfrid Reid "Wop" May, was a Canadian flying ace in the First World War and a leading post-war aviator. He was the final Allied pilot to be pursued by Manfred von Richthofen before the German ace was shot down on the Western Front in 1918. After the war, May returned to Canada, pioneering the role of a bush pilot while working for Canadian Airways in Northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Read more
• 21 Jun 1951: Charles Dillon Perrine, American astronomer (born 1867) Charles Dillon Perrine was an American astronomer at the Lick Observatory in California (1893-1909) who moved to Cordoba, Argentina to accept the position of Director of the Argentine National Observatory (1909-1936). The Cordoba Observatory under Perrine's direction made the first attempts to prove Einstein's theory of relativity by astronomical observation of the deflection of starlight near the Sun during the solar eclipse of October 10, 1912 in Cristina (Brazil), and the solar eclipse of August 21, 1914 at Feodosia, Crimea, Russian Empire. Rain in 1912 and clouds in 1914 prevented results. Read more
• 21 Jun 1951: Gustave Sandras, French gymnast (born 1872) Silvaine Gustave Sandras was a French gymnast who competed in the early 20th century. He participated in the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, and won the equivalent of a gold medal in the only gymnastic event to take place at the games, the combined exercises. Read more
• 21 Jun 1951: Ville Kiviniemi, Finnish politician (born 1877) Vilhelm Kiviniemi was a Finnish farmer, politician and member of the Parliament of Finland, the national legislature. A member of the Social Democratic Party, he represented Lapland between November 1917 and September 1918. He was amongst dozens of social democrat MPs who were persecuted for political reasons by the victorious Whites following end of the Finnish Civil War in 1918. Kiviniemi was sentenced to death for treason but this was later commuted to life imprisonment. He received a presidential pardon in 1922. Read more
• 21 Jun 1940: Smedley Butler, American general, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1881) Major General Smedley Darlington Butler was a United States Marine Corps officer. During his 34-year military career, he fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and the Banana Wars. At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. military history. By the end of his career, Butler had received sixteen medals, including five for heroism; he was awarded the Marine Corps Brevet Medal as well as two Medals of Honor, both for separate actions. Read more
• 21 Jun 1940: Édouard Vuillard, French painter (born 1868) Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter, decorative artist, and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, Vuillard was a member of the avant garde artistic group Les Nabis, creating paintings that assembled areas of pure color. His interior scenes, influenced by Japanese prints, explored the spatial effects of flattened planes of color, pattern, and form. As a decorative artist, Vuillard painted theater sets, panels for interior decoration, and designed plates and stained glass. After 1900, when the Nabis broke up, Vuillard adopted a more realistic style, approaching landscapes and interiors with greater detail and vivid colors. In the 1920s and 1930s, he painted portraits of figures in French industry and the arts in their familiar settings. Read more
• 21 Jun 1934: Thorne Smith, American author (born 1892) James Thorne Smith Jr. was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction under the byline Thorne Smith. He is best known today for the two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, frequent drinking and ghosts. With racy illustrations, these sold millions of copies in the 1930s and were equally popular in paperbacks of the 1950s. Read more
• 21 Jun 1929: Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, English sociologist, journalist, and academic (born 1864) Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, FBA was a British liberal political theorist and sociologist, who has been considered one of the leading and earliest proponents of social liberalism. His works, culminating in his famous book Liberalism (1911), occupy a seminal position within the canon of New Liberalism. Read more
• 21 Jun 1914: Bertha von Suttner, Austrian journalist and author, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1843) Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicitas von Suttner was an Austrian noblewoman, pacifist and novelist. In 1905, she became the second female Nobel laureate, the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first Austrian laureate. Read more
• 21 Jun 1908: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer and educator (born 1844) Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, a member of the group of composers known as The Five. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his fifteen operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy-tale and folk subjects. He was the husband of the composer Nadezhda Rimskaya-Korsakova. Read more
• 21 Jun 1893: Leland Stanford, American businessman and politician, 8th Governor of California (born 1824) Amasa Leland Stanford was an American attorney, industrialist, philanthropist, and Republican Party politician from Watervliet, New York. He served as the eighth governor of California from 1862 to 1863 and represented the state in the United States Senate from 1885 until his death in 1893. Stanford and his wife Jane founded Stanford University, named after their late son. Read more
• 21 Jun 1880: Theophilus H. Holmes, American general (born 1804) Lieutenant-General Theophilus Hunter Holmes was an American soldier who served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army and commanded infantry in the Eastern and Trans-Mississippi theaters of the American Civil War. He had previously served with distinction as an officer of the United States Army in the Seminole and Mexican–American wars. A friend and protégé of Confederate States President Jefferson Davis, he was appointed commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department but failed in his key task, which was to defend the Confederacy's hold on the Mississippi. Read more
• 21 Jun 1876: Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexican general and politician 8th President of Mexico (born 1794) Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, often known as Santa Anna, was a Mexican general, politician, and caudillo who served as the eighth president of Mexico on multiple occasions between 1833 and 1855. A controversial and pivotal figure in Mexican politics during the 19th century, he has been called an "uncrowned monarch" by some historians who refer to the 30 years after Mexico's independence as the "Age of Santa Anna". Santa Anna is often remembered in Mexico as a vendepatria due the loss of Mexican territory to the United States under Santa Anna. Read more
• 21 Jun 1874: Anders Jonas Ångström, Swedish physicist and astronomer (born 1814) Anders Jonas Ångström was a Swedish physicist and one of the founders of the science of spectroscopy. Read more
• 21 Jun 1865: Frances Adeline Seward, American wife of William H. Seward (born 1824) Frances Adeline Seward was the First Lady of New York and the wife of William Henry Seward, a senator in the New York legislature, Governor of New York, a senator from New York and United States Secretary of State under President Abraham Lincoln. Read more
• 21 Jun 1824: Étienne Aignan, French playwright and translator (born 1773) Étienne Aignan was a French translator, political writer, librettist and playwright. In 1814 he was made a member of the Académie française, succeeding Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in Seat 27. He died on 21 June 1824 aged 51 years old. Read more

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