Our on this day in history archives contain over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

July 21 is the 202nd day of the year (203rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 163 days remain until the end of the year.

EVENTS

356 BC – The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is destroyed by arson.

230 – Pope Pontian succeeds Urban I as the eighteenth pope. After being exiled to Sardinia, he became the first pope to resign his office.

285 – Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar and co-ruler.

365 – The 365 Crete earthquake affected the Greek island of Crete with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), causing a destructive tsunami that affects the coasts of Libya and Egypt, especially Alexandria. Many thousands are killed.

905 – King Berengar I of Italy and a hired Hungarian army defeats the Frankish forces at Verona. King Louis III is captured and blinded for breaking his oath (see 902).

1242 – Battle of Taillebourg: Louis IX of France puts an end to the revolt of his vassals Henry III of England and Hugh X of Lusignan.

1403 – Battle of Shrewsbury: King Henry IV of England defeats rebels to the north of the county town of Shropshire, England.

1545 – The first landing of French troops on the coast of the Isle of Wight during the French invasion of the Isle of Wight.

1568 – Eighty Years' War: Battle of Jemmingen: Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva defeats Louis of Nassau.

1645 – Qing dynasty regent Dorgon issues an edict ordering all Han Chinese men to shave their forehead and braid the rest of their hair into a queue identical to those of the Manchus.

1656 – The Raid on Málaga takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War.

1674 – A Dutch assault on the French island of Martinique is repulsed against all odds.

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

1774 – Russo-Turkish War (1768–74): Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca ending the war.

1798 – French campaign in Egypt and Syria: Napoleon's forces defeat an Ottoman-Mamluk army near Cairo in the Battle of the Pyramids.

1831 – Inauguration of Leopold I of Belgium, first king of the Belgians.

1861 – American Civil War: First Battle of Bull Run: At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war begins and ends in a victory for the Confederate army.

1865 – In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots and kills Davis Tutt in what is regarded as the first western showdown.

1873 – At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American Old West.

1877 – After rioting by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of nine rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, stage a sympathy strike that is met with an assault by the state militia.

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

1907 – The passenger steamer SS Columbia sinks after colliding with the steam schooner San Pedro off Shelter Cove, California, killing 88 people.

1919 – The dirigible Wingfoot Air Express crashes into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago, killing 12 people.

1920 – The "Belfast Pogrom" begins two years of violence with the expulsion of thousands of Catholic shipyard, factory and linen mill workers from their jobs.

1925 – Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching human evolution in class and fined $100.

1925 – Malcolm Campbell becomes the first man to exceed 150 mph (241 km/h) on land. At Pendine Sands in Wales, he drives Sunbeam 350HP built by Sunbeam at a two-way average speed of 150.33 mph (242 km/h).

1936 – Spanish Civil War: The Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia is constituted, establishing an anarcho-syndicalist economy in Catalonia.

1944 – World War II: Battle of Guam: American troops land on Guam, starting a battle that will end on August 10.

1944 – World War II: Claus von Stauffenberg and four fellow conspirators are executed for the July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

1949 – The United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty.

1952 – The 7.3 Mw  Kern County earthquake strikes Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing 12 and injuring hundreds.

1954 – First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

1959 – NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative.

1959 – Elijah Jerry "Pumpsie" Green becomes the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last team to integrate. He came in as a pinch runner for Vic Wertz and stayed in as shortstop in a 2–1 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

1960 – Sirimavo Bandaranaike is elected Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, becoming the world's first female head of government

1961 – Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 4 Mission: Gus Grissom piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).

1961 – Alaska Airlines Flight 779 crashes near Shemya Air Force Base in Shemya, Alaska killing six.

1964 – A series of racial riots break out in Singapore. In the next six weeks, 23 die with 454 others injured.

1969 – Apollo program: At 02:56 UTC, astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to walk on the Moon, followed 19 minutes later by Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.

1970 – After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.

1972 – The Troubles: Bloody Friday: The Provisional IRA detonate 22 bombs in central Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom in the space of 80 minutes, killing nine and injuring 130.

1973 – In Lillehammer, Norway, Mossad agents kill a waiter whom they mistakenly thought was involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre.

1976 – Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, is assassinated by the Provisional IRA.

1977 – The start of the four-day-long Libyan–Egyptian War.

1979 – Jay Silverheels, a Mohawk actor, becomes the first Native American to have a star commemorated in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1983 – The world's lowest temperature in an inhabited location is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F).

1990 – Taiwan's military police forces mainland Chinese illegal immigrants into sealed holds of a fishing boat Min Ping Yu No. 5540 for repatriation to Fujian, causing 25 people to die from suffocation.

1995 – Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army begins firing missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.

2001 – At the conclusion of a fireworks display on Okura Beach in Akashi, Hyōgo, Japan, 11 people are killed and more than 120 are injured when a pedestrian footbridge connecting the beach to JR Asagiri Station becomes overcrowded and people leaving the event fall down in a domino effect.

2005 – Four attempted bomb attacks by Islamist extremists disrupt part of London's public transport system.

2008 – Ram Baran Yadav is declared the first President of Nepal.

2010 – President Barack Obama signs the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

2011 – NASA's Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

2012 – Erden Eruç completes the first solo human-powered circumnavigation of the world.

2019 – Yuen Long attack or "721 incident" in Hong Kong. Triad members indiscriminately beat civilians returning from protests while police failed to take action.

2023 – The Barbenheimer phenomenon begins as two major motion pictures, Greta Gerwig's fantasy comedy Barbie and Christopher Nolan's epic biographical thriller Oppenheimer, are released in theaters on the same day and audiences, instead of creating a rivalry between the extremely dissimilar films, instead attend and praise both as an informal, surreal double feature.