June 21
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Featured Event
© Chicago History Museum—Archive Photos/Getty Images; Photo Illustration Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
On this day in 1893 the world’s first Ferris wheel opened to the public at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Standing some 264 feet (80.5 meters) tall, the enormous revolving steel wheel was designed by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. and could carry 2,160 passengers at a time. The novel ride ended up being the hit of the exposition, attracting more than 1 million riders between June and the close of the fair that November. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
© Aamir Qureshi—AFP/Getty Images
Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto, born this day in 1953, was the daughter of former president and prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and became in 1988 the first woman leader of a Muslim country in modern history.
Famous Birthdays
More on June 21
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
2009
Greenland became self-governing as an expanded home-rule agreement with Denmark took effect. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about islands.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1997
The Women’s National Basketball Association debuted with the playing of the league’s first game, in which the New York Liberty defeated the Los Angeles Sparks. [How much do you know about basketball?]
© Kathy Hutchins/Shutterstock.com
1982
Prince William of Wales (later Prince William, duke of Cambridge) was born to Charles, prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, and Diana, princess of Wales. [Sort fact from fiction in our English royalty quiz.]
Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library
1982
John Hinckley, Jr., was ruled to be innocent by reason of insanity in the shooting of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. [Test your knowledge of U.S. history and politics.]
AP
1963
U.S. Department of Defense
1945
Japanese resistance on Okinawa was finally quelled, less than three months after U.S. troops landed there as the last stepping-stone before the planned assault on Japan’s main islands in World War II. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about World War II.]
© Santi Visalli—Archive Photos/Getty Images
1919
Italian American architect Paolo Soleri, who was one of the best-known utopian city planners of the 20th century, was born in Turin, Italy. [Sort fact from fiction in our art and architecture quiz.]
Gisele Freund
1905
Jean-Paul Sartre, a French novelist, playwright, and exponent of existentialism who was awarded but declined the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964, was born. [Test your knowledge of Nobel laureates in literature.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1870
The Tianjin Massacre—a violent outbreak of Chinese xenophobic sentiment toward Westerners—erupted. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about China.]
Culver Pictures
1834
Cyrus McCormick received a patent for his 1831 invention of a reaper. [Test your knowledge of inventors and their inventions.]
© I. Quintanilla/Shutterstock.com
1813
The Battle of Vitoria was fought during the Peninsular War, breaking Napoleon’s power in Spain. [Take our quiz about historic battles.]