July 21: The day man stepped on the moon
1613: Michael Romanov was crowned Czar of Russia beginning the Romanov dynasty which lasted till February 1917.
• 1613: Michael Romanov was crowned Czar of Russia beginning the Romanov dynasty which lasted till February 1917.
• 1796: Death of Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland, who is best known for his reworking of Auld Lang Syne into the version that is sung at New Year around the world.
• 1816: Birth in Germany of Paul Julius, Baron von Reuter. He formed a telegraph company to transmit commercial information, and in 1851 he established its headquarters in London. From then on, Reuters began to transmit general news items.
• 1911: Birth of Marshall McLuhan, Canadian communications theorist and educator whose aphorism “the medium is the message” summarised his view of the potent influence of television, computers, and other electronic media in shaping styles of thinking and thought.
• 1960: Sirimavo Bandaranaike became Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, the first woman in the world to hold such office.
• 1969: At 3.56 am, British Standard Time, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin stepped out of Apollo II onto the surface of the Moon, as most of the Earth’s population watched on television.
• 1970: After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in Egypt was completed. The giant reservoir created by the dam— 300 miles long and 10 miles wide — was named Lake Nasser in honour of President Nasser.