Notable Deaths on June 21

June 21 has 113 recorded notable deaths across history, from 532 to 2024. This focused page highlights 20 people with the strongest available profile context.

Edward III of England (born 1312)

1377 — Edward III of England (born 1312)

Edward III of England (born 1312)

By · Wikipedia

Notable Deaths 113 source records 532 – 2024

Major events on June 21

See what else happened on this day in history.

  1. 1734 In Montreal, New France, a slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique is put to death, having been convicted of setting the fire that destroyed much of the city. Source
  2. 2004 SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight. Source

Did you know about Edward III of England (born 1312)

Edward III transformed the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe.

Did you know about Antonio López de Santa Anna

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.

Did you know about John Smith

John Smith was a leader of the Virginia Colony between September 1608 and August 1609, and he led an exploration along the rivers of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay, during which he became the first English explorer to map the Chesapeake Bay area.

Did you know about Charles Krauthammer

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.

Did you know about Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones was an English architect who was the first significant architect in England in the early modern era and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of Proportion (architecture) and symmetry in his buildings.


More major people who died on June 21

Notable people are ranked by substantive profile depth and public notability.

1876 Antonio López de Santa Anna

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 to the loss of Mexican territory to the United States during his rule.
1631 John Smith

John Smith

English admiral and explorer (born 1580)
John Smith was an English soldier, explorer, admiral of New England, and author. He was knighted for his services to Sigismund Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, and his friend Mózes Székely. Following his return to England from a life as a soldier of fortune and as a slave, he played an important role in the establishment of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America, in the early 17th century. He was a leader of the Virginia Colony between September 1608 and August 1609, and he led an exploration along the rivers of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay, during which he became the first English explorer to map the Chesapeake Bay area. Later, he explored and mapped the coast of New England.
2018 Charles Krauthammer

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.
1652 Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones

English architect, designed the Queen's House and Wilton House (born 1573)
Inigo Jones was an English architect who was the first significant architect in England in the early modern era and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of Proportion (architecture) and symmetry in his buildings. As the most notable architect in England, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to England. He left his mark on London by his design of single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, as well as the layout for Covent Garden square which became a model for future developments in the West End. He made major contributions to stage design by his work as a theatrical designer for several dozen masques, most by royal command and many in collaboration with Ben Jonson.
1940 Édouard Vuillard

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.
1988 Bobby Dodd

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.
2024 Frederick Crews

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.
1998 Anastasio Ballestrero

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.
1968 Constance Georgina Tardrew

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.
2013 James P. Gordon

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.
1529 John Skelton

John Skelton

English poet and educator (born 1460)
John Skelton, also known as John Shelton was an English poet, playwright, priest, and tutor to King Henry VIII. Writing in a period of linguistic transition between Middle English and Early Modern English, Skelton is one of the most important poets of the early Tudor period. As a poet, Skelton is mostly remembered for his invectives and satires, often written in a highly irregular metre now called Skeltonics. However, Skelton's poetic oeuvre encompasses a wide range of genres, including dream vision, parody, ballad, panegyric, and Latin elegiac. He also wrote the first secular morality play in English, Magnyfycence, an important landmark in the development of English Renaissance theatre.
2010 Russell Ash

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'.
1985 Tage Erlander

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.
1940 Smedley Butler

Smedley Butler

American general, Medal of Honor recipient (born 1881)
Major General Smedley Darlington Butler was a United States Marine Corps officer and, later, an anti-war advocate. 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.
1951 Charles Dillon Perrine

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.
1969 Maureen Connolly

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.
2001 John Lee Hooker

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.
1547 Sebastiano del Piombo

Sebastiano del Piombo

Italian painter and educator (born 1485)
Sebastiano del Piombo was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance and early Mannerist periods, famous as the only major artist of the period to combine the colouring of the Venetian school in which he was trained with the monumental forms of the Roman school. He belongs both to the painting school of his native city, Venice, where he made significant contributions before he left for Rome in 1511, and that of Rome, where he stayed for the rest of his life, and whose style he thoroughly adopted.
1880 Theophilus H. Holmes

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.

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