21 August 2024 (MIA)

1331 – King Stephen Uros III, after months of anarchy, surrenders to his son and rival Stephen Dusan, who succeeds as King of Serbia.

1770 – James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1772 – King Gustav III completes his coup d’état by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot.

1911 – The Mona Lisa is stolen by a Louvre employee.

1923 – Vera Jocic, the national hero of Macedonia, is born in the village of Singelic near Skopje. Jocic was shot dead by fascist troops in 1944.

1944 – Dumbarton Oaks Conference, prelude to the United Nations, begins.

1957 – The Soviet Union successfully conducts a long-range test flight of the R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile.

1968 – Nicolae Ceausescu, leader of Communist Romania, publicly condemns the Soviet led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, encouraging the Romanian population to arm itself against possible Soviet reprisals.

1982 – Lebanese Civil War: The first troops of a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestine Liberation Organization’s withdrawal from Lebanon.

1983 – Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. is assassinated at the Manila International Airport (now renamed Ninoy Aquino International Airport).

1991 – Latvia declares renewal of its full independence after the occupation of Soviet Union.

1991 – Coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev collapses.

1993 – NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

2001 – NATO decides to send a peace-keeping force to Macedonia.

2013 – Hundreds of people are reported killed by chemical attacks in the Ghouta region of Syria.

2017 – A solar eclipse traverses the continental United States.

2019 – Nigeria goes three years without a case of polio in landmark toward eradication of the disease.