![Today in history](https://new.mia.mk/images/20240821073731_big_730x400_74.webp )
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.