What happened on July 21 ?

1403 - Henry Percy, English soldier (killed in battle)

1425 - Manuel II Palaeologus, Byzantine Emperor (b. 1350)

1688 - James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, English statesman and soldier (b. 1610)

1796 - Robert Burns, Scottish poet (b. 1759)

1798 - François Sebastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt, Austrian field marshal (b. 1733)

1870 - Josef Strauss, Austrian composer (b. 1827)

1889 - Nelson Dewey, American politician, first governor of Wisconsin (b. 1813)

1899 - Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and military officer (b. 1833)

1936 - Georg Michaelis, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1857)

1937 - Louis Vierne, French composer (b. 1870)

1938 - Owen Wister, American author (b. 1860)

1943 - Charlie Paddock, American athlete (b. 1900)

1944 - Claus von Stauffenberg, German army colonel who tried to assassinate Hitler (b. 1907)

1944 - Ludwig Beck, German Chief of Staff (b. 1880)

1948 - David Wark Griffith, American film director (b. 1875)

1967 - Jimmie Foxx, baseball player (b. 1907)

1967 - Albert Lutuli, South African politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

1967 - Basil Rathbone, English actor (b. 1892)

1968 - Ruth St. Denis, dancer and choreographer (b. 1878)

1970 - Mikhail Gerasimov, Russian anthropologist and sculptor (b. 1907)

1970 - Bob Kalsu, American football player (b. 1945)

1972 - Ralph Craig, American athlete (b. 1889)

1982 - Dave Garroway, American television host (b. 1913)

1998 - Alan Shepard, astronaut (b. 1923)

1998 - Robert Young, American actor (b. 1907)

2001 - Steve Barton, American actor (b. 1954)

2003 - John Davies, New Zealand Olympic Committee president (b. 1938)

2003 - Walter M. "Matt" Jefferies, American film art director (b. 1921)

2004 - Jerry Goldsmith, American composer (b. 1929)

2004 - Edward B. Lewis, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1918)

2005 - Andrzej Grubba, Polish table tennis player (b. 1958)

2005 - Long John Baldry, British blues musician (b. 1941)