Today in History, June 21st
On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Plus the first Ferris wheel and SpaceShipOne.
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June 21 is best known for 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, the number needed to make it the law of the land. The date also saw the world’s first Ferris wheel open in Chicago in 1893 and SpaceShipOne become the first privately owned spacecraft to reach space in 2004.
The big story: New Hampshire puts the Constitution over the top (1788)
The framers wrote their own finish line into the Constitution. Article VII said the document would not bind anyone until nine of the 13 states had ratified it. Delegates in Philadelphia had signed it on September 17, 1787, and over the following months state conventions argued it out one by one. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire voted yes and became the ninth state to ratify, which made the Constitution the law of the land. Some big states were still missing, though. Virginia ratified that June and New York in July 1788, and without them the new union would have looked shaky. Leaders agreed the new government would start on March 4, 1789. Rhode Island held out longest, ratifying by just two votes on May 29, 1790. Meanwhile the first Congress sent 12 amendments to the states in 1789, and ten of them were ratified in 1791 as the Bill of Rights.
More events on June 21
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1779 | Spain declared war on Great Britain, becoming a de facto ally of the American revolutionaries without signing a formal treaty with them. |
| 1813 | A British, Portuguese and Spanish army under Arthur Wellesley routed the French at Vitoria, breaking Napoleon’s hold on Spain. |
| 1834 | Cyrus McCormick received a patent for the mechanical reaper he had invented in 1831. |
| 1893 | The world’s first Ferris wheel opened to the public at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. |
| 1942 | Erwin Rommel’s forces captured the North African port of Tobruk, Libya, from the British-led Allied garrison. |
| 1956 | Playwright Arthur Miller refused to name suspected communists before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His contempt conviction was later reversed. |
| 1963 | Paul VI was elected pope of the Roman Catholic Church. |
| 1964 | Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, who had been registering Black voters, were killed by a Ku Klux Klan mob in Mississippi after their release from a county jail. |
| 1982 | A jury found John Hinckley Jr. not guilty by reason of insanity for shooting President Ronald Reagan and three others in 1981. |
| 1997 | The WNBA played its first game, with the New York Liberty beating the Los Angeles Sparks. |
| 2004 | Pilot Mike Melvill flew SpaceShipOne to just over 100 kilometers (about 62 miles), making it the first privately owned spacecraft to reach space. |
| 2009 | Greenland became self-governing when an expanded home-rule agreement with Denmark took effect. |
Born on June 21
- 1905: Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and leading champion of existentialism, born in Paris.
- 1947: Shirin Ebadi, Iranian lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, born in Hamadan, Iran.
- 1953: Benazir Bhutto, two-term prime minister of Pakistan, born in Karachi.
Sources
- U.S. Constitution ratified, History.com
- This Day in History: June 21, History.com
- On This Day: June 21, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Mississippi Burning, Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Shirin Ebadi, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Benazir Bhutto, Encyclopaedia Britannica
