Today in History

July 21

1820 - Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted announces his discovery that an electrical current creates a magnetic field.

1831 - Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg is crowned the first king of newly independent Belgium.

1836 - The first Canadian railroad opens, running between Laprairie and St John, Quebec.

1873 - Jesse James and his gang pull off the first train robbery in America taking $3,000 (Dh11,034) from the Rock Island Express in Adair, Iowa.

1904 - The Trans-Siberian railway is finally completed.

1940 - Soviet Union annexes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

1960 - Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka becomes the world’s first woman prime minister.

1962 - Indian and Chinese troops clash in two disputed areas of Kashmir.

1969 - Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr blast off from Moon and head back to Earth after first lunar landing.

1970 - After 11 years, the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in Egypt is completed.

1973 - France explodes nuclear device over South Pacific island despite worldwide protests.

1974 - US announces ceasefire agreement between Greece and Turkey in war on Cyprus.

1975 - Soviet Soyuz spacecraft lands safely in Soviet Central Asia after its rendezvous in space with the American Apollo craft.

1980 - Salah Al Deen Al Bitar, former premier of the United Arab Republic, is assassinated in Paris.

1986 - A car bomb blows up outside the world headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris.

1987 - Bernard Hinault becomes the third man to win five Tours de France.

2002 - World Com, the secondlargest US telecommunications company, files for the largest US bankruptcy ever.

2005 - China revalues its currency after US pressure.

2008 - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is arrested for war crimes after a 12-year manhunt.

2009 - Infamous Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolves the parliament.