June 21
Japanese defenses crushed on Okinawa
1945: On April 1, 1945, during World War II, some 60,000 U.S. troops landed on the west coast of Okinawa, regarded as the last stepping stone to be taken before the assault on the main islands of Japan. Although the Japanese employed 355 kamikaze air raids and the Yamato, the greatest battleship in the world (sunk on April 7), in defense of the island, U.S. ground forces met little opposition on the beaches, because the Japanese commander, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, had decided to offer his main resistance inland, out of range of the enemy's naval guns. In the southern half of the island this resistance was bitterest and lasted until this day. Ushijima killed himself the next day.
1982: John Hinckley, Jr., was ruled to be innocent by reason of insanity in the shooting of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
1963: Paul VI was elected pope of the Roman Catholic church.
1919: Italian American architect Paolo Soleri was born in Turin, Italy.
1870: The Tianjin (Tientsin) Massacre—a violent outbreak of Chinese xenophobic sentiment toward Westerners—erupted in Tianjin, China.
1834: Cyrus McCormick received a patent for his 1831 invention of a reaper.
1813: The Battle of Vitoria was fought during the Peninsular War, breaking Napoleon's power in Spain.
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