What happened on 21 June?

12 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1675 Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral London cathedral rebuilt after the Great Fire; an English Baroque landmark.
2. 1905 Born: Jean-Paul Sartre Existentialist philosopher; declined the Nobel Prize in Literature.
3. 1582 Honnō-ji Incident Oda Nobunaga betrayed by Akechi Mitsuhide and forced to commit seppuku at Honnō-ji temple; Hideyoshi avenges him 11 days later.
4. 1900 Cixi declares war on the world Gambling the dynasty on the Boxers' magic, the Empress Dowager declares war on every foreign power at once — eight empires, simultaneously. China's southern viceroys simply refuse,
5. 217 BCE Battle of Lake Trasimene Hannibal ambushes consul Flaminius in fog along Lake Trasimene; one of the largest ambushes in military history.
6. 1982 Born: Prince William, Prince of Wales Heir apparent to King Charles III.
7. 1824 Combination Acts repealed Decriminalised trade unions in Britain (with restrictions retained for picketing).
8. 2004 SpaceShipOne first private spaceflight The first crewed privately funded spacecraft reaches space; two further flights that autumn win the Ansari X Prize, launching the commercial space age.
9. 1813 Battle of Vitoria Wellington crushes a French army at Vitoria; effectively expels French forces from Spain; Napoleon's empire crumbles.
10. 1970 Pele wins his third World Cup Brazil wins the 1970 World Cup; Pele is the only player to win three.
11. 1839 Born: Machado de Assis Grandson of freed slaves, self-taught, epileptic, and Brazil's greatest writer — a mordant ironist whose novels anticipated modernism while slavery still stood. Founding president
12. 1779 Spain joins the war against Britain A year after France, Spain declares war on Britain — not for American independence, which worries an empire of its own, but for Gibraltar and Florida. Britain now fights a world wa