Today in History: 7.7 Manjil-Rudbar Earthquake with hundreds of aftershocks hits Iran; killing about 50,000.

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on June 21:

1788 - US Constitution comes into effect when New Hampshire is the 9th state to ratify it.

1942 – Tobruk in Libya fell to the German army under Field Marshal Rommel during World War Two.

1963 – Cardinal Giovanni Montini was elected Pope after the death of John XXIII. He became Pope Paul VI.

1964 – The U.S. civil rights bill was passed by the House of Representatives. The Senate approved it on July 2.

1990 - 7.7 Manjil-Rudbar Earthquake with hundreds of aftershocks hits Iran; killing about 50,000.

1990 – Hungary officially relaunched its stock exchange 42 years after the Communist Party closed it. The Budapest exchange was the first Western-style securities exchange in any Warsaw Pact country.

2001 – John Lee Hooker, veteran American blues guitarist, died. His spare, hypnotic style born in the heart of the Mississippi Delta influenced generations of rock and folk stars. He was 83.

2001 – Moscow hotel attempts to bake longest cake in the world.

2002 – Abu Sabaya, the best-known leader of the Abu Sayyaf rebel group, a key man in the kidnapping in 2001 of a U.S. missionary couple, was shot and killed.

2004 – Launch plane WhiteKnight with SpaceShipOne attached begins historic flight of the world’s first privately funded rocket plane beyond Earth’s atmosphere at the Mojave Airport in California

2007 – Canadian army medic signs mural at Afghanistan patrol base, starting string of handprints from medics who followed in a record now referred to as “The Healing Hands of Sperwan Ghar”.

2008 – Summer solstice at Stonehenge.

2009 – Denmark’s Queen hands over law of Self government to Greenland.

(Reuters)