On 21 July 1861 the Confederate armies of P. G. T. Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston defeated Irvin McDowell's Union army along Bull Run, near Manassas Junction in Virginia. Thomas J. Jackson's brigade held Henry Hill and won him the name "Stonewall", and the Union retreat became a rout. In 1944 US Marines landed on Guam.
The First Battle of Bull Run, 1861: the war's first great shock
21 July 1861 · 165 years ago
Three months into the war, public pressure for a quick blow drove the Union army under Irvin McDowell toward the Confederate capital at Richmond. His raw troops marched on the rail junction at Manassas, where a Confederate army waited behind a stream called Bull Run.
Read the full story of The First Battle of Bull Run, 1861: the war's first great shock ›Battle of the Pyramids, 1798: Bonaparte's squares break the Mamluks
21 July 1798 · 228 years ago
Near the village of Embabeh outside Cairo, Napoleon's French army met the Mamluk forces of Murad Bey during the French invasion of Egypt. French infantry squares withstood the cavalry charges and won, opening the road to Cairo.
Read the full story of Battle of the Pyramids, 1798: Bonaparte's squares break the Mamluks ›Also on this day
1944: on the morning of 21 July the 3d Marine Division and the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade landed on Guam, at Asan and Agat. The 3d Marine Division's losses on its northern beachhead that day were 105 killed, 536 wounded and 56 missing.1
