July 21



1875: Mark Twain's "The Adventure of Tom Sawyer" copyright was registered. 1904: The 4,607-mile Trans-Siberian railway was completed after 13 years of work. 1915: U.S. Navy asked Thomas Edison to organize the keenest, most inventive minds to find a defense against submarines. 1930: The Veterans Administration of the U.S. was established. 1968: Arnold Palmer became the first golfer to make a million dollars in career earnings. 1969: Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin blasted off from the moon after 21-1/2 hours on the surface. 1970: The Aswan Dam in Egypt was completed after 18 years of work. 1977: The first shipment of crude oil arrived at the U.S. DoE's Strategic Petroleum Reserve in LA. 1994: Tony Blair became the youngest Labour leader since World War II. 1997: The "USS Constitution," which defended the US during the War of 1812, set sail under its own power for first time in 116 years. 1998: Alan Shepard, America's first man in space and one of only 12 humans who walked on the Moon, died. 2000: An international collaboration of scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced the first direct evidence for the tau neutrino.