The 172nd day of the year, the 173rd in a leap year
Born on 21 June
In UTC, since 1920, 21 June has been Gemini all day in 21 years and Cancer all day in 5 years. In the other 81, the sun moved from Gemini into Cancer during the day, so a birthday then is Gemini or Cancer depending on the hour; the table below gives the moment. Those are UTC days: in 26 more years a crossing on the day before or after fell on 21 June by the clocks somewhere east or west of Greenwich, listed below the table.
- Star sign
- Gemini or CancerThe sun changed sign on this date in 81 of 107 years.
- Birthstone
- Pearl, Moonstone, AlexandriteThe 1912 list gave Pearl and Moonstone.
- Birth flower
- Rose, HoneysuckleUsually taken today to mean love and bonds of affection.
- Most common weekdays
- Tuesday and Sunday16 times each between 1920 and 2026.
The June solstice
21 June is the date most people know as the June solstice, the longest day in the north and the shortest in the south, and between 1920 and 2026 the sun entered Cancer on it, in UTC, in 81 years. In 2026 it did so at 08:25 UTC.
The exceptions have changed sides. Until 1975 the solstice sometimes came on the 22nd, in 21 years, and a 21 June birthday then was Gemini all day; since 2008 it has come on the 20th in every leap year, and in those five years 21 June was Cancer from the first minute.
In the years between, the hour decides. The 2025 solstice came at 02:42 UTC, which was 03:42 in London and 22:42 on 20 June in New York. The 2026 one, at 08:25 UTC, was 09:25 in London and 18:25 in Sydney, so a London birth on 21 June 2026 before 09:25 is Gemini, and one after it Cancer.
Your year
Without JavaScript, the pages for each birth year give the generation and Chinese animal for a birth on 21 June in any year.
Which sign, by year
The sun moves from Gemini into Cancer at an instant that falls about six hours later each year and jumps back most of a day at each leap year. On 21 June that instant has fallen inside the day in 81 years since 1920; those years show the moment, in UTC and to the minute. A birth before it is Gemini, after it Cancer. To read one of these times on your own clock on 21 June, add your time zone's offset east of Greenwich or subtract it to the west, or put the year into the calculator above, which works in your own time zone.
Every year from 1920 to 2026. Where a cell shows a time, the sun entered Cancer at that moment, UTC. Why the day moves →
Other time zones
A date begins earlier east of Greenwich and later to the west, so in these years the sun changed sign on the day before or after in UTC, at a moment when clocks somewhere on earth already, or still, showed 21 June — worked out from the time zones in use at that moment, as the IANA time zone database records them. A birth there on 21 June that year could be either sign, and the calculator above works it out for your own time zone.
- 1922: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 05:27 UTC
- 1923: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 11:03 UTC
- 1926: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 04:30 UTC
- 1927: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 10:22 UTC
- 1930: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 03:53 UTC
- 1931: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 09:28 UTC
- 1934: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 02:48 UTC
- 1935: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 08:38 UTC
- 1938: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 02:03 UTC
- 1939: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 07:39 UTC
- 1942: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 01:16 UTC
- 1943: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 07:12 UTC
- 1946: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 00:44 UTC
- 1947: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 06:19 UTC
- 1951: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 05:25 UTC
- 1955: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 04:32 UTC
- 1959: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 03:50 UTC
- 1963: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 03:04 UTC
- 1967: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 02:23 UTC
- 1971: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 01:19 UTC
- 1975: the sun entered Cancer on 22 June, 00:26 UTC
- 2008: the sun entered Cancer on 20 June, 23:59 UTC
- 2012: the sun entered Cancer on 20 June, 23:08 UTC
- 2016: the sun entered Cancer on 20 June, 22:34 UTC
- 2020: the sun entered Cancer on 20 June, 21:44 UTC
- 2024: the sun entered Cancer on 20 June, 20:51 UTC
Which weekday 21 June falls on
Across the 107 years from 1920 to 2026, 21 June falls on every day of the week: Tuesday 16, Sunday 16, Monday 15, Wednesday 15, Thursday 15, Saturday 15, Friday 15.
Showing 21 June in the 36 most recent years. Every weekday →
How common a birthday 21 June is
In England and Wales, from 1995 to 2014, an average of 1,840 babies were born on 21 June in each year of the twenty, making it the 99th most common of the 366 dates, where 26 September came first with 1,974 and 26 December last with 1,359.
Office for National Statistics, How popular is your birthday? Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. What a ranking like this can and cannot say →
Born on 21 June
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Jean-Paul Sartre | 1905–1980 | French existentialist philosopher |
| Lana Del Rey | 1985– | American singer-songwriter |
| Benazir Bhutto | 1953–2007 | Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996 |
| Chris Pratt | 1979– | American actor |
| Joko Widodo | 1961– | President of Indonesia from 2014 to 2024 |
| Edward Snowden | 1983– | American whistleblower and former NSA contractor |
| Shirin Ebadi | 1947– | Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient |
| William, Prince of Wales | 1982– | heir apparent to the throne of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth Realms |
| Michel Platini | 1955– | French football player, manager and executive |
| Françoise Sagan | 1935–2004 | French writer |
| Viktor Tsoi | 1962–1990 | Soviet rock musician |
| Yingluck Shinawatra | 1967– | Prime Minister of Thailand from 2011 to 2014 |
| Pope Leo IX | 1002–1054 | Head of the Catholic Church from 1049 to 1054 |
| Siméon Denis Poisson | 1781–1840 | French mathematician, mechanician and physicist |
| Machado de Assis | 1839–1908 | Brazilian writer |
| Andrzej Sapkowski | 1948– | Polish novelist |
| Ian McEwan | 1948– | British author |
| Jane Russell | 1921–2011 | American actress |
Died on 21 June
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Niccolò Machiavelli | 1469–1527 | Florentine statesman, diplomat, and political theorist |
| Sukarno | 1901–1970 | 1st President of Indonesia |
| Bertha von Suttner | 1843–1914 | Austrian novelist and pacifist |
| Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov | 1844–1908 | Russian composer |
| Johannes Stark | 1874–1957 | German physicist |
| Edward III | 1312–1377 | King of England from 1327 to 1377 |
| Oda Nobunaga | 1534–1582 | Japanese samurai and warlord |
| Anders Jonas Ångström | 1814–1874 | Swedish physicist |
| Antonio López de Santa Anna | 1794–1876 | Mexican politician and military leader |
| John Lee Hooker | 1917–2001 | American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist |
| Inigo Jones | 1573–1652 | English architect and stage designer |
| John Smith | 1580–1631 | English soldier, explorer, writer |
Names are the titles of the English Wikipedia articles; years and the short descriptions are from Wikidata, which publishes under CC0, checked and corrected by hand where they needed it, and nothing is said about anybody beyond that. Ask for a removal.