Important events in history
on April 20 ^th

Events

2021
1. State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin: Derek Chauvin is found guilty of all charges in the murder of George Floyd by the Fourth Judicial District Court of Minnesota.
  1. Trial of Derek Chauvin
    
    State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin is an American criminal case in the District Court of Minnesota in which former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was tried and convicted of the murder of George Floyd during an arrest on May 25, 2020. Chauvin was found guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter; the first charge could have carried a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison. It was the first conviction of a white officer in Minnesota for the murder of a black person. On June 25, 2021, Chauvin was sentenced by the trial judge to 22+1⁄2 years in prison for second-degree murder, 10 years more than the sentencing guidelines of 12+1⁄2 years.
  2. Derek Chauvin
    
    Derek Michael Chauvin is an American former police officer who was convicted for the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Chauvin was a member of the Minneapolis Police Department from 2001 to 2020.
  3. Murder of George Floyd
    
    On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face-down in a street. Two other police officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, assisted Chauvin in restraining Floyd. Lane had also pointed a gun at Floyd's head prior to Floyd being put in handcuffs. A fourth police officer, Tou Thao, prevented bystanders from intervening.
  4. District Court of Minnesota
    
    The District Court of Minnesota is the state trial court of general jurisdiction in the U.S. state of Minnesota.
2020
1. For the first time in history, oil prices drop below zero.
  1. Price of oil
    
    The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Reference Basket, Tapis crude, Bonny Light, Urals oil, Isthmus and Western Canadian Select (WCS). Oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, rather than any country's domestic production level.
  2. Negative pricing
    
    In economics, negative pricing can occur when demand for a product drops or supply increases to an extent that owners or suppliers are prepared to pay others to accept it, in effect setting the price to a negative number. This can happen because it costs money to transport, store, and dispose of a product even when there is little demand to buy it.
2015
1. Ten people are killed in a bomb attack on a convoy carrying food supplies to a United Nations compound in Garowe in the Somali region of Puntland.
  1. Garowe attack
    
    The Garowe attack was a bombing of a UN van in Garowe, Puntland, Somalia. Between 7 and 10 people were killed, including the attacker and four UNICEF workers. The Al-Shabaab militant group claimed responsibility for the blast. The Puntland administration subsequently appointed a governmental committee to probe the circumstances surrounding the attack, and apprehended over a dozen suspects.
  2. United Nations
    
    The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. It is the world's largest and most familiar international organization. The UN is headquartered on international territory in New York City, and has other main offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague.
  3. Garoowe
    
    Garowe is the administrative capital of Puntland in northeastern Somalia.
  4. Puntland
    
    Puntland, officially the Puntland State of Somalia, is a Federal Member State in northeastern Somalia. The capital city is the city of Garoowe in the Nugal region, and its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Geographically to the west, Puntland lays claim to the intra-46th meridian territories that were outside European colonial rule during parts of the Scramble for Africa period.
2013
1. A 6.6-magnitude earthquake strikes Lushan County, Ya'an, in China's Sichuan province, killing more than 150 people and injuring thousands.
  1. Moment magnitude scale
    
    The moment magnitude scale is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 paper by Thomas C. Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori. Similar to the local magnitude scale (ML ) defined by Charles Francis Richter in 1935, it uses a logarithmic scale; small earthquakes have approximately the same magnitudes on both scales.
  2. 2013 Lushan earthquake
    
    The Lushan earthquake or Ya'an earthquake occurred at 08:02 Beijing Time on April 20, 2013. The epicenter was located in Lushan County, Ya'an, Sichuan, about 116 km (72 mi) from Chengdu along the Longmenshan Fault in the same province heavily impacted by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The magnitude of the earthquake was placed at Ms 7.0 by China Earthquake Data Center, Ms 7.0 by Russian Academy of Sciences, Mw 7.0 by Geoscience Australia, Mw 6.6 by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Mw 6.6 by the European Alert System (EMSC) and Mj 6.9 by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). 1,815 aftershocks have been recorded as of 00:00 (UTC+8h) April 22.
  3. Lushan County, Sichuan
    
    Lushan County is a county of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of Ya'an city.
  4. Ya'an
    
    Ya'an is a prefecture-level city in the western part of Sichuan province, China, located just below the Tibetan Plateau. The city is home to Sichuan Agricultural University, the only 211 Project university and the largest regional comprehensive university in Ya'an. As of the 2020 Chinese census, Ya'an has a population of 1,434,603.
  5. Sichuan
    
    Sichuan is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the Sichuan Basin and the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu. The population of Sichuan stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors Qinghai to the northwest, Gansu to the north, Shaanxi to the northeast, Chongqing to the east, Guizhou to the southeast, Yunnan to the south, and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the west.
2012
1. One hundred twenty-seven people are killed when a plane crashes in a residential area near the Benazir Bhutto International Airport near Islamabad, Pakistan.
  1. Bhoja Air Flight 213
    
    Bhoja Air Flight 213 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight operated by Pakistani airline Bhoja Air from Karachi to Islamabad. On 20 April 2012, the Boeing 737-236A aircraft serving the route crashed in bad weather during its final approach to land. All 121 passengers and 6 crew members aboard were killed. With 127 deaths, it remains as the second deadliest air disaster in Pakistan.
  2. Benazir Bhutto International Airport
    
    Benazir Bhutto International Airport is a defunct airport which formerly served the Islamabad-Rawalpindi metropolitan area. It was the second-largest airport by air traffic in Pakistan, until 3 May 2018 when it was replaced by the new Islamabad International Airport. Also known as Chaklala Airbase, it was renamed after the late Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto in June 2008. The airport handled 4,767,860 passengers in 2015–16, compared to 3,610,566 in 2010–11.
  3. Islamabad
    
    Islamabad is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Built as a planned city in the 1960s, it replaced Rawalpindi as Pakistan's national capital. The city is notable for its high standards of living, safety, cleanliness, and abundant greenery.
2010
1. An explosion on Deepwater Horizon, an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, resulted in the largest marine oil spill in history.
  1. Deepwater Horizon explosion
    
    The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion was an April 20, 2010 explosion and subsequent fire on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit, which was owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field about 40 miles (64 km) southeast off the Louisiana coast. The explosion and subsequent fire resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and the deaths of 11 workers; 17 others were injured. The same blowout that caused the explosion also caused an oil well fire and a massive offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the world, and the largest environmental disaster in United States history.
  2. Deepwater Horizon
    
    Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion on the rig that killed 11 crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 40 miles (64 km) away. The fire was inextinguishable and, two days later, on 22 April, the Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing at the seabed and causing the largest marine oil spill in history.
  3. Oil platform
    
    An oil platform, oil rig, offshore platform, or oil and/or gas production platform is a large structure with facilities to extract, and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also contain facilities to accommodate their workforce, although it is also common for there to be a separate accommodation platform bridge linked to the production platform. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the continental shelf, though they can also be used in lakes, inshore waters, and inland seas. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be fixed to the ocean floor, consist of an artificial island, or float. In some arrangements the main facility may have storage facilities for the processed oil. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical connections. These sub-sea solutions may consist of one or more subsea wells or of one or more manifold centres for multiple wells.
  4. Gulf of Mexico
    
    The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southwest and south by the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo; and on the southeast by Cuba. The Southern U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, which border the Gulf on the north, are often referred to as the "Third Coast" of the United States.
  5. Deepwater Horizon oil spill
    
    The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. The United States federal government estimated the total discharge at 4,900 Mbbl. After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010. Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in world history.
2. The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months.
  1. Deepwater Horizon
    
    Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion on the rig that killed 11 crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 40 miles (64 km) away. The fire was inextinguishable and, two days later, on 22 April, the Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing at the seabed and causing the largest marine oil spill in history.
  2. Deepwater Horizon explosion
    
    The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion was an April 20, 2010 explosion and subsequent fire on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit, which was owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field about 40 miles (64 km) southeast off the Louisiana coast. The explosion and subsequent fire resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and the deaths of 11 workers; 17 others were injured. The same blowout that caused the explosion also caused an oil well fire and a massive offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the world, and the largest environmental disaster in United States history.
  3. Deepwater Horizon oil spill
    
    The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. The United States federal government estimated the total discharge at 4,900 Mbbl. After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010. Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in world history.
2008
1. American racing driver Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar auto race.
  1. Danica Patrick
    
    Danica Sue Patrick is an American former professional racing driver. She is the most successful woman in the history of American open-wheel car racing—her victory in the 2008 Indy Japan 300 is the only win by a woman in an IndyCar Series race.
  2. Indy Japan 300
    
    The Indy Japan 300 presented by Bridgestone was an Indy Racing League IndyCar Series race held at Twin Ring Motegi in Motegi, Japan. The 2008 race marked the historic first ever win for a woman driver in American open wheel racing when Danica Patrick of Andretti-Green Racing took the checkered flag.
  3. IndyCar
    
    INDYCAR, LLC, is an American-based auto racing sanctioning body for Indy car racing and other disciplines of open wheel car racing. The organization sanctions five racing series: the premier IndyCar Series with its centerpiece the Indianapolis 500, developmental series Indy Lights, the Indy Pro 2000 Championship and the U.S. F2000 National Championship, which are all a part of the Road to Indy and the Global Mazda MX-5 Cup. IndyCar is recognized as a member organization of the FIA through ACCUS.
2. Fernando Lugo became the first non–Colorado Party candidate to be elected President of Paraguay in 61 years.
  1. Fernando Lugo
    
    Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez is a Paraguayan politician and laicized Catholic bishop who was President of Paraguay from 2008 to 2012. Previously he was a Roman Catholic priest and bishop, serving as Bishop of the Diocese of San Pedro from 1994 to 2005. He was elected as president in 2008, an election that ended 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party.
  2. Colorado Party (Paraguay)
    
    The National Republican Association – Colorado Party is a right-wing political party in Paraguay, founded on 11 September 1887, by Bernardino Caballero. The party was defeated in 2008 after 61 years in power, but the party regained the presidency in the 2013 election. With almost 2 million members, it is the largest political party in the country.
  3. 2008 Paraguayan general election
    
    General elections were held in Paraguay on 20 April 2008. Elections were held for the presidency, 45 senators, 80 representatives, 17 governors and Paraguay's members in the Mercosur Parliament.
  4. President of Paraguay
    
    The president of Paraguay, officially known as the President of the Republic of Paraguay, is according to the Constitution of Paraguay the head of the executive branch of the Government of Paraguay, both head of state and head of government. His honorific title is Su Excelencia.
3. Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
  1. Danica Patrick
    
    Danica Sue Patrick is an American former professional racing driver. She is the most successful woman in the history of American open-wheel car racing—her victory in the 2008 Indy Japan 300 is the only win by a woman in an IndyCar Series race.
  2. Indy Japan 300
    
    The Indy Japan 300 presented by Bridgestone was an Indy Racing League IndyCar Series race held at Twin Ring Motegi in Motegi, Japan. The 2008 race marked the historic first ever win for a woman driver in American open wheel racing when Danica Patrick of Andretti-Green Racing took the checkered flag.
  3. American open-wheel car racing
    
    American open-wheel car racing, also known as Indy car racing, is a category of professional automobile racing in the United States. As of 2022, the top-level American open-wheel racing championship is sanctioned by IndyCar.
2007
1. Johnson Space Center shooting: William Phillips with a handgun barricades himself in NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
  1. Johnson Space Center shooting
    
    The Johnson Space Center shooting was an incident of hostage taking that occurred on April 20, 2007 in Building 44, the Communication and Tracking Development Laboratory, at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, United States. The gunman, William Phillips, an employee for Jacobs Engineering who worked at Building 44, shot and killed one person and took a hostage for over three hours before committing suicide. Police said Phillips was under review for poor job performance and he feared being dismissed.
  2. Handgun
    
    A handgun is a short-barrelled gun, typically a firearm, that is designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long gun, which needs to be held by both hands and also braced against the shoulder to be used properly. The two most common types of handguns in modern times are revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, although other types such as derringers and machine pistols also see infrequent usage.
  3. NASA
    
    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
  4. Johnson Space Center
    
    The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight, where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late US president and Texas native, Lyndon B. Johnson, by an act of the United States Senate on February 19, 1973.
  5. Houston
    
    Houston is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in 2020. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the seat and largest city of Harris County and the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, which is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the second-most populous in Texas after Dallas–Fort Worth. Houston is the southeast anchor of the greater megaregion known as the Texas Triangle.
2004
1. An incomplete tunnel leading to Singapore's Nicoll Highway MRT station collapsed that led to four deaths and the station's relocation.
  1. Nicoll Highway MRT station
    
    Nicoll Highway MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station on the Circle Line (CCL) in Singapore. Located in the Downtown Core underneath Republic Avenue near the Kallang River, the station serves commercial and residential developments along Nicoll Highway, such as the Golden Mile Complex and The Concourse. The station is operated by SMRT Trains.
1999
1. Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold embarked on a massacre, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.
  1. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
    
    Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold were an American mass murder duo who perpetrated the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. Harris and Klebold killed 13 people and wounded 24 others at Columbine High School, where they were seniors, in Columbine, Colorado. After killing most of their victims in the school's library, they later committed suicide. At the time, it was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, with the ensuing media frenzy and moral panic leading it to becoming one of the most infamous mass shootings ever perpetrated.
  2. Columbine High School massacre
    
    On April 20, 1999, a school shooting and attempted bombing occurred at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. The perpetrators, 12th grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. 10 students were killed in the school library, where Harris and Klebold subsequently committed suicide. 21 additional people were injured by gunshots, and gunfire was also exchanged with the police. Another three people were injured trying to escape. At the time, it was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history. The shooting has inspired dozens of copycat killings, dubbed the Columbine effect, including many deadlier shootings across the world. The word "Columbine" has become a byword for school shootings.
  3. Columbine High School
    
    Columbine High School (CHS) is a public high school in Columbine, Colorado, United States, in the Denver metropolitan area. It is part of the Jefferson County Public Schools district.
  4. Columbine, Colorado
    
    Columbine is census-designated place (CDP) in and governed by Jefferson and Arapahoe counties in Colorado, United States. The CDP is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. Located primarily in Jefferson County, Columbine lies immediately south of Denver. The population of the Columbine CDP was 24,280 at the United States Census 2010. The community lies in ZIP code 80123.
2. Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.
  1. Columbine High School massacre
    
    On April 20, 1999, a school shooting and attempted bombing occurred at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. The perpetrators, 12th grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. 10 students were killed in the school library, where Harris and Klebold subsequently committed suicide. 21 additional people were injured by gunshots, and gunfire was also exchanged with the police. Another three people were injured trying to escape. At the time, it was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history. The shooting has inspired dozens of copycat killings, dubbed the Columbine effect, including many deadlier shootings across the world. The word "Columbine" has become a byword for school shootings.
  2. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
    
    Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold were an American mass murder duo who perpetrated the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. Harris and Klebold killed 13 people and wounded 24 others at Columbine High School, where they were seniors, in Columbine, Colorado. After killing most of their victims in the school's library, they later committed suicide. At the time, it was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, with the ensuing media frenzy and moral panic leading it to becoming one of the most infamous mass shootings ever perpetrated.
  3. Columbine High School
    
    Columbine High School (CHS) is a public high school in Columbine, Colorado, United States, in the Denver metropolitan area. It is part of the Jefferson County Public Schools district.
  4. Columbine, Colorado
    
    Columbine is census-designated place (CDP) in and governed by Jefferson and Arapahoe counties in Colorado, United States. The CDP is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. Located primarily in Jefferson County, Columbine lies immediately south of Denver. The population of the Columbine CDP was 24,280 at the United States Census 2010. The community lies in ZIP code 80123.
1998
1. Air France Flight 422 crashes after taking off from El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia, killing all 53 people on board.
  1. Air France Flight 422
    
    Air France Flight 422 was a scheduled flight on 20 April 1998 by Air France from Bogotá, Colombia, to Quito, Ecuador, covering the final leg of a flight from Paris to Bogotá, operated by TAME on behalf of Air France. The Boeing 727 was destroyed, killing all 53 people on board, when it crashed into the Eastern Hills of Bogotá because of foggy weather and low visibility after taking off from Bogotá's El Dorado International Airport. The plane was owned by TAME, the Ecuadorian airline, but was being operated on a wet-lease basis to Air France as the final leg of its flight from Paris.
  2. El Dorado International Airport
    
    El Dorado International Airport is an international airport serving Bogotá, Colombia and its surrounding areas. The airport is located mostly in the Fontibón district of Bogotá, although it partially extends into the Engativá district and the municipality of Funza in the Western Savanna Province of the Cundinamarca Department. It served over 35 million passengers in 2019 and 740,000 metric tons of cargo in 2018, making it the second busiest airport in South America in terms of passenger traffic and the busiest in terms of cargo traffic. El Dorado is also by far the busiest and most important airport in Colombia, accounting for just under half (49%) of the country's air traffic.
  3. Bogotá
    
    Bogotá, officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the largest cities in the world. The city is administered as the Capital District, as well as the capital of, though not part of, the surrounding department of Cundinamarca. Bogotá is a territorial entity of the first order, with the same administrative status as the departments of Colombia. It is the political, economic, administrative, and industrial center of the country.
  4. Colombia
    
    Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with an insular region in North America. It is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east, Brazil to the southeast, Ecuador and Peru to the south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and Panama to the northwest. Colombia comprises 32 departments and the Capital District of Bogotá, the country's largest city. It covers an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers (440,831 sq mi), with a population of 50 million. Colombia's cultural heritage reflects influences by various Amerindian civilizations, European settlement, enslaved Africans, as well as immigration from Europe and the Middle East. Spanish is the nation's official language, besides which over 70 languages are spoken.
1978
1. Korean Air Lines Flight 902 was shot down after violating Soviet airspace, forcing it to make an emergency landing.
  1. Korean Air Lines Flight 902
    
    Korean Air Lines Flight 902 was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from Paris to Seoul via Anchorage. On 20 April 1978, the Soviet air defense shot down the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 707, near Murmansk, Soviet Union, after the aircraft violated Soviet airspace.
1972
1. Apollo program: Apollo 16 lunar module, commanded by John Young and piloted by Charles Duke, lands on the moon.
  1. Apollo program
    
    The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which succeeded in preparing and landing the first humans on the Moon from 1968 to 1972. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury, which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.
  2. Apollo 16
    
    Apollo 16 was the tenth crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program, administered by NASA, and the fifth and penultimate to land on the Moon. It was the second of Apollo's "J missions", with an extended stay on the lunar surface, a focus on science, and the use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). The landing and exploration were in the Descartes Highlands, a site chosen because some scientists expected it to be an area formed by volcanic action, though this proved to not be the case.
  3. John Young (astronaut)
    
    John Watts Young was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. He is the only astronaut to fly on four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo command and service module, the Apollo Lunar Module and the Space Shuttle.
  4. Charles Duke
    
    Charles Moss Duke Jr. is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at age 36 years and 201 days.
1968
1. Pierre Trudeau was sworn in as prime minister of Canada, succeeding Lester B. Pearson.
  1. Pierre Trudeau
    
    Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, also referred to by his initials PET, was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. He also briefly served as the leader of the Opposition from 1979 to 1980. He served as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1968 to 1984.
  2. Prime Minister of Canada
    
    The prime minister of Canada is the head of government of Canada. Under the Westminster system, the prime minister governs with the confidence of a majority the elected House of Commons; as such, the prime minister typically sits as a member of Parliament (MP) and leads the largest party or a coalition of parties. As first minister, the prime minister selects ministers to form the Cabinet, and serves as its chair. Constitutionally, the Crown exercises executive power on the advice of the Cabinet, which is collectively responsible to the House of Commons.
  3. Lester B. Pearson
    
    Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson was a Canadian scholar, statesman, diplomat, and politician who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968.
2. Enoch Powell (pictured), a British Conservative member of Parliament, made a controversial speech in opposition to immigration and anti-discrimination legislation, resulting in his removal from the shadow cabinet.
  1. Enoch Powell
    
    John Enoch Powell, was a strongly conservative British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was Minister of Health (1960–1963) then Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP (1974–1987).
  2. Conservative Party (UK)
    
    The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, having won the 2019 general election. It has been the primary governing party in Britain since 2010. The party is on the centre-right of the political spectrum, and encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatives. The party currently has 356 Members of Parliament, 261 members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Welsh Parliament, 2 directly elected mayors, 30 police and crime commissioners, and around 6,770 local councillors. It holds the annual Conservative Party Conference.
  3. Rivers of Blood speech
    
    The "Rivers of Blood" speech was made by British Member of Parliament (MP) Enoch Powell on 20 April 1968, to a meeting of the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham, United Kingdom. His speech strongly criticised mass immigration, especially Commonwealth immigration to the United Kingdom and the proposed Race Relations Bill. It became known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech, although Powell always referred to it as "the Birmingham speech".
  4. Shadow cabinet
    
    The shadow cabinet or shadow ministry is a feature of the Westminster system of government. It consists of a senior group of opposition spokespeople who, under the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition, form an alternative cabinet to that of the government, and whose members shadow or mirror the positions of each individual member of the Cabinet. Their areas of responsibility, in parallel with the ruling party's ministries, may be referred to as a shadow portfolio. Members of a shadow cabinet have no executive power. It is the shadow cabinet's responsibility to scrutinise the policies and actions of the government, as well as to offer alternative policies. The shadow cabinet makes up the majority of the Official Opposition frontbench, as part of frontbenchers to the parliament.
3. English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech.
  1. Enoch Powell
    
    John Enoch Powell, was a strongly conservative British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was Minister of Health (1960–1963) then Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP (1974–1987).
  2. Rivers of Blood speech
    
    The "Rivers of Blood" speech was made by British Member of Parliament (MP) Enoch Powell on 20 April 1968, to a meeting of the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham, United Kingdom. His speech strongly criticised mass immigration, especially Commonwealth immigration to the United Kingdom and the proposed Race Relations Bill. It became known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech, although Powell always referred to it as "the Birmingham speech".
4. South African Airways Flight 228 crashes near the Hosea Kutako International Airport in South West Africa (now Namibia), killing 123 people.
  1. South African Airways Flight 228
    
    South African Airways Flight 228 was a scheduled flight from Jan Smuts International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, to London Heathrow International Airport in England. The plane operating the flight, which was only 6 weeks old, flew into the ground soon after take-off after a scheduled stopover in Windhoek, South West Africa on 20 April 1968. Five passengers survived, while 123 people died. The subsequent investigation determined that the accident was attributable largely to pilot error; the manufacturer subsequently also recognised the lack of a ground proximity warning system in its aircraft. The accident is the deadliest aviation accident to date in Namibia.
  2. Hosea Kutako International Airport
    
    Hosea Kutako International Airport is the main international airport of Namibia, serving the capital city Windhoek. Located well east of the city, 45 km (28 mi), it is Namibia's largest airport with international connections. From its founding in 1965 to the independence of Namibia in 1990, it was named J.G. Strijdom Airport. The name of the airport after its renaming in 1990 is in honor of Namibian national hero Hosea Kutako.
  3. South West Africa
    
    South West Africa was a territory under South African administration from 1915 to 1990, after which it became modern-day Namibia. It bordered Angola, Botswana, South Africa, and Zambia.
  4. Namibia
    
    Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. Although it does not border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres of the Botswanan right bank of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the Commonwealth of Nations.
1961
1. Cold War: Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed Cuban exiles against Cuba.
  1. Cold War
    
    The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on its starting and ending points, but the period is generally considered to span from the announcement of the Truman Doctrine on 12 March 1947 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.
  2. Bay of Pigs Invasion
    
    The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly financed and directed by the U.S. government. It was aimed at overthrowing Fidel Castro's communist government. The operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure influenced relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
  3. Cuba
    
    Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola, and north of both Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. The official area of the Republic of Cuba is 109,884 km2 (42,426 sq mi) but a total of 350,730 km² including the exclusive economic zone. Cuba is the second-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti, with over 11 million inhabitants.
1946
1. The League of Nations officially dissolves, giving most of its power to the United Nations.
  1. League of Nations
    
    The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The main organization ceased operations on 20 April 1946 but many of its components were relocated into the new United Nations.
  2. Dissolution (law)
    
    In law, dissolution is any of several legal events that terminate a legal entity or agreement such as a marriage, adoption, corporation, or union.
  3. United Nations
    
    The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. It is the world's largest and most familiar international organization. The UN is headquartered on international territory in New York City, and has other main offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague.
1945
1. World War II: U.S. troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union.
  1. World War II
    
    World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries.
  2. Leipzig
    
    Leipzig is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as well as the second most populous city in the area of the former East Germany after (East) Berlin. Together with Halle (Saale), the city forms the polycentric Leipzig-Halle Conurbation. Between the two cities lies Leipzig/Halle Airport.
  3. Soviet Union
    
    The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. It was the largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi) and spanning eleven time zones.
2. World War II: Führerbunker: On his 56th birthday Adolf Hitler makes his last trip to the surface to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth.
  1. Führerbunker
    
    The Führerbunker was an air raid shelter located near the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. It was part of a subterranean bunker complex constructed in two phases in 1936 and 1944. It was the last of the Führer Headquarters (Führerhauptquartiere) used by Adolf Hitler during World War II.
  2. Adolf Hitler
    
    Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.
  3. Iron Cross
    
    The Iron Cross was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia established it on 17 March 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars. The award was backdated to the birthday of his late wife, Queen Louise. Louise was the first person to receive this decoration (posthumously). Recommissioned Iron Cross was also awarded during the Franco-Prussian War, World War I, and World War II. During the 1930s and World War II, the Nazi regime superimposed a swastika on the traditional medal.
  4. Hitler Youth
    
    The Hitler Youth was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name Hitler-Jugend, Bund deutscher Arbeiterjugend in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was the sole official boys' youth organisation in Germany and it was partially a paramilitary organisation. It was composed of the Hitler Youth proper for male youths aged 14 to 18, and the German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth for younger boys aged 10 to 14.
3. Twenty Jewish children used in medical experiments at Neuengamme are killed in the basement of the Bullenhuser Damm school.
  1. Nazi human experimentation
    
    Nazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on large numbers of prisoners, including children, by Nazi Germany in its concentration camps in the early to mid 1940s, during World War II and the Holocaust. Chief target populations included Romani, Sinti, ethnic Poles, Soviet POWs, disabled Germans, and Jews from across Europe.
  2. Neuengamme concentration camp
    
    Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, the Neuengamme camp became the largest concentration camp in Northwest Germany. Over 100,000 prisoners came through Neuengamme and its subcamps, 24 of which were for women. The verified death toll is 42,900: 14,000 in the main camp, 12,800 in the subcamps, and 16,100 in the death marches and bombings during the final weeks of World War II. Following Germany's defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site as an internment camp for SS and other Nazi officials. In 1948, the British transferred the land to the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which summarily demolished the camp's wooden barracks and built in its stead a prison cell block, converting the former concentration camp site into two state prisons operated by the Hamburg authorities from 1950 to 2004. Following protests by various groups of survivors and allies, the site now serves as a memorial. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg.
  3. Bullenhuser Damm
    
    The Bullenhuser Damm School is located at 92–94 Bullenhuser Damm in the Rothenburgsort section of Hamburg, Germany – the site of the Bullenhuser Damm Massacre, the murder of 20 children and their adult caretakers at the very end of World War II's Holocaust – to hide evidence they were used as human subjects in brutal medical experimentation.
1939
1. Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday was celebrated as a national holiday in Nazi Germany.
  1. Adolf Hitler
    
    Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.
  2. Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday
    
    The 50th birthday of Adolf Hitler on 20 April 1939 was celebrated as a national holiday throughout Nazi Germany. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels made sure the events organised in Berlin were a lavish spectacle focusing on Hitler. The festivities included a vast military parade with some 40,000 to 50,000 German troops taking part, along with 162 Luftwaffe airplanes flying overhead. The parade was intended in part as a warning to the Western powers of Nazi Germany's military capabilities. The parade lasted for more than four hours, with 20,000 official guests, along with several hundred thousand spectators being present.
  3. Nazi Germany
    
    Nazi Germany was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe.
2. Billie Holiday recorded the song "Strange Fruit", which later became an emblem of the civil rights movement.
  1. Billie Holiday
    
    Billie Holiday was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills.
  2. Strange Fruit
    
    "Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol published in 1937. The song protests the lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the Southern United States at the turn of the 20th century and the great majority of victims were black. The song has been called "a declaration" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement".
  3. Civil rights movement (1896–1954)
    
    The civil rights movement (1896–1954) was a long, primarily nonviolent action to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. The era has had a lasting impact on American society – in its tactics, the increased social and legal acceptance of civil rights, and in its exposure of the prevalence and cost of racism.
1922
1. The Soviet government creates South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within Georgian SSR.
  1. Soviet Union
    
    The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. It was the largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi) and spanning eleven time zones.
  2. South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast
    
    The South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast was an autonomous oblast of the Soviet Union created within the Georgian SSR on April 20, 1922. Its autonomy was revoked on December 11, 1990 by the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR, leading to the First South Ossetian War. Currently, its territory is controlled by the breakaway Republic of South Ossetia.
  3. Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic
    
    The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the republics of the Soviet Union from its second occupation in 1921 to its independence in 1991. Coterminous with the present-day republic of Georgia, it was based on the traditional territory of Georgia, which had existed as a series of independent states in the Caucasus prior to the first occupation of annexation in the course of the 19th century. The Georgian SSR was formed in 1921 and subsequently incorporated in the Soviet Union in 1922. Until 1936 it was a part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which existed as a union republic within the USSR. From November 18, 1989, the Georgian SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws. The republic was renamed the Republic of Georgia on November 14, 1990, and subsequently became independent before the dissolution of the Soviet Union on April 9, 1991, whereupon each former SSR became a sovereign state.
1918
1. Manfred von Richthofen, a.k.a. The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims, his final victories before his death the following day.
  1. Manfred von Richthofen
    
    Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, known in English as Baron von Richthofen or the Red Baron, was a fighter pilot with the German Air Force during World War I. He is considered the ace-of-aces of the war, being officially credited with 80 air combat victories.
1914
1. A fire and a gun battle between the Colorado National Guard and striking coal miners led to 17 deaths in the Ludlow Massacre.
  1. Colorado National Guard
    
    The Colorado National Guard consists of the Colorado Army National Guard and Colorado Air National Guard, forming the state of Colorado's component to the United States National Guard. Founded in 1860, the Colorado National Guard falls under the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
  2. Ludlow Massacre
    
    The Ludlow Massacre was a mass killing perpetrated by anti-striker militia during the Colorado Coalfield War. Soldiers from the Colorado National Guard and private guards employed by Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) attacked a tent colony of roughly 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Approximately 21 people, including miners' wives and children, were killed. John D. Rockefeller Jr., a part-owner of CF&I who had recently appeared before a United States congressional hearing on the strikes, was widely blamed for having orchestrated the massacre.
2. Nineteen men, women, and children participating in a strike are killed in the Ludlow Massacre during the Colorado Coalfield War.
  1. Ludlow Massacre
    
    The Ludlow Massacre was a mass killing perpetrated by anti-striker militia during the Colorado Coalfield War. Soldiers from the Colorado National Guard and private guards employed by Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) attacked a tent colony of roughly 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Approximately 21 people, including miners' wives and children, were killed. John D. Rockefeller Jr., a part-owner of CF&I who had recently appeared before a United States congressional hearing on the strikes, was widely blamed for having orchestrated the massacre.
  2. Colorado Coalfield War
    
    The Colorado Coalfield War was a major labor uprising in the Southern and Central Colorado Front Range between September 1913 and December 1914. Striking began in late summer 1913, organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) after years of deadly working conditions and low pay. The strike was marred by targeted and indiscriminate attacks from both strikers and individuals hired by CF&I to defend its property. Fighting was focused in the southern coal-mining counties of Las Animas and Huerfano, where the Colorado and Southern railroad passed through Trinidad and Walsenburg. It followed the 1912 Northern Colorado Coalfield Strikes.
1902
1. Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
  1. Pierre Curie
    
    Pierre Curie was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity, and radioactivity. In 1903, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel". With their win, the Curies became the first ever married couple to win the Nobel Prize, launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes.
  2. Marie Curie
    
    Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and the only woman to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner on her first Nobel Prize, making them the first ever married couple to win the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was, in 1906, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris.
  3. Radium chloride
    
    Radium chloride (RaCl2) is a salt of radium and chlorine, and the first radium compound isolated in a pure state. Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne used it in their original separation of radium from barium. The first preparation of radium metal was by the electrolysis of a solution of this salt using a mercury cathode.
1898
1. U.S. President William McKinley signs a joint resolution to Congress for declaration of war against Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
  1. William McKinley
    
    William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide until the 1930s. He presided over victory in the Spanish–American War of 1898; gained control of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Cuba; restored prosperity after a deep depression; rejected the inflationary monetary policy of free silver, keeping the nation on the gold standard; and raised protective tariffs to boost American industry and keep wages high.
  2. Spanish–American War
    
    The Spanish–American War was a period of armed conflict between Spain and the United States. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. The war led to the United States emerging predominant in the Caribbean region, and resulted in U.S. acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions. It led to United States involvement in the Philippine Revolution and later to the Philippine–American War.
1884
1. Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical Humanum genus, condemning Freemasonry.
  1. Humanum genus
    
    Humanum genus is a papal encyclical promulgated on 20 April 1884 by Pope Leo XIII.
1876
1. The April Uprising begins. Its suppression shocks European opinion, and Bulgarian independence becomes a condition for ending the Russo-Turkish War.
  1. April Uprising of 1876
    
    The April Uprising was an insurrection organised by the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire from April to May 1876. The regular Ottoman Army and irregular bashi-bazouk units brutally suppressed the rebels, resulting in a public outcry in Europe, with many famous intellectuals condemning the atrocities—labelled the Bulgarian Horrors or Bulgarian atrocities—by the Ottomans and supporting the oppressed Bulgarian population. This outrage was key for the re-establishment of Bulgaria in 1878.
  2. Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)
    
    The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 was a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and a coalition led by the Russian Empire, and including Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. Fought in the Balkans and in the Caucasus, it originated in emerging 19th century Balkan nationalism. Additional factors included the Russian goals of recovering territorial losses endured during the Crimean War of 1853–56, re-establishing itself in the Black Sea and supporting the political movement attempting to free Balkan nations from the Ottoman Empire.
1865
1. Astronomer Angelo Secchi demonstrates the Secchi disk, which measures water clarity, aboard Pope Pius IX's yacht, the L'Immaculata Concezion.
  1. Angelo Secchi
    
    Angelo Secchi was an Italian Catholic priest, astronomer from the Italian region of Emilia. He was director of the observatory at the Pontifical Gregorian University for 28 years. He was a pioneer in astronomical spectroscopy, and was one of the first scientists to state authoritatively that the Sun is a star.
  2. Secchi disk
    
    The Secchi disk, as created in 1865 by Angelo Secchi, is a plain white, circular disk 30 cm (12 in) in diameter used to measure water transparency or turbidity in bodies of water. The disc is mounted on a pole or line, and lowered slowly down in the water. The depth at which the disk is no longer visible is taken as a measure of the transparency of the water. This measure is known as the Secchi depth and is related to water turbidity. Since its invention, the disk has also been used in a modified, smaller 20 cm (8 in) diameter, black and white design to measure freshwater transparency.
  3. Pope Pius IX
    
    Pope Pius IX was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868 and for permanently losing control of the Papal States in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy. Thereafter he refused to leave Vatican City, declaring himself a "prisoner of the Vatican".
1862
1. Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard complete the experiment disproving the theory of spontaneous generation.
  1. Louis Pasteur
    
    Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named after him. His research in chemistry led to remarkable breakthroughs in the understanding of the causes and preventions of diseases, which laid down the foundations of hygiene, public health and much of modern medicine. His works are credited to saving millions of lives through the developments of vaccines for rabies and anthrax. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern bacteriology and has been honored as the "father of bacteriology" and the "father of microbiology".
  2. Claude Bernard
    
    Claude Bernard was a French physiologist. Historian I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science". He originated the term milieu intérieur, and the associated concept of homeostasis.
  3. Spontaneous generation
    
    Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas, could arise from inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh. The doctrine of spontaneous generation was coherently synthesized by Aristotle, who compiled and expanded the work of earlier natural philosophers and the various ancient explanations for the appearance of organisms. Spontaneous generation was taken as scientific fact for two millennia. Though challenged in the 17th and 18th centuries by the experiments of Francesco Redi and Lazzaro Spallanzani, it was not discredited until the work of the French chemist Louis Pasteur and the Irish physicist John Tyndall in the mid-19th century.
1861
1. American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.
  1. American Civil War
    
    The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union and the Confederacy, the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.
  2. Robert E. Lee
    
    Robert Edward Lee was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, towards the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army. He led the Army of Northern Virginia—the Confederacy's most powerful army—from 1862 until its surrender in 1865, earning a reputation as a skilled tactician.
  3. United States Army
    
    The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution. The oldest and most senior branch of the U.S. military in order of precedence, the modern U.S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army, which was formed 14 June 1775 to fight the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)—before the United States was established as a country. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army. The United States Army considers itself to be a continuation of the Continental Army, and thus considers its institutional inception to be the origin of that armed force in 1775.
  4. Virginia
    
    Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most-populous city, and Fairfax County is the most-populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population in 2020 was over 8.65 million, with 36% of them living in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area.
2. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, attempting to display the value of balloons, makes record journey, flying 900 miles from Cincinnati to South Carolina.
  1. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe
    
    Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, also known as Professor T. S. C. Lowe, was an American Civil War aeronaut, scientist and inventor, mostly self-educated in the fields of chemistry, meteorology, and aeronautics, and the father of military aerial reconnaissance in the United States. By the late 1850s he was well known for his advanced theories in the meteorological sciences as well as his balloon building. Among his aspirations were plans for a transatlantic flight.
1836
1. U.S. Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.
  1. United States Congress
    
    The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a governor's appointment. Congress has 535 voting members: 100 senators and 435 representatives. The vice president of the United States has a vote in the Senate only when senators are evenly divided. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members.
  2. Wisconsin Territory
    
    The Territory of Wisconsin was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 3, 1836, until May 29, 1848, when an eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Wisconsin. Belmont was initially chosen as the capital of the territory. In 1837, the territorial legislature met in Burlington, just north of the Skunk River on the Mississippi, which became part of the Iowa Territory in 1838. In that year, 1838, the territorial capital of Wisconsin was moved to Madison.
1828
1. French explorer René Caillié reached Timbuktu in present-day Mali, and later received a 9,000-franc prize from the Société de Géographie for being the first European to return with a description of the city.
  1. René Caillié
    
    Auguste René Caillié was a French explorer and the first European to return alive from the town of Timbuktu. Caillié had been preceded at Timbuktu by a British officer, Major Gordon Laing, who was murdered in September 1826 on leaving the city. Caillié was therefore the first to return alive.
  2. Timbuktu
    
    Timbuktu is a city in Mali, situated twenty kilometres (12 mi) north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali. It had a population of 54,453 in the 2009 census.
  3. French franc
    
    The franc, also commonly distinguished as the French franc (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money. It was reintroduced in 1795. After two centuries of inflation, it was redenominated in 1960, with each new franc (NF) being worth 100 old francs. The NF designation was continued for a few years before the currency returned to being simply the franc. Many French residents, though, continued to quote prices of especially expensive items in terms of the old franc, up to and even after the introduction of the euro in 2002. The French franc was a commonly held international reserve currency of reference in the 19th and 20th centuries.
  4. Société de Géographie
    
    The Société de Géographie, is the world's oldest geographical society. It was founded in 1821 as the first Geographic Society. Since 1878, its headquarters have been at 184 Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris. The entrance is marked by two gigantic caryatids representing Land and Sea. It was here, in 1879, that the construction of the Panama Canal was decided.
2. René Caillié becomes the second non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu, following Major Gordon Laing. He would also be the first to return alive.
  1. René Caillié
    
    Auguste René Caillié was a French explorer and the first European to return alive from the town of Timbuktu. Caillié had been preceded at Timbuktu by a British officer, Major Gordon Laing, who was murdered in September 1826 on leaving the city. Caillié was therefore the first to return alive.
  2. Timbuktu
    
    Timbuktu is a city in Mali, situated twenty kilometres (12 mi) north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali. It had a population of 54,453 in the 2009 census.
  3. Alexander Gordon Laing
    
    Major Alexander Gordon Laing was a Scottish explorer and the first European to reach Timbuktu, arriving there via the north-to-south route in August 1826. He was killed shortly after he departed Timbuktu, some five weeks later.
1818
1. Four days after the Court of King's Bench upheld an English murder suspect's right to a trial by battle in Ashford v Thornton, the plaintiff declined to fight, allowing the defendant to go free.
  1. Court of King's Bench (England)
    
    The Court of King's Bench, formally known as The Court of the King Before the King Himself, was a court of common law in the English legal system. Created in the late 12th to early 13th century from the curia regis, the King's Bench initially followed the monarch on his travels. The King's Bench finally joined the Court of Common Pleas and Exchequer of Pleas in Westminster Hall in 1318, making its last travels in 1421. The King's Bench was merged into the High Court of Justice by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, after which point the King's Bench was a division within the High Court. The King's Bench was staffed by one Chief Justice and usually three Puisne Justices.
  2. Trial by combat
    
    Trial by combat was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it was a judicially sanctioned duel. It remained in use throughout the European Middle Ages, gradually disappearing in the course of the 16th century.
  3. Ashford v Thornton
    
    Ashford v Thornton (1818) 106 ER 149 is an English criminal case in the Court of King's Bench which upheld the right of the defendant to trial by battle on a private appeal from an acquittal for murder.
1809
1. War of the Fifth Coalition: Commanded by Napoleon, Franco-German forces defeated a reinforced Austrian corps at the Battle of Abensberg.
  1. War of the Fifth Coalition
    
    The War of the Fifth Coalition was a European conflict in 1809 that was part of the Napoleonic Wars and the Coalition Wars. The main conflict took place in central Europe between the Austrian Empire of Francis I and Napoleon's French Empire. The French were supported by their client states, including the Kingdom of Italy, the Confederation of the Rhine and the Duchy of Warsaw. Austria was supported by the Fifth Coalition which included the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain and the Kingdoms of Sardinia and Sicily, though the latter two took no part in the fighting. By the start of 1809 much of the French army was committed to the Peninsular War against Britain, Spain and Portugal. After France withdrew 108,000 soldiers from Germany, Austria attacked France to seek the recovery of territories lost in the 1803–1806 War of the Third Coalition. The Austrians hoped Prussia would support them as their former ally, but Prussia chose to remain neutral.
  2. Napoleon
    
    Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He was the de facto leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814 and again in 1815. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy endures to this day, as a highly celebrated and controversial leader. He initiated many liberal reforms that have persisted in society, and is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history, but between three and six million civilians and soldiers perished in what became known as the Napoleonic Wars.
  3. Battle of Abensberg
    
    The Battle of Abensberg took place on 20 April 1809 between a Franco-German force under the command of Emperor Napoleon I of France and a reinforced Austrian corps led by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Archduke Louis of Austria. As the day wore on, Feldmarschall-Leutnant Johann von Hiller arrived with reinforcements to take command of the three corps that formed the Austrian left wing. The action ended in a complete Franco-German victory. The battlefield was southeast of Abensberg and included clashes at Offenstetten, Biburg-Siegenburg, Rohr in Niederbayern, and Rottenburg an der Laaber. On the same day, the French garrison of Regensburg capitulated.
2. Two Austrian army corps in Bavaria are defeated by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon at the Battle of Abensberg on the second day of a four-day campaign that ended in a French victory.
  1. First French Empire
    
    The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire after 1809, also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from 18 May 1804 to 11 April 1814 and again briefly from 20 March 1815 to 7 July 1815.
  2. Napoleon
    
    Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He was the de facto leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814 and again in 1815. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy endures to this day, as a highly celebrated and controversial leader. He initiated many liberal reforms that have persisted in society, and is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history, but between three and six million civilians and soldiers perished in what became known as the Napoleonic Wars.
  3. Battle of Abensberg
    
    The Battle of Abensberg took place on 20 April 1809 between a Franco-German force under the command of Emperor Napoleon I of France and a reinforced Austrian corps led by Feldmarschall-Leutnant Archduke Louis of Austria. As the day wore on, Feldmarschall-Leutnant Johann von Hiller arrived with reinforcements to take command of the three corps that formed the Austrian left wing. The action ended in a complete Franco-German victory. The battlefield was southeast of Abensberg and included clashes at Offenstetten, Biburg-Siegenburg, Rohr in Niederbayern, and Rottenburg an der Laaber. On the same day, the French garrison of Regensburg capitulated.
1800
1. The Septinsular Republic is established.
  1. Septinsular Republic
    
    The Septinsular Republic was an oligarchic republic that existed from 1800 to 1807 under nominal Russian and Ottoman sovereignty in the Ionian Islands.
1792
1. France declares war against the "King of Hungary and Bohemia", the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars.
  1. Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor
    
    Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor and the founder and Emperor of the Austrian Empire, from 1804 to 1835. He assumed the title of Emperor of Austria in response to the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French. Soon after Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine, Francis abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor. He was King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia. He also served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.
  2. French Revolutionary Wars
    
    The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and several other monarchies. They are divided in two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–97) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France had conquered territories in the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and the Rhineland in Europe and abandoned Louisiana in North America. French success in these conflicts ensured the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.
1789
1. George Washington arrives at Grays Ferry, Philadelphia, while en route to Manhattan for his inauguration.
  1. George Washington
    
    George Washington was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army, Washington led the Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and served as the president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which created the Constitution of the United States and the American federal government. Washington has been called the "Father of his Country" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the country.
  2. Grays Ferry, Philadelphia
    
    Grays Ferry, also known as Gray's Ferry, is a neighborhood in South Philadelphia bounded (roughly) by 25th Street on the east, the Schuylkill River on the west, Vare Avenue on the south, and Grays Ferry Avenue on the north. The section of this neighborhood west of 34th Street is also known as Forgotten Bottom. Grays Ferry shares borders with Southwest Center City to the North, Point Breeze to the East, and Girard Estate to the South. Gray’s Ferry is across from where Mill Creek debouches at about 43rd street. Historically, Grays Ferry was one of the largest enclaves of Irish Americans in the city, and while there are still many Irish left, it is now home to a significant African American population.
  3. First inauguration of George Washington
    
    The first inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States was held on Thursday, April 30, 1789, on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City, New York. The inauguration was held nearly two months after the beginning of the first four-year term of George Washington as president. Chancellor of New York Robert Livingston administered the presidential oath of office. With this inauguration, the executive branch of the United States government officially began operations under the new frame of government established by the 1787 Constitution. The inauguration of John Adams as vice president was on April 21, 1789, when he assumed his duties as presiding officer of the United States Senate; this also remains the only scheduled inauguration to take place on a day that was neither January or March.
1775
1. American Revolutionary War: The Siege of Boston begins, following the battles at Lexington and Concord.
  1. American Revolutionary War
    
    The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, secured American independence from Great Britain. Fighting began on April 19, 1775, followed by the Lee Resolution on July 2, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The American Patriots were supported by the Kingdom of France and, to a lesser extent, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Empire, in a conflict taking place in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean.
  2. Siege of Boston
    
    The siege of Boston was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. New England militiamen prevented the movement by land of the British Army, which was garrisoned in what was then the peninsular town of Boston, Massachusetts Bay. Both sides had to deal with resource, supply, and personnel issues over the course of the siege. British resupply and reinforcement was limited to sea access, which was impeded by American vessels. The British abandoned Boston after eleven months and transferred their troops and equipment to Nova Scotia.
  3. Battles of Lexington and Concord
    
    The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in America.
1770
1. The Georgian king, Erekle II, abandoned by his Russian ally Count Totleben, wins a victory over Ottoman forces at Aspindza.
  1. Georgia (country)
    
    Georgia is a transcontinental country at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is part of the Caucasus region, bounded by the Black Sea to the west, by Russia to the north and northeast, by Turkey to the southwest, by Armenia to the south, and by Azerbaijan to the southeast. The country covers an area of 69,700 square kilometres (26,900 sq mi), and has a population of 3.7 million people. Tbilisi is its capital as well as its largest city, home to roughly a third of the Georgian population.
  2. Heraclius II of Georgia
    
    Heraclius II, also known as Erekle II and The Little Kakhetian, was a Georgian monarch of the Bagrationi dynasty, reigning as the king of Kakheti from 1744 to 1762, and of Kartli and Kakheti from 1762 until 1798. In the contemporary Persian sources he is referred to as Erekli Khan, while Russians knew him as Irakly (Ираклий). His name is frequently transliterated in a Latinized form Heraclius because both names Erekle and Irakli are Georgian versions of this Greek name.
  3. Russian Empire
    
    The Russian Empire was the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China. It also held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867. Covering an area of approximately 22,800,000 square kilometres (8,800,000 sq mi), it remains the third-largest empire in history, surpassed only by the British Empire and the Mongol Empire; it ruled over a population of 125.6 million people per the 1897 Russian census, which was the only census carried out during the entire imperial period. Owing to its geographic extent across three continents at its peak, it featured great ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic diversity.
  4. Gottlob Heinrich Curt von Tottleben
    
    Gottlob Curt Heinrich Graf von Tottleben, Herr auf Tottleben, Zeippau und Hausdorf im Saganschen was a German-born Russian Empire general known for his adventurism and contradictory military career during the Seven Years' War and, then, the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) as a commander of the first Russian expeditionary force in Georgia.
  5. Ottoman Empire
    
    The Ottoman Empire, also known as the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror.
  6. Battle of Aspindza
    
    The Battle of Aspindza was fought on 20 April 1770 between the Georgians, led by king of Kartli-Kakheti Erekle II, and the Ottoman Empire. The Georgians won a victory over the Turks.
1752
1. Start of Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War, a new phase in the Burmese Civil War (1740–57).
  1. Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War
    
    The Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War was the war fought between the Konbaung Dynasty and the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom of Burma (Myanmar) from 1752 to 1757. The war was the last of several wars between the Burmese-speaking north and the Mon-speaking south that ended the Mon people's centuries-long dominance of the south.
1657
1. Anglo-Spanish War: The English navy sank much of a Spanish treasure fleet at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife off the Canary Islands, but was unable to capture the treasure.
  1. Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660)
    
    The Anglo-Spanish War was a conflict between the English Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell, and Spain, between 1654 and 1660. It was caused by commercial rivalry. Each side attacked the other's commercial and colonial interests in various ways such as privateering and naval expeditions. In 1655, an English amphibious expedition invaded Spanish territory in the Caribbean. In 1657, England formed an alliance with France, merging the Anglo–Spanish war with the larger Franco-Spanish War resulting in major land actions that took place in the Spanish Netherlands.
  2. Spanish treasure fleet
    
    The Spanish treasure fleet, or West Indies Fleet, was a convoy system of sea routes organized by the Spanish Empire from 1566 to 1790, which linked Spain with its territories in the Americas across the Atlantic. The convoys were general purpose cargo fleets used for transporting a wide variety of items, including agricultural goods, lumber, various metal resources such as silver and gold, gems, pearls, spices, sugar, tobacco, silk, and other exotic goods from the overseas territories of the Spanish Empire to the Spanish mainland. Spanish goods such as oil, wine, textiles, books and tools were transported in the opposite direction.
  3. Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1657)
    
    The Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife was a military operation in the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–60) which took place on 20 April 1657. An English fleet under Admiral Robert Blake penetrated the heavily defended harbour at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands and attacked their treasure fleet. The treasure had already been landed and was safe but the English engaged the harbour forts and the Spanish ships, many of which were scuttled and the remainder burnt. Having achieved his aim, Blake withdrew without losing any ships.
  4. Canary Islands
    
    The Canary Islands, also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are 100 kilometres west of Morocco. They are the southernmost of the autonomous communities of Spain. The islands have a population of 2.2 million people and they are the most populous special territory of the European Union.
2. English Admiral Robert Blake destroys a Spanish silver fleet, under heavy fire from the shore, at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
  1. Robert Blake (admiral)
    
    General at Sea Robert Blake was an English naval officer who served as the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports from 1656 to 1657. Blake is recognised as the chief founder of England's naval supremacy, a dominance subsequently inherited by the British Royal Navy well into the early 20th century. Despite this, due to deliberate attempts to expunge the Parliamentarians from historical records following the Stuart Restoration, Blake's achievements tend to remain unrecognized. Blake's successes have been considered to have "never been excelled, not even by Nelson" according to one biographer.
  2. Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1657)
    
    The Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife was a military operation in the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–60) which took place on 20 April 1657. An English fleet under Admiral Robert Blake penetrated the heavily defended harbour at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands and attacked their treasure fleet. The treasure had already been landed and was safe but the English engaged the harbour forts and the Spanish ships, many of which were scuttled and the remainder burnt. Having achieved his aim, Blake withdrew without losing any ships.
3. Freedom of religion is granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).
  1. Freedom of religion
    
    Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom to change one's religion or beliefs, "the right not to profess any religion or belief", or "not to practise a religion".
  2. New Amsterdam
    
    New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading factory gave rise to the settlement around Fort Amsterdam. The fort was situated on the strategic southern tip of the island of Manhattan and was meant to defend the fur trade operations of the Dutch West India Company in the North River. In 1624, it became a provincial extension of the Dutch Republic and was designated as the capital of the province in 1625.
1653
1. Oliver Cromwell dissolves England's Rump Parliament.
  1. Oliver Cromwell
    
    Oliver Cromwell was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, first as a senior commander in the Parliamentarian army and then as a politician. A leading advocate of the execution of Charles I in January 1649, which led to the establishment of the Republican Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, he ruled as Lord Protector from December 1653 until his death in September 1658. Cromwell nevertheless remains a deeply controversial figure in both Britain and Ireland, due to his use of the military to first acquire, then retain political power, and the brutality of his 1649 Irish campaign.
  2. Rump Parliament
    
    The Rump Parliament was the English Parliament after Colonel Thomas Pride commanded soldiers to purge the Long Parliament, on 6 December 1648, of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason.
1537
1. Bacatá, the main settlement of the Muisca Confederation in present-day Colombia, was conquered by Spanish conquistadors led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada.
  1. Bacatá
    
    Bacatá is the name given to the main settlement of the Muisca Confederation on the Bogotá savanna. It mostly refers to an area, rather than an individual village, although the name is also found in texts referring to the modern settlement of Funza, in the centre of the savanna. Bacatá, alternatively written as Muequetá or Muyquytá, was the main seat of the zipa, the ruler of the Bogotá savanna and adjacent areas. The name of the Colombian capital, Bogotá, is derived from Bacatá, but founded as Santafe de Bogotá in the western foothills of the Eastern Hills in a different location than the original settlement Bacatá, west of the Bogotá River, eventually named after Bacatá as well.
  2. Muisca Confederation
    
    The Muisca Confederation was a loose confederation of different Muisca rulers in the central Andean highlands of present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest of northern South America. The area, presently called Altiplano Cundiboyacense, comprised the current departments of Boyacá, Cundinamarca and minor parts of Santander.
  3. Spanish conquest of the Muisca
    
    The Spanish conquest of the Muisca took place from 1537 to 1540. The Muisca were the inhabitants of the central Andean highlands of Colombia before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. They were organised in a loose confederation of different rulers; the psihipqua of Muyquytá, with his headquarters in Funza, the hoa of Hunza, the iraca of the sacred City of the Sun Sugamuxi, the Tundama of Tundama, and several other independent caciques. The most important rulers at the time of the conquest were psihipqua Tisquesusa, hoa Eucaneme, iraca Sugamuxi and Tundama in the northernmost portion of their territories. The Muisca were organised in small communities of circular enclosures, with a central square where the bohío of the cacique was located. They were called "Salt People" because of their extraction of salt in various locations throughout their territories, mainly in Zipaquirá, Nemocón, and Tausa. For the main part self-sufficient in their well-organised economy, the Muisca traded with the European conquistadors valuable products as gold, tumbaga, and emeralds with their neighbouring indigenous groups. In the Tenza Valley, to the east of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense where the majority of the Muisca lived, they extracted emeralds in Chivor and Somondoco. The economy of the Muisca was rooted in their agriculture with main products maize, yuca, potatoes, and various other cultivations elaborated on elevated fields. Agriculture had started around 3000 BCE on the Altiplano, following the preceramic Herrera Period and a long epoch of hunter-gatherers since the late Pleistocene. The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation in Colombia, and one of the oldest in South America, has been found in El Abra, dating to around 12,500 years BP.
  4. Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada
    
    Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada y Rivera, also spelled as Ximénez and De Quezada, was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in northern South America, territories currently known as Colombia. He explored the territory named by him New Kingdom of Granada, and founded its capital, Santafé de Bogotá. As a well-educated lawyer he was one of the intellectuals of the Spanish conquest. He was an effective organizer and leader, designed the first legislation for the government of the area, and was its historian. He was governor of Cartagena between 1556 and 1557, and after 1569 he undertook explorations toward the east, searching for the elusive El Dorado. The campaign didn't succeed and Jiménez then returned to New Granada in 1573. He has been suggested as a possible model for Cervantes' Don Quixote.
1535
1. Sun dogs were observed over Stockholm, Sweden, inspiring the painting Vädersolstavlan, the oldest colour depiction of the city.
  1. Sun dog
    
    A sun dog or mock sun, also called a parhelion in meteorology, is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the Sun. Two sun dogs often flank the Sun within a 22° halo.
  2. Stockholm
    
    Stockholm is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropolitan area. The city stretches across fourteen islands where Lake Mälaren flows into the Baltic Sea. Outside the city to the east, and along the coast, is the island chain of the Stockholm archipelago. The area has been settled since the Stone Age, in the 6th millennium BC, and was founded as a city in 1252 by Swedish statesman Birger Jarl. It is also the county seat of Stockholm County. For several hundred years, Stockholm was the capital of Finland as well, which then was a part of Sweden. The population of the municipality of Stockholm is expected to reach one million people in 2024.
  3. Vädersolstavlan
    
    Vädersolstavlan is an oil-on-panel painting depicting a halo display, an atmospheric optical phenomenon, observed over Stockholm on 20 April 1535. It is named after the sun dogs appearing on the upper right part of the painting. While chiefly noted for being the oldest depiction of Stockholm in colour, it is arguably also the oldest Swedish landscape painting and the oldest depiction of sun dogs.
1303
1. The Sapienza University of Rome is instituted by a bull of Pope Boniface VIII.
  1. Sapienza University of Rome
    
    The Sapienza University of Rome, also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a public research university located in Rome, Italy. It is one of the largest European universities by enrollments and one of the oldest in history, founded in 1303. The university is one of the most prestigious Italian universities and in the world, commonly ranking first in national rankings and in Southern Europe. In 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022 it ranked first in the world for classics and ancient history.
  2. Papal bull
    
    A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by a pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden seal (bulla) that was traditionally appended to the end in order to authenticate it.
  3. Pope Boniface VIII
    
    Pope Boniface VIII was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 December 1294 to his death in 1303. The Caetani family was of baronial origin, with connections to the papacy. He succeeded Pope Celestine V, who had abdicated from the papal throne. Boniface spent his early career abroad in diplomatic roles.

Births & Deaths

2022
1. Gavin Millar, Scottish film director (b. 1938) deaths
  1. Gavin Millar
    
    Gavin Millar was a Scottish film director, critic and television presenter.
2021
1. Idriss Déby, Chadian politician and military officer (b. 1952) deaths
  1. Idriss Déby
    
    Idriss Déby Itno was a Chadian politician and military officer who was the president of Chad from 1990 until his death in 2021.
2. Monte Hellman, American film director (b.1929) deaths
  1. Monte Hellman
    
    Monte Hellman was an American film director, producer, writer, and editor. Hellman began his career as an editor's apprentice at ABC TV, and made his directorial debut with the horror film Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), produced by Gene Corman, Roger Corman's brother.
3. Les McKeown, Scottish pop singer (b. 1955) deaths
  1. Les McKeown
    
    Leslie Richard McKeown was a Scottish pop singer. He was the lead singer of the Bay City Rollers during their most successful period in the 1970s.
2018
1. Avicii, Swedish DJ and musician (b. 1989) deaths
  1. Avicii
    
    Tim Bergling, known professionally as Avicii, was a Swedish DJ, remixer and music producer. At the age of 16, Bergling began posting his remixes on electronic music forums, which led to his first record deal. He rose to prominence in 2011 with his single "Levels". His debut studio album, True (2013), blended electronic music with elements of multiple genres and received generally positive reviews. It peaked in the top 10 in more than 15 countries and topped international charts; the lead single, "Wake Me Up", topped most music markets in Europe and reached number four in the United States.
2016
1. Victoria Wood, British comedian, actress and writer (b. 1953) deaths
  1. Victoria Wood
    
    Victoria Wood was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
2012
1. Bert Weedon, English guitarist and songwriter (b. 1920) deaths
  1. Bert Weedon
    
    Herbert Maurice William Weedon, OBE was an English guitarist whose style of playing was popular and influential during the 1950s and 1960s. He was the first British guitarist to have a hit record in the UK Singles Chart, in 1959, and his best-selling tutorial guides, Play in a Day, were a major influence on many leading British musicians, such as Eric Clapton, Brian May and Paul McCartney. He was awarded an OBE in 2001 for his "services to music".
2011
1. Tim Hetherington, English photographer and journalist (b. 1970) deaths
  1. Tim Hetherington
    
    Timothy Alistair Telemachus Hetherington was a British photojournalist. He produced books, films and other work that "ranged from multi-screen installations, to fly-poster exhibitions, to handheld device downloads" and was a regular contributor to Vanity Fair.
2010
1. Dorothy Height, American educator and activist (b. 1912) deaths
  1. Dorothy Height
    
    Dorothy Irene Height was an African American civil rights and women's rights activist. She focused on the issues of African American women, including unemployment, illiteracy, and voter awareness. Height is credited as the first leader in the civil rights movement to recognize inequality for women and African Americans as problems that should be considered as a whole. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years.
2008
1. Monica Lovinescu, Romanian journalist and author (b. 1923) deaths
  1. Monica Lovinescu
    
    Monica Lovinescu was a Romanian essayist, short story writer, literary critic, translator, and journalist, noted for her activities as an opponent of the Romanian Communist regime. She published several works under the pseudonyms Monique Saint-Come and Claude Pascal. She is the daughter of literary figure Eugen Lovinescu. She was married to the literary critic Virgil Ierunca.
2007
1. Andrew Hill, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (b. 1931) deaths
  1. Andrew Hill (jazz musician)
    
    Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.
2. Michael Fu Tieshan, Chinese bishop (b. 1931) deaths
  1. Michael Fu Tieshan
    
    Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan of Beijing was a top leader of the Catholic Patriotic Association.
2005
1. Fumio Niwa, Japanese journalist and author (b. 1904) deaths
  1. Fumio Niwa
    
    Fumio Niwa was a Japanese novelist with a long list of works, the most famous in the West being his novel The Buddha Tree.
2004
1. Lizzy Mercier Descloux, French musician, singer-songwriter, composer, actress, writer and painter (b. 1956) deaths
  1. Lizzy Mercier Descloux
    
    Martine-Elisabeth "Lizzy" Mercier Descloux was a French musician, singer-songwriter, composer, actress, writer and painter.
2003
1. Bernard Katz, German-English biophysicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911) deaths
  1. Bernard Katz
    
    Sir Bernard Katz, FRS was a German-born British physician and biophysicist, noted for his work on nerve physiology. He shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1970 with Julius Axelrod and Ulf von Euler. He was made a Knight Bachelor in 1969.
  2. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
    
    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's 1895 will, are awarded "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace.
2002
1. Alan Dale, American singer (b. 1925) deaths
  1. Alan Dale (singer)
    
    Alan Dale was an American singer of traditional popular and rock and roll music.
2001
1. Giuseppe Sinopoli, Italian conductor and composer (b. 1946) deaths
  1. Giuseppe Sinopoli
    
    Giuseppe Sinopoli was an Italian conductor and composer.
1999
1. Rick Rude, American professional wrestler (b. 1958) deaths
  1. Rick Rude
    
    Richard Erwin Rood, better known by his ring name "Ravishing" Rick Rude, was an American professional wrestler who performed for many promotions, including World Championship Wrestling (WCW), World Wrestling Federation (WWF), and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW).
1996
1. Trần Văn Trà, Vietnamese general and politician (b. 1918) deaths
  1. Trần Văn Trà
    
    Nguyễn Chấn, known as Trần Văn Trà was a Vietnamese general. He was a commander in the Vietcong; a member of the Central Committee of the Lao Dong Party from 1960 to 1982; a lieutenant general in the army of the North Vietnam; chairman of Military Affairs Committee of the Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN) (1964–1976).
1995
1. Milovan Đilas, Yugoslav communist, politician, theorist and author (b. 1911) deaths
  1. Milovan Djilas
    
    Milovan Djilas was a Yugoslav communist politician, theorist and author. He was a key figure in the Partisan movement during World War II, as well as in the post-war government. A self-identified democratic socialist, Djilas became one of the best-known and most prominent dissidents in Yugoslavia and all of Eastern Europe. During an era of several decades, he critiqued communism from the viewpoint of trying to improve it from within; after the revolutions of 1989 and the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, he critiqued it from an anti-communist viewpoint of someone whose youthful dreams had been disillusioned.
1993
1. Cantinflas, Mexican actor, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1911) deaths
  1. Cantinflas
    
    Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes, known by the stage name Cantinflas, was a Mexican comedian, actor, and filmmaker. He is considered to have been the most widely-accomplished Mexican comedian and is celebrated throughout Latin America and in Spain as a popular icon. His humor, loaded with Mexican linguistic features of intonation, vocabulary, and syntax, is beloved in all the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America and in Spain and has given rise to a range of expressions including cantinflear, cantinflada, cantinflesco, and cantinflero.
1992
1. Marjorie Gestring, American springboard diver (b. 1922) deaths
  1. Marjorie Gestring
    
    Marjorie Gestring was a competitive springboard diver from the United States. At the age of 13 years and 268 days, she won the gold medal in 3-meter springboard diving at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, making her at the time the youngest person ever to win an Olympic gold medal. A multi-time national diving champion in the United States, she was given a second Olympic gold medal by the United States Olympic Committee after the 1940 Summer Olympics were called off due to the advent of World War II. Gestring attempted to return to the Olympics at the 1948 Games, but failed to qualify for the US team. She has been inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame.
2. Benny Hill, English comedian, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1924) deaths
  1. Benny Hill
    
    Alfred Hawthorne Hill, better known as Benny Hill, was an English comedian, actor, singer and writer. He is remembered for his television programme The Benny Hill Show, an amalgam of slapstick, burlesque and double entendre in a format that included live comedy and filmed segments, with Hill at the focus of almost every segment.
1991
1. Steve Marriott, English singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1947) deaths
  1. Steve Marriott
    
    Stephen Peter Marriott was an English guitarist, singer and songwriter. He co-founded and played in the rock bands Small Faces and Humble Pie, in a career spanning over two decades. Marriott was inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 as a member of Small Faces.
2. Don Siegel, American director and producer (b. 1912) deaths
  1. Don Siegel
    
    Donald Siegel was an American film and television director and producer.
1986
1. Sibte Hassan, Pakistani journalist, scholar, and activist (b. 1916) deaths
  1. Sibte Hassan
    
    Syed Sibt-e-Hasan was an eminent scholar, journalist and political activist of Pakistan. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of Socialism and Marxism in Pakistan, as well as the moving spirit behind the Progressive Writers Association.
1982
1. Archibald MacLeish, American poet, playwright, and lawyer (b. 1892) deaths
  1. Archibald MacLeish
    
    Archibald MacLeish was an American poet and writer, who was associated with the modernist school of poetry. MacLeish studied English at Yale University and law at Harvard University. He enlisted in and saw action during the First World War and lived in Paris in the 1920s. On returning to the United States, he contributed to Henry Luce's magazine Fortune from 1929 to 1938. For five years, MacLeish was the ninth Librarian of Congress, a post he accepted at the urging of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. From 1949 to 1962, he was Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard. He was awarded three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.
1980
1. M. Canagaratnam, Sri Lankan politician (b. 1924) deaths
  1. M. Canagaratnam
    
    Mylvaganam Canagaratnam was a Sri Lankan Tamil politician and Member of Parliament.
1973
1. Julie Powell, American food writer and memoirist (d. 2022) births
  1. Julie Powell
    
    Julia Anne Powell was an American author known for her 2005 book Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen which was based on her blog, the Julie/Julia Project. A film adaptation based on her book called Julie & Julia was released in 2009.
1972
1. Carmen Electra, American model and actress births
  1. Carmen Electra
    
    Tara Leigh Patrick, known professionally as Carmen Electra, is an American actress, model, singer, and media personality. She began her career as a singer after moving to Minneapolis, where she met Prince, who produced her self-titled debut studio album, released in 1993. Electra began glamour modeling in 1996 with frequent appearances in Playboy magazine, before relocating to Los Angeles, where she had her breakthrough portraying Lani McKenzie in the action drama series Baywatch (1997–1998).
1970
1. Shemar Moore, American actor births
  1. Shemar Moore
    
    Shemar Franklin Moore is an American actor. His notable roles include Malcolm Winters on The Young and the Restless (1994–2005), Derek Morgan on Criminal Minds (2005–2016), and the lead role of Hondo on S.W.A.T. (2017–present) all on CBS. Moore was also the third permanent host of Soul Train, from 1999 to 2003.
1969
1. Will Hodgman, Australian politician, 45th Premier of Tasmania births
  1. Will Hodgman
    
    William Edward Felix Hodgman is an Australian diplomat and former politician who has been the High Commissioner of Australia to Singapore since February 2021. He was the 45th Premier of Tasmania and a member for the Division of Franklin in the Tasmanian House of Assembly from the 2002 state election until his resignation in January 2020. He became premier following the 2014 state election, having been Leader of the Opposition since 2006. He was re-elected to a second term in government following victory in the 2018 state election.
  2. Premier of Tasmania
    
    The premier of Tasmania is the head of the executive government in the Australian state of Tasmania. By convention, the leader of the party or political grouping which has majority support in the House of Assembly is invited by the governor of Tasmania to be premier and principal adviser.
2. Vjekoslav Luburić, Croatian Ustaše official and concentration camp administrator (b. 1914) deaths
  1. Vjekoslav Luburić
    
    Vjekoslav Luburić was a Croatian Ustaše official who headed the system of concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during much of World War II. Luburić also personally oversaw and spearheaded the contemporaneous genocides of Serbs, Jews and Roma in the NDH.
  2. Ustaše
    
    The Ustaše, also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement. Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma as well as political dissidents in Yugoslavia during World War II.
1968
1. Julia Morris, Australian entertainer births
  1. Julia Morris
    
    Julia Carolyn Margaret Morris is an Australian comedian, television presenter and actress who has worked extensively in Australian television and radio, touring the country with her solo comedy shows. She relocated to the United Kingdom in 2000, appearing on British television, then returned to Australia in 2007. She lived on the Central Coast for her childhood.
2. Rudolph Dirks, German-American illustrator (b. 1877) deaths
  1. Rudolph Dirks
    
    Rudolph Dirks was one of the earliest and most noted comic strip artists, well known for The Katzenjammer Kids.
1967
1. Mike Portnoy, American drummer and songwriter births
  1. Mike Portnoy
    
    Michael Stephen Portnoy is an American musician who is primarily known as the former drummer, backing vocalist, and co-founder of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. In September 2010, Portnoy announced his departure from Dream Theater after 25 years, with Mike Mangini taking his place as drummer of the band. Since his departure Portnoy has remained active, with a variety of bands and projects, including Adrenaline Mob, Transatlantic, Yellow Matter Custard, Flying Colors, The Winery Dogs, Liquid Tension Experiment, Metal Allegiance, Sons of Apollo, the Neal Morse Band and BPMD.
2. Léo-Paul Desrosiers, Canadian journalist and author (b. 1896) deaths
  1. Léo-Paul Desrosiers
    
    Léo-Paul Desrosiers was a Quebec writer and journalist well known for his historical novels. He was influenced by the nationalism of Henri Bourassa and Lionel-Adolphe Groulx.
1966
1. David Chalmers, Australian philosopher and academic births
  1. David Chalmers
    
    David John Chalmers is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, as well as co-director of NYU's Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness. In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
2. David Filo, American businessman, co-founded Yahoo! births
  1. David Filo
    
    David Robert Filo is an American billionaire businessman and the co-founder of Yahoo! with Jerry Yang. His Filo Server Program, written in the C programming language, was the server-side software used to dynamically serve variable web pages, called Filo Server Pages, on visits to early versions of the Yahoo! website.
  2. Yahoo!
    
    Yahoo! is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Management and 10% by Verizon Communications.
1965
1. Kostis Chatzidakis, Greek politician, Ministry of Economy, Infrastructure, Shipping and Tourism births
  1. Kostis Hatzidakis
    
    Konstantinos (Kostis) Hatzidakis is a Greek politician of New Democracy who has been serving as the Minister for Labor and Social Affairs in the Cabinet of Kyriakos Mitsotakis since 2021. Among other offices, he previously held the post of Minister for the Environment and Energy. Within his party, he serves as vice president under Mitsotakis' leadership.
  2. Ministry of Development and Investment (Greece)
    
    The Ministry of Development and Investment is a government department of Greece. The current minister is Adonis Georgiadis, Vice President of New Democracy.
2. Léa Fazer, Swiss film director, screenwriter and actress births
  1. Léa Fazer
    
    Léa Fazer is a Swiss film director, screenwriter and actress. She studied film at the University Paris Diderot. Her film Bienvenue en Suisse was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
1964
1. John Carney, American football player births
  1. John Carney (American football)
    
    John Michael Carney is an American former professional football player who was a placekicker in the National Football League (NFL). He was signed by the Cincinnati Bengals as an undrafted free agent in 1987. He played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
2. Andy Serkis, English actor and director births
  1. Andy Serkis
    
    Andrew Clement Serkis is an English actor, director and producer. He is best known for his performance capture roles comprising motion capture acting, animation, and voice work for computer-generated characters such as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), King Kong in the eponymous 2005 film, Caesar in the Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy (2011–2017), Captain Haddock / Sir Francis Haddock in Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin (2011), Baloo in his self-directed film Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018), and Supreme Leader Snoke in the Star Wars sequel trilogy films The Force Awakens (2015) and The Last Jedi (2017), also portraying Kino Loy in the Star Wars Disney+ series Andor (2022).
3. Rosalynn Sumners, American figure skater births
  1. Rosalynn Sumners
    
    Rosalynn Diane Sumners is an American former competitive figure skater. She was the World Junior champion in 1980, the U.S. National champion in 1982, 1983 and 1984, World champion in 1983, and won a silver medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics.
1963
1. Rachel Whiteread, English sculptor births
  1. Rachel Whiteread
    
    Dame Rachel Whiteread is an English artist who primarily produces sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She was the first woman to win the annual Turner Prize in 1993.
1961
1. Don Mattingly, American baseball player, coach, and manager births
  1. Don Mattingly
    
    Donald Arthur Mattingly is an American former professional baseball first baseman, coach, and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). He is the bench coach for the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). Nicknamed "The Hit Man" and "Donnie Baseball", he spent his entire 14-year MLB career playing with the New York Yankees and later managed the Los Angeles Dodgers for five years and the Miami Marlins for seven seasons.
2. Konstantin Lavronenko, Russian actor births
  1. Konstantin Lavronenko
    
    Konstantin Nikolaevich Lavronenko is a Soviet and Russian actor most commonly accredited for his performance as the mysterious father of two boys in 2003 film Vozvrashcheniye. He won the Best Actor prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for The Banishment.
3. Ado Vabbe, Estonian painter (b. 1892) deaths
  1. Ado Vabbe
    
    Ado Vabbe was an Estonian painter, graphics artist, and teacher.
1960
1. Debbie Flintoff-King, Australian hurdler and coach births
  1. Debbie Flintoff-King
    
    Debra ("Debbie") Lee Flintoff-King, (OAM) is a retired Australian athlete, and winner of the women's 400 m hurdles event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
1958
1. Viacheslav Fetisov, Russian ice hockey player and coach births
  1. Viacheslav Fetisov
    
    Viacheslav Alexandrovich "Slava" Fetisov is a Russian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He played for HC CSKA Moscow for 13 seasons before joining the National Hockey League (NHL), where he played with the New Jersey Devils and Detroit Red Wings. With the Wings, he won back-to-back Stanley Cups and was part of the team's Russian Five unit. After retiring from his playing career, he became the assistant coach for the New Jersey Devils. Having a very successful four years, he helped get the team to two Stanley Cup finals and one Stanley Cup victory. In addition to that, he won two Olympic gold medals and seven world championships. His Stanley Cup wins, Olympic gold medals, and World Championship wins make him a member of his sport's prestigious Triple Gold Club.
1956
1. Beatrice Ask, Swedish politician, Swedish Minister for Justice births
  1. Beatrice Ask
    
    Eva Carin Beatrice Ask is a Swedish politician and a member of the Moderate Party. She has served as Governor of Södermanland County since 1 January 2020.
  2. Minister for Justice (Sweden)
    
    The Minister for Justice is the justice minister of Sweden and head of the Ministry of Justice. The current Minister for Justice is Gunnar Strömmer of the Moderate Party.
2. Peter Chelsom, English film director, writer, and actor births
  1. Peter Chelsom
    
    Peter Chelsom is a British film director, writer, and actor. He has directed such films as Hector and the Search for Happiness, Serendipity, and Shall We Dance? Peter Chelsom is a member of the British Academy, the American Academy, The Directors Guild of America, and The Writers Guild of America.
3. Kakha Bendukidze, Georgian economist and politician (d. 2014) births
  1. Kakha Bendukidze
    
    Kakha Bendukidze was a Georgian statesman, businessman and philanthropist, regarded as the Man Who Remade Georgia, founder of the Knowledge Foundation and head of the supervisory board of Agricultural and Free Universities.
1955
1. Donald Pettit, American engineer and astronaut births
  1. Donald Pettit
    
    Donald Roy Pettit is an American astronaut and chemical engineer. He is a veteran of two long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station, one Space Shuttle mission and a six-week expedition to find meteorites in Antarctica. As of 2022, at age 67, he is NASA's oldest active astronaut.
1953
1. Sebastian Faulks, English journalist and author births
  1. Sebastian Faulks
    
    Sebastian Charles Faulks is a British novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He is best known for his historical novels set in France – The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. He has also published novels with a contemporary setting, most recently A Week in December (2009) and Paris Echo, (2018) and a James Bond continuation novel, Devil May Care (2008), as well as a continuation of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves series, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells (2013). He was a team captain on BBC Radio 4 literary quiz The Write Stuff.
1952
1. Louka Katseli, Greek economist and politician births
  1. Louka Katseli
    
    Louka Katseli is a Greek economist and politician. Today, she is Professor Emeritus of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Chair of the National Bank of Greece in Cyprus, CEO of Rightholders Cooperative EDEM, Vice President of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), member of the Independent Commission for Sustainable Equality, Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats - S&D, and business consultant for enterprises and organizations in Greece and Europe.
1951
1. Luther Vandross, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2005) births
  1. Luther Vandross
    
    Luther Ronzoni Vandross Jr. was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Known for his sweet and soulful vocals, Vandross has sold over 40 million records worldwide. He achieved eleven consecutive Platinum albums and eight Grammy Awards, including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance four different times. In 2004, Vandross won a total of four Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for a song recorded not long before his death, "Dance with My Father".
2. Ivanoe Bonomi, Italian politician, 25th Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1873) deaths
  1. Ivanoe Bonomi
    
    Ivanoe Bonomi [iˈvaːnoe boˈnɔːmi] was an Italian politician and journalist who served as Prime Minister of Italy from 1921 to 1922 and again from 1944 to 1945.
  2. Prime Minister of Italy
    
    The prime minister, officially the president of the Council of Ministers, of Italy is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of president of the Council of Ministers is established by articles 92–96 of the Constitution of Italy; the president of the Council of Ministers is appointed by the president of the Republic and must have the confidence of the Parliament to stay in office.
1950
1. Steve Erickson, American author and critic births
  1. Steve Erickson
    
    Stephen Michael Erickson is an American novelist. The author of influential works such as Days Between Stations, Tours of the Black Clock and Zeroville, he is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters award and the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award.
2. Alexander Lebed, Russian general and politician (d. 2002) births
  1. Alexander Lebed
    
    Lieutenant General Alexander Ivanovich Lebed was a Soviet and Russian military officer and politician who held senior positions in the Airborne Troops before running for president in the 1996 Russian presidential election. He did not win, but placed third behind incumbent Boris Yeltsin and the Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, with roughly 14% of the vote nation-wide. Lebed later served as the Secretary of the Security Council in the Yeltsin administration, and eventually became the governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai, the second largest Russian region. He served four years in the latter position, until his death following a Mi-8 helicopter crash.
3. N. Chandrababu Naidu, Indian politician, 13th Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh births
  1. N. Chandrababu Naidu
    
    Nara Chandrababu Naidu is an Indian politician and current leader of opposition in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly. He is a former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, serving from 2014 to 2019. He is the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh after it was divided. Previously, he served as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh from 1995 to 2004, before the state's division, and as the leader of the opposition in the united Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly from 2004 to 2014. He is the National President of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), and the longest-serving Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.
  2. List of chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh
    
    The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh is the chief executive of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. In accordance with the Constitution of India, the governor is a state's de jure head, but de facto executive authority rests with the chief minister. Following elections to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, the state's governor usually invites the party with a majority of seats to form the government. The governor appoints the chief minister, whose council of ministers are collectively responsible to the assembly. Given that he has the confidence of the assembly, the chief minister's term is for five years and is subject to no term limits.
1949
1. Veronica Cartwright, English-American actress births
  1. Veronica Cartwright
    
    Veronica Cartwright is a British-American actress. She is known for appearing in science fiction and horror films, and has earned numerous accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
2. Toller Cranston, Canadian-Mexican figure skater and painter (d. 2015) births
  1. Toller Cranston
    
    Toller Shalitoe Montague Cranston, CM was a Canadian figure skater and painter. He won the 1971–1976 Canadian national championships, the 1974 World bronze medal and the 1976 Olympic bronze medal. Despite never winning at the World Figure Skating Championships due to his poor compulsory figures, he won the small medal for free skating at the 1972 and 1974 championships. Cranston is credited by many with having brought a new level of artistry to men's figure skating.
3. Massimo D'Alema, Italian journalist and politician, 76th Prime Minister of Italy births
  1. Massimo D'Alema
    
    Massimo D'Alema is an Italian politician and journalist who was the 53rd prime minister of Italy from 1998 to 2000. He was Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2008. D'Alema also served for a time as national secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). The media has referred to him as Leader Maximo due to his first name and for his dominant position in the left-wing coalitions during the Second Republic.
  2. Prime Minister of Italy
    
    The prime minister, officially the president of the Council of Ministers, of Italy is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of president of the Council of Ministers is established by articles 92–96 of the Constitution of Italy; the president of the Council of Ministers is appointed by the president of the Republic and must have the confidence of the Parliament to stay in office.
4. Jessica Lange, American actress births
  1. Jessica Lange
    
    Jessica Phyllis Lange is an American actress. She is the 13th actress to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, having won two Academy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award, along with a Screen Actors Guild Award and five Golden Globe Awards. Additionally, she is the second actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress after winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the third actress and first performer since 1943 to receive two Oscar nominations in the same year, the fifth actress and ninth performer to win Oscars in both the lead and supporting acting categories, and tied for the sixth most Oscar-nominated actress. Lange holds the record for most nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. She is the only performer ever to win Primetime Emmy Awards in both the Outstanding Supporting Actress and Outstanding Lead Actress categories for the same miniseries. Lange has also garnered a Critics Choice Award and three Dorian Awards, making her the most honored actress by the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association. In 1998, Entertainment Weekly listed Lange among the 25 Greatest Actresses of the 1990s. In 2014, she was scheduled to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but she has yet to claim it.
1948
1. Gregory Itzin, American actor (d. 2022) births
  1. Gregory Itzin
    
    Gregory Martin Itzin was an American character actor of film and television best known for his role as U.S. President Charles Logan in the action thriller series 24.
2. Matthias Kuhle, German geographer and academic (d. 2015) births
  1. Matthias Kuhle
    
    Matthias Kuhle was a German geographer and professor at the University of Göttingen. He edited the book series Geography International published by Shaker Verlag.
1947
1. Rita Dionne-Marsolais, Canadian economist and politician births
  1. Rita Dionne-Marsolais
    
    Rita Dionne-Marsolais is a former Quebec politician and economist. She was the Member of National Assembly of Quebec for the riding of Rosemont in the Montreal region and represented the Parti Québécois from 1994 to 2008.
2. David Leland, English actor, director, and screenwriter births
  1. David Leland
    
    David Leland is an English film director, screenwriter and actor who came to international fame with his directorial debut Wish You Were Here in 1987.
3. Viktor Suvorov, Russian intelligence officer, historian, and author births
  1. Viktor Suvorov
    
    Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, known by his pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov is a former Soviet GRU officer who is the author of non-fiction books about World War II, the GRU and the Soviet Army, as well as fictional books about the same and related subjects.
4. Christian X of Denmark (b. 1870) deaths
  1. Christian X of Denmark
    
    Christian X was King of Denmark from 1912 to his death in 1947, and the only King of Iceland as Kristján 10, in the form of a personal union rather than a real union between 1918 and 1944.
1946
1. Sandro Chia, Italian painter and sculptor births
  1. Sandro Chia
    
    Sandro Chia is an Italian painter and sculptor. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was, with Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, and Mimmo Paladino, a principal member of the Italian Neo-Expressionist movement which was baptised Transavanguardia by Achille Bonito Oliva.
2. Julien Poulin, Canadian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter births
  1. Julien Poulin
    
    Julien Poulin is Canadian actor, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He has portrayed numerous roles in several popular Quebec films and series.
3. Gordon Smiley, American race car driver (d. 1982) births
  1. Gordon Smiley
    
    Gordon Eugene Smiley was an American race car driver who was killed in a single-car crash at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He was inducted into the Nebraska Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 2000.
4. Mae Busch, Australian actress (b. 1891) deaths
  1. Mae Busch
    
    Mae Busch was an Australian-born actress who worked in both silent and sound films in early Hollywood. In the latter part of her career she appeared in many Laurel and Hardy comedies, frequently playing Hardy's shrewish wife.
1945
1. Michael Brandon, American actor and director births
  1. Michael Brandon
    
    Michael Brandon is an American actor. He is known for his role as James Dempsey in the British drama series Dempsey and Makepeace (1985–1986). His theatre credits include the original Broadway production of Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? (1969), and playing Jerry Springer in the West End production of Jerry Springer: The Opera (2003–2004).
2. Olga Karlatos, Greek actress and Bermudian lawyer births
  1. Olga Karlatos
    
    Olga Karlatos is a retired Greek actress and Bermudian lawyer, known primarily for performing in Italian horror cinema.
3. Thein Sein, Burmese general and politician, 8th President of Burma births
  1. Thein Sein
    
    Thein Sein is a Burmese politician and retired general in the Myanmar Army who served as the eighth President of Myanmar from 2011 to 2016. He previously served as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, and was considered by many in and outside Myanmar as a reformist leader in the post-junta government.
  2. President of Myanmar
    
    The president of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar is the head of state and constitutional head of government of Myanmar. The president leads the Cabinet of Myanmar, the executive branch of the Burmese government. The current president is Myint Swe, who assumed the presidency in an acting capacity through a military coup d'état on 1 February 2021. However as of 24 November 2022, the United Nations list of Heads of State, Heads of Government, and Ministers for Foreign Affairs of all Member States continues to list Win Myint as President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and Aung San Suu Kyi as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
4. Naftali Temu, Kenyan runner (d. 2003) births
  1. Naftali Temu
    
    Nabiba Naftali Temu was a Kenyan long-distance runner. He became Kenya's first gold medalist when he won the 10,000 metres race at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
5. Steve Spurrier, American football player and head coach, 1966 Heisman Trophy winner births
  1. Steve Spurrier
    
    Stephen Orr Spurrier is an American former football quarterback and coach who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons before coaching for 38 years, primarily in college. He is often referred to by his nickname, "the Head Ball Coach". Spurrier was a multi-sport all-state athlete at Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tennessee. He attended the University of Florida, where he won the 1966 Heisman Trophy as a college football quarterback with the Florida Gators. The San Francisco 49ers picked him in the first round of the 1967 NFL draft, and he spent a decade playing professionally in the National Football League (NFL), mainly as a backup quarterback and punter. Spurrier was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1986.
6. Erwin Bumke, Polish-German jurist and politician (b. 1874) deaths
  1. Erwin Bumke
    
    Erwin Konrad Eduard Bumke was the last president of the Reichsgericht, the supreme civil and criminal court of the German Reich, serving from 1929 to 1945. As such, he should according to the Weimar Constitution have succeeded Paul von Hindenburg as the President of Germany upon the latter's death in August 1934 and thus the Head of State of Nazi Germany. The Law on the Head of State of the German Reich, passed by the Nazi-controlled Reichstag, unconstitutionally prevented that by combining the presidency with the chancellorship, making Adolf Hitler the undisputed Führer of Germany.
1944
1. Toivo Aare, Estonian journalist and author (d. 1999) births
  1. Toivo Aare
    
    Toivo Aare was an Estonian journalist.
2. Elmer Gedeon, American baseball player and pilot (b. 1917) deaths
  1. Elmer Gedeon
    
    Elmer John Gedeon was an American professional baseball player, appearing in several games for the Washington Senators in 1939. Gedeon and Harry O'Neill were the only two Major League Baseball players killed during World War II. Gedeon flew several missions in the European Theater of Operations as an officer of the United States Army Air Forces before being shot down over France.
1943
1. Alan Beith, English academic and politician births
  1. Alan Beith
    
    Alan James Beith, Baron Beith, is a British Liberal Democrat politician who represented Berwick-upon-Tweed as its Member of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2015.
2. John Eliot Gardiner, English conductor and director births
  1. John Eliot Gardiner
    
    Sir John Eliot Gardiner is an English conductor, particularly known for his performances of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
3. Edie Sedgwick, American model and actress (d. 1971) births
  1. Edie Sedgwick
    
    Edith Minturn Sedgwick Post was an American actress and fashion model, known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars. Sedgwick became known as "The Girl of the Year" in 1965 after starring in several of Warhol's short films in the 1960s. She was dubbed an "It Girl", while Vogue magazine also named her a "Youthquaker".
1942
1. Giles Henderson, English lawyer and academic births
  1. Giles Henderson
    
    Giles Ian Henderson, CBE is a solicitor who was Master of Pembroke College, Oxford.
2. Arto Paasilinna, Finnish journalist and author (d. 2018) births
  1. Arto Paasilinna
    
    Arto Tapio Paasilinna was a Finnish writer, being a former journalist turned comic novelist. One of Finland's most successful novelists, he won a broad readership outside of Finland in a way few other Finnish authors have before. Translated into 27 languages, over seven million copies of his books have been sold worldwide, and he has been claimed as "instrumental in generating the current level of interest in books from Finland".
3. Jüri Jaakson, Estonian businessman and politician, 6th State Elder of Estonia (b. 1870) deaths
  1. Jüri Jaakson
    
    Jüri Jaakson VR III/1 was an Estonian businessman and politician.
  2. Head of State of Estonia
    
    The Head of State of Estonia or State Elder was the official title of the Estonian head of state from 1920 to 1937. He combined some of the functions held by a president and prime minister in most other democracies.
1941
1. Ryan O'Neal, American actor births
  1. Ryan O'Neal
    
    Ryan O'Neal is an American actor and former boxer. He trained as an amateur boxer before beginning his career in acting in 1960. In 1964, he landed the role of Rodney Harrington on the ABC nighttime soap opera Peyton Place. It was an instant hit and boosted O'Neal's career. He later found success in films, most notably Love Story (1970), for which he received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations as Best Actor, Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up, Doc? (1972) and Paper Moon (1973), Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975), Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far (1977), and Walter Hill's The Driver (1978). From 2005 to 2017, he had a recurring role in the Fox television series Bones as Max, the father of the show's protagonist.
1940
1. James Gammon, American actor (d. 2010) births
  1. James Gammon
    
    James Richard Gammon was an American actor, known for playing grizzled "good ol' boy" types in numerous films and television series. Gammon portrayed Lou Brown, the manager in the movies Major League and Major League II, fictionalized versions of the Cleveland Indians. He was also known for his role as the retired longshoreman Nick Bridges on the CBS television crime drama Nash Bridges.
1939
1. Elspeth Ballantyne, Australian actress births
  1. Elspeth Ballantyne
    
    Elspeth Ballantyne is an Australian retired actress, who appeared in productions in theatre, television and films over a career that spanned nearly 60 years, a veteran of the industry having started her career as a child actor and becoming a staple of the theatre starting from in 1947, in a production of Macbeth and by the age of 15 in 1954 had turned pro., performing in stage roles for the next 37 years, including a stage play tour of the United Kingdom of her iconic "Prisoner" role including at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham
2. Peter S. Beagle, American author and screenwriter births
  1. Peter S. Beagle
    
    Peter Soyer Beagle is an American novelist and screenwriter, especially of fantasy fiction. His best-known work is The Last Unicorn (1968), a fantasy novel he wrote in his twenties, which Locus subscribers voted the number five "All-Time Best Fantasy Novel" in 1987. During the last twenty-five years he has won several literary awards, including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011. He was named Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by SFWA in 2018.
3. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norwegian physician and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Norway births
  1. Gro Harlem Brundtland
    
    Gro Brundtland is a Norwegian politician (Arbeiderpartiet), who served three terms as the 29th prime minister of Norway and as the director-general of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003. She is also known for having chaired the Brundtland Commission which presented the Brundtland Report on sustainable development. Educated as a physician, Brundtland joined the Labour Party and entered the government in 1974 as Minister of the Environment. She became the first female Prime Minister of Norway on 4 February 1981, but left office on 14 October 1981; she returned as Prime Minister on 9 May 1986 and served until 16 October 1989. She finally returned for her third term on 3 November 1990. From 1981 to 1992 she was leader of the Labour Party. After her surprise resignation as Prime Minister in 1996, she became an international leader in sustainable development and public health, and served as Director-General of the World Health Organization and as UN Special Envoy on Climate Change from 2007 to 2010. She is also deputy chair of The Elders and a former vice-president of the Socialist International.
  2. Prime Minister of Norway
    
    The prime minister of Norway is the head of government and chief executive of Norway. The prime minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the monarch, to the Storting, to their political party, and ultimately the electorate. In practice, since it is nearly impossible for a government to stay in office against the will of the Storting, the prime minister is primarily answerable to the Storting. The prime minister is almost always the leader of the majority party in the Storting, or the leader of the senior partner in the governing coalition.
4. Johnny Tillotson, American singer-songwriter births
  1. Johnny Tillotson
    
    Johnny Tillotson is an American singer-songwriter. He enjoyed his greatest success in the early 1960s, when he scored nine top-ten hits on the pop, country, and adult contemporary Billboard charts, including "Poetry in Motion" and the self-penned "It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin'" and "Without You".
1938
1. Betty Cuthbert, Australian sprinter (d. 2017) births
  1. Betty Cuthbert
    
    Elizabeth Alyse Cuthbert, was an Australian athlete and a four-time Olympic champion. She was nicknamed Australia's "Golden Girl". During her career, she set world records for 60 metres, 100 yards, 200 metres, 220 yards and 440 yards. Cuthbert also contributed to Australian relay teams completing a win in the 4 × 100 metres, 4 × 110 yards, 4 × 200 metres and 4 × 220 yards. Cuthbert had a distinctive running style, with a high knee lift and mouth wide open. She was named in 1998 an Australian National Treasure and was inducted as a Legend in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Athletics Australia Hall of Fame in 2000.
2. Manfred Kinder, German runner births
  1. Manfred Kinder
    
    Manfred Kinder is a West German former sprinter. He won a silver and a bronze medal in the 4 × 400 m relay at the 1960 and 1968 Summer Olympics, respectively, and finished in fifth place in 1964. Individually, he competed in the 400 m and 800 m, with the best result of fifth place in the 400 m in 1960.
3. Eszter Tamási, Hungarian actress (d. 1991) births
  1. Eszter Tamási
    
    Eszter Tamási was a Hungarian actress and TV announcer.
1937
1. Jiří Dienstbier, Czech journalist and politician, Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 2011) births
  1. Jiří Dienstbier
    
    Jiří Dienstbier was a Czech politician and journalist. Born in Kladno, he was one of Czechoslovakia's most respected foreign correspondents before being fired after the Prague Spring. Unable to have a livelihood as a journalist, he worked as a janitor for the next two decades. During this time, he secretly revived the suppressed Lidové noviny newspaper.
  2. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Czechoslovakia)
    
    The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia refers to the foreign affairs ministry which was responsible for representing internationally Czechoslovakia during its existence, from 1918 to 1992.
2. Antonios Kounadis, Greek discus thrower births
  1. Antonios Kounadis
    
    Antonios or Anthony Kounadis is a discus thrower, civil engineer, scholar and academician from Greece. He was President of the Academy of Athens for the year 2018. He was named the 1959 Greek Athlete of the Year.
3. Harvey Quaytman, American painter and educator (d. 2002) births
  1. Harvey Quaytman
    
    Harvey Quaytman was a geometric abstraction painter best known for large modernist canvases with powerful monochromatic tones, in layered compositions, often with hard edges - inspired by Malevich and Mondrian. He had more than 60 solo exhibitions in his career, and his works are held in the collections of many top public museums.
4. George Takei, American actor births
  1. George Takei
    
    George Takei is an American actor, author and activist known for his role as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the fictional starship USS Enterprise in the television series Star Trek and subsequent films.
1936
1. Lisa Davis, English-American actress births
  1. Lisa Davis (actress)
    
    Lisa Davis is an English-American former actress, who appeared in her first role at the age of 13 in the film The Man from Yesterday (1949). Her elder sister was big band singer Beryl Davis.
2. Pauli Ellefsen, Faroese technician, surveyor, and politician, 6th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (d. 2012) births
  1. Pauli Ellefsen
    
    Joen Pauli Højgaard Ellefsen was a Faroese politician and member of the Union Party. He was Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands from 1981 to 1985.
  2. List of lawmen and prime ministers of the Faroe Islands
    
    The prime minister of the Faroe Islands is the head of government of the Faroe Islands
3. Pat Roberts, American captain, journalist, and politician births
  1. Pat Roberts
    
    Charles Patrick Roberts is a retired American politician and journalist who served as a United States senator from Kansas from 1997 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Roberts served 8 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1981 to 1997, before his election to the Senate.
1935
1. John Cameron, Scottish footballer and manager (b. 1872) deaths
  1. John Cameron (footballer, born 1872)
    
    John Cameron was a Scottish footballer and manager. He played as a forward for Queen's Park, Everton and Scotland and was noted as an effective goal-maker and goalscorer. In 1899 he became player-manager at Tottenham Hotspur and guided them to victory in the 1901 FA Cup. As a result, they became the only club outside the English Football League to win the competition. In 1898 he became the first secretary of the Association Footballers' Union, which was the ill-fated fore-runner of the Professional Footballers' Association. He later coached Dresdner SC and during the First World War he was interned at Ruhleben, a civilian detention camp in Germany. After the war he coached Ayr United for one season and then became a football journalist, author and publisher. He had previously worked as a columnist for various newspapers before the war.
2. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, English fashion designer (b. 1863) deaths
  1. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon
    
    Lucy Christiana, Lady Duff-Gordon was a leading British fashion designer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who worked under the professional name Lucile.
1933
1. Kristaq Dhamo, Albanian actor and film director births
  1. Kristaq Dhamo
    
    Kristaq Dhamo was an Albanian actor and film director. He was awarded the People's Artist of Albania medal. His 1958 film Tana was entered into the 1st Moscow International Film Festival.
1932
1. Myriam Bru, French actress births
  1. Myriam Bru
    
    Myriam Bru is a French retired actress and the wife of German actor Horst Buchholz, to whom she was married from 1958 until his death in 2003. She appeared in 16 films between 1952 and her marriage in 1958, when she retired from acting to raise her two children, one of whom is German actor Christopher Buchholz.
2. Giuseppe Peano, Italian mathematician and philosopher (b. 1858) deaths
  1. Giuseppe Peano
    
    Giuseppe Peano was an Italian mathematician and glottologist. The author of over 200 books and papers, he was a founder of mathematical logic and set theory, to which he contributed much notation. The standard axiomatization of the natural numbers is named the Peano axioms in his honor. As part of this effort, he made key contributions to the modern rigorous and systematic treatment of the method of mathematical induction. He spent most of his career teaching mathematics at the University of Turin. He also wrote an international auxiliary language, Latino sine flexione, which is a simplified version of Classical Latin. Most of his books and papers are in Latino sine flexione, others are in Italian.
1931
1. Michael Allenby, 3rd Viscount Allenby, English lieutenant and politician (d. 2014) births
  1. Michael Allenby, 3rd Viscount Allenby
    
    Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Jaffray Hynman Allenby, 3rd Viscount Allenby, was a British politician and hereditary peer.
2. John Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles, English businessman and politician births
  1. John Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles
    
    John Dawson Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles,, is a British Conservative peer and businessman. He is one of the ninety hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999.
3. Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, 5th Baronet, Scottish-English fencer and businessman (b. 1862) deaths
  1. Cosmo Duff-Gordon
    
    Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff-Gordon, 5th Baronet, DL was a prominent Englishman who owned land in Scotland and sportsman, best known for the controversy surrounding his escape from the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
1930
1. Dwight Gustafson, American composer and conductor (d. 2014) births
  1. Dwight Gustafson
    
    Dwight Leonard Gustafson was an American composer, conductor, and dean of the School of Fine Arts at Bob Jones University.
2. Antony Jay, English director and screenwriter (d. 2016) births
  1. Antony Jay
    
    Sir Antony Rupert Jay, was an English writer, broadcaster, producer and director. With Jonathan Lynn, he co-wrote the British political comedies Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister (1980–88). He also wrote The Householder's Guide to Community Defence Against Bureaucratic Aggression (1972).
1929
1. Harry Agganis, American baseball and football player (d. 1955) births
  1. Harry Agganis
    
    Aristotle George "Harry" Agganis, nicknamed "The Golden Greek", was an American college football player and professional baseball player. After passing up a potential professional football career, he played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman from 1954 to 1955 for the Boston Red Sox.
2. Bobby Hollander, American film director, actor, and magazine publisher (d. 2002) births
  1. Bobby Hollander
    
    Bobby Hollander was an American adult film director, performer, and magazine publisher. He directed 59 pornographic movies between 1979 and 1995. He was one of the pioneers of the shot-on-video porn movie. Hollander was most famous for discovering and managing porn superstar Shauna Grant. He is a member of the XRCO Hall of Fame.
3. Prince Henry of Prussia (b. 1862) deaths
  1. Prince Henry of Prussia (1862–1929)
    
    Prince Albert William Henry of Prussia was a younger brother of German Emperor William II and a Prince of Prussia. He was also a grandson of Queen Victoria. A career naval officer, he held various commands in the Imperial German Navy and eventually rose to the rank of Grand Admiral and Generalinspekteur der Marine.
1928
1. Robert Byrne, American chess player and author (d. 2013) births
  1. Robert Byrne (chess player)
    
    Robert Eugene Byrne was an American chess player and chess author who held the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). He won the U.S. Championship in 1972, and was a World Chess Championship Candidate in 1974. Byrne represented the United States nine times in Chess Olympiads from 1952 to 1976 and won seven medals. He was the chess columnist from 1972 to 2006 for The New York Times, which ran his final column on November 12, 2006. Byrne worked as a university professor for many years, before becoming a chess professional in the early 1970s.
2. Johnny Gavin, Irish international footballer (d. 2007) births
  1. Johnny Gavin (footballer)
    
    John Thomas Gavin was an Irish footballer who spent most of his career in England. He played for Janesboro United, Limerick, Ireland, Norwich City, Watford, Tottenham Hotspur, Crystal Palace, Cambridge City, Newmarket Town and Fulbourn.
1927
1. Bud Cullen, Canadian judge and politician, 1st Canadian Minister of Employment and Immigration (d. 2005) births
  1. Bud Cullen
    
    Jack Sydney George "Bud" Cullen, was a Canadian Federal Court judge and politician.
  2. Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
    
    The minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship is a minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet. The minister is responsible for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, which is the federal department responsible for immigration, refugee and citizenship issues in Canada.
2. Phil Hill, American race car driver (d. 2008) births
  1. Phil Hill
    
    Philip Toll Hill Jr. was an American automobile racing driver. He was one of two American drivers to win the Formula One World Drivers' Championship, and the only one who was born in the United States. He also scored three wins at each of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring sports car races.
3. K. Alex Müller, Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate births
  1. K. Alex Müller
    
    Karl Alexander Müller is a Swiss physicist and Nobel laureate. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1987 with Georg Bednorz for their work in superconductivity in ceramic materials.
  2. Nobel Prize in Physics
    
    The Nobel Prize in Physics is a yearly award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions for humankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901, the others being the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Physics is traditionally the first award presented in the Nobel Prize ceremony.
4. Enrique Simonet, Spanish painter and educator (b. 1866) deaths
  1. Enrique Simonet
    
    Enrique Simonet Lombardo was a Spanish painter.
1925
1. Ernie Stautner, German-American football player and coach (d. 2006) births
  1. Ernie Stautner
    
    Ernest Alfred Stautner was a German-American professional American football coach and defensive tackle in the National Football League for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He also served as a coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys. He played college football at Boston College.
2. Elena Verdugo, American actress (d. 2017) births
  1. Elena Verdugo
    
    Elena Angela Verdugo was an American actress who began in films at the age of five in Cavalier of the West (1931). Her career in radio, television and film spanned six decades.
1924
1. Nina Foch, Dutch-American actress (d. 2008) births
  1. Nina Foch
    
    Nina Foch was a Dutch-born American actress who later became an instructor. Her career spanned six decades, consisting of over 50 feature films and over 100 television appearances. She was the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. Foch established herself as a dramatic actress in the late 1940s, often playing cool, aloof sophisticates.
2. Leslie Phillips, English actor and producer (d. 2022) births
  1. Leslie Phillips
    
    Leslie Samuel Phillips was an English actor, director, producer and author. He achieved prominence in the 1950s, playing smooth, upper-class comic roles utilising his "Ding dong" and "Hello" catchphrases. He appeared in the Carry On and Doctor in the House film series as well as the long-running BBC radio comedy series The Navy Lark. In his later career, Phillips took on dramatic parts including a BAFTA-nominated role alongside Peter O'Toole in Venus (2006). He provided the voice of the Sorting Hat in several of the Harry Potter films.
3. Guy Rocher, Canadian sociologist and academic births
  1. Guy Rocher
    
    Guy Arthur Auguste Rocher is a Canadian academic and sociologist.
1923
1. Mother Angelica, American nun and broadcaster, founded Eternal Word Television Network (d. 2016) births
  1. Mother Angelica
    
    Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, also known as Mother Angelica, was an American Roman Catholic nun of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. She was best known for the television show Mother Angelica Live. She was the founder of the international broadcast cable television network Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and the radio network WEWN. EWTN became a voice for Catholics worldwide.
  2. EWTN
    
    The Eternal Word Television Network, more commonly known by its initials EWTN, is an American basic cable television network which presents around-the-clock Catholic-themed programming. It is not only the largest Catholic television network in America, but reportedly "the world’s largest religious media network", reaching 250 million people in 140 countries, with 11 networks. It was founded by Mother Angelica, in 1980 and began broadcasting on August 15, 1981, from a garage studio at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama, which Mother Angelica founded in 1962. She hosted her own show, Mother Angelica Live, until health issues led to her retirement in September 2001. As of 2017, Michael P. Warsaw, who is a consultant to the Vatican's Dicastery for Communications, leads EWTN.
2. Irene Lieblich, Polish-American painter and illustrator (d. 2008) births
  1. Irene Lieblich
    
    Irene Lieblich was a Polish-born artist and Holocaust survivor noted for illustrating the books of Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer and for her paintings highlighting Jewish life and culture. She is also a distant cousin of noted Yiddish language author and playwright Isaac Leib Peretz.
3. Tito Puente, American drummer and producer (d. 2000) births
  1. Tito Puente
    
    Ernest Anthony Puente Jr., commonly known as Tito Puente, was an American musician, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer of Puerto Rican descent. He is best known for dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz compositions from his 50-year career. His most famous song is "Oye Como Va".
1920
1. Frances Ames, South African neurologist, psychiatrist, and human rights activist (d. 2002) births
  1. Frances Ames
    
    Frances Rix Ames was a South African neurologist, psychiatrist, and human rights activist, best known for leading the medical ethics inquiry into the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who died from medical neglect after being tortured in police custody. When the South African Medical and Dental Council (SAMDC) declined to discipline the chief district surgeon and his assistant who treated Biko, Ames and a group of five academics and physicians raised funds and fought an eight-year legal battle against the medical establishment. Ames risked her personal safety and academic career in her pursuit of justice, taking the dispute to the South African Supreme Court, where she eventually won the case in 1985.
  2. Neurology
    
    Neurology is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal cord and the peripheral nerves. Neurological practice relies heavily on the field of neuroscience, the scientific study of the nervous system.
2. Clement Isong, Nigerian banker and politician, Governor of Cross River State (d. 2000) births
  1. Clement Isong
    
    Clement Nyong Isong, //(listen) CFR was a Nigerian banker and politician who was governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (1967–1975) during the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon. He was later elected governor of Cross River State (1979–1983) in the Nigerian Second Republic.
  2. List of governors of Cross River State
    
    This is a list of administrators and governors of Cross River State, Nigeria, including leaders of South-Eastern State. South-Eastern State was formed on May 27, 1967 when Eastern Region was split into East-Central, Rivers and South-Eastern states. The state was renamed Cross River State in 1976.
3. John Paul Stevens, American lawyer and jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 2019) births
  1. John Paul Stevens
    
    John Paul Stevens was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 to 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldest justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court and the third-longest-serving justice. At the time of his death in 2019 at age 99, he was the longest-lived Supreme Court justice ever. His long tenure saw him write for the Court on most issues of American law, including civil liberties, the death penalty, government action, and intellectual property. In cases involving presidents of the United States, he wrote for the court that they were to be held accountable under American law. Despite being a registered Republican who throughout his life identified as a conservative, Stevens was considered to have been on the liberal side of the Court at the time of his retirement.
  2. Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
    
    An associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is any member of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the chief justice of the United States. The number of associate justices is eight, as set by the Judiciary Act of 1869.
1919
1. Richard Hillary, Australian lieutenant and pilot (d. 1943) births
  1. Richard Hillary
    
    Flight Lieutenant Richard Hope Hillary was an Anglo-Australian Royal Air Force fighter pilot during the Second World War. He wrote the book The Last Enemy about his experiences during the Battle of Britain.
1918
1. Kai Siegbahn, Swedish physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2007) births
  1. Kai Siegbahn
    
    Kai Manne Börje Siegbahn was a Swedish physicist who was awarded the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics.
  2. Nobel Prize in Physics
    
    The Nobel Prize in Physics is a yearly award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions for humankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901, the others being the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Physics is traditionally the first award presented in the Nobel Prize ceremony.
2. Karl Ferdinand Braun, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1850) deaths
  1. Karl Ferdinand Braun
    
    Karl Ferdinand Braun was a German electrical engineer, inventor, physicist and Nobel laureate in physics. Braun contributed significantly to the development of radio and television technology: he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Guglielmo Marconi "for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy", was a founder of Telefunken, one of the pioneering communications and television companies, and has been both called the "father of television" and the co-father of the radio telegraphy, together with Marconi.
  2. Nobel Prize in Physics
    
    The Nobel Prize in Physics is a yearly award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions for humankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901, the others being the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Physics is traditionally the first award presented in the Nobel Prize ceremony.
1916
1. Nasiba Zeynalova, Azerbaijani actress (d. 2004) births
  1. Nasiba Zeynalova
    
    Nasiba Jahangir gizi Zeynalova was a Soviet and Azerbaijani actress. People's Artist of Azerbaijan SSR (1967).
1915
1. Joseph Wolpe, South African psychotherapist and physician (d. 1997) births
  1. Joseph Wolpe
    
    Joseph Wolpe was a South African psychiatrist and one of the most influential figures in behavior therapy.
1914
1. Betty Lou Gerson, American actress (d. 1999) births
  1. Betty Lou Gerson
    
    Betty Lou Gerson was an American actress, predominantly active in radio but also in film and television and as a voice actress. She is best known as the original voice of Cruella de Vil from the Disney animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) for which she was named a Disney Legend in 1996.
1913
1. Mimis Fotopoulos, Greek actor and poet (d. 1986) births
  1. Mimis Fotopoulos
    
    Dimitris "Mimis" Fotopoulos was a Greek actor, writer, poet, and artist.
2. Willi Hennig, German biologist and entomologist (d. 1976) births
  1. Willi Hennig
    
    Emil Hans Willi Hennig was a German biologist who is considered the founder of phylogenetic systematics, also known as cladistics. In 1945 as a prisoner of war, Hennig began work on his theory of cladistics, which he published in German in 1950, with a substantially revised English translation published in 1966. With his works on evolution and systematics he revolutionised the view of the natural order of beings. As a taxonomist, he specialised in dipterans.
1912
1. Bram Stoker, Anglo-Irish novelist and critic, created Count Dracula (b. 1847) deaths
  1. Bram Stoker
    
    Abraham Stoker was an Irish author who is celebrated for his 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre, which Irving owned. In his early years, Stoker worked as a theatre critic for an Irish newspaper, and wrote stories as well as commentaries. He also enjoyed travelling, particularly to Cruden Bay where he set two of his novels. During another visit to the English coastal town of Whitby, Stoker drew inspiration for writing Dracula. He died on 20 April 1912 due to locomotor ataxia and was cremated in north London. Since his death, his magnum opus Dracula has become one of the most well-known works in English literature, and the novel has been adapted for numerous films, short stories, and plays.
  2. Count Dracula
    
    Count Dracula is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula. He is considered to be both the prototypical and the archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some to have been inspired by the 15th-century Wallachian Prince Vlad the Impaler, who was also known as Dracula, and by Sir Henry Irving, an actor for whom Stoker was a personal assistant.
1910
1. Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, Turkish diplomat and politician (d. 1961) births
  1. Fatin Rüştü Zorlu
    
    Fatin Rüştü Zorlu was a Turkish diplomat and politician. He was executed by hanging after the coup d'état in 1960 along with two other politicians.
1908
1. Lionel Hampton, American vibraphone player, pianist, bandleader, and actor (d. 2002) births
  1. Lionel Hampton
    
    Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Quincy Jones. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996.
1907
1. Augoustinos Kantiotes, Greek bishop (d. 2010) births
  1. Augoustinos Kantiotes
    
    Metropolitan Augoustinos Kantiotes of Florina was a highly controversial bishop of the Greek Orthodox Church. He was born in Paros in village of Piso Livadi.
1904
1. Bruce Cabot, American actor (d. 1972) births
  1. Bruce Cabot
    
    Bruce Cabot was an American film actor, best remembered as Jack Driscoll in King Kong (1933) and for his roles in films such as The Last of the Mohicans (1936), Fritz Lang's Fury (1936), and the Western Dodge City (1939). He was also known as one of "Wayne's Regulars", appearing in a number of John Wayne films beginning with Angel and the Badman (1947), and concluding with Big Jake (1971).
1902
1. Joaquim de Sousa Andrade, Brazilian poet and educator (b. 1833) deaths
  1. Joaquim de Sousa Andrade
    
    Joaquim de Sousa Andrade, better known by his pseudonym Sousândrade, was a Brazilian poet, adept of the "Condorist" movement. His poetry, exceedingly innovative for the time it was published, is now considered an early example of Symbolism and Modernism in Brazil.
1899
1. Alan Arnett McLeod, Canadian lieutenant, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1918) births
  1. Alan Arnett McLeod
    
    Alan Arnett McLeod, VC was a Canadian soldier, aviator, and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. McLeod served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps and later the Royal Air Force during the First World War.
  2. Victoria Cross
    
    The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously awarded by countries of the Commonwealth of Nations, most of which have established their own honours systems and no longer recommend British honours. It may be awarded to a person of any military rank in any service and to civilians under military command. No civilian has received the award since 1879. Since the first awards were presented by Queen Victoria in 1857, two-thirds of all awards have been personally presented by the British monarch. The investitures are usually held at Buckingham Palace.
2. Joseph Wolf, German ornithologist and illustrator (b. 1820) deaths
  1. Joseph Wolf
    
    Joseph Wolf was a German artist who specialized in natural history illustration. He moved to the British Museum in 1848 and became the preferred illustrator for explorers and naturalists including David Livingstone, Alfred Russel Wallace and Henry Walter Bates. Wolf depicted animals accurately in lifelike postures and is considered one of the great pioneers of wildlife art. Sir Edwin Landseer thought him "...without exception, the best all-round animal artist who ever lived".
1896
1. Wop May, Canadian captain and pilot (d. 1952) births
  1. Wop May
    
    Wilfrid Reid "Wop" May, was a Canadian flying ace in the First World War and a leading post-war aviator. He was the final Allied pilot to be pursued by Manfred von Richthofen before the German ace was shot down on the Western Front in 1918. After the war, May returned to Canada, pioneering the role of a bush pilot while working for Canadian Airways in Northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
1895
1. Emile Christian, American trombonist and composer (d. 1973) births
  1. Emile Christian
    
    Emile Joseph Christian, sometimes spelled Emil Christian, was an early jazz trombonist; he also played cornet and string bass. He also wrote a number of tunes, including "Meet Me at the Green Goose", "Satanic Blues", and "Mardi Gras Parade".
2. Henry de Montherlant, French essayist, novelist, and dramatist (d. 1972) births
  1. Henry de Montherlant
    
    Henry Marie Joseph Frédéric Expedite Millon de Montherlant was a French essayist, novelist, and dramatist. He was elected to the Académie française in 1960.
1893
1. Harold Lloyd, American actor, comedian, and producer (d. 1971) births
  1. Harold Lloyd
    
    Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many silent comedy films.
2. Joan Miró, Spanish painter and sculptor (d. 1983) births
  1. Joan Miró
    
    Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona in 1975, and another, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, was established in his adoptive city of Palma in 1981.
1891
1. Dave Bancroft, American baseball player and manager (d. 1972) births
  1. Dave Bancroft
    
    David James Bancroft was an American professional baseball shortstop and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Giants, Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Robins between 1915 and 1930.
1890
1. Maurice Duplessis, Canadian lawyer and politician, 16th Premier of Quebec (d. 1959) births
  1. Maurice Duplessis
    
    Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis, was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 16th premier of Quebec. A conservative, nationalist, anti-Communist, anti-unionist and fervent Catholic, he and his party, the Union Nationale, dominated provincial politics from the 1930s to the 1950s.
  2. Premier of Quebec
    
    The premier of Quebec is the head of government of the Canadian province of Quebec. The current premier of Quebec is François Legault of the Coalition Avenir Québec, sworn in on October 18, 2018, following that year's election.
2. Adolf Schärf, Austrian soldier and politician, 6th President of Austria (d. 1965) births
  1. Adolf Schärf
    
    Adolf Schärf was an Austrian politician of the Socialist Party of Austria (SPÖ). He served as Vice-Chancellor from 1945 to 1957 and as President of Austria from 1957 until his death.
  2. President of Austria
    
    The president of Austria is the head of state of the Republic of Austria. Though theoretically entrusted with great power by the Constitution, in practice the president is largely a ceremonial and symbolic figurehead.
1889
1. Albert Jean Amateau, Turkish rabbi, lawyer, and activist (d. 1996) births
  1. Albert Jean Amateau
    
    Albert Jean Amateau was a Turkish rabbi, businessman, lawyer, social activist, and denier of the Armenian genocide.
2. Prince Erik, Duke of Västmanland (d. 1918) births
  1. Prince Erik, Duke of Västmanland
    
    Prince Erik, Duke of Västmanland was a Swedish and Norwegian prince. He was the third and youngest son of King Gustav V of Sweden and Victoria of Baden. In 1904, Prince Erik was appointed a Knight of the Norwegian Lion by his paternal grandfather, King Oscar II.
3. Marie-Antoinette de Geuser, French mystic (d. 1918) births
  1. Marie-Antoinette de Geuser
    
    Marie-Antoinette de Geuser. Being in close contact with the Carmelites, her state of health and the events of World War I did not allow her to take her vows.
4. Adolf Hitler, Austrian-born German politician, Führer of Nazi Germany (d. 1945) births
  1. Adolf Hitler
    
    Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.
  2. Führer
    
    Führer is a German word meaning "leader" or "guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
  3. Nazi Germany
    
    Nazi Germany was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe.
5. Tonny Kessler, Dutch footballer (d. 1960) births
  1. Tonny Kessler
    
    Hermann Anton Joseph "Tonny" Kessler was a Dutch football player. Kessler, along with brother Dé and cousins Boeli and Dolf, played club football for amateur side HVV Den Haag. Kessler won three caps for the Dutch national side between 1907 and 1913, scoring one goal. After playing alongside each other in a match against England in March 1913, the Kessler brothers became the first brothers to represent the Netherlands together in an international match.
1887
1. Muhammad Sharif Pasha, Greek-Egyptian politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Egypt (b. 1826) deaths
  1. Mohamed Sherif Pasha
    
    Mohamed Sherif Pasha GCSI (1826–1887) was an Egyptian statesman of Turkish origin. He served as Prime Minister of Egypt three times during his career. His first term was between April 7, 1879 and August 18, 1879. His second term was served from September 14, 1881 to February 4, 1882. His final term was served between August 21, 1882 and January 7, 1884.
  2. Prime Minister of Egypt
    
    The prime minister of Egypt is the head of the Egyptian government. A direct translation of the Arabic-language title is "Minister-President of Egypt" and "President of the Government". The Arabic title can also be translated as "President of the Council of Ministers", as is the case with the Prime Minister of Syria, despite the Arabic title being the same in Syria and Egypt.
1886
1. Charles-François-Frédéric, marquis de Montholon-Sémonville, French general and diplomat, French ambassador to the United States (b. 1814) deaths
  1. Charles-François-Frédéric, marquis de Montholon-Sémonville
    
    Charles François Frédéric de Montholon-Sémonville was a French senator, diplomat, and French ambassador to the United States from 1864 to 1866.
  2. List of ambassadors of France to the United States
    
    The French ambassador to the United States is the diplomatic representation of the French Republic to the United States. They reside in Washington, D.C. The current ambassador is Philippe Étienne.
1884
1. Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (d. 1966) births
  1. Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
    
    Princess Beatrice Leopoldine Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was a member of the British royal family, a male-line granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She later married into the Spanish royal family, and was the wife of Prince Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, Infante of Spain, a first cousin of Alfonso XIII of Spain.
2. Oliver Kirk, American boxer (d. 1960) births
  1. Oliver Kirk
    
    Oliver Leonard Kirk was an American bantamweight and featherweight professional boxer who won two gold medals in Boxing at the 1904 Summer Olympics. He was born in Beatrice, Nebraska and died in St. Louis, Missouri.
3. Daniel Varoujan, Armenian poet and educator (d. 1915) births
  1. Daniel Varoujan
    
    Daniel Varoujan was an Armenian poet of the early 20th century. At the age of 31, when he was reaching international stature, he was deported and murdered by the Young Turk government, as part of the officially planned and executed Armenian genocide.
1882
1. Holland Smith, American general (d. 1967) births
  1. Holland Smith
    
    Holland McTyeire "Howlin' Mad" Smith, KCB was a general in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. He is sometimes called the "father" of modern U.S. amphibious warfare. His nickname, "Howlin' Mad" Smith, had been given to him by his troops in the Dominican Republic in 1916.
1881
1. William Burges, English architect and designer (b. 1827) deaths
  1. William Burges
    
    William Burges was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoclassical architectural style and re-establish the architectural and social values of a utopian medieval England. Burges stands within the tradition of the Gothic Revival, his works echoing those of the Pre-Raphaelites and heralding those of the Arts and Crafts movement.
1879
1. Paul Poiret, French fashion designer (d. 1944) births
  1. Paul Poiret
    
    Paul Poiret was a French fashion designer, a master couturier during the first two decades of the 20th century. He was the founder of his namesake haute couture house.
1875
1. Vladimir Vidrić, Croatian poet and lawyer (d. 1909) births
  1. Vladimir Vidrić
    
    Vladimir Vidrić was a Croatian poet, and is considered one of the major figures of Croatian secessionist poetry.
1874
1. Alexander H. Bailey, American lawyer, judge, and politician (b. 1817) deaths
  1. Alexander H. Bailey
    
    Alexander Hamilton Bailey was an American politician, a United States representative and judge from New York.
1873
1. James Harcourt, English character actor (d. 1951) births
  1. James Harcourt
    
    James Harcourt was an English character actor.
2. William Tite, English architect, designed the Royal Exchange (b. 1798) deaths
  1. William Tite
    
    Sir William Tite was an English architect who twice served as President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was particularly associated with various London buildings, with railway stations and cemetery projects. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bath from 1855 until his death.
  2. Royal Exchange, London
    
    The Royal Exchange in London was founded in the 16th century by the merchant Sir Thomas Gresham on the suggestion of his factor Richard Clough to act as a centre of commerce for the City of London. The site was provided by the City of London Corporation and the Worshipful Company of Mercers, who still jointly own the freehold. The original foundation was ceremonially opened by Queen Elizabeth I who granted it its "royal" title. The current building is trapezoidal in floor plan and is flanked by Cornhill and Threadneedle Street, which converge at Bank junction in the heart of the city. It lies in the ward of Cornhill.
1871
1. Sydney Chapman, English economist and civil servant (d. 1951) births
  1. Sydney Chapman (economist)
    
    Sir Sydney John Chapman KCB CBE was an English economist and civil servant. He was Chief Economic Adviser to HM Government from 1927 to 1932.
1860
1. Justinien de Clary, French target shooter (d. 1933) births
  1. Justinien Clary
    
    Count Clary was a French sport shooter who competed in the late 19th century and early 20th century in trap shooting. He participated in Shooting at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris and won the bronze medal in the trap competition. Fellow Frenchmen Roger de Barbarin and Rene Guyot won gold and silver respectively. He was born and died in Paris.
1851
1. Alexander Dianin, Russian chemist (d. 1918) births
  1. Aleksandr Dianin
    
    Aleksandr Pavlovich Dianin was a Russian chemist from Saint Petersburg. He carried out studies on phenols and discovered a phenol derivative now known as bisphenol A and the accordingly named Dianin's compound. He was married to the adopted daughter of fellow chemist Alexander Borodin. In 1887, Dianin succeeded his father-in-law as chair of the Chemistry Department at the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg.
2. Siegmund Lubin, Polish-American businessman, founded the Lubin Manufacturing Company (d. 1923) births
  1. Siegmund Lubin
    
    Siegmund Lubin was an American motion picture pioneer who founded the Lubin Manufacturing Company (1902–1917) of Philadelphia.
  2. Lubin Manufacturing Company
    
    The Lubin Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture production company that produced silent films from 1896 to 1916. Lubin films were distributed with a Liberty Bell trademark.
1850
1. Daniel Chester French, American sculptor, designed the Lincoln statue (d. 1931) births
  1. Daniel Chester French
    
    Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, best known for his 1874 sculpture The Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
  2. Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial)
    
    Abraham Lincoln (1920) is a colossal seated figure of the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) sculpted by Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers. It is in the Lincoln Memorial, on the National Mall, Washington, D.C., United States, and was unveiled in 1922. The work follows in the Beaux Arts and American Renaissance style traditions.
1840
1. Odilon Redon, French painter and illustrator (d. 1916) births
  1. Odilon Redon
    
    Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.
1839
1. Carol I of Romania, King of Romania (d. 1914) births
  1. Carol I of Romania
    
    Carol I or Charles I of Romania, born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was the monarch of Romania from 1866 to his death in 1914, ruling as Prince (Domnitor) from 1866 to 1881, and as King from 1881 to 1914. He was elected Prince of the Romanian United Principalities on 20 April 1866 after the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup d'état. In May 1877, Romania was proclaimed an independent and sovereign nation. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire (1878) in the Russo-Turkish War secured Romanian independence, and he was proclaimed King on 26 March [O.S. 14 March] 1881. He was the first ruler of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty, which ruled the country until the proclamation of a socialist republic in 1947.
1836
1. Eli Whitney Blake, Jr., American scientist and academic (d. 1895) births
  1. Eli Whitney Blake Jr.
    
    Eli Whitney Blake Jr. was an American scientist. His father and namesake was an inventor and partner of the Blake Brothers manufacturing firm. The origin of the name Eli Whitney comes from Blake senior's uncle Eli Whitney, who changed the face of the cotton industry with the invention of the cotton gin.
1831
1. John Abernethy, English surgeon and anatomist (b. 1764) deaths
  1. John Abernethy (surgeon)
    
    John Abernethy FRS was an English surgeon. He is popularly remembered today for having given his name to the Abernethy biscuit, a coarse-meal baked good meant to aid digestion.
1826
1. Dinah Craik, English author and poet (d. 1887) births
  1. Dinah Craik
    
    Dinah Maria Craik was an English novelist and poet. She is best remembered for her novel John Halifax, Gentleman, which presents the mid-Victorian ideals of English middle-class life.
1818
1. Heinrich Göbel, German-American mechanic and engineer (d. 1893) births
  1. Heinrich Göbel
    
    Heinrich Göbel, or Henry Goebel was a German-born American precision mechanic and inventor. In 1848 he emigrated to New York City, where he resided until his death. He received American citizenship in 1865.
1816
1. Bogoslav Šulek, Croatian philologist, historian, and lexicographer (d. 1895) births
  1. Bogoslav Šulek
    
    Bogoslav Šulek was a Croatian philologist, historian and lexicographer. He was very influential in creating Croatian terminology in the areas of social and natural sciences, technology and civilization.
1808
1. Napoleon III, French politician, 1st President of France (d. 1873) births
  1. Napoleon III
    
    Napoleon III was the first President of France from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew of Napoleon I, he was the last monarch to rule over France. Elected to the presidency of the Second Republic in 1848, he seized power by force in 1851, when he could not constitutionally be reelected; he later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French. He founded the Second Empire, reigning until the defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies at the Battle of Sedan in 1870. Napoleon III was a popular monarch who oversaw the modernization of the French economy and filled Paris with new boulevards and parks. He expanded the French overseas empire, made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, and engaged in the Second Italian War of Independence as well as the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, during which he personally commanded his soldiers and was captured.
  2. President of France
    
    The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic, is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency is the supreme magistracy of the country, the position is the highest office in France. The powers, functions and duties of prior presidential offices, in addition to their relation with the prime minister and Government of France, have over time differed with the various constitutional documents since the Second Republic.
1769
1. Chief Pontiac, American tribal leader (b. 1720) deaths
  1. Pontiac (Ottawa leader)
    
    Pontiac or Obwaandi'eyaag was an Odawa war chief known for his role in the war named for him, from 1763 to 1766 leading Native Americans in an armed struggle against the British in the Great Lakes region due to, among other reasons, dissatisfaction with British policies. It followed the British victory in the French and Indian War, the American front of the Seven Years' War. Pontiac's importance in the war that bears his name has been debated. Nineteenth-century accounts portrayed him as the mastermind and leader of the revolt, but some subsequent scholars argued that his role had been exaggerated. Historians today generally view him as an important local leader who influenced a wider movement that he did not command.
1748
1. Georg Michael Telemann, German composer and theologian (d. 1831) births
  1. Georg Michael Telemann
    
    Georg Michael Telemann was a German composer and theologian.
1745
1. Philippe Pinel, French physician and psychiatrist (d. 1826) births
  1. Philippe Pinel
    
    Philippe Pinel was a French physician, precursor of psychiatry and incidentally a zoologist. He was instrumental in the development of a more humane psychological approach to the custody and care of psychiatric patients, referred to today as moral therapy. He worked for the abolition of the shackling of mental patients by chains and, more generally, for the humanisation of their treatment. He also made notable contributions to the classification of mental disorders and has been described by some as "the father of modern psychiatry".
1727
1. Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, Belgian-Austrian minister and diplomat (d. 1794) births
  1. Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau
    
    Florimond Claude, comte de Mercy-Argenteau was an Austrian diplomat.
1723
1. Cornelius Harnett, American merchant, farmer, and politician (d. 1781) births
  1. Cornelius Harnett
    
    Cornelius Harnett was an American Founding Father, merchant, and politician from Wilmington, North Carolina. He was a leading American Revolutionary statesman in the Cape Fear region, and a delegate for North Carolina in the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1779 where he signed the Articles of Confederation. Cornelius Harnett is the namesake of Harnett County, North Carolina.
1718
1. David Brainerd, American missionary (d. 1747) births
  1. David Brainerd
    
    David Brainerd was an American Presbyterian minister and missionary to the Native Americans among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey. Missionaries such as William Carey and Jim Elliot, and Brainerd's cousin, the Second Great Awakening evangelist James Brainerd Taylor (1801–1829) cite Brainerd as inspiration.
1703
1. Lancelot Addison, English clergyman and educator (b. 1632) deaths
  1. Lancelot Addison
    
    The Reverend Lancelot Addison was an English writer and Church of England clergyman. He was born at Crosby Ravensworth in Westmorland. He was educated at the Queen's College, Oxford.
1650
1. William Bedloe, English spy (d. 1680) births
  1. William Bedloe
    
    William Bedloe was an English fraudster and Popish Plot informer.
1646
1. Charles Plumier, French botanist and author (d. 1704) births
  1. Charles Plumier
    
    Charles Plumier was a French botanist after whom the frangipani genus Plumeria is named. Plumier is considered one of the most important of the botanical explorers of his time. He made three botanizing expeditions to the West Indies, which resulted in a massive work Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera (1703–1704) and was appointed botanist to King Louis XIV of France.
1643
1. Christoph Demantius, German composer and poet (b. 1567) deaths
  1. Christoph Demantius
    
    Johann Christoph Demantius was a German composer, music theorist, writer and poet. He was an exact contemporary of Monteverdi, and represented a transitional phase in German Lutheran music from the polyphonic Renaissance style to the early Baroque.
1633
1. Emperor Go-Kōmyō of Japan (d. 1654) births
  1. Emperor Go-Kōmyō
    
    Emperor Go-Kōmyō was the 110th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.
1586
1. Rose of Lima, Peruvian mystic and saint (d. 1617) births
  1. Rose of Lima
    
    Rose of Lima was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in Lima, Peru, who became known for both her life of severe penance and her care of the poverty stricken of the city through her own private efforts. Rose of Lima was born to a noble family and is the patron saint of embroidery, gardening and cultivation of blooming flowers. A lay member of the Dominican Order, she was declared a saint by the Catholic Church, being the first person born in the Americas to be canonized as such.
1558
1. Johannes Bugenhagen, German priest and theologian (b. 1485) deaths
  1. Johannes Bugenhagen
    
    Johannes Bugenhagen, also called Doctor Pomeranus by Martin Luther, was a German theologian and Lutheran priest who introduced the Protestant Reformation in the Duchy of Pomerania and Denmark in the 16th century. Among his major accomplishments was organization of Lutheran churches in Northern Germany and Scandinavia. He has also been called the "Second Apostle of the North".
1544
1. Renata of Lorraine, Duchess consort of Bavaria (d. 1602) births
  1. Renata of Lorraine
    
    Renata of Lorraine or Renée de Lorraine was by birth a member of the House of Lorraine and Duchess of Bavaria by marriage to William V, Duke of Bavaria.
1534
1. Elizabeth Barton, English nun and martyr (b. 1506) deaths
  1. Elizabeth Barton
    
    Elizabeth Barton, known as "The Nun of Kent", "The Holy Maid of London", "The Holy Maid of Kent" and later "The Mad Maid of Kent", was an English Catholic nun. She was executed as a result of her prophecies against the marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn.
1521
1. Zhengde, Chinese emperor (b. 1491) deaths
  1. Zhengde Emperor
    
    The Zhengde Emperor was the 11th Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigned from 1505 to 1521.
1502
1. Mary of Looz-Heinsberg, Dutch noble (b. 1424) deaths
  1. Mary of Looz-Heinsberg
    
    Lady Mary of Looz-Heinsberg, Dutch: Maria van Loon-Heinsberg, was a noble lady from the House of Looz and through marriage Countess of Nassau-Siegen.
1494
1. Johannes Agricola, German theologian and reformer (d. 1566) births
  1. Johannes Agricola
    
    Johann or Johannes Agricola was a German Protestant Reformer during the Protestant Reformation. He was a follower and friend of Martin Luther, who became his antagonist in the matter of the binding obligation of the law on Christians.
1322
1. Simon Rinalducci, Italian Augustinian friar deaths
  1. Simon Rinalducci
    
    Simon Rinalducci of Todi was a famous Italian Augustinian friar and preacher of the 13th century.
1314
1. Pope Clement V (b. 1264) deaths
  1. Pope Clement V
    
    Pope Clement V, born Raymond Bertrand de Got, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 5 June 1305 to his death in April 1314. He is remembered for suppressing the order of the Knights Templar and allowing the execution of many of its members. Pope Clement V was the pope who moved the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, ushering in the period known as the Avignon Papacy.
1284
1. Hōjō Tokimune, regent of Japan (b. 1251) deaths
  1. Hōjō Tokimune
    
    Hōjō Tokimune of the Hōjō clan was the eighth shikken of the Kamakura shogunate, known for leading the Japanese forces against the invasion of the Mongols and for spreading Zen Buddhism. He was the eldest son of Tokiyori, fifth shikken (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate and de facto ruler of Japan. From birth, Hojo was seen as the tokuso (head) of the clan Hōjō and rigorously groomed to become his father's successor. In 1268 AD, at the age of 18, he became shikken himself.
1248
1. Güyük Khan, Mongol ruler, 3rd Great Khan of the Mongol Empire (b. 1206) deaths
  1. Güyük Khan
    
    Güyük was the third Khagan-Emperor of the Mongol Empire, the eldest son of Ögedei Khan and a grandson of Genghis Khan. He reigned from 1246 to 1248.
  2. Khagan
    
    Khagan or Qaghan is a title of imperial rank in the Turkic, Mongolic and some other languages, equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate (empire). The female equivalent is Khatun.
1176
1. Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, English-Irish politician, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland (b. 1130) deaths
  1. Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke
    
    Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Leinster, Justiciar of Ireland, also known as Richard FitzGilbert, was an Anglo-Norman nobleman notable for his leading role in the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. Like his father, Richard fitz Gilbert has since become commonly known by his nickname Strongbow, which may be a mistranscription or mistranslation of "Striguil".
  2. Lord Chief Justice of Ireland
    
    The Court of King's Bench was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The Lord Chief Justice was the most senior judge in the court, and the second most senior Irish judge under English rule and later when Ireland became part of the United Kingdom. Additionally, for a brief period between 1922 and 1924, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland was the most senior judge in the Irish Free State.
1164
1. Antipope Victor IV deaths
  1. Antipope Victor IV (1159–1164)
    
    Victor IV was elected as a Ghibelline antipope in 1159, following the death of Pope Adrian IV and the election of Alexander III. His election was supported by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. He took the name Victor IV, not accounting for Antipope Victor IV of 1138, whose holding of the papal office was deemed illegitimate.
1099
1. Peter Bartholomew (b. 1061) deaths
  1. Peter Bartholomew
    
    Peter Bartholomew was a French soldier and mystic who was part of the First Crusade as part of the army of Raymond of Saint-Gilles. Peter was initially a servant to William, Lord of Cunhlat.
888
1. Xi Zong, Chinese emperor (b. 862) deaths
  1. AD 888
    
    Year 888 (DCCCLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.
  2. Emperor Xizong of Tang
    
    Emperor Xizong of Tang, né Li Yan, later name changed to Li Xuan, was an emperor of the Tang dynasty of China. He reigned from 873 to 888. He was the fifth son of his predecessor Emperor Yizong and was the elder brother of his successor Emperor Zhaozong. His reign saw his realm overrun by the great agrarian rebellions led by Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao, and while both were eventually defeated, by the end of Emperor Xizong's reign, the Tang state had virtually disintegrated into pieces ruled by individual warlords, rather than the imperial government, and would never recover, falling eventually in 907.
767
1. Taichō, Japanese monk (b. 682) deaths
  1. AD 767
    
    Year 767 (DCCLXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 767th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 767th year of the 1st millennium, the 67th year of the 8th century, and the 8th year of the 760s decade. The denomination 767 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
  2. Taichō
    
    Taichō was a shugendō monk in Nara period Japan. He was raised in Echizen Province, which was in the southern portion of present-day Fukui Prefecture. He was the second son of Mikami Yasuzumi (三神安角). He is said to be the first person to reach the top of Mount Haku in neighboring Kaga Province and other peaks in the Ryōhaku Mountains.
689
1. Cædwalla, king of Wessex (b. 659) deaths
  1. Cædwalla of Wessex
    
    Cædwalla was the King of Wessex from approximately 685 until he abdicated in 688. His name is derived from the Welsh Cadwallon. He was exiled from Wessex as a youth and during this period gathered forces and attacked the South Saxons, killing their king, Æthelwealh, in what is now Sussex. Cædwalla was unable to hold the South Saxon territory, however, and was driven out by Æthelwealh's ealdormen. In either 685 or 686, he became King of Wessex. He may have been involved in suppressing rival dynasties at this time, as an early source records that Wessex was ruled by underkings until Cædwalla.
  2. Wessex
    
    Kingdom of Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from 519 until England was unified by Æthelstan in 927.

Holidays

Christian feast day: Agnes of Montepulciano
1. Agnes of Montepulciano
  
  Agnes of Montepulciano was a Dominican prioress in medieval Tuscany, who was known as a miracle worker during her lifetime. She is honored as a saint by the Catholic Church.
Christian feast day: Beuno
1. Beuno
  
  Saint Beuno, sometimes anglicized as Bono, was a 7th-century Welsh abbot, confessor, and saint. Baring-Gould gives St Beuno's date of death as 21 April 640, making that date his traditional feastday. In the current Roman Catholic liturgical calendar for Wales, he is commemorated on 20 April, the 21st being designated for Saint Anselm.
Christian feast day: Hugh of Anzy le Duc
1. Hugh of Anzy le Duc
  
  Hugh of Anzy le Duc OSB was a French Benedictine monk, who had a significant influence on monastic reform in the 9th and 10th centuries. He is also known by the name of Hugh of Autun. His birthdate is unknown. He was a native of Poitiers in France. He died in the year 930. He was a friend of Berno of Cluny, the first abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Cluny. His feastday is on April 20.
Christian feast day: Johannes Bugenhagen (Lutheran)
1. Johannes Bugenhagen
  
  Johannes Bugenhagen, also called Doctor Pomeranus by Martin Luther, was a German theologian and Lutheran priest who introduced the Protestant Reformation in the Duchy of Pomerania and Denmark in the 16th century. Among his major accomplishments was organization of Lutheran churches in Northern Germany and Scandinavia. He has also been called the "Second Apostle of the North".
2. Lutheranism
  
  Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation. The reaction of the government and church authorities to the international spread of his writings, beginning with the Ninety-five Theses, divided Western Christianity. During the Reformation, Lutheranism became the state religion of numerous states of northern Europe, especially in northern Germany, Scandinavia and the then Livonian Order. Lutheran clergy became civil servants and the Lutheran churches became part of the state.
Christian feast day: Marcellinus of Gaul (Embrun)
1. Marcellinus of Gaul
  
  Marcellinus of Gaul also known as Marcellin was the first bishop of Embrun from 354 AD. He was a native of Africa Proconsularis.
Christian feast day: Blessed Oda of Brabant
1. Oda of Brabant
  
  Oda of Brabant was a Belgian prioress of the 12th century, commonly revered as a saint.
Christian feast day: Pope Anicetus
1. Pope Anicetus
  
  Pope Anicetus was the bishop of Rome from c. 157 to his death in April 168. According to the Annuario Pontificio, the start of his papacy may have been 153. Anicetus actively opposed Gnosticism and Marcionism. He welcomed Polycarp of Smyrna to Rome to discuss the Easter controversy.
Christian feast day: Theotimos
1. Theotimos
  
  Theotimos (Θεότιμος) is a Greek name, derived from theos, meaning 'god', and timè, meaning 'honour gift'. Its Latinized form is Theotimus.
Christian feast day: April 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
1. April 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
  
  April 19 - Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar - April 21
420 (cannabis culture)
1. 420 (cannabis culture)
  
  420, 4:20 or 4/20 is cannabis culture slang for marijuana and hashish consumption, especially smoking around the time 4:20 pm (16:20). It also refers to cannabis-oriented celebrations that take place annually on April 20. At locations in the United States where cannabis is legal, cannabis dispensaries will often offer discounts on their products on April 20.
UN Chinese Language Day (United Nations)
1. UN Chinese Language Day
  
  UN Chinese Language Day is observed annually on April 20. The event was established by the UN Department of Public Information in 2010, seeking "to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six of its official working languages throughout the organization". April 20 was chosen as the date "to pay tribute to Cangjie, a mythical figure who is presumed to have invented Chinese characters about 5,000 years ago".
2. United Nations
  
  The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. It is the world's largest and most familiar international organization. The UN is headquartered on international territory in New York City, and has other main offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague.

Important events in history on April 20 th

Events

Trial of Derek Chauvin

Derek Chauvin

Murder of George Floyd

District Court of Minnesota

Price of oil

Negative pricing

Garowe attack

United Nations

Garoowe

Puntland

Moment magnitude scale

2013 Lushan earthquake

Lushan County, Sichuan

Ya'an

Sichuan

Bhoja Air Flight 213

Benazir Bhutto International Airport

Islamabad

Deepwater Horizon explosion

Deepwater Horizon

Oil platform

Gulf of Mexico

Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Deepwater Horizon

Deepwater Horizon explosion

Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Danica Patrick

Indy Japan 300

IndyCar

Fernando Lugo

Colorado Party (Paraguay)

2008 Paraguayan general election

President of Paraguay

Danica Patrick

Indy Japan 300

American open-wheel car racing

Johnson Space Center shooting

Handgun

NASA

Johnson Space Center

Houston

Nicoll Highway MRT station

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

Columbine High School massacre

Columbine High School

Columbine, Colorado

Columbine High School massacre

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

Columbine High School

Columbine, Colorado

Air France Flight 422

El Dorado International Airport

Bogotá

Colombia

Korean Air Lines Flight 902

Apollo program

Apollo 16

John Young (astronaut)

Charles Duke

Pierre Trudeau

Prime Minister of Canada

Lester B. Pearson

Enoch Powell

Conservative Party (UK)

Rivers of Blood speech

Shadow cabinet

Enoch Powell

Rivers of Blood speech

South African Airways Flight 228

Hosea Kutako International Airport

South West Africa

Namibia

Cold War

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Cuba

League of Nations

Dissolution (law)

United Nations

Important events in history
on April 20 ^th