On This Day
Every day of the year is a day on which someone of interest was born or died or some event of interest occurred…
January 1
Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) (1431), Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449), Huldrych Zwingli (1484), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (baptized) (1618), Edmund Burke (1729), Paul Revere (1735), Betsy Ross [Elizabeth Griscom] (1752), Alfred Stieglitz (1864), E.M. Forster (1879), Charles Bickford 1889), J. Edgar Hoover (1895), Xavier Cugat (1900), Barry Goldwater (1909), Dana Andrews (1909), Hank Greenberg (1911), Kim Philby (1912), Victor Reuther (1912), Noor Inayat Khan (1914), J.D. Salinger (1919), Ismail al-Faruqi (1921), Ernest ‘Fritz’ Hollings (1922), Maurice Béjart (1927), Joe Orton (1933), Eve Queler (1936), Frank Langella (1938), Alassane Ouattara (1942), Omar al-Bashir (1944), Jon Corzine (1947), Gary Johnson (1953), Christine Lagarde (1956), Morris Chestnut (1969), Christi Paul (1969), Verne Troyer (1969), Nicolle Dickson (1969) & Paul Lawrie (1969) were born #OnThisDay. Odo, Count of Paris (898), Haakon III of Norway (1204), Louis XII of France (1515), Christian III of Denmark (1559), James Francis Edward Stuart (‘the Old Pretender’) (1766), Johann Christian Bach (1782), Edwin Lutyens (1944), Hank Williams (1953), Duff Cooper (1954), Vincent Auriol (1966), Maurice Chevalier (1972), Grace Hopper (1992), Cesar Romero (1994), Shirley Chisholm (2004), Bob Matsui (2005), Claiborne Pell (2009), Patti Page [Clara Ann Fowler] (2013), Mario Cuomo (2015) & Jaap Schröder (2020) died on this day. Romans adopted the Julian calendar (45 BCE), Mohammed led an army of 10,000 to conquer Mecca (630), Russia adopted the Julian calendar (990), François I succeeded Louis XII as king of France (1515), Holland & Flanders adopted the Gregorian calendar (1583), Charles II crowned king of Scotland (1651), Samuel Pepys wrote the first entry in his diary (1660), Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit proposed a temperature scale & a system for making thermometers in a paper presented to the Royal Society in London (1724), Albany replaced New York City as the capital of the state of New York (1797), the Irish parliament voted to join Britain & form the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland (1801), Haiti gained independence from France, becoming the first state founded by formerly enslaved people (1804), Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” published anonymously in London (1818), William Lloyd Garrison published the first issue of the abolitionist journal “The Liberator” (1831), Michigan became the first state to abolish capital punishment (1847), the first public bath house opened in New York City (1852), Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation (1863), Franz Schubert’s “Missa Solemnis” premiered in Leipzig (1863), Paraguay’s capital Asunción fell to Brazilian forces led by General João de Souza da Fonseca Costa in the War of the Triple Alliance (1869), the City of New York annexed the Bronx (1874), the Reichsbank opened in Berlin (1876), Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India (1877), Johannes Brahms’ violin concerto in D major premiered in Leipzig (1879), the first Rose Parade held in Pasadena (1890), Eritrea made an Italian colony (1890), German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen announced his discovery of x-rays (1896), Cuba liberated from Spanish rule by the US, whose occupation would continue until 1902 (1899), Edward VII crowned Emperor of India in a durbar in Delhi (1903), Theodore Roosevelt shook a record 8,513 hands in one day (1907), Sun Yat-Sen founded the Republic of China (1912), T. E. Lawrence joined the forces of the Arabian Sheik Feisal al-Husayn (1917), Edsel Ford succeeded Henry Ford as president of the Ford Motor Company (1919), Christiania renamed Oslo (1925), the first air conditioned office opened in San Antonio (1928), Alcatraz became a federal prison (1934), Germany’s Reichstag enacted a Nazi eugenics law (‘Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring’) (1934), Mustafa Kemal Pasha named himself ‘Atatürk’ (Father of Turkey) (1935), Anastasio Somoza García became president of Nicaragua (1937), Bill Hewlett & Dave Packard started Hewlett-Packard in a garage in Palo Alto (1939), Franklin Delano Roosevelt & Winston Churchill issued a declaration signed by representatives of 26 states calling for the creation of the United Nations (1942), Emperor Hirohito informed the people of Japan that he was not a god (1946), the Transport Act nationalized the British rail system (1948), the new constitution of the Italian Republic came into force (1948), Ho Chi Minh launched an offensive against French troops in Indochina (1950), China & North Korea launched a massive offensive against US & UN troops in Korea (1951), NBC broadcast the first live full color national telecast, the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena (1954), France returned the Saarland to Germany, becoming the 10th state of the Bundesrepublik (1957), the European Economic Community began operating (1958), Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic (1959), Chad became an autonomous republic within the Communauté Française (1959), Cameroon gained its independence from France (1960), Johnny Cash performed his first free concert in prison at San Quentin (1960), Rwanda granted internal self-government by Belgium (1962), al-Fatah wing of the PLO formed (1965), Col. Jean-Bédel Bokassa seized power in Central African Republic in a military coup d’état (1966), Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (1966), the United Kingdom, Ireland & Denmark joined the European Community (1973), H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman & John Mitchell convicted of crimes in the Watergate scandal (1975), Sweden changed its law of succession & Victoria was crowned princess (1980), Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” comic strip debuted in the San Francisco Chronicle (1980), Greece became the 10th member of the European Community (1981), Peru’s Javier Pérez de Cuéllar became the 5th Secretary-General of the United Nations (1982), Brunei became independent of Britain (1984), Spain & Portugal joined the European Community (1986), Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt began his term as the 6th Secretary-General of the United Nations (1992), the Czech Republic & Slovakia separated in Czechoslovakia’s ‘Velvet Divorce’ (1993), Chen Kaige’s film “Farewell My Concubine” —based on the novel by Lilian Lee & starring Leslie Cheung, Zhang Fengyi and Gong Li — premiered in Hong Kong (1993), the European Community’s single market opened (1993), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect (1994), the Zapatista Army of National Liberation initiated twelve days of armed conflict in the Mexican state of Chiapas (1994), Austria, Sweden & Finland joined the European Union (1995), Gary Larson’s last “Far Side” cartoon strip published (1995), the Euro went into circulation in European Union member states participating in the Euro zone (1999), Bulgaria & Romania joined the European Union (2007); Bulgarian, Romanian & Irish Gaelic joined 20 other languages as official languages of the European Union (2007), António Guterres succeeded Ban Ki-moon as United Nations Secretary General (2017), same-sex marriage became legal in Austria (2019) & Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in as president of Brazil (2019) on this day.
January 2
Nathaniel Bacon (1647), James Wolfe (1727), František ‘Franz’ Xaver Brixi (1732), Alice Mary Robertson (1854), Count Folke Bernadotte (1895), Paul-Henri Spaak (1899), Robert Marshall (1901), Barry Goldwater (1902), Isaac Asimov (1920), Dan Rostenkowski (1928), John Considine (1938), Ian Brady [Ian Duncan Stewart] (1938), Hans Herbjørnsrud (1938), Jim Bakker (1939), Prince Norodom Ranariddh (1944), Jack Hanna (1947), Christopher Durang (1949), Cuba Gooding, Jr. (1968) & Taye Diggs (1971) were born #OnThisDay. Ovid (17), Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia (1861), James Longstreet (1904), Emil Jannings (1950), Alan Hale, Jr. (1990), Dixy Lee Ray (1994), Teddy Kollek (2007), Julia Grant [née George Roberts] (2019) & Daryl Dragon (2019) died on this day. Vitellius proclaimed emperor by his Roman legions on the Rhine (69), the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine to invade the Roman Empire (366), the last emir Boabdil surrendered Granada to Ferdinand & Isabella, completing the Reconquista of Spain (1492), British troops occupied Calcutta (1757), Austria ended the use of torture in interrogation (1776), Philadelphia’s African American community petitioned Congress to end the slave trade (1800), British rule re-established on the Falkland Islands (las Malvinas) (1833), Louis Daguerre took the first photo of the moon (1839), Richard Wagner’s opera “Der Fliegende Holländer” (The Flying Dutchman) premiered in Dresden (1843), Alice Sanger became the first woman to serve on the White House staff after being appointed by Benjamin Harrison (1890), Theodore Roosevelt shut down the post office in Indianola (MS) for refusing to accept an African American postmaster (1903), the Russian fleet surrendered to Japan after the capture of Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War, prompting the first Russian Revolution (1905), the DeYoung Museum opened in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park (1921), Warren Harding’s interior secretary Albert Fall resigned over the Teapot Dome scandal (1923), Bruno Hauptmann went on trial for the murder of Charles Lindbergh’s baby (1935), Luis Muñoz Marín became the first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico (1949), Maria Callas provoked a scandal by walking out of a performance of Bellini’s “Norma” in Rome (1958), John F. Kennedy announced his presidential candidacy (1960), the first Jewish child born in Spain since the expulsion of 1492 (1966), the population of the United States reached 293,200,000, with the African American population 22,600,000 (11.1%) (1970), Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act establishing a 55 mile-per-hour national speed limit (1974), Jimmy Carter responded to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by requesting that the Senate postpone action on the SALT II treaty, effectively ending détente with the USSR (1980) (1980), Major-General Muhammadu Buhari declared president of Nigeria after seizing power in a coup d’état (1984), a rare 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante Coupe was found in the garage of a British doctor (2009) & Donald Trump told Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes to ensure his re-election (2021) on this day.
January 3
Cicero (106 BCE), William Tucker (first African American child born in America) (1624), Pietro Metastasio (1698), Clement Attlee (1883), J.R.R. Tolkien (1892), Ngô Đình Diệm (1901), Ray Milland (1905), Anna May Wong (1905), Victor Borge [Borge Rosenbaum] (1909), Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Furness (1916), Jesse White (1919), Bill Travers [William Inge Lindon-Travers] (1922), Sergio Leone (1929), Carla Hills (1934), John Thaw (1953), John Marsden (1942), Victoria Principal (1950), Ned Lamont (1954), Mel Gibson (1956), Eli Manning (1981) & Greta Thunberg (2003) were born #OnThisDay. Philip V of France (1322), Catherine de Valois, wife of Henry V of England (1437), Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo (1543), Josiah Wedgwood (1795), Pierre Larousse (1875), Alois Hitler (1903), Joseph Joffre (1931), Wilhelm Cuno (1933), Edgar Cayce (1945), William Joyce (‘Lord Ha-ha’) (1946), Jack Ruby (1967), Mary Garden (1967), Milton Cross (1975), Conrad Hilton (1979), Axel Springer, Jr. (1980), Phil Everly (2014) & Edward W. Brooke (2015) died on this day. Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) handed over to Bishop Pierre Cauchon (1431), Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tested a flying a machine (1496), Martin Luther excommunicated by Pope Leo X (1521), George Washington defeated the British in the Battle of Princeton (1777), Britain took control of the Falkland Islands (Las Malvinas) (1833), Gaetano Donizetti’s opera “Don Pasquale” premiered in Paris (1843), Joseph Jenkins Roberts sworn in as the first President of the independent African Republic of Liberia (1848), the first Chinese immigrants arrived in Hawaii (1852), Solomon Northup (author of the memoir “Twelve Years a Slave”) freed after seven illegal years in slavery with the help of New York Gov. Washington Hunt (1853), the Delaware legislature rejected a proposal to join Confederacy (1861), Meiji Restoration in Japan (1868), construction on the Brooklyn Bridge began (1870), Friedrich Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown after witnessing a horse flogging (1889), the first US college-level dairy school opened at the University of Wisconsin (1890), first known use of the word ‘automobile’ in an editorial in the New York Times (1899), the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement — a short-lived agreement for the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine — signed by the king of Iraq & the president of the World Zionist Organization (1919), Turkey made peace with Armenia (1921), Howard Carter & Egyptian workmen uncovered Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus (1924), Benito Mussolini dissolved Italy’s parliament & proclaimed himself ‘il Duce’ (1925), William Paley named president of CBS (1929), martial law declared in Honduras to stop a revolt by banana workers fired by United Fruit (1932), Franklin Delano Roosevelt founded the March of Dimes to fight polio (1938), the first televised opening session of Congress (1947), William Dawson became the first African American to chair a Congressional committee (1947), Dalip Singh Saund sworn in as the first Asian American & the first Sikh elected to Congress (1957), Alaska admitted as the 49th state (1959), the US broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba (1961), Pope John XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro (1962), Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs incorporated Apple Computer, Inc. (1977), Leontyne Price’s farewell performance in Verdi’s opera “Aida” at the Met (1985), Aretha Franklin became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1987), Margaret Thatcher became the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century (1988), Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega surrendered to US authorities (1990), the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit landed on Mars (2004), Craig Ferguson became the host of “The Late Late Show” on CBS (2005), Israel invaded the Gaza Strip (2009), the Bitcoin network created by Satoshi Nakamoto (2009), ancient Beringians from 11,500 years ago unearthed (2018), Nancy Pelosi elected Speaker of the House of Representatives (2019) & Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iran’s Maj. Gen Qasem Soleimani by drone strike (2020) on this day.
January 4
Zhezong emperor of Song China (1077), Muhammad V of Granada [al-Ghani Bi’llah] (1338), Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710), Jacob Grimm (1785), Louis Braille (1809), Josef Suk (1874), Everett McKinley Dirksen (1896), Rosalie Crutchley (1920), Amitai Etzioni (1929), Carlos Saura (1932), Grace Bumbry (1937), Helmut Jahn (1940), Maureen Reagan (1941), Doris Kearns Goodwin (1943), Julian Sands (1958), Andy Borowitz (1958) & Julia Ormond (1965) were born #OnThisDay. Moses Mendelssohn (1786), Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (1821), Cornelius Vanderbilt (1877), Henri Bergson (1941), Albert Camus (1960), T.S. Eliot (1965), Christopher Isherwood (1986), Harry Helmsley (1997) & Georges Prêtre (2017) died on this day. Æthelred of Wessex defeated by a Danish Viking army at the Battle of Reading (871), the palace of Whitehall in London largely destroyed by fire (1698), Columbia University founded as King’s College in Manhattan (1754), Britain declared war on Spain & Naples in the Seven Years’ War (1762), Johannes Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture” premiered in Breslau (1881), the Fabian Society founded in London (1884), Utah admitted as the 45th state (1896), Topsy the elephant electrocuted by her owners at Luna Park on Coney Island & filmed by Edison Manufacturing movie company (1903), British Viceroy of India Lord Willingdon arrests Mohandas Gandhi & Jawaharlal Nehru (1932), Ralphe Bunche became the first African American US State Department appointee (1944), Burma declared its independence from Britain (1948), Chinese forces recaptured Seoul (1951), Patsy T. Mink sworn in as the first Asian American woman & the first woman of color elected to Congress (1964), Lyndon Baines Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ state of the union address (1965), France began an arms embargo of Israel (1969), Richard Nixon refused to hand over subpoenaed Watergate tapes (1974), Eurythmics released “Sweet Dreams” album (1983), the 104th Congress became the first with both houses of Congress under Republican control since Eisenhower (1995), the Euro went into circulation in 11 European Union member states (1999), Ariel Sharon suffered a debilitating stroke (2006), Nancy Pelosi elected the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives (2007), South Korea recorded more deaths than births for the first time (2021) on this day.
January 5
Shah Jahan (1592), Constanze Mozart (1762), Zebulon Pike (1779), Algernon Chalres Swinburne (1837), King C. Gillette (1855), Konrad Adenauer (1876), Yves Tanguy (1900), Jean Dixon (1904), Wieland Wagner (1917), Jane Wyman (1917), Aruturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920), Jean, Grand Duc de Luxembourg (1921), Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921), Walter ‘Fritz’ Mondale (1928), Zulfikar Ali Butto (1928), Qian Qichen (1928), Imtiaz Ahmed (1928), Alfred Brendel (1931), Alvin Ailey (1931), Robert Dvall (1931), Walt Davis (1931), Joan Coxedge (1931), Umberto Eco (1932), Juan Carlos I of de Borbón of Spain (1938), Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1938) Piet Kruiver (1938), Leo Avery (1938), Jim Otto (1938), Hayao Miyazaki (1941), Chuck McKinley (1941), Bob Cunis (1941), Grady Thomas (1941), Mansur Ali Khan (1941), Charlie Rose (1942), Maurizio Pollini (1942), Cliff Potts (1942), Diane Keaton (1946), Ted Lange (1947), Marilyn Manson (1969), Bradley Cooper (1975) & Sabrina Harman (1978) were born #OnThisDay. Edward the Confessor, king of England (1066), Charles le Téméraire, duc de Bourgogne (1477), Pope Clement VII forbade Henry VIII from remarrying (1531), Catherine de’ Medici, reine mère de France (1589), Elizabeth [Elizaveta Petrovna], empress of Russia (1762), Samuel Huntington (1796), Ernest Shackleton (1922), Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanov, grand duke of Russia (1929), Calvin Coolidge (1933), Amelia Earhart (1939), George Washington Carver (1943), Tip O’Neill (1994), Lincoln Kirstein (1996), Salvatore ‘Sonny’ Bono (1998), Roy Jenkins (2003), Momofuku Ando (2007), Pierre Boulez (2016), Jerry Van Dyke (2018) & José Molina [Quijada] (2018) died on this day. François Villon banished from Paris (1463), Charles le Téméraire, duc de Bourgogne, fell in the Battle of Nancy (1477), first divorce in the American colonies (1643), Ludovico Sforza’s troops reconquered Milan (1500), Great Frost of 1709 (1709), Britain, Hanover, Saxony-Poland & Austria concluded an alliance against Prussia & Russia (1719), Robert-François Damiens attempted but failed to assassinate Louis XV of France (1757), the Palais Garnier opened in Paris (1875), “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson published by Longmans, Green & Co. (1886), Captain Alfred Dreyfus stripped of his rank in the French army based on false treason allegations (1895), William Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays announced in “Die Presse” (1896), Charles Perrine announced the discovery of Jupiter’s moon Elara (1905), Colombia recognized Panama’s independence (1909), Austria-Hungary launched an offensive against Montenegro (1916), the first conscription bill introduced in the British House of Commons (1916), Bonnie Parker met Clyde Barrow for the first time (1930), construction on the Golden Gate Bridge began on the Marin County side of the bridge (1933), Pepe LePew debuted in Warner Bros. cartoon “Odor-able Kitty” (1945), “Show Boat” opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan (1946), Harry Truman delived his ‘Fair Deal’ state of the union address (1949), Samuel Beckett’s “En Attendant Godot” premiered in Paris (1953), Dwight Eisenhower outlined the ‘Eisenhower Doctrine’ in a proposal on the Middle East to Congress (1957), “Bozo the Clown” premiered on TV (1959), Alexander Dubček succeeds Antonín Novotný as Communist Party leader of Czechoslovakia (1968), Mali & Niger terminated diplomatic relations with Israel (1973), the Netherlands recognized the GermanDemocratic Republic (DDR) (1973), Columbia Records released Bruce Springsteen’s debut album “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.” (1973), “The MacNeil-Lehrer Report” premiered on PBS (1976), Pol Pot renamed Cambodia ‘Democratic Kampuchea’ (1976), vandals decapitated the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbor (1998) & Zhang Yongzhen published the first SARS-CoV-2 genome map online, allowing health professionals worldwide to identify COVID-19 (2020) on this day.
January 6
Richard II of England (1367), Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) (1412), John Smith (1580), Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, duke of Sanlúcar & count of Olivares (1587), Jakob Bernouilli (1655), James Brydges, first duke of Chandos (1673), Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (1745), Charles Sumner (1811), Heinrich Schliemann (1822), Gustave Doré (1832), Max Bruch (1838), Alexander Scriabin (1872), Carl Sandburg (1878), Khalil Gibran (1883), Maurice Abravanel (1903), (Danny Thomas (1912), Edward Gierek (1913), Alan Watts (1915), Don Edwards (1915), John C. Lilly (1915), Lou Harris (1921), Earl Scruggs (1924), John DeLorean (1925), Victor ‘Vic’ Tayback (1930), E.L. Doctorow (1931), Sylvia Syms (1934), Pepé Le Pew — Warner Bros. cartoon character created by Chuck Jones & Michael Maltese (Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies series) — first debuted in “Odor-able Kitty” (1945), Louis Freeh (1950), Anthony Minghella (1954), Rowan Atkinson (1955), Sandra Berhanrd (1955), Chantal Langlacé (1955), Julie Chen (1970), Gilbert Arenas (1982), Brian Bass (1982), Tiffany Pollard (1982), Eddie Redmayne (1982), Sean O’Brien (1984), A.J. Hawk (1984) & Kate McKinnon (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Fanny Burney (1840), Louis Braille (1852), Gregor Mendel (1884), Peter Asbjornsen (1885), Theodore Roosevelt (1919), Emma Calvé (1942), Victor Fleming (1949), Rudolph Nureyev (1993), Virginia Kelley Clinton (1994), Francesco Scavullo (2004) & Pat Harrington, Jr. (2016) died on this day. Cnut the Great crowned king of England in London (1017), Harold Godwinson crowned king of England (1066), George Villiers made Earl of Buckingham by James I of England (1617), England’s ‘Rump Parliament’ voted to put Charles I on trial for treason (1649), Samuel Morse & Alfred Vail demonstrated their telegraph machine in New Jersey (1838), the Musikverein inaugurated in Vienna (1870), Washington National Cathedral chartered by Benjamin Harrison & Congress (1893), Maurice Ravel’s “Albarada del Gracioso” premiered in Paris (1900), Maurice Ravel’s “Miroirs” premiered in Paris (1906), Maria Montessori opened her first Montessori school in Rome (1907), New Mexico became the 47th state (1912), Francis Poulenc’s ballet “Les Biches” — choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska & danced by the Ballets Russes — premiered in Monte Carlo (1924), Franklin Roosevelt gave his ‘Four Freedoms’ state of the union address (1941), Britain recognized the People’s Republic of China (1950), Ganghwa massacre in South Korea (1951), WLIW TV Ch. 21 (PBS) began broadcasting on Long Island (1969), the US Army dropped charges of a cover-up of the My Lai Massacre (1971), Charter 77 — a document criticizing Czechoslovakia’s Communist regime’s human rights abuses — published in Prague (1977), the US returned the crown of St. Stephen to Hungary (1978), the Village People’s “YMCA” became their only UK #1 single, selling more than 150,000 copies a day (1979), Indira Gandhi led the Congress Party to victory in India’s parliamentary elections (1980), British defense secretary Michael Heseltine resigned over the Westland Affair (1986), Congress certified George W. Bush’s election (2001), Israel began a genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip (2009), Rami Malek & “Bohemian Rhapsody” won Golden Globes (2019) & Donald Trump incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol in a violent insurrection (2021) on this day.
January 7
Thomas of Woodstock, first duke of Gloucester (1355), Pope Gregory XIII [Ugo Boncompagni] (1502), Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre (1528), Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain & Naples (1768), Charlotte Augusta of Wales (1796), Millard Fillmore (1800), Ann Rutledge (1813), St. Bernadette of Lourdes [Marie-Bernarde Soubirous] (1844), Ludwig III, last King of Bavaria (1845), Francis Poulenc (1899), Nicanor Zabaleta (1907), Orval Faubus (1910), Charles Addams (1912), Günter Wand (1912), Bob Zurke [Boguslaw Zukowski] (1912), Elena Ceaușescu (1916), Alessandro Natta (1918), Vincent Gardenia (1920), Jean-Pierre Rampal (1922), Gerald Durrell (1925), Kim Jong-pil (1926), Douglas Kiker (1930), Mack Mattingly (1931), Prince Michael of Greece & Denmark (1939), Iona Brown (1941), Sadako Sasaki (1943), Raila Odinga (1945), Kenny Loggins (1948), Katie Couric (1957), Loretta Sanchez (1960), John Thune (1961), Rand Paul (1963), Nicolas Cage (1964), Carolyn Bessette Kennedy (1966), Nnick Clegg (1967) & Caster Semenya (1991) were born #OnThisDay. Catherine of Aragon (1536), Feodor I of Russia (1598), Mary II of England (1695), Colin McPhee (1964), Trevor Howard (1988), Emperor Hirohito of Japan (1989), Stéphane Charbonnier (2015) & Mário Soares (2017) died on this day. Calais — the last English possession in France — retaken by French troops under the duc de Guise (1558), Boris Godunov seized power on the death of Feodor I of Russia (1598), Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, launched a revolt against Elizabeth Tudor (1601), Galileo Galilei discovered the first three moons of Jupiter — Io, Europa & Ganymede (1610), Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory put on trial for killing & torturing hundreds of young women — later sentenced to house arrest for the rest of her life (1611), Sir Francis Bacon appointed lord chancellor of England (1618), Versailles (1790), Liberia colonized by the American Colonization Society (1822), Fannie Farmer’s first cookbook (“The Boston Cooking School Cook Book”) published (1896), ‘Colorado Cannibal’ Alferd Packer paroled after serving 18 years (1901), five socialists elected to the New York State Assembly denied seating (1920), Anglo-Irish Treaty ratified by the Dail Eireann by a 64-57 vote (1922), the Harlem Globetrotters played their first game (1927), Croatian nationalist Ustaša movement founded by Ante Pavelić in exile in Italy (1929), Cambodia became autonomous within the Communauté Française (1946), Harry Truman announced that the US had developed a hydrogen bomb (1953), Marian Anderson became the first African American to star in a leading role at the Metropolitan Opera (1955), the US recognized Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba (1959), Indonesia’s president Sukarno survived an assassination attempt (1962), Vietnamese troops entered Phnom Penh & overthrew Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia (1979), Lewis Powell, Jr. & William Rehnquist joined the US Supreme Court (1972), Jimmy Carter signed legislation bailing out the Chrysler Corporation with a $1.5 billion loan (1980), Ronald Reagan ended the US arms embargo against Guatemala (1983), Akihito succeeded Hirohito as the 125 emperor of Japan (1989), Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial began in the Senate (1999), 12 killed in a terrorist attack on the offices of “Charlie Hebdo” in Paris (2015), “The King’s Speech” released in the UK (2011), Elon Musk overtook Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man with a net worth of $186 billion (2021) & Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg blocked Donald Trump from using Facebook & Instagram until January 20 (2021) on this day.
January 8
James Longstreet (1821), William Wilkie Collins (1824), Hans von Bülow (1830), Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence & Avondale (1864), Georgy Malenkov (1902), Evelyn Wood (1909), José Ferrer (1912), Giorgio Tozzi (1923), Kim Dae-jung (1924), Soupy Sales [Milton Supman] (1926), Charles Osgood (1933), Elvis Presley (1935), Shirley Bassey (1937), Bob Eubanks (1948), Stephen Hawking (1942), Yvette Mimieux (1942), David Bowie [Jones] (1947), Robert ‘R.’ Kelly (1967) & Kim Jong-un (1983) were born #OnThisDay. Marco Polo (1324), Johan Georg, Elector of Brandenburg (1598), Galileo Galilei (1642), Arcangelo Corelli (1713), Joshua Abraham ‘Emperor’ Norton (1880), Paul Verlaine (1896), Robert Baden-Powell (1941), Dion Fortune (1946), Richard Tauber [Denemy] (1948), Joseph Schumpeter (1950, Joseph Issac Shneerson (1950), Zhou Enlai (1976), François Mitterrand (1996), Yvonne De Carlo [Middleton] (2007), Jeanne Manford (2013), Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (2017) & Roy Innis (2017) died on this day. Alfred the Great & Æthelred I of Wessex defeated an invading Danish Viking army at the Battle of Ashdown (871), Monaco gained its independence (1297), French troops under the Duc de Guise occupied Calais (1558), Georg Friedrich Händel’s first opera “Almira” premiered in Hamburg (1705), Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera “Ariodante” premiered at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London (1734), Britain, Austria, the Netherlands & Saxony formed the Quadruple Alliance against Frederick the Great’s Prussia (1745), George Washington delivered his first presidential state of the union address (1790), Andrew Jackson led US troops to victory in the Battle of New Orleans (1815), the US national debt reached $0 for the first & only time (1835), Republican members of Congress overrode Andrew Johnson’s veto of a bill granting African American men the right to vote in Washington, D.C. (1867), Oglala Lakota Sioux Crazy House fought his last battle against the US Army (1877), Allied troops began their retreat from Gallipoli after one of the worst Allied disasters in World War I (1916), Mississippi’s legislature ratified the 18th amendment to the US Constitution (‘Prohibition’) (1918), Woodrow Wilson outlined his Fourteen Points (1918), Benito Mussolini warned Adolf Hitler about invading Britain (1940). Gen. George Marshall named Harry Truman’s secretary of state (1947), Fidel Castro entered Havana in triumph (1959), Charles de Gaulle inaugurated as the first president of France’s 5th Republic (1959), French voters approved independence for Algeria in a referendum (1961), Lyndon Baines Johnson declared war on poverty (1964), Jacques Cousteau’s first TV special aired (1968), Judge John Sirica presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars (1973), Judge John Sirica ordered the release of Watergate conspirators John Dean, Herbert Kalmbach & Jeb Stuart Magruder (1975), Harvey Milk became the first openly gay person elected to public office in California (1978), “All Creatures Great & Small” debuted on BBC TV (1978), Vietnamese troops occupied Phnom Penh & ousted the Khmer Rouger from power in Cambodia (1979), Joseph Papp’s revival of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta “The Pirates of Penzance” opened at the Uris Theater in Manhattan (1981), George H.W. Bush vomited on Japan’s prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa (1992), George W. Bush signed the ‘No Child Left Behind’ bill into law (2002), New Jersey became the first Northern state to apologize for slavery (2008), U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords seriously injured in a shooting rampage in Arizona (2011), Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced the recapture of drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, six months after he escaped prison (2016), Iran retaliated for the US assassination of Qasem Soleimani with missil strikes on Irbil & Al-Asad bases in Iraq (2020), the Duke & Duchess of Sussex announced their withdrawal from royal duties as ‘senior’ royals (2020), Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga declared a state of emergency because of the Corona virus pandemic (2021), Twitter banned Donald Trump for life (2021) & House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanded Donald Trump’s resignation (2021) on this day.
January 9
Cassandra Austen (1773), Jennie Jerome (1854), Carrie Chapman Catt (1859), Sir Rudolph Bing (1902), Simone de Beauvoir (1908), Richard Nixon (1913), Fernando Lamas (1915), Ahmed Sékou Touré (1922), Bob Denver (1935), Susannah York (1939), Joan Baez (1941), Crystal Gayle (1951), Mmichiko Kakutani (1955), Imelda Staunton (1956), Mehmet Ali Ağca (1958), Rigoberta Menchú (1959) & Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge (1982) were born #OnThisDay. Xizong emperor of Jin (1150), Napoléon III (1873), Vittorio Emmanuele II of Italy (1878), Katherine Mansfield (1923), Robin G. Collingwood (1943), Ted Shawn (1972) & Warren Allen Smith (2017) died on this day. Byzantine Emperor Zeno forced to flee Constantinople (475), Christopher Columbus mistook manatees for mermaids (1493), Tsar Ivan the Terrible ordered the sack of Novgorod in which thousands were killed (1570), Philip Astley staged the first modern circus in London (1768), Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” published (1776), Russia & Ottoman Turkey signed the Peace of Jassy (1792), William Pitt the Younger introduced the income tax to fund the British war effort against Napoleon’s France (1799), Horatio Nelson’s state funeral & burial in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (1806), Louis Daguerre’s Daguerrotype photo of a person in Paris announced at the French Academy of Science (1839), the Battle of Fort Sumter (1861), Mississippi seceded from the Union (1861), Umberto I became king of Italy (1878), US Marines invaded Honduras (1912), Ottoman Turks defeated the British at the Battle of Çanakkale (1916), the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade captured an Ottoman garrison in the Battle of Rafah in Ottoman Palestine (1917), Virginia Woolf bought a house in Bloomsbury (1924), Gen. Douglas MacArthur & the US 6th Army landed in the Philippines (1945), Harry Truman warned of the Soviet Communist threat in his state of the union address (1952), “Dear Abby” (Pauline Phillips, a.k.a., Abigail Van Buren) advice column first appeared in newspapers (1956), Margaret Thatcher visited the Falkland Islands (Las Malvinas) (1983), Apple launched iTunes (2001) on this day & Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone (2007).
January 10
Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands (1480), Ethan Allen (1738), Charles Ingalls (1836), George Washington Carver (1864), Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich of Russia (1864), Mary Ingalls (1865), Manuel Azaña (1880), Ray Bolger (1904), Paul Henreid (1908), Roy Disney (1930), Stephen E. Ambrose (1936), Sal Mineo (1939), David Horowitz (1939), Frank Sinatra, Jr. (1944), Rod Stewart (1945), George Foreman (1949), James Lapine (1949), Pat Benatar [Andrezejewski] (1953), Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (1961) & Jared Kushner (1981) were born #OnThisDay. William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (1645), Nicholas Culpeper (1654), Philibert, comte de Gramont (1707), Jemeljan Pugachev (1775), Carolus Linnaeus [Carl von Linné] (1778), Vittorio Emmanuele I of Sardinia (1824), Samuel Colt (1862), William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody (1917), [Harry] Sinclair Lewis (1951), Dashiell Hammett (1961), Gabriel ‘Coco’ Chanel (1971), John D. Rockefeller III (1978), Pedro Joaquín Chamorro (1978), George Meany (1980), Paul Lynde (1982), Souvanna Phouma, prince of Laos (1984), Anton Karas (1985), Donald Voorhees (1989), Spalding Gray (2004), Joséphine-Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (2005), Carlo Ponti (2007), Margaret Whiting (2011), Larry Speakes (2014) David Bowie [David Robert Jones](2016) & Clare Hollingworth (2017) died on this day. Julius Caesar defied the Roman Senate, crossing the Rubicon & declaring “alea iacta est” (the die is cast) (49 BCE), Golden Bull of Charles IV (1356), Order of the Golden Fleece created by Philippe le Bon (1430), Charles I of England fled London for Oxford (1642), Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” published (1776), Florida seceded from the Union (1861), January uprising in Poland (1863), John D. Rockefeller (1870), Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire) declared a protectorate of France (1889), a gusher of crude oil in Texas launched the American oil industry (1901), Yuan Shi-kai dissolved the Republic of China’s parliament, preparing to make himself emperor (1914), ‘Silent Sentinels’ Suffragettes held their first protest outside the White House led by Alice Paul & the National Woman’s Party (1917), the League of Nations created by the ratification of the Covenant of the League of Nations by 42 member states (1920), Warren Harding ordered the last US troops home from Germany, ending the occupation following World War I (1923), Fritz Lang’s film “Metropolis” premiered in Berlin (1927), Joseph Stalin ordered Leon Trotsky’s exile from the Soviet Union (1928), Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed Congres on the urgent need for the lend-lease program to save Britain from Nazi Germany (1941), the United Nations General Assembly met for the first time in London (1946), the United Nations headquarters building opened in Manhattan (1951), Harold Macmillan became British prime minister following Anthony Eden’s resignation (1957), more than 4,000 killed by an avalanche in Peru (1962), Julian Bond denied his seat in the Georgia House of Representatives (184-12) because of his opposition to the Vietnam War (1966), Edward Brooke (R.-Mass.) seated as the first African American popularly elected to the US Senate (1967), Lyndon Baines Johnson asked Congress for more funding for the Vietnam War effort (1967), Sweden became the first Western country to recognize North Vietnam (1969), Steve Allen’s “Meeting Of The Minds” debuted on PBS (1977), Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” commercial with Clara Peller first aired (1984), Daniel Ortega inaugurated as president of Nicaragua (1985), the People’s Republic of China lifted martial law imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 (1990), Japan ended the routine fingerprinting of all adult ethnic Koreans (1991), Lorena Bobbitt’s trial began (1994), AOL-Time Warner founded through one of the biggest mergers in history (2000), “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won Best Film at the 9th Critics’ Choice Movie Awards ceremony (2004), Tata Motors unveiled the Nano, the world’s cheapest car (2008), Jeff Bezos became the second man worth over $100 billion as his wealth reached $106 billion (2018) on this day.
January 11
Roman Emperor Theodosius I (347), Abd al-Raḥmān III (889), Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449), Francesco Parmigianino (1503), Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex (1591), Alexander Hamilton (1755), Ezra Cornell (1807), John A. Macdonald (1815), William James (1842), Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858), Reinhold Glière (1875), Alice Paul (1885), Aldo Leopold (1887), Eva Le Gallienne (1899), Maurice Duruflé (1902), Pierre Mendès-France (1907), Jean Chrétien (1934), Arthur Scargill (1938), Naomi Judd [Diana Ellen] (1946), Mary J. Blige (1971) & Matteo Renzi (1975) were born #OnThisDay. Domenico Ghirlandaio (1494), Pietro Bembo (1547), Yemelyan Pugachev (1775), François Joseph Paul de Grasse (1788), Francis Lightfoot Lee (1797), Domenico Cimarosa (1801), Francis Scott Key (1843), Gail Borden (1874), Georges-Eugène, Baron Haussmann (1891), Ambrose Bierce (1914), Constantine I of Greece (1923), Thomas Hardy (1928), Galeazzo Conte Ciano (1944), Aureliano Pertile (1952), Oscar Petrous (1954), Alberto Giacometti (1966), Beulah Bondi (1981), Klaus Tennstedt (1998), Nixmary Brown (2006), Edmund Hillary (2008), Éric Rohmer [Maurice Schérer], Mariangela Melato (2013), Ariel Sharon (2014), Anita Ekberg (2015), Sheldon Adelson (2021) & David-Maria Sassoli (2022) died on this day. Theodora crowned Byzantine empress (1055), the first known government-sponsored lottery in the world took place at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (1569), Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II granted the Austrian nobility freedom of religion (1571), William Herschel discovered the moons of Uranus Titania & Oberon (1787), Alabama seceded from the Union (1861), Charing Cross Station opened in London (1864), Benito Juárez became president of Mexico (1867), the Anglo-Zulu War began with the British invasion of Zululand (1879), Theodore Roosevelt designated the Grand Canyon a national monument (1908), the Donghak peasant rebellion began in Korea (1894), Romania annexed Transylvania (1919), George II of Greece deposed & a republic proclaimed (1924), Frank Kellogg replaced Charles Hughs as US secretary of state (1925), Louis B. Mayer announced the creation of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (1927), Joseph Stalin banished Leon Trotsky (1928), Amelia Earhart flew from Honolulu to Oakland (1935), Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet “Romeo & Juliet” premiered in Leningrad (1940), Enver Hoxha proclaimed the People’s Republic of Albania (1946), US Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a report conclusively documenting a causal link between smoking & cancer (1964), Joran van der Sloot plead guilty to a murder in Peru (2012), Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović elected as the first female president of Croatia (2015), Tsai Ing-wen won re-election in a landslide in the presidential election in Taiwan (2020) & House Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against Donald Trump for incietement to insurrection (2021) on this day.
January 12
John Winthrop (1588), José Ribera (‘Lo Spagnoletto’) (1591), Charles Perrault (1628), John Singer Sargent (1856), Swami Vivekananda (1863), Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876), Jack London (1876), Hermann Göring (1893), P.W. Botha (1916), Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1918), Katherine ‘Scottie’ MacGregor (1925), Tim Horton (1930), Bernardine Dohrn (1942), Joe Frazier (1944), Anthony Andrews (1948), Haruki Murakami (1949), Wayne Wang (1949), Göran Lindblad (1950), Kirstie Alley (1951), Rush Limbaugh (1951), Larry Hoppens (1951), Ann Althouse (1951), Howard Stern (1954), Jeff Bezos (1964) & Priyanka Gandhi (1972) were born #OnThisDay. Abū-Sa’īd Abul-Khayr (1049), Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1519), Friedrich von Schlegel (1829), William Grenville (1834), Lorraine Hansberry (1965), Agatha Christie (1976), Keye Luke (1991), William Hewlett (2001), Cyrus Vance (2002), Maurice Gibb (2003) & Arne Næss (2009). Gustav Vasa crowned king of Sweden (1528), Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera “Ottone, Re di Germania” (HWV 15), premiered in London (1723), Napoléon’s French troops evacuated Vienna (1806), “Sam ‘n’ Henry” debuted on WGN in Chicago, becoming one of the most popular radio shows in history as “Amos ‘n’ Andy” (1926), Joseph Smith fled Ohio to avoid arrest & led Mormons to settle in Missouri (1838), France declared Napoléon Bonaparte’s family permanently banished (1816), the British-Zulu War began with Lt. Gen. Frederic Augustus’ invasion of Zululand (1879) Itō Hirobumi began his third term as prime minister of Japan (1898), Josef Dzhugashvili signed himself as Stalin (‘man of steel’) in a letter to the newspaper the Social Democrat (1913), the US House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women right to vote (1915), Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Caraway became the first woman elected to the US Senate (1932), Timely Comics (later Marvel) founded by American publisher Martin Goodman in New York (1939), US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced the Eisenhower administration’s policy of ‘massive retaliation’ (1954), the US Air Force sprayed Vietnamese forests with Agent Orange in Operation Ranch Hand (1962), the Sultan of Zanzibar overthrown in a revolution one month after independence (1964), “Batman” with Adam West & Burt Ward debuted on ABC (1966), “All in the Family” premiered on CBS, the first TV show with a toilet flushing (1971), the UN Security Council voted 11-1 to seat Palestine Liberation Organization (1976), “Dynasty” premiered on ABC (1981), Romania became the first Warsaw Pact member state to ban the Communist Party (1990), the US Senate voted to authorize George H.W. Bush’s war on Iraq (1991), O.J. Simpson’s murder trial began (1995), 160,000 killed by an earthquake in Haiti, which destroyed most of Port-au-Prince (2010) & Woody Allen received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the 71st annual Golden Globe Awards (2014) on this day.
January 13
Henry II of Castile & León (1334), Salmon P. Chase (1808), Horatio Alger (1832), Sophie Tucker [Kalish] (1884), George Gurdjieff (1887), Zhou Youguang [Zhou Yaoping] (1906), Paul Feyerabend (1924), Gwyneth ‘Gwen’ Verdon (1925), Charles Nelson Reilly (1931), Rip Taylor (1931), Renato Bruson (1936), Edmund White (1940), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (1961), Patrick Dempsey (1966), Shonda Rimes (1970), Orlando Bloom (1977) & Liam Hemsworth (1990) were born #OnThisDay. Æthelwulf, king of Wessex (858), Charles le Gros of the Franks (888), Abbé Suger (1151), Edmund Spenser (1599), Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1625), Frederick V of Denmark (1766), Elisabeth Christine von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1797), Stephen Foster (1864), Nadezhda von Meck (1894), Wyatt Earp (1929), James Joyce (1941), Hubert Humphrey (1978), André Kostelanetz (1980), Chiang Ching-huo (1988), René Pleven (1993), Johan Jørgen Holst (1994) & Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon (2017) died on this day. Nika riots in Constantinople — popular uprising put down by Byzantine Emperor Justinian (532), Pope Honorius II granted papal sanction to the Knights Templar (1128), Galileo Galilei discovered Callisto — Jupiter’s fourth moon (1610), Dr. William Bryden escaped the massacre of a British expeditionary force of 16,000 in Afghanistan’s Khyber Pass (1842), Vancouver Island granted to Hudson’s Bay Company (1849), the British Labour Party founded under Kair Hardie’s leadership (1893), Émile Zola’s “J’accuse” letter accusing the French government of framing Alfred Dreyfus (1898), the first Korean immigrants to the US arrived in Honolulu on the RMS Gaelic (1903), John Millington Synge’s “Deirdre of the Sorrows” premiered in Dublin (1910), as First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill presented his plan for a British assault on the Dardanelles (Gallipoli campaign) (1915), Mickey Mouse comic strip’s first appearance (1930), Adolf Hitler declared ‘total war’ against the Allies (1943), the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the UN Jacob Malik stormed out of a Security Council meeting & announced his intention to boycott future Security Council meetings (1950), Baudouin of Belgium proposed independence for the Congo (1959), Chubby Checker’s song “The Twist” hit #1 on the charts two years after first reaching that position (1962), Karol Wojtyla (later Pope Paul II appointed archbishop of Krakow (1964), Lt. Col. Étienne Eyadéma & Kléber Dadjo launched a coup d’état in Togo (1967), Johnny Cash performed at Folsom Prison (1968), Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu fled Nigeria, ending the war for Biafra’s independence (1970), Sarah Caldwell became the first woman to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera in a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata (1976), Douglas Wilder became the first African American governor of Virginia & the first in the US (1990), Jeffrey Dahmer pleaded insanity to serial murder (1992), Japan issued a limited apology for the sexual enslavement of the Korean ‘comfort women’ (1992), Queen Elizabeth II’s statement on Prince Harry & Meghan Markle (2020), Donald Trump impeached by the House of Representatives (232-197) for ‘incitement of insurrection’ (2021) & a 45,000-year-old cave painting of a pig discovered in Leang Tedongnge cave on the island of Sulawesi — the world oldest known cave painting of an animal (2021) on this day.
January 14
Mark Antony [Marcus Antonius] (83 BC), Benedict Arnold (1741), Henri Fanti-Latour (1836), Berthe Morisot (1841), Jean de Reszke (1850), Albert Schweitzer (1875), Martin Niemöller (1892), John dos Passos (1896), Cecil Beaton (1904), Takeo Fukuda (1905), Joseph Losey (1909), Andy Rooney (1919), Giulio Andreotti (1919), Yukio Mishima (1925), Louis Quilico (1925), Jean-Claude Beton (1925), Gerald Arpino (1928), Harriet Andersson (1932), Julian Bond (1942), Faye Dunaway (1941), Carol Bellamy (1942), Holland Taylor (1943), Mariss Jansons (1943), Nina Totenberg (1944), Maureen Dowd (1952), Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu (1952), Ben Heppner (1956), Colin Ferguson (1958) & Jason Bateman (1969) were born #OnThisDay. Pier Francesco Cavalli (1676), Edmond Halley (1742), François Joseph Paul, marquis de Grasetilly, comte de Grasse (1788), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1867), Greyfriars Bobby the Skye Terrier (1872), Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence (1892), Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1898), Joaquín Turina (1849), Humphrey Bogart (1957), Jeanette MacDonald (1965), Anthony Eden (1977), Peter Finch (1977), Anaïs Nin (1977), Ray Kroc (1984), Donna Reed (1986), Douglas Sirk (1987), Georgy Malenkov (1988), Uta Hagen (2004), Shelley Winters [Schrift] (2006), Ricardo Montalbán (2009), Conrad Bain (2013) & Alan Rickman (2016) died on this day. Martin Luther entered the University of Erfurt at the age of 17 (1501), Pope Leo X issued a papl bull against slavery (1514), François I of France & Holy Roman Emperor Charles V signed the Treaty of Madrid in which François gave up his claims to Flanders, Burgundy & Italy (1526), Philip V abdicated as king of Spain (1724), Third Battle of Panipat (1761), US Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War (1784), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his ‘Dissonanzenquartett’ (Dissonance Quartet) (Op. 10) (1785), Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel (1814), Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Tosca” premiered in Rome (1900), Raymond Poincaré became prime minister of France (1912), Gen. J.C. Smuts & Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi reached an agreement on indians in South Africa (1914), Alban Berg’s opera “Wozzeck” premiered in Berlin (1925), Norway claimed Queen Maud Land in Antarctica (1939), Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered all ‘enemy aliens’ to register (1942), Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first US president to use a plane for official business, flying to Casablanca to meet with Winston Churchill & Charles de Gaulle (1943), “The Today Show” premiered on NBC (1952), Sandy Wilson’s musical “The Boy Friend” opened at Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End (1954), Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe (1954), George Wallace sworn in as governor of Alabama (1963), “The Bell Jar” published a month before Sylvia Plath’s suicide (1963), “Sanford & Son” starring Redd Foxx & Demond Wilson premiered on NBC (1972), Margrethe II became the first queen regnant of Denmark since 1412 (1972), “The Bionic Woman” with Lindsay Wagner debuted on ABC (1976), “Fantasy Island” starring Ricardo Montalbán & Hervé Villechaize premiered on ABC (1977), Tyne Daly arrested for drunk driving in Van Nuys (1991), Bill Clinton approved a $20 billion aid package for Mexico (1995), Georgia made its five cross national flag official again after 500 years (2004), Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia for Saudi Arabia (2011), U.S. Rep. Steve King stripped of his House committee assignments after making racist comments (2019), Yoweri Museveni won re-election in Uganda in elections challenged by Bobi Wine as rigged (2021) on this day.
January 15
Molière [Jean-Baptiste Poquelin] (1622), Franz Grillparzer (1791), Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809), Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812), Pierre S. Du Pont (1870), Max Adler (1873), Abdulaziz Ibn Saud (1875), Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia (1902), Aristotle Onassis (1906), Edward Teller (1908), Gene Krupa (1909), Jean Bugatti (1909), Michel Debré (1912), Lloyd Bridges (1913), Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914), Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918), John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York (1920), Frank Thornton (1921), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929), Michel Chapuis (1930), Margaret O’Brien (1937), Vince Foster (1945), Princess Michael of Kent (1945), Charo [Maria Baeza] (1951), Iñaki Urdangarín (1968) & Prince Philip & Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia (1982) were born #OnThisDay. Servius Sulpicius Galba, Roman emperor (69), Juan de Herrera (1597), Banastre Tarleton (1833), Matthew Brady (1896), Fannie Farmer (1915), Karl Liebknecht (1919), Rosa Luxemburg (1919), Elizabeth Short (1947), Ray Bolger (1987), Gordon Jackson (1990), Victoria de los Ángeles (2005), Mathilde Krim (2018) & Carol Channing (2019) died on this day. Nebuchadnezzar II of Bablyon laid siege to Jerusalem (558 BCE), Otho seized power in Rome & declared himself emperor (69), Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church of England (1535), François I of France commissioned Jean-François Roberval to settle New France (1541), Elizabeth Tudor crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey (1559), Vermont declared independence from New York (1777), Tobias Smollett published a pamphlet accusing Henry Fielding of plagiarism (1752), the British Museum opened in London (1759), Voltaire’s “Candide” published (1759), Fraunces Tavern opened in MAnhattan (1762), John Etherington wore the first top hat in London (1797), Skandinavia published in New York, the first Swedish magazine in the US (1847), José Joaquín de Herrera replaced as president of Mexico by Gen. Mariano Arista (1851), Elisha Otis patented the steam elevator (1861), the first use of the donkey as a symbol of the Democratic Party drawn by Thomas Nast appeared in Harper’s Weekly (1870), Abdulaziz Ibn Saud’s capture of Riyadh initiated the creation of the third Saudi state (1902), Jan Ignace Paderewski became the first prime minister of the newly independent Poland (1919), Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht tortured & murdered by the Freikorps (1919), the Great Boston Molasses Flood killed 21 (1919), Arthur Griffith elected president of the Irish Free State after Eamon de Valera resigned in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1922), the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the conviction of John T. Scopes on a technicality but the ban on the teaching of evolution remained in force (1927), Elizabeth Short (‘the Black Dahlia’) found murdered in LA’s Leimert Park (1947), John Juston’s film “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” premiered (1948), Ilse Koch (a.k.a., ‘the Witch of Buchenwald’) sentenced to life in prison by a German court (1951), the First Nigerian Republic overthrown in a coup d’état (1966), the Aswan Dam opened in Egypt (1971), “American Pie” reached #1 on the pop charts (1972), four Watergate burglars pleaded guilty in federal court (1973), Gene Shalit joined “The Today Show” (1973), Richard Nixon suspended all US offensive action in North Vietnam (1973), “Happy Days” began an 11-year run on ABC (1974), Portugal signed an accord granting Angola’s independence (1975), Phyllis Diller got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1975), Sara Jane Moore sentenced to life for her attempted assassination of Gerald Ford (1976), the Coneheads debuted on “Saturday Night Live” (1977), serial killer Ted Bundy murdered Lisa Levy & Margaret Bowman (1978), Diana, Princess of Wales called for an international ban on landmines (1997), Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger’s ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ (2009) & LGBTQ activists accused Chechnya of persecution (2019) on this day.
January 16
René of Anjou, king of Naples (1409), Johannes Schöner (1477), François de Vendôme, duc de Beaufort (1616), Franz Brentano (1838), André Michelin (1853), Fulgencio Batista (1901), Paul Nitze (1907), Ethel Merman (1908), Francesco Scavullo (1921), Pilar Lorengar [Lorenza Pilar García] (1928), Norman Podhoretz (1930), Dian Fossey (1932), Jim Berry (1932), Susan Sontag (1933), Marilyn Horne (1934), Katia Ricciarelli (1946), Georgette Mosbacher (1947), Ruth Reichl (1948), Fuad II of Egypt (1952), Saadeddine Othmani (1956), Sade [Helen Folasade Adu] (1959), Kate Moss (1974) & Lin-Manuel Miranda (1980) were born #OnThisDay. Johannes Schöner (1547), Edward Gibbon (1794), Amilcare Ponchielli (1886), Léo Delibes (1891), Marshall Field (1906), Carole Lombard [Jane Alice Peters] (1942), Arturo Toscanini (1957), Bob Jones (1968), Ted Cassidy (1979), Laurent-Désiré Kabila (2001), Auberon Waugh (2001), Michael Bilandic (2002), Andrew Wyeth (2009), Gustav Leonhardt (2012), Abigail Van Buren [Pauline Phillips] (2013), Russell Johnson (2014), Christopher Tolkien (2020) & [Harvey] Phil Spector (2021) died on this day. The Roman Senate conferred the title ‘Augustus’ on Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian (27 BCE), Totila’s Ostrogoths entered Rome after a long siege (550), Córdoba’s emir Abd al-Raḥmān III declared himself caliph (929), the Council of Nablus was held in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1120), the Medici were appointed official bankers to the popes (1412), Ivan the Terrible crowned himself the first tsar of Russia (1547), Holy Roman Emperor Charles V named his son Philip II king of Spain (1556), Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England (1572), the first edition of “El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha” (book one of “Don Quixote”) by Miguel de Cervantes published in Madrid (1605), the Scottish parliament ratified the Act of Union (1707), Britain & Prussia signed the Treaty of Westminster (1756), the British captured Pondicherry from the French (1761), Vermont declared independence from New York (1777), Louis XVI sentenced to death by the Convention National (1793), British troops defeated the French at the Battle of Corunna during the Peninsular War (1809), John C. Frémont appointed governor of the new California Territory (1847), the Senate rejected the Crittenden Compromise (1861), Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman issued Field Order #15 granting land to African Americans (1865), Virginia readmitted to the Union (1870), the Pendelton Act created the basis for the US civil service system (1883), the School Journal published John Dewey’s essay “My Pedagogic Creed” (1897), the British House of Commons voted on home rule for Ireland (1913), Montenegro surrendered to Austria-Hungary’s forces (1916), the Zimmermann Telegram from Germany to Mexico intercepted by British intelligence (1917), strikes across Germany & Austria (1918), ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution (Prohibition) (1919), first assembly of the Legaue of nations held in Paris (1920), Carnegie Hall hosted its first jazz concert with Benny Goodman & his band (1938), Carole Lombard killed in a plane crash (1942), Adolf Hitler moved into his Führerbunker in Berlin (1945), Belgium, Luxembourg & Netherlands recognized Israel (1950), Egypt’s president Abdel Gamal Nasser pledged to reconquer Palestine (1956), Lynden Pindling’s Progressive Liberal Party formed the first black government in the Bahamas (1967), Muammar Gaddafi took over in Libya four months after instigating a coup d’état (1970), Peter Benchley’s “Jaws” published by Doubleday (1974), Donny & Marie Osmond’s TV show premiered on ABC (1976), Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled to Egypt after the Iranian Revolution toppled the Shah (1979), David Attenborough’s “Life on Earth” premiered on BBC One (1979), the Persian Gulf War began (1991), Bill Cosby’s son Ennis murdered on California’s Interstate 405 in Los Angeles (1997), the Congo’s president Laurent-Désiré Kabila assassinated by one of his own bodyguards (2001), Bill Clinton awarded Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish–American War (2001), the UN Security Council unanimously established an arms embargo & froze the assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida & members of the Taliban (2002), Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf sworn in as Liberia’s president, becoming Africa’s first female elected head of state (2006), Donald Trump’s impeachment trial began in the Senate (2020) & Armin Laschet was elected leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), succeeding Angela Merkel (2021) on this day.
January 17
Philippe le Hardi (Philip the Bold), duc de Bourgogne (duke of Burgundy) (1342), Friedrich der Weise, Kurfürst von Sachsen (Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony) (1463), Pope Pius V [Antonio Ghislieri] (1504), Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600), Benjamin Franklin (1706), Stanislas August Poniatowski, last king of Poland (1732), Anne Brontë (1820), Catherine Booth (1829), Alexander Sergeyevich Taneyev (1850), David Lloyd George (1863), David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty (1871), Al Capone (1899), Betty White (1922), Earth Kitt (1927), Vidal Sassoon (1928), James Earl Jones (1931), Douglas Wilder (1931), Frederick A. Fox (1931), Don Zimmer (1931), Muhammad Ali [Cassius Clay] (1942), René Préval (1943), Andy Kaufman (1949), Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (1954), Steve Harvey (1957), Jim Carrey (1961), Michelle Obama (1964) & Zooey Deschanel (1980) were born #OnThisDay. Roman emperor Theodosius the Great (395), Fyodor I, tsar of Russia (1598), Thomas Lincoln (1851), Lola Montez (1861), Chang & Eng Bunker (1874), Rutherford B. Hayes (1893), Juliette Gordon Low (1927), Louis Comfort Tiffany (1933), Gary Gilmore (1977), Charles Hernu (1990), Olav V of Norway (1991), Richard Crenna (2003), Zhao Ziyang (2005), Art Buchwald (2007), Bobby Fischer (2008) & Derek Fowlds (2020) died on this day. Giovanni da Verrazzano set sailing searching for a passage to China (1524), François Rabelais absolved of apostasy by Pope Paul III (1536), Catherine de Medici issued the Edict of St. Germain recognizing the rights of Huguenots in France (1562), Henry IV of France declared war on Spain (1595), Brandenburg & Sweden signed the Treaty of Königsberg (1656), Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play “The Rivals” premiered in London (1775), armed Democrats took control of Texas state government & ended Reconstruction in the state (1874), Sanford Dole & American planters instigated a coup d’état overthrowing Queen Liluokalani, the last sovereign of an independent Hawaii (1893), Félix Faure became president of France (1895), Anton Chekov’s play “The Cherry Orchard” premiered at the Moscow Art Theater (1904), Captain Robert Scott reached the South Pole one month after Roald Amundsen (1912), Popeye debuted in the comic strip “Thimble Theater” (1929), FDR appointed Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. the 44th US ambassador to the United Kingdom (1938), Nazis began evacuation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz (1945), Soviet troops liberated Warsaw from Nazi German occupation (1945), Soviet secret police arrested Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary (1945), the first meeting of the United Nations Security Council (1946), Dwight Eisenhower ordered the assassination of the Congo’s president Patrice Lumumba (1961), Dwight Eisenhower used his farewell address to warn of the military/industrial complex (1961), Martin Luther King, Jr. launched his campaign in Chicago (1966), serial killer Gary Gilmore executed by firing squad in Utah (1977), Ferdinand Marcos ended martial law in the Philippines (1981), George Wallace won an unprecedented fourth term as governor of Alabama (1983), Hu Yaobang resigned as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party amid demonstrations for democracy in China (1987), Harald V succeeded Olav V as king of Norway (1991), George Bush launched Operation Desert Storm (1991), Paula Jones accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment (1994), the Republic of Ireland granted the first divorce in its history (1997), Bernie Sanders challenged Hillary Clinton on health care in the fourth Democratic presidential debate (2016), Barack Obama commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence from 35 to 7 years (2017) & Vladimir Putin ordered the arrest of Alexey Navalney upon his return to Russia (2021) on this day.
January 18
François Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois (1641), Charles de Montesquieu (1689), Peter Mark Roget (1779), Daniel Webster (1782), César Cui (1835), Emmanuel Chabrier (1841), Daniel Williams (1858), Gaston Gallimard (1881), A.A. Milne (1882), Oliver Hardy (1892), Cary Grant [Archibald Alexander Leach] (1904), Sibylla von Saxe-Coburg und Gotha (1908), Jacob Bronowski (1908), Danny Kaye [David Daniel Kaminski] (1911), Gilles Deleuze (1925), Ray Dolby (1933), Paul Keating (1944), Alexander van der Bellen (1944), Elijah Cummings (1951), Kevin Costner (1955), Mark Rylance [David Mark Rylance Waters] (1960), Martin O’Malley (1963), Jane Horrocks (1964), Leo Varadkar (1979) & Seung-Hui Cho (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Pedro I of Portugal (1367), Edmund de Mortimer, 5th Earl of March (1425), Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands (1586), John Tyler (1862), Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1873), Antoine César Becquerel (1878), Prince John of England (1919), Rudyard Kipling (1936), Charles [Carlo] Ponzi (1949), Sydney Greenstreet (1954), Hugh Gaitskell (1963), Yvonne Printemps (1977), Cecil Beaton (1980), Bruce Chatwin (1989), Myfanwy Piper (1997), Paul Tsongas (1997), Sargent Shriver (2011), Glenn Frey (2016) & Roberta Peters [Peterman] (2017) died on this day. Gen. Magnentius proclaimed himself emperor after deposing Constans (350), 30,000 killed by troops loyal to Justinian in the Nika uprising against the Byzantine emperor (532), Francisco Pizarro founded Lim in Peru (1535), Louis Prince de Condé arrested & imprisoned at Vincennes (1650), Friedrich I & Sophie Charlotte von Hannover crowned king & queen of Prussia (1701), Captain James Cook became the first European to reach the Hawaiian Islands (1778), Thomas Jefferson requested funding from Congress for the Lewis & Clark expedition (1803), José de San Martín led a revolutionary army over the Andes to attack Spanish royalists in Chile (1817), Otto von Bismarck proclaimed the establishment of the Second German Reich & Wilhelm of Prussia as its first emperor (1871), Gen. Charles Gordon left London for Khartoum (1884), Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole a month after Roald Amundsen (1912), opening of the World War I peace conference (1919), Ignacy Jan Paderewski became prime minister of Poland (1919), the Metropolitan Opera’s first jazz concert included Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday& Benny Goodman (1944), “The Jeffersons” premiered on CBS (1975), Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry arrested on drug charges (1990), former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin indicted on corruption charges (2013) and NASA & NOAA announced that 2016 was the hottest year on record, surpassing the previous record set in 2015 which itself topped a record set in 2014 (2017) on this day.
January 19
Dōgen (Japanese Buddhist priest & founder of the Sōtō school of Zen) (1200), François II of France (1544), James Watt (1736), Auguste Comte (1798), Robert E. Lee (1807), Edgar Allan Poe (1809), Paul Cézanne (1839), Ólafur Thors (1892), Hans Hotter (1909), Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (1920), Patricia Highsmith [Plangman] (1921), Jean Stapleton (1923), Nathalie ‘Tippi’ Hedren (1930), Phil Everly (1939), Janis Joplin (1943), Dolly Parton (1946), Julian Barnes (1946), Alexandr Vladimirovich Shchukin (1946), Paula Deen (1947), Desi Arnaz, Jr. (1953), Katey Sagal (1954), Simon Rattle (1955), Martin Bashir (1963), John Bercow (1963), Michael Adams (1963), J.B. Pritzker (1965), Edwidge Danticat (1969), Predrag Mijatović (1969), Orlando Palmeiro (1969), Luc Longley (1969), Junior Seau (1969), Steve Staunton (1969), Jodie Sweetin (1982), Pete Buttigieg (1982) & Jack Schlossberg (1993) were born #OnThisDay. Dagobert I, king of Austrasia, Soissons, Burgundy & Neustrië (639), Hans Sachs (1576), William Congreve (1729), Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1865), Charlotte of Belgium (Carlotta of Mexico) (1927), Michael Rabin (1972), Thomas Hart Benton (1975), William O. Douglas (1980), Bettino Craxi (2000), Hedy Lamarr (2000), Françoise Giroud (2003), Harry E. Claiborne (2004), Wilson Pickett (2006), Suzanne Pleshette (2008) & Ettore Scola (2016) died on this day. Theodosius installed as co-emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (379), Rouen surrendered to Henry V of England (1419), France ceded Roussillon & Cerdagne to Spain through the Treaty of Barcelona (1493), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, executed for treason (1547), Louis XIV of France & Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I signed a treaty dividing the Spanish empire (1668), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Il Trovatore” premiered in Rome (1853), Georgia seceded from the Union (1861), Jules Massenet’s opera “Manon” premiered in Paris (1884), Henrik Ibsen’s play The Master Builder premiered in Berlin (1893), four people in Norfolk killed in the 1st German Zeppelin air raid attack on the United Kingdom (1915), Red Guards & White Guards clashed in the civil war in Finland (1918), Japan invaded Burma (1942), the first Warsaw Ghetto uprising (1943), Cuba recognized Israel (1949), Indira Gandhi elected India’s fourth prime minister & first female head of government (1966), Gerald Ford pardoned ‘Tokyo Rose’ Iva Toguri (1977), Klaus Barbie arrested in Bolivia (1983), Spain recognized Israel (1986), “48 Hours” premiered on CBS (1988), Fleetwood Mac reunited to play “Don’t Stop” at Bill Clinton’s first inaugural ball 91993), Jean-Claude Juncker sworn in as prime minister of Luxembourg at the age of 28 (1995), Yasser Arafat returned to Hebron (1997), Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán escaped from Puente Grande maximum-security prison near Guadalajara (2001), Howard Dean’s Iowa scream (2004), the first McDonald’s drive-through in Beijing opened (2007), Lance Armstrong admitted to doping in all seven of his Tour de France races (2013), Sarah Palin endorsed Donald Trump in Iowa (2016), Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán extradited to the US for trial (2017) & the death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 400,000 in the US (2021) on this day.
January 20
Johann Hermann Schein (1586), Carlos II of Spain (1716), Ernest Chausson (1855), Lead Belly [Huddie William Ledbetter] (1888), Joy Adamson [Friederike Viktoria Gessner] (1910), DeForest Kelley (1920), Federico Fellini (1920), Patricia Neal (1926), Arte Johnson (1929), Natan Sharansky (1948), Bill Maher (1956), Rainn Wilson (1966), Questlove [Ahmir Thompson] (1971), Nikki Haley (1972), Mathilde, queen of Belgium (1973) & Philippe Cousteau, Jr. (1980) were born #OnThisDay. St. Sebastian (288), Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1612), Anne of Austria, queen of France (1666), Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII (1745), David Garrick (1779), Bettina von Arnim (1859), David Kalākaua, king of Hawaii (1891), George V of England (1936), Amilcar Cabral (1973), Johnny Weismuller (1984), Barbara Stanwyck [Ruby Stevens] (1990), Audrey Hepburn (1993), Edith Haisman (1997), Al Hirschfeld (2003), Etta James [Jamesetta Hawkins] (2012) & Claudio Abbado (2014) died on this day. Castile established the Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) in the port of Seville to deal with American affairs (1503), Christian II forced to abdicate as king of Denmark & Norway (1523), León founded by order of Mexico’s viceroy Don Martín Enríquez de Almansa (1576), the Peace of Knarod ended War of Kalmar between Denmark & Sweden (1613), the Treaty of Andrussovo ended the 13-year-war between Poland & Russia (1667), Napoléon convened the great Sanhedrin in Paris (1807), China ceded Hong Kong to the British during the 1st Opium War (1841), Elizabeth Cady Stanton became the first woman to testify before Congress (1869), the American Civil Liberties Union founded (1920), the Republic of Turked declared (1921), Japan established Henry Pu Yi as the puppet emperor of Manchukuo (1934), Edward VIII succeeded George V as king of England (1936), Japan invaded Burma (1942), Adolf Hitler held the Wannsee Konferenz to organize the Holocaust (the ‘Final Solution’) (1942), Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fourth inauguration (1945), Surinam became autonomous within the Kingdom of the Netherlands (1950), Patrice Lumumba sentenced to 6 months in prison in the Belgian Congo (1960), John F. Kennedy’s inauguration (1961), Arthur Penn’s film “Bonnie and Clyde” premiered in Paris with stars Warren Beatty & Faye Dunaway in attendance (1968), Richard Nixon’s inauguration (1969), Jimmy Carter announced the US boycott of the Moscow Olympics (1980), Ronald Reagan’s first inauguration (1981), American hostages in Tehran released after 444 days (1981), Ozzy Osbourne bit the head of a bat on stage in Des Moines (1982), George H.W. Bush’s inauguration (1989), Bill Clinton’s first inauguration (1993), “Four Weddings & a Funeral premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (1994), Joseph Estrada ousted in the EDSA II Revolution and succeeded by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as president of the Philippines (2001), George W. Bush’s first inauguration (2001), Barack Obama’s first inauguration (2009), Donald Trump’s inauguration (2017), Joe Biden’s inauguration (2021) & Joe Biden signed 15 executive orders on his first day as president (2021) on this day.
January 21
Charles V of France (1338), Ethan Allen (1738), Thomas Jonathan ‘Stonewall’ Jackson (1824), Oscar II Frederik, king of Sweden & Norway (1829), Grigori Rasputin (1869), Alexander Tcherepnin (1899), Christian Dior (1905), Karl Wallenda (1905), Paul Scofield (1922), Aristotelis ‘Telly’ Savalas (1922), Jean Vroom (1922), Sam Mele (1922), Benny Hill [Alfred Hawthorn Hill] (1924), Prince Max, duke of Bavaria (1937), Wolfman Jack [Robert Weston Smith] (1938), Jack Licklaus (1940), Plácido Domingo (1941), Richie Havens (1941), Ivan Putski (1941), [Charles] Edwin Starr [Hatcher] (1942), Mac Davis (1942), Martin Sharp (1942), Martin Shaw (1945), Jill Eikenberry (1947), Eric Holder (1951), Paul Allen (1953), Jeff Koons (1955), Geena Davis (1956) &. Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway (2004) were born #OnThisDay. Michael I Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople (1059), Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1519), John Dowland (1626), Louis XVI of France (1793), Albert Lortzing (1851), Franz Grillparzer (1872), Gojong, king & emperor of Korea (1919), Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin (1924), George Washington Goethals (1928), Lytton Strachey (1932), George Méliès (1938), George Orwell (1950), Cecil B. DeMille (1959), Ann Sheridan (1967), Richard Russell (1971), James Beard (1985), [Dorothy] Billy Tipton (1989), Jack Lord (1998), Byron de la Beckwith (2001), Peggy Lee [Norma Delores Egstrom] (2002), Waldemar Kmentt (2015), Russell Baker (2019), Kaye Ballard (2019) & Meat Loaf [Marvin Lee Aday] (2022) died on this day. Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz & George Blaurock launched the Swiss Anabaptist movement in Zürich (1525), England’s parliament passed a bill of attainder against Catherine Howard (1542), the Act of Uniformity enacted by England’s parliament (1549), Prussia & Russia signed a treaty re the third partition of Poland (1793), Louis XVI of France was guilltoined for treason (1793), Leoš Janáček’s opera “Jenůfa” premiered in Brno (1904), Angel Island immigration station opened in San Francisco Bay (1910), the Italian Communist Party was founded at Livorno by Amadeo Bordiga & Antonio Gramsci (1921), Agatha Christie’s first novel “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” introducing the character Hercule Poirot published (1921), Parisian baker & ‘student of medieval life’ Henri Littière was charged with forcing his adulterous wife Juliette to wear a chastity belt & sentenced to three months in prison & fined 50 francs for cruelty to his wife (1934), the Wilderness Society founded (1935), Alger Hiss convicted on perjury charges (1950), the Battle of Khe Sanh began (1968), the first Concorde flights from Heathrow & Orly (1976), Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam War draft dodgers (1977), first supertitles for a live opera performance for the Canadian Opera Company’s production of “Elektra” (English titles by Sonya Friedman) (1983), Jessye Norman sang “Simple Gifts” at Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration (1985), Lorena Bobbitt was found temporarily insane (1994), more than two million people worldwide participated in Women’s Marches protesting Donald Trump’s election (2017), Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh finally conceded defeat & left Gambia 2 months after losing the presidential election (2018), the first case of COVID-19 in the US was confirmed (2020) & Meat Loaf [Marvin Lee Aday] died (2022) on this day.
January 22
Ibn Taymiya (1263), Ivan III (‘the Great’), Grand Prince of Moscow & Russia (1440), Francis Bacon (1561), Pierre Gassendi (1592), Captain William Kidd (1645), Nicola Lancret (1690), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729), George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788), Bishop Ernest Roland Wilberforce (1840), August Strindberg (1849), Beatrice Potter Webb (1858), D.W. Griffith (1875), Constance Collier (1878), Francis Picabia (1879), Marcel Dassault [Bloch] (1892), Conrad Veidt (1893), Rosa Ponselle [Ponzillo] (1897), Sergei Eisenstein (1898), George Balanchine (1904), U Thant (1909), Bruno Kreisky (1911), Suzanne Danco (1911), Henri Dutilleux (1916), William Warfield (1920), Birch Bayh (1928), Sam Cooke (1931), Berthold Grünfeld (1932), Bill Bixby (1934), Graham Kerr (the Galloping Gourmet) (1934), Pierre S. Du Pont IV (1935), John Hurt (1940), Myung-Whun Chung (1953), Shaun Cody (1983), Robert Steinhäuser (1983) & Netta Barzilai (1993) were born #OnThisDay. Muhammad I of Granada [Ibn al-Aḥmar] — first ruler of the Emirate of Granada (1238-1273), founder of the Nasrid dynasty & builder of the Alhambra (1273), Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset (1552), Shah Jahan (1666), Queen Victoria (1901), Lyndon Baines Johnson (1973), Jean-Louis Barrault (1994) Aristotelis ‘Telly’ Savalas (1994), rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1995), Israel Eidad (1996), Ann Miller [Johnnie Lucille Collier] (2004), Rose Mary Woods (2005), Heath Ledger (2008), Jean Simmons (2010), Cecil Parkinson 92016), Ursula K. Le Guin (2018), Hank Aaron (2021) & Thích Nhất Hạnh [Nguyen Xuan Bao] (2022) died on this day. Danish Vikings defeated Æthelred’s Saxons at the Battle of Basing (871), Robert II crowned king of Scotland (1371), Jews expelled from Colmar in Alsace (1510), Ottoman troops took Cairo, capital of the Maeluk Sultanate (1517), Henry VIII’s England & François I’s France declared war on Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1528), Elizabeth Tudor granted Thomas Tallis & William Byrd music press monopoly (1575), Spain ceded the Falkland Islands (las Malvinas) to Britain (1771), coup d’état in Batavian Republic (1798), Ashanti defeated the British in the Gold Coast (Ghana) (1824), the first British colonists reached New Zealand (1840), Johannes Brahms’ 1st piano concerto (in D minor) premieres in Hanover (1859), 150 British soldiers faced 3-4,000 Zulus at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift (1879), Cheyenne chief Dull Knife defeated by US & British forces (1879), Nicholas II’s palace guard massacred workers marching to the Winter Palace led by Father Gapon in ‘Bloody Sunday’ (1905), Vassily Kandinsky formed the Kunstlerverein in Munich (1909), Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” premiered in Manhattan (1953), Charles de Gaulle & Konrad Adenauer signed the Elysée treaty of cooperation between France & Germany (1963), Kenneth Kaunda became the first president of Zambia (1964), the world’s largest cheese (15,723 kg) manufactured in Wisconsin for New York’s World Fair (1964), “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” premiered on NBC (1968), the US Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationally (1973), Russian dissidents Andrei Sakharov & Yelena Bonner arrested in Moscow and banished to Gorky (1980), Apple’s “1984” commercial aired during Super Bowl XVIII (1984), Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces destroyed Kuwait’s oil facilities (1991), ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski pleaded guilty to federal bombing charges (1998), the US Census Bureau released statistics showing Hispanics to be the largest minority in the US (2003), Evo Morales inaugurated as Bolivia’s first indigenous president (2006), Heath Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose (2008) & Netflix became the largest digital media & entertainment company in the world, worth $100 billion (2018) on this day.
January 23
Vincent Ferrer (1350), John Hancock (1737), Muzio Clementi (1752), Marie Henri Beyle Stendhal (1783), Édouard Manet (1832), Antonio Gramsci (1891), Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (1896), Django Reinhardt (1910), Napoléon L. Bonaparte (1914), Potter Stewart (1915), Airey Neave (1916), Frank Lautenberg (1924), Jeanne Moreau (1928), Chita Rivera (1933), Marty Russo (1944), Arnoldo Aleman (1946), Tom Carper (1947), Megawati Sukarnoputri (1947), Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger III (1951), Antonio Villaraigosa (1953), Pavlo Lazarenko (1953) & Mariska Hargitay (1964) were born #OnThisDay. Holy Roman Emperor Otto III (1002), Ferdinand II of Aragon (1516), the Jiajing emperor of Ming China (1567), William Pitt the Younger (1806), Prince Edward, Duke of Kent & Strathearn (1820), Michele Puccini (1864), Gustave Doré (1883), Anna Pavlova (1931), Edvard Munch (1944), Helmuth Moltke (1945), Pierre Bonnard (1947), Alexander Onassis (1973), Paul Robeson (1976), Samuel Barber (1981), Salvador Dali (1989), Northrop Frye (1991), Frederick ‘Freddie’ Bartholomew (1992), Thomas Dorsey (1993), Robert Nozick (2002), Igor Kipnis (2002), Nell Carter (2003), Bob Keeshan (2004), Johnny Carson (2005), E. Howard Hunt (2007), Jack LaLanne (2011), Abdullah, king of Saudi Arabia (2015), Stansfield Turner (2018), Larry King [Zeiger] (2021) & Hal Holbrook (2021) died on this day. Zhu Yuanzhang crowned as the Hongwu emperor, first Ming emperor of China (1368), the second Book of Common Prayer became mandatory in England (1552), assassination of the Earl of Moray (regent of Scotland) provoked civil war (1570), Elizabeth Tudor opened the Royal Exchange in London (1571), France & Sweden formed an anti-Habsburg alliance through the Treaty of Barwald (1631), the first of Blaise Pascal’s “Lettres Provinciales” published (1656), Britain, the Netherlands & Sweden formed the Triple Alliance against Louis XIV’s France (1668), Liechtenstein became a sovereign principality within the Holy Roman Empire (1719), Prussia, Austria & Russia agreed on the second partition of Poland (1793), Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree (1849), Col. Eugene Baker ordered the massacre of sleeping Blackfeet in Montana (1870), a massive fire in Ålesund killed one & left 10,000 Norwegians homeless & Kaiser Wilhelm II funded the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style (1904), Charles Curtis of Kansas became the first Native American US senator (1907), the US & the UK demanded an end to abuses in Léopold II’s État Indépendant du Congo (Congo Free State) (1908), the ‘Young Turks’ led a coup d’état against the Ottoman régime, assassinating Turkish minister of war Nazim Pasha (1913), the Netherlands refused to turn Kaiser Wilhelm II over to the Allies (1920), Ramsay MacDonald formed the first British Labour government following Stanley Baldwin’s resignation (1924), Joseph Stalin put Karl Radek & 16 others on trial in Moscow as part of the Great Purge (1937), Igaz Paderewski became prime minister of the Polish government in exile (1940), Charles Lindbergh urged the US to negotiate with Hitler (1941), Duke Ellington played Carnegie Hall for the first time (1943), Karl Dönitz launched Operation Hannibal (1945), the Knesset declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel (1950), Wham-O produced the first Frisbees (1957), Kim Philby defected to the USSR (1962), François Truffaut’s film “Jules et Jim” premiered (1962), ratification of the 24th Amendment to the US Constitution banning poll taxes in federal elections (1964), the USS Pueblo was captured by North Korean patrol boats (1968), “Roots” premiered on ABC (1977), Sweden became the first country to ban aerosol sprays (1978), the Richard Nixon presidential museum opened in San Clemente (1981), Madelein Albright became the first female secretary of state (1997), Pope John Paul II condemned the US embargo of Cuba (1998), reporter Daniel Pearl kidnapped in Karachi & subsequently beheaded (2002), Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud crowned king of Saudi Arabia (2015), Juan Guaido declared himself acting president of Venezuela (2019) & Annabella Sciorra testified that Harvey Weinstein raped her 25 years before (2020) on this day.
January 24
Publius Aelius Hadrianus (Hadrian) (76), Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1444), John Vanbrugh (1664), William Congreve (1670), Farinelli [Carlo Broschi] (1705), Friedrich der Große (Frederick the Great) of Prussia (1712), Georg F. Schmidt (1712), Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais (1732), Gustav III of Sweden (1746), Edith Wharton (1862), Marguerite Durand (1864), Arthur Schomburg (1874), Maurice Couve de Murville (1907), Norman Dello Joio [Nicodemo De Gioo] (1913), Robert Motherwell (1915), Ernest Borgnine (1917), Oral Roberts (1918), Charles Socarides (1922), John, Earl Spencer (1924), Robert Kastenmeier (1924), Maria Tallchief (1925), Michel Serrault (1928), Neil Diamond (1941), Sharon Tate (1943), Elliott Abrams (1948), John Belushi (1949), Moon Jae-in (1953), Nastassja Kinski (1961) & Ed Helms (1974) were born #OnThisDay. Caligula [Gaius Caesar] (41), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1547), Ferdinand II von Vorderösterreich (1595), Lord .Randolph Churchill (1895), Winston Churchill (1965), George Cukor (1983), Gordon MacRae (1986), L. Ron Hubbard (1986), Ted Bundy (1989), Thurgood Marshall (1993) & Gianni Agnelli (2003) died on this day. Claudius succeeded Caligula as Roman emperor after his assassination (41), Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II declared Albrecht von Wallenstein a traitor (1634), Charles VII Albert elected Holy Roman Emperor (1742), Louis XVI issued an edict calling for the convocation of France’s Estates-General (1789), a millwright discovered gold in Sutter’s Creek, setting off the California Gold Rush (1848), Modest Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” premiered in St. Petersburg (1874), Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” premiered (1875), publication of Robert Baden-Powell’s “Scouting for Boys” launched the Boy Scouts movement (1908), St. Petersburg renamed Leningrad (until 1991) (1924), Alfred Hitchcock’s first film “The Pleasure Garden” released in England (1927), Noël Coward’s play “Design for Living” premiered in Manhattan (1933), Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” premiered in Moscow but was banned until 1961 (1934), Krueger’s Cream Ale became the first canned beer sold by an American company (1935), John Ford’s film “The Grapes of Wrath” released (1940), Adolf Hitler refused Gen. Friedrich Paulus’ request to surrender, ordering German troops at Stalingrad to fight to the death (1943), Look magazine published the confession of Emmett Till’s murderers J.W. Milam & Roy Bryant (1956), Japanese sergeant Shoichi Yokoi found hiding on Guam (1972), Atocha Massacre by fascists in Madrid (1977), Apple unveiled its Macintosh personal computer (1984), Turkish journalist and writer Uğur Mumcu assassinated by a car bomb in Ankara (1993), Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) (2017), Larry Nassar sentenced to 40-175 years for sexual assault (2018) & the US recognized Juan Guiado as Venezuela’s president (2019) on this day.
January 25
Messalina (17), Anne, Duchess of Brittany (1477), Edmund Campion (1540), William Cavendish, first Duke of Devonishire (1640), Pompeo Batoni (1708), Robert Burns (1759), W. Somerset Maugham (1874), Virginia Woolf (1882), Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886), Eduard Zhevardnadze (1928), Corazon Aquino (1933), Etta James [Jamesetta Hawkins] (1938), Angela Thorne (1939), Peter Tatchell (1952), Marcello Giordani (1963), Charlene Wittstock, Princess of Monaco (1978), Volodymyr Zelensky (1978) & Alicia Keys [Cook] (1981) were born #OnThisDay. Geiseric, king of the vandals & Alans (477), Zhao Shu, the Yingzong Song emperor of China (1067), Henry Suso (1366), Christian II of Denmark, Norway & Sweden (1559), Lucas Cranach the Younger (1586), Caroline Lamb (1828), Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (1852), Dorothy Wordsworth (1855), Frederic Leighton (1896), Amadeo Modigliani (1920), Al Capone (1947), Ava Gardner (1990), Jean Dixon (1997), Robert Shaw (1999), Philip Johnson (2005), Mary Tyler Moore (2017) & John Hurt (2017) died on this day. Claudius accepted by the Roman Senate as the new emperor (41), Edward III became king of England after his mother Isabella & her lover Roger Mortimer deposed his father Edward II (1327), Sir Thomas Wyatt launched a rebellion against Mary Tudor (1554), Gioachino Rossini’s Cinderella opera “La Cenerentola” premiered in Rome (1817), the University of Virginia chartered by the state (1819), Vincenzo Bellini’s opera “I Puritani” premiered in Paris (1835), an American expedition under Charles Wilkes became the first to identify Antarctica as a new continent (1840), Felix Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” first played at the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Victoria to the crown prince of Prussia (1858), the soda fountain patented by Gustavus Dows (1870), Congress created an Electoral Commission to resolve the 1876 election (1877), the Russian Zionist organization Bilu founded (1882), the National Afro-American League founded in Chicago by Timothy Thomas Fortune, one of earliest civil rights organizations (1890), Nellie Bly circumnavigated the globe in 72 days, 8 days fewer than Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg in “Around the World in 80 Days” (1890), the United Mine Workers of America founded (1890), John Millington Synge’s play “Riders to the Sea” premieres in Dublin (1904), the Cullinan Diamond — the world’s largest — found in South Africa (1905), Julia Ward Howe became the first woman elected to National Institute of Arts & Letters (1907), Richard Strauss’ opera “Elektra” premiered in Dresden (1909), Montenegro surrendered to Austria Hungary (1916), Russia declared a republic of Soviets (1918), delegates at the Paris peace conference approved the establishment of a commission that would create the League of Nations (1919), the Hotel Pennsylvania opened in Manhattan, the largest hotel in the world at that time (1919), the first Winter Olympic Games opened in Chamonix (1924), Thailand’s Japanese puppet government declared war on the US & the UK (1942), Grand Rapids (MI), became the first US city to fluoridate its water (1945), Richard Strauss’ “Metamorphosis” premiered in Zürich (1946), David Ben-Guirion led his Mapai party to victory in Israel’s first parliamentary elections (1949), the first Emmy Awards ceremony held at the Hollywood Athletic Club (1949), Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council (1959), Walt Disney’s animated film “101 Dalmatians” released in the US (1961), John F. Kennedy held the first televised presidential press conference (1961), coup d’état in El Salvador (1961), Robert Altman’s film “M*A*S*H” released (1970), Charles Manson & three followers convicted of the Tate-LaBianca murders (1971), Idi Amin’s coup d’état in Uganda (1971), Paul McCartney released from a Tokyo jail & deported from Japan (1980), 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived back in the US (1981), Mao Zedong’s widow Jiang Qing sentenced to death (1981), Mao Zedong’s widow Jiang Qing’s death sentence commuted to life in prison by China’s supreme court (1981), Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie arrested in Bolivia (1983), Dan Rather questioned George H.W. Bush on the CBS evening news on his role in the Iran-Contra Affair (1988), Sears announced the closure of its catalog sales department after 97 years (1993), “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” won a Golden Globe for best film at the 61st award ceremony (2004), revolution broke out in Egypt (2011), Donald Trump’s lobbyist Roger Stone arrested for making false statements (2019) & Janet Yellen was confirmed as the first female treasurey secretary by the US Senate (2021).
January 26
Karl XIV Johan [Jean Bernadotte], king of Sweden (1763), Ludwig Joachim von Arnim (1781), Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza (1852), Trinley Gyatso (12th Dalai Lama) (1857), Kees van Dongen (1877), Douglas MacArthur (1880), Seán MacBride (1904), Maria Augusta von Trapp (1905), Stéphane Grappelli (1908), William Hopper (1915), Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918), Akio Morita (1921), Paul Newman (1925), Roger Vadim (1928), Jules Feiffer (1929), Angela Davis (1944), Jacqueline du Pré (1945), Christopher Hampton (1946), Gene Siskel (1946), Timothy Clifford (1946), David Strathairn (1949), Jorg Haider (1950), Anders Fogh Rasmussen (1953), Eddie Van Halen (1955), Ellen DeGeneres (1958), Wayne Gretzky (1961), Kevin McCarthy (1965), Gustavo Dudamel (19981) & Nadya Suleman’s octuplets (2009) were born #OnThisDay. Edward Jenner (1823), Théodore Géricault (1824), John Wedgwood (1844), Victor de Broglie, 3rd duke of Broglie (1870), Charles George Gordon (1885), Grace Moore (1947), Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten (1947), Edward G. Robinson [Goldenberg] (1967), Nelson Rockefeller (1979), Lewis Mumford (1990), José Ferrer (1992), Jeane Dion (1997), Shinichi Suzuki (1998), Hugh Trevor-Roper (2003), , Barbara Hale (2017), Michel Legrand (2019) & Kobe Bryant (2020) died on this day. Edward III of England proclaimed king of France (1340), Vicente Yáñez Pinzón became the first European to set foot in Brazil (1500), the Council of Trent issued its conclusions in the Tridentinum, establishing a distinction between Roman Catholicism & Protestantism (1564), Stanislaw I abdicated as king of Poland (1736), Captain Arthur Phillip hoisted the Union Jack at Sydne Cove (‘Australia Day,’ a.k.a., ‘Invasion Day’) (1788), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera “Così Fan Tutte” premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna (1790), Michigan admitted as the 26th US state (1837), Myall Creek Massacre of 50 Wirrayaraay indigenous people by New South Wales Mounted Police (1838), Tennessee enacted the first prohibition law in the United States banning the sale of alcohol (1838), Hong Kong proclaimed a British territory (1841), the first German language daily newspaper in the US published in New York (1850), Louisiana seceded from the Union (1861), the world’s largest diamond —the 3,106-carat Cullinan — found in South Africa (1905), John Millington Synge’s “Playboy of Western World” opened in Dublin, provoking riots (1907), universal male suffrage in Austria (1907), Richard Strauß’ opera “Die Rosenkavalier” premiered at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden (1911), US Food Administrator Herbert Hoover called for ‘wheatless’ & ‘meatless’ days for the war effort (1918), Ukraine declared its independence from Russia (1918), Amedeo Modigliani’s fiancé Jeanne Hébuterne jumped out of a window a day after the artist’s funeral killing herself & her unborn child (1920), John Logie Baird demonstrated the first television in London (1926), the Indian National Congress proclaimed the goal of India’s independence (1929), Nazi Germany & Poland signed a 10-year non-aggression treaty (1934), Barcelona fell to Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces (1939), Francis Poulenc’s opera “Dialogue des Carmelites” premiered at the Teatro alla Scala di Milan, India annexed part of Kashmir (1957), Simon & Garfunkel’s fifth & final studio album “Bridge over Troubled Water” released (1970), Bill Clinton declared, “I want to say one thing to the American people; I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky” (1998), Condoleezza Rice sworn in as US secretary of state, the first African American woman to be appointed to the position (2005), Oprah Winfrey confronted James Frey over his fabrications in his memoir, “A Million Little Pieces” (2006), & Antony Blinken confirmed as secretary of state by the Senate (2021) on this day.
January 27
Joachim III Friedrich, Kurfürst (elector) of Brandenburg (1546), Abbas I (‘the Great’), shah of Persia (1556), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775), Samuel Palmer (1805), Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814), Édouard Lalo (1823), Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832), Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836), Tōgō Heihachirō (1848), Samuel Gompers (1850), Edward Smith (captain of the RMS Titanic) (1850), John Collier (1850), Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany (1859), Learned Hand (1872), Jerome Kern (1885), Hyman Rickover (1900), William Randolph Hearst, Jr. (1908), Arne Næss (1912), Donna Reed (1921), Edith Cresson (1934), Troy Donahue (1936), Samuel C.C. Ting (1936), Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948), Ethan Mordden (1949), Göran Hägglund (1959), Keith Olbermann (1959), Chris Collinsworth (1959), Patti Cohoon (1959), Bridget Fonda (1964), Alan Cumming (1965) & Patton Oswalt (1969) were born #OnThisDay. Roman emperor Nerva (98), Külüg Khan, third Yuan emperor of China (1311), Bartolomeo Cristofori (1731), John James Audubon (1851), James G. Blaine (1893), Giuseppe Verdi (1901), Nellie Bly [Elizabeth Cochran Seaman] (1922), Erich Kleiber (1956), Jacobo Árbenz (1971), Mahalia Jackson (1972), Jack Paar (2004), Suharto (2008), John Updike (2009), J.D. Salinger (2010), Howard Zinn (2010), Pete Seeger (2014), Ingvar Kamprad (2018) & Cloris Leachman (2021) died on this day. Dante Alighieri banished from Florence (1302), James VI of Scotland ordered Dr. John Fian burned at the stake for witchcraft in Edinburgh in the course of the Berwick witch trials (1591), the Catholic Church began a seven-year trial of Giordano Bruno (1593), Charles Perrault’s poem “The Age of Louis the Great” read out at the French Academy, part of the literary quarrel of the Ancients & the Moderns (1687), Peter the Great created the first Russian state budget (1710), Congress approved the establishment of Indian Territory in Oklahoma, clearing the way for the ethnic cleansing of Cherokees & other eastern tribes with the ‘Trail of Tears’ (1825), the National Geographic Society founded in Washington D.C. (1888), diplomats in Beijing’s foreign legations sent formal protests to the Chinese government demanding that it stop Boxers from attacking Christians & Europeans in China (1900), Jupiter’s moon Pasiphaë discovered by Melotte (1908), “Tarzan of the Apes” premiered at the Broadway Theater in Manhattan (1918), Erwin Schrödinger published an article on his theory of wave mechanics (1926), Ronald Reagan was assinted to the US Army Air Corps first Motion Picture Unit & would later claim falsely that he served in combat (1943), the Nazi German siege of Leningrad was relieved by Soviet forces after more than 2 million Russians died over the course of 880 days (1944), Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz & Birkenau concentration camps in Poland (1945), Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli made their debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in “Il Trovatore” (1961), world premiere of Scott Joplin’s rediscovered opera “Treemonisha” at Morehouse College in Atlanta (1972), the Paris Peace Accords signed bringing the Vietnam War to an end (1973), “Laverne & Shirley” (spinoff from “Happy Days” starring Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams) premiered on ABC (1976), the Senate judiciary committee unanimously approved the nomination of Anthony Kennedy to the US Supreme Court (1988), Bill Clinton & Genifer Flowers accused each other of lying about his affair with her (1992), Donald Trump issued his Muslim travel ban executive order (2017), Albert II of Belgium admitted to fathering a child out of wedlock (2020) & Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement from the US Supreme Court at the end of the 2022-2023 session (2022) on this day.
January 28
Henry VII of England (1457), Gottfried Vopelius (1645), Anna Ivanovna, tsarina of Russia (1693), Frederick VI of Denmark (1768), Giovanni Battista Velluti (1780), George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen (1784), Robert McClure (1807), Alexander Mackenzie (1822), Charles George Gordon (1833), Henry Morton Stanley (1841), Jose Martí y Perez (1853), Lala Lajpat Rai (1865), Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg (1865), Colette [Sidonie-Gabrielle] (1873), Artur Rubinstein (1887), Robert Stroud (the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’) (1890), Jackson Pollock (1912), Slade Gorton (1928), Claes Oldenburg (1929), Manuel dos Santos Lima (1935), Alan Alda (1936), Carlos Slim (1940), John Taverner (1944), Anicee Alvina (1954), Shawn Murray (1954), Rick Warren (1954), Nicolas Sarkozy (1955), Dan Higgins (1955), [Pierre] Peter Schilling (1956), Mo Rocca (1969), Linda Sanchez (1969), Kathryn Morris (1969), Giorgio Lamberti (1969), John Veenhof (1969), Amy Coney Barrett (1972), Tunde Jegede (1972), Frank Garcia (1972), Nicky Southall (1972), Elijah Wood (1981) & Rick Razzano (1981) were born #OnThisDay. Charlemagne (814), Henry VIII of England (1547), Sir Francis Drake (1596), Ludvig Holberg (1754), W.B. Yeats (1939), Reynaoldo Hahn (1947), Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1951), John Banner (1973), Christa McAuliffe (1986), Astrid Lindgren (2002), Kim Bok-dong (2019) & Cicely Tyson (2021) died on this day. Trajan succeeded Nerva as Roman emperor (98), Pope Gregory VII absolved Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV after his penitent walk to Canossa in the snow (1077), Holy Roman Emperor Charles V opened the Diet of Worms to examine Martin Luther (1521), Edward VI succeeded Henry VIII as king of England (1547), the Edict of Orléans suspended the persecution of Huguenots in France (1561), the Articles of the Warsaw Confederation guaranteed freedom of religion in Poland (1573), the Russian Academy of Sciences founded by Peter the Great (1724), Horace Walpole coined the word ‘serendipity in a letter to Horace Mann (1754), Frederick North succeeded Augustus FitzRoy as British prime minister (1770), Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice” published by Thomas Egerton (1813), Paris surrendered to Prussian troops in the Franco-Prussian War (1871), the first issue of the Yale Daily News — the first college daily newspaper in the US — published (1878), Eiffel Tower construction began in Paris (1887), Beverly Hills incorporated in California (1914), Louis Brandeis appointed to the US Supreme Court (1916), the German colony of Cameroon surrendered to Britain & France (1916), Enrique Granados’ opera “Goyescas” premiered in Manhattan (1916), San Francisco began operating streetcars (1917), Berlin ammunition factory strike (1918), Wisconsin enacted a law creating the first state unemployment insurance (1932), Japanese forces attacked Shanghai (1932), Choudhry Rahmat Ali coined the term ‘Pakistan’ (1933), Iceland became the first European country to legalize abortion (1936), Pravda criticized Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” (1936), the republic of Rwanda proclaimed (1961), a cease fire went into effect in Vietnam (1973), “We Are the World” recorded by supergroup USA for Africa (1985), the USS Challenger exploded, killing seven crew members, including Christa McAuliffe (1986), four South African police officers admitted to the Truth & Reconciliation Commission to murdering anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko (1997), Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassins hanged for murdering the president of Bangladesh (2010), Egyptians took to the streets in the ‘Friday of Anger’ to protest Hosni Mubarak’s brutal dictatorship (2011), Donald Trump released his Middle East peace plan with Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House (2020) & Bernie Sanders’ mittens worn to Joe Biden’s inauguration raised $1.8 million for Vermont charities (2021) on this day.
January 29
Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688), Daniel Bernoulli (1700), Thomas Paine (1737), Christian VII of Denmark (1749), Henry ‘Light Horse Harry’ Lee III (1756), Daniel François Esprit Auber (1782), William McKinley (1843), Anton Chekov (1860), Frederick Delius (1862), John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874), W.C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield] (1880), Ernst Lubitsch (1892), Peter von Siemens (1911), [Sidney] ‘Paddy’ Chayevsky (1923), Germaine Greer (1939), Katharine Ross (1940), Yoweri Museveni (1944), Tom Selleck (1945), Oprah Winfrey (1954), Cho-Liang Lin (1960), Greg Louganis (1960), Matthew Ashford (1960), Gia Carangi (1960), Paul Ryan (1970), Sara Gilbert (1975) & Adam Lambert (1982) were born #OnThisDay. Ali ibn Abu Talib (4th Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate) (661), André Hercule (Cardinal) Fleury (1743), Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1814), George III of England (1820), Christian IX of Denmark (1906), Douglas Haig (1928), H.L. Mencken (1956), Friedrich-Max ‘Fritz’ Kreisler (1962), Robert Frost (1963), Alan Ladd (1964), Freddie Prinze (1977), Jimmy Durante (1980), Nam June Paik (2006) & Margaret Truman (2008) died on this day. Ali ibn Abu Talib’s assassination (661), Mongols defeated by Dai Viet at the Battle of Dong Bo Dau (1258), premiere (?) of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” (1595), John Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera” premiered in London (1728), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera “Idomeneo” premiered in Munich (1781), Napoléon’s French troops defeated Russia & Prussia at the Battle of Brienne (1814), Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” first published in the New York Evening Mirror (1845), Sen. Henry Clay drafted the Compromise of 1850 (1850), Kansas became the 34th state to enter the Union (1861), Liliuokalani proclaimed queen of Hawaii (1891), Coca-Cola incorporated in Atlanta (1892), Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand & Switzerland recognized Israel (1949), Walt Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” released (1959), Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey & Mary Travers signed their first recording contract with Warner Bros. as Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) “Roots” premiered on ABC (1977), Jimmy Carter & Deng Xiaoping signed accords on behalf of the US & the PRC (1979), Oxford University refused to award Margaret Thatcher an honorary degree (1985), Yoweri Musaveni sworn in as president of Uganda (1986), Barbara Harris appointed the first female bishop of the US Episcopal Church (1989), the Teatro la Fenice burned down in Venice (1996), Jacques Chirac announced the suspension of France’s nuclear tests in the Pacific (1996), massive demonstrations in Indonesia demanding the resignation of Abdurrahman Wahid as president (2001), George W. Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ state of the union address (2002), Rod Blagojevich removed as governor of Illinois after being convicted on corruption charges (2009), Marvel film “Black Panther” directed by Ryan Coogler & starring Chadwick Boseman premiered in Los Angeles (2018), “Empire” star Jussie Smollett alleged he was the victim of a racist & homophobic attack in Chicago (2019), a polar vortex swept the Midwest & the South (2019) on this day.
January 30
Livia Drusilla [Julia Augusta] (58 BCE), Thomas Tallis (1505), George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628) (1628), [Johann] Balthasar Neumann (baptized 1687), Johann Joachim Quantz (1697), Adelbert von Chamisso (1781), Félix Faure (1841), Walter Damrosch (1862), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882), Martita Hunt (1900), Saul David Alinsky (1909), Barbara Tuchman (1912), John Profumo (1915), Dick Martin [Thomas Richard] (1922), Olof Palme (1927), Harold Prince (1928), Gene Hackman (1930), Louis Rukeyser (1933), Boris Spassky (1937), Vanessa Redgrave (1937), Ed Hansen (1937), Dick Cheney (1941), Gregory Benford (1941), Tineke Lagerberg (1941), Lynn Harrell (1944), Phil Collins (1951), Jeremy Gittins (1956), Abdullah II of Jordan (1962), Mary Kay Letourneau (1962), María Granillo (1962), Felipe VI [Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos de Borbón y de Grecia], of Spain (1968), Christian Bale (1974), Olivia Colman (1974) & Wilmer Valderrama (1980) were born #OnThisDay. Charles I of England (1649), Peter II of Russia (1730), Betsy Ross [Elizabeth Griscom] (1836), Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph von Habsburg (1889), Marie Freiin von Vetsera (1889), Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1948), Orville Wright (1948), Francis Poulenc (1963), Allen Dulles (1969), Gerald Durrell (1995), Coretta Scott King (2006), Wendy Wasserstein (2006) & Geraldine McEwan (2015) died on this day. Scottish Presbyterians sold captured Charles I to English Parliament for around £100,000 (1647), Spain & the United Netherlands signed the Peace of Münster ending the Thirty Years’ War & the Eighty Years’ War & formalizing Spain’s recognition of the Dutch Republic (1648), Charles I of England executed in London (1649), the Comte de Mirabeau elected president of the Assemblée Nationale in France (1791), Prussia took possession of Hanover (1806), John Keats wrote his poem “When I Have Fears” (1818), Richard Lawrence attempted to kill Andrew Jackson in Washington, D.C. in the first attempted assassination of a sitting US president (1835), Yerba Buena renamed San Francisco (1847), Charles Hallé founded Halle Orchestra in Manchester (1858), “Around the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne published in France by Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1873), Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph von Habsburg & Marie Freiin von Vetsera found dead after their suicide pact (1889), Charlie Chaplin’s film “City Lights” premiered in Los Angeles (1931), Germany’s president Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Reichskanzler, prompting Gen. Erich Ludendorff to write to Hindenburg warning him that “this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss & bring our nation to inconceivable misery” (1933), Ezra Pound met Benito Mussolini & read from a draft of “Cantos” (1935), assassination of the Mahatma Gandhi (1948), Martin Luther King Jr.’s house bombed (1956), John F. Kennedy proposed the creation of the Peace Corps (1961), laughter epidemic in Tanganyika (1962), the Tet Offensive in Vietnam (1968), Sir Winston Churchill’s state funeral (1965), British troops shot 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators dead on ‘Bloody Sunday’ (1972), George H.W. Bush succeeded William E. Colby as director of the CIA (1976), 100 million viewers made the final segment of “Roots” the most-watched US entertainment show in history (1977), Belgium recognized same-sex marriage (2003), Boko Haram attacked Dalori village in Nigeria, killing at least 65 (2016) & the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern (2020) on this day.
January 31
Antonia Minor (36 BCE), Taejo of Goryeo (877), Henry of Portugal (1512), Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543), Henri, duc de Guise (1550), Franz Schubert (1797), James G. Blaine (1830), Zane Grey (1872), Tallulah Bankhead (1902), Thomas Merton (1915), Jackie Robinson (1919), Stewart Udall (1920), Carol Channing (1921), Mario Lanza [Alfredo Arnold Cocozza] (1921), John Agar (1921), E. Fay Jones (1921), Norman Mailer (1923), Benjamin Hooks (1925), Jean Simmons (1929), Philip Glass (1937), Suzanne Pleshette (1937), Andrée Boucher (1937), Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, queen of the Netherlands (1938), James Watt (1938), Jessica Walter (1941), Richard Gephardt (1941), Eugène Terre’Blanche (1941), Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond (1945), Fatou Bensouda (1961), Amelia ‘Minnie’ Driver (1970), Justin Timberlake (1981), Sergio Acosta (1981), Julio Arca (1981) & Ahed Tamimi (2001) were born #OnThisDay. Xuande (Ming emperor of China) (1435), Guy Fawkes (1606), Joost Bürgi (1632), Caffarelli [Gaetano Majorano] (1783), Bonnie Prince Charlie [Charles Edward Stuart] (1788), José Félix Ribas (1815), A.A. Milne (1956), Meher Baba (1969), Samuel Goldwyn (1974), Molly Ivins (2007), Lizabeth Scott [Emma Matzo] (2015) & Richard von Weizsäcker (2015) died on this day. Louis XII of France ceded Naples to Ferdinand II of Aragon in the Treaty of Lyon after defeat in the Italian War of (1499-1504) (1504), Guy Fawkes hanged for his participation in the Gunpowder Plot (1606), the Catholic League disbanded (1596), Spain’s government bankrupt (1627), London Lock Hospital opened the first venereal disease clinic (1747), Juneautown & Kiilbourntown unified as the City of Milwaukee after the Milwaukee Bridge War (1846), the British parliament abolished the Corn Laws (1849), Lord Aberdeen’s government fell over the British conduct of the Crimean War (1855), the House of Representatives passed the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery (121-24) (1865), Gen. Robert E. Lee named commander-in-chief of all Confederate armies (1865), Anthon Chekhov’s play “The Three Sisters” (opened at the Moscow Art Theater (1901), Austria’s Reichsrath reopened after the defeat of extremists in elections (1901), Erich Maria Remarque’s “Im Westen nichts Neues” published in Berlin (1929), Leon Trotsky expelled from the Soviet Union (1929), Édouard Daladier’s government formed in France (1933), Feldmarschal Friedrich Paulus surrended to Soviet troops at Stalingrad (1943), Harry Truman announced US development of the hydrogen bomb (1950), Guy Mollet’s government formed in France (1956), Juscelino Kubitschek became president of Brazil (1956), David Ben-Gurion resigned as prime minister of Israel (1961), “The Misfits” — the last film for both Clark Gable & Marilyn Monroe — premiered in Manhattan (1961), Nauru declared its independence from Australia (1968), Viet Cong seized the US embassy in Saigon in the Tet Offensive (1968), Apollo 14 launched from Cape Canaveral (1971), Aretha Franklin sang at Mahalia Jackson’s funeral (1972), Los Angeles prosecutors announced the retrial of Raymond Buckey in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case (1990), the first McDonald’s opened in the Soviet Union (1990), Bill Clinton authorized a $20 billion loan to Mexico (1995), Seth MacFarlane’s “Family Guy” first aired on Fox TV (1999), Sandra Day O’Connor retired from the US Supreme Court, replaced by Samuel Alito (2006), Romanians protested in enormous demonstrations in Bucharest against a government emergency decree decriminalizing corruption (2017), Donald Trump fired attorney general Sally Yates after she instructed US DOJ officials not to defend his travel ban in court (2017), Donald Trump announced his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court (2017), Donald Trump formally suspended the Clean Water Act (2018), the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union (‘Brexit’) & 5,000 Russians were arrested in protests against the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny (2021) on this day.
February 1
John Napier (1550), Edward Coke (1552), Gabriel Schütz (1633), Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales (1707), Charles-Joseph Sax (1791), Victor Herbert (1859), Clara Butt (1873), Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874), Louis St. Laurent (1882), Anastasio Somoza García [Tacho] (1896), Clark Gable (1901), Langston Hughes (1902), S.J. Perelman (1904), Muriel Spark (1918), Renata Tebaldi (1922), Boris Yeltsin (1931), [Isaac] Don Everly (1937), Carol Neblett (1946), Brandon Lee (1965), Princesse Stéphanie de Monaco (1965), Lisa Marie Presley Keough Jackson (1968), Pauly Shore (1968), Andrew Breitbart (1969), Michael C. Hall (1971), Ronda Rousey (1987) & Harry Styles (1994) were born #OnThisDay. Augustus II (‘the Strong’) (1733), Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1761), Mary Shelley (1851), Piet Mondrian (1944), Johan Huizinga (1945), Friedrich Paulus (1957), Hedda Hopper [Elda Furry] (1966), Buster Keaton (1966), Werner Heisenberg (1976), Alva Myrdal (1986), Herb Caen (1997), Paul Mellon (1999), Gian Carlo Menotti (2007), Lukas Foss [Fuchs] (2009), Ed Koch (2013), Maximilian Schell (2014) & Peter Serkin (2020) died on this day. Edward III crowned king of England at the age of 14 (1327), Elizabeth Tudor signed the death warrant for Mary, Queen of Scots (1587), Skirmish at Bender (1713), the US Supreme Court convened for the first time in Manhattan (1790), Texas seceded from the Union (1861), Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” published (1862), Ralph Waldo Emerson & Charles Sumner met with Abraham Lincoln at the White House (1862), Prussian & Austrian forces launched the Second Schleswig War (1864), Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman began his march through South Carolina (1865), Mrs. William Astor (Caroline Webster Schemerhorn) invited 400 guests to a brand ball at her mansion (1892), Giacomo Puccini’s Opera “Manon Lescaut” premiered in Turin (1893), Giacomo Puccini’s Opera “La Bohème” premiered in Turin (1896), Shinhan Bank (the oldest bank in South Korea) opened in Seoul (1897), Dowager Empress Cixi banned foot binding in China (1902), Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare (1917), Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar (1918), Ramsay MacDonald’s incoming Labour government formally recognized the Soviet Union (1924), the first national conference of the KPD’s Rotfrontkämpferbund in Berlin (1925), Paul von Hindenburg dissolved the Reichstag at the request of the new Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler (1933), Austria’s Reichskanzler Engelbert Dollfuß banned all political parties but his own Christlichsoziale Parei (Christian Social Party) (1934), Vidkun Quisling formed his second Nazi puppet government in Norway (1942), Norwegian Trygve Lie became the first Secretary General of the United Nations (1946), Alcide de Gasperi formed a coalition government in Italy with Christian Democrats & Communists (1947), the Palestine Post building in Jerusalem bombed (1948), the UN condemned the People’s Republic of China as an aggressor in Korea (1951), Tunisians launched a general strike to protest French colonial rule in Tunisia (1952), “Volare” (“Nel blu dipinto di blu”) single released by Domenico Modugno (1958), African American students from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University began a sit-in in Greensboro (1960), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. & 700 demonstrators arrested in Selma (1965), Peter Jennnings became anchor of ABC’s evening news at 26 (1965), Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for president (1968), Saigon police chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executed Viet Cong officer Nguyễn Văn Lém with a pistol shot to head, captured by photographer Eddie Adams, whose photo became an iconic anti-war image (1968), British prime minister Edward Heath announced an inquiry into the ‘Bloody Sunday’ murders (1.30.72) (1972), Harriet Tubman became the first African American woman to be honored with a USPS postage stamp (1978), Roman Polanski skipped bail & fled to France to avoid charges of statutory rape in the US (1978), Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after 15 years in exile (1979), Patricia Hearst released from prison (1979), “Late Night With David Letterman” debuted on NBC (1982), Senegal & Gambia formed the confederation of Senegambia (1982), Diana, Princess of Wales visited New York (1989), F.W. de Klerk announced the repeal of all apartheid laws in South Africa (1991), Daniel Pearl beheaded by a terrorist group in Pakistan (2002), NASA’s Columbia space shuttle imploded after launching, killing all seven crew members aboard (2003), Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl XXXVIII ‘wardrobe malfunction’ (a.k.a., ‘Nipplegate’) (2004), coup d’état by King Gyanendra to undermine democracy in Nepal (2005), Canada’s Civil Marriage Act made it the fourth country to recognize same-sex marriage (2005), Ben Bernanke succeeded Alan Greenspan as chair of the US Federal Reserve Bank (2006), Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir elected Iceland’s first female prime minister, becoming the first openly gay head of government in the modern world (2009), “House of Cards” began streaming on Netflix (2013), Janet Yellen succeeded Ben Bernanke as chair of the US Federal Reserve Bank (2014), Burma/Myanmar’s first freely elected parliament in 50 years opened in Nay Pyi Taw (2016), Ted Cruz defeated Donald Trump in the Republican Iowa caucuses & Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Iowa caucuses with a coin toss (2016), Rex Tillerson confirmed by the Senate as the 69th US secretary of state (2017), the House of Commons voted in favor of the European Union bill, enabling Boris Johnson’s government to pursue Brexit (2017), a coup d’état by the Burmese military ended a brief experiment in limited democracy in Myanmar & ushered in a one-year state of emergency (2021) on this day.
February 2
Eleanor ‘Nell’ Gwynne (1650), Louis Marchand (1669), Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz (1711), Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754), Havelock Ellis (1859), Mehmed VI (last Ottoman sultan (1861), Solomon R. Guggenheim (1861), Friedrich-Max ‘Fritz’ Kreisler (1875), James Joyce (1882), Frank Lloyd (1886), Antonio Segni (1891), Howard Johnson (1897), Jascha Heifetz (1901), Ayn Rand [Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum] (1905), Jean-Pierre Guerlain (1905), (Johan) Jussi Björling (1911), Xuân Diệu (1916), Lisa Della Casa (1919), Elaine Stritch (1925), Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1926), Stan Getz [Stanley Gayetski] (1927), Luigi Ciriaco de Mita (1928), Waldemar Kmentt (1929), Martina Arroyo (1937), Tommy Smothers (1937), Don Buford (1937), Remak Ramsay (1937), Barry Diller (1942), Andrew Davis (1944), Ursula Oppens (1944), Geoffrey Hughes 91944), Karen Foss (1944), (Geoffrey Hughes (1944), Farah Fawcett (1947), Jessica Savitch (1948), Ina Garten (1948), Park Geun-hye (1952), Christie Brinkley (1954) & Dana International (1972) were born #OnThisDay. Owen Tudor (1461), Baldassare Castiglione (1529), Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina (1594), Dmitri Mendeleev (1907), Boris Karloff [William H. Pratt] (1969), Giovanni Martinelli (1969), Bertrand Russell (1970), Sid Vicious [John Simon Ritchie] (1979), Bert Parks [Jacobson] (1992), Gene Kelly (1996), Earl Butz (2008), Philip Seymour Hoffman (2014) & Tom Moore (2021) died on this day. Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera “Poro” premiered in London (1731), Russians established Fort Ross in California (1812), the first shipload of Chinese immigrants to the US arrived in San Francisco (1848), the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican–American War (1848), the first British public men’s restroom opened in London’s Fleet Street (1848), Alexandre Dumas fils’ “La Dame aux Camélias” premiered in Paris (1852), Greece declared war on Ottoman Turkey (1878), first Groundhog Day observed at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney (PA) (1887), Gustave Charpentier’s opera “Louise” premiered in Paris (1900), Queen Victoria’s funeral in Windsor (1901), Grand Central Terminal opened in Manhattan (1913), James Joyce’s “Ulysses” published by Sylvia Beach in Paris (1922), Adolf Hitler dissoved the Reichstag two days after becoming Germany’s Reichskanzler (1933), Hermann Göring banned Communist meetings & demonstrations in Germany (1933), the German 6th Army surrendered at the Battle of Stalingrad (1943), Hubert de Givenchy presented his first collection in Paris (1952), Dwight Eisenhower announced the detonation of the world’s first hydrogen bomb (1954), “The Nutcracker” choreographed by George Balanchine premiered in New York, establishing the popularity of the ballet in the US (1954), the United Nations adopted a resolution calling on Israel to withdraw troops from Egypt (1957), Buddy Holly’s last performance (1959), eight of nine planets aligned for the first time in 400 years (1962), Joe Orton’s “Loot” premiered in Brighton (1965), Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams photographed Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executed Viet Cong Nguyễn Văn Lém — a photo (‘Saigon Execution’) that caused a sensation & won the Pulitzer Prize the following year (1968), Idi Amin ousted Milton Obote as president of Uganda (1971), Dorothy Hamill won the US female figure skating championship (1975), the FBI’s ABSCAM operation revealed (1980), Chicago’s archbishop Joseph Bernardin among 18 new cardinals named by Pope John Paul II (1983), Pope John Paul II met the Dalai Lama in India (1986), Oscar Arias Sánchez elected president of Costa Rica (1986), F.W. de Klerk replaced P.W. Botha as leader of the National Party of South Africa (1990), Václav Havel became the first president of an independent Czech Republic following the ‘Velvet Divorce’ with Slovakia (1993), “RuPaul’s Drag Race” hosted by RuPaul premiered on Logo TV (2009), Japan’s prime minister Shinzō Abe vowed to defend the Senkaku Islands ‘at all costs’ (2013), Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam admitted to wearing blackface in 1984 (2019), R. Kelly arrested on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse (2019), Pete Buttigieg became the first openly gay person to be confirmed to a US cabinet post (2021), Jeff Bezos announced his retirement as CEO of Amazon after 30 years, becoming executive chairman (2021), Vladimir Putin ordered the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexey Navalny in Russia (2021) & Joe Biden signed an executive order intended to reunite immigrant families (2021) on this day.
February 3
Ferdinand Magellan (1480), Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525), Antonio José de Sucre (1795), Otto Theodor von Manteuffel (1805), Joseph E. Johnston (1807), Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809), Horace Greeley (1811), Elizabeth Blackwell (1821), Walter Bagehot (1826), Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830), Gertrude Stein (1874), Juan Negrín (1887), Norman Rockwell (1894), Alvar Aalto (1898), Mabel Mercer (1900), Charles ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd (1904), Luigi Dallapiccola (1904), James Michener (1907), Simone Weil (1909), Paul Sarbanes (1933), Randolfe ‘Randy’ Wicker [Charles Gervin Hayden, Jr.] (1938), Michael Cimino (1939), Fran Tarkento (1940), Blythe Danner (1943), Henning Mankell (1948), Nathan Lane (1956), Ayanna Pressley (1974), Amal Clooney (1978) & Elizabeth Holmes (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Sveyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark, Norway & England (1014), Johannes Gutenberg (1468), Woodrow Wilson (1924), (Charles) ‘Buddy’ Holly [Holley] Ritchie Valens (1959), the Big Bopper [Jiles Perry Richardson] (1959), Anna May Wong (1961), Umm Kulthum (1975), Ben Gazzara (2012) & Joan Adams Mondale (2014) died on this day. Mehmet the Conqueror became Ottoman sultan (1451), Barnett Davenport’s mass murder in Connecticut helped change American perceptions of crime (1780) Spain recognized the United States (1783), Illinois Territory organized (1809), the world’s first commercial cheese factory established in Switzerland (1815), Greece’s sovereignty confirmed in the London Protocol (1830), the Whig Party held its first national convention in Albany (NY) (1836), Hector Berlioz’s “Carnaval Romain” premiered in Paris (1844), the Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruled the federal Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional (1855), Samuel Langhorne Clemens first used the pen name Mark Twain (1863), Prince Mutsuhito became Emperor Meiji of Japan (1867), Iowa ratified the 15th Amendment allowing for universal male suffrage (1870), P.T. Barnum bought Jumbo the elephant (1882), Congress enacted the Electoral Count Act (1887), ‘Bandit Queen’ Belle Starr murdered in Oklahoma (1889), Davidson Black reported on fossils — which he called ‘Sinanthropus pekinensis’ & which is now known as ‘Homo erectus’ — which he found in China (1928), Josef von Sternberg’s film “Shanghai Express” premiered in Los Angeles (1932), US troops captured the Marshall Islands (1944), Jacques Cousteau’s memoir “The Silent World” published (1953), ‘The Day the Music Died’ plane crash killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, J. P. Richardson & pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa (1959), British prime minister Harold Macmillan gave his ‘winds of change’ speech criticizing South Africa’s apartheid regime (1960), Federico Fellini’s film “La Dole Via” premiered in Italy (1960), John F. Kennedy banned all US trade with Cuba except for food & drugs (1962), Frank Serpico shot during a drug bust while fellow NYPD officers refused to call for help (1971), Gro Harlem Brundtland became Norway’s first female prime minister (1981), Paraguay’s dictator Alfredo Stroessner overthrown in a military coup d’état (1989), the federal trial of four LAPD officers charged with violating Rodney King’s civil rights began (1993), Bill Clinton lifted the US trade embargo against Vietnam (1994), Alberto Gonzalez became the first Latino US attorney general (2005), Eric Holder became the first African American US attorney general (2009), Rand Paul dropped out of the Republican presidential race (2016) & Bernie Sanders won the Iowa caucuses (2020) on this day.
February 4
François Rabelais (1494), Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (1688), Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746), Joshua Abraham ‘Emperor’ Norton (1819), Friedrich Ebert (1871), Fernand Léger (1881), Nigel Bruce (1895), Charles Lindbergh (1902), Clyde William Tombaugh (1906), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906), Erich Leinsdorf (1912), Rosa Parks (1913), Ida Lupino (1918), Betty Friedan (1921), Conrad Bain (1923), Isabel Martínez de Perón [Maria Martinez] (1931), Martti Talvela (1935), James Danforth ‘Dan’ Quayle (1947), Kitarō [Masanori Takahashi] (1953) & Evan Wolfson (1957) were born #OnThisDay. Lucius Septimius Severus (211), Elizabeth of York, queen of England (1503), Louis, duc de Berry (1714), Gilbert Grosvenor (1966), Karen Carpenter (1983), {Wladziu) Liberace (1987), Carl Albert (2000), Raiford ‘Ossie’ Davis (2005), Betty Friedan (2006) & Daniel Arap Moi (2020) died on this day. Septimius Severus left control of the Roman Empire in the hands of his sons Caracalla & Geta (211), Zhao Kuangyin crowned Taizu emperor of Song China (960), Richard I of England ransomed (1194), Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester appointed governor-general of the Estates General of the United Provinces (1586), Peter the Great ordered the execution of 350 rebellious Streltsi in Moscow (1699), George Washington & John Adams elected president & vice-president (1789), James Fenimore Cooper’s novel “The Last of the Mohicans” published (1826), the Convention Nationale proclaimed the abolition of slavery in France (1794), Mormons left Nauvoo to settle in Utah (1846), the University of Wisconsin began with 20 students in one room (1849), Alvan Bovay proposed the name ‘Republican Party’ in Ripon (1854), Jefferson Davis elected president of the Confederate States of America at the meeting of delegates establishing the Confederacy (1861), Robert E. Lee named commander-in-chief of all Confederate forces (1865), Franz Josef denounced nationalism & calls for reform (1901), John Millington Synge’s play “Well of Saints” premiered in Dublin (1904), Bremen’s Soviet Republic overthrown (1919), Japan agreed to return Shandong to China following boycotts & international pressure (1922), the first part of Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Garden Party” appeared in the Saturday Westminster Gazette (1922), Japanese troops occupied the Manchurian city of Harbin (1932), Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” opened on Broadway (1938), Disney released its animated film “Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs” (1938), Bertolt Brecht’s play “The Good Person of Szechwan” premiered in Zürich (1943), Jean Anouilh’s play “Antigone” premiered in Paris (1944), Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill & Joseph Stalin meet at Yalta (1945), Angolans launched a war of independence from Portugal (1961), the first US helicopter shot down in Vietnam (1962), Yasser Arafat appointed chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (1969), Franklin Schaffner’s film “Patton” premiered in Manhattan (1970), US Sen. Strom Thurmond suggested John Lennon be deported (1972), Dik Browne’s comic strip “Hagar The Horrible” debuted (1973), Hearst heiress Patty Hearst kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (1974), Hua Guofeng named premier of the People’s Republic of China (1976), Karen Carpenter died from anorexia (1983), Studio 54 held its closing party (1980), Congress overrode Ronald Reagan’s veto of the Clean Water Act (1987), Manuel Noriega indicted for drug trafficking & racketeering (1988), Alex Trebek became the first person to host three American game shows at the same time (Jeopardy!, Classic Concentration, To Tell the Truth) (1991), Bill Gates got a pie in the face in Brussels (1998), African immigrant Amadou Diallo shot dead by NYPD officers (1999), Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dorm room (2004), Paris annulled a 213-year-old law banning women from wearing trousers (2013), same-sex marriage recognized in Scotland (2014), the fifth Democratic presidential debate broadcast by MSNBC from New Hampshire (2016), Rush Limbaugh presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Donald Trump during the State Of The Union Address (2020), Joe Biden announced an end to US support for the Saudi war in Yemen (2021) Denmark approves plans for world’s first energy island in the North Sea to provide power to 3 million Europeans (2021), the International Criminal Court convicted Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen of war crimes & crimes against humanity including forced pregnancy (2021), the first successful face & double hand transplant performed on 22-year-old Joe DiMeo in New York (2021) & the XXIV Olympic Winter Games opened in Beijing (2022) on this day.
February 5
Robert Peel (1788), Ole Bull (1810), André Citroën (1878), Adlai Stevenson II (1900), Norton Simon (1907), William S. Burroughs (1914), Robert Hofstadter (1915), Andreas Papandreou (1919), Red Buttons [Aaron Chwatt] (1919), Bernard Kalb (1922), Arthur Ochs Sulzberger (1926), Andrew Greeley (1928), Hank Aaron (1934), Jane Bryant Quinn (1939), Ivan Alexandrovich Tcherepnin (1943), Charlotte Rampling (1946), Tom Wilkinson (1948), Barbara Hershey [Herzstein] (1948), Christopher Guest (1948), David Denny (1948), Errol Morris (1948), Sven-Göran Eriksson (1948), Jennifer Granholm (1959), Laura Linney (1964), Omarosa Manigault Newman (1974) & Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan (2016) were born #OnThisDay. Aisin Gioro Fulin, the Shunzhi emperor of Qing China (1661), Thomas Carlyle (1881), Thelma Ritter (1969), Ella Grasso (1981), Joseph L. Makiewicz (1993), Gianandrea Gavazzeni (1996), Pamela Harriman (1997), Gnassingbé Eyadéma (2005), Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (2008), Kirk Douglas [Issur Danielovitch] (2020) & Christopher Plummer (2021) died on this day. Carthage capitulated to the Roman Republic (146 BCE), 26 Japanese Christians were martyred (1597), Roger Williams arrived in Boston (1631) Scotland’s ‘Covenanter’ parliament declared Charles II king (1649), Sweden recognized the independence of the United States (1783), the future George IV appointed regent in the wake of George III’s insanity (1811), Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte became king of Sweden & Norway as Karl XIV Johan (1818), the Danish army began its disastrous withdrawal from Danevirke to Dybbøl through driving snow (1864), Léopold II of Belgium established the État Indépendant du Congo as a personal possession (1885), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Otello” premiered at the Teatro alla Scala di Milano (1887), Enrico Caruso recorded “O Solo Mio” for the Victor Talking Machine Co. (1916), Congress overrode Woodrow Wilson’s veto of a bill further curtailing Asian immigration (1917), Benito Mussolini ordered the mass arrest of socialists & communists in Italy (1923), Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced his ‘court packing’ plan (1937), US troops under Gen. Douglas MacArthur entered Manila after three years of Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1945), France’s president Charles de Gaulle called for Algeria’s independence (1962), the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn all fell within a range of 16 degrees (1962), Anastasio Somoza Debayle elected president of Nicaragua (1967), the US population reached 200 million (1969), Republican Gov Evan Meecham impeached by the Arizona House of Representatives (1988), Dr. Jack Kevorkian barred from assisting in suicides by a Michigan court (1991), Byron De LA Beckwith convicted of the murder of Medgar Evans (1994), US secretary of state Colin Powell lied to the UN Security Council to justify the invasion of Iraq (2003), the British House of Commons voted in favor of same-sex mairrage (2013), archaeologists decrypt the 13th C Viking jötunvillur runic code (2014), Romania’s government scrpped a pro-corruption decree after six days of mass demonstrations (2017) & new research proved that human noise is killing ocean life (2021) on this day.
February 6
Zhu Youjian (the Chongzhen emperor, 16th & last Ming emperor of China) (1611), Anne Stuart, queen of England & Scotland (1665), Nicolaus Bernoulli (1695), Aaron Burr (1756), James Ewell Brown ‘Jeb’ Stuart (1833), Babe Ruth (1895), Claudio Arrau (1903), Amintore Fanfani (1908), Ronald Reagan (1911), Dolley Briscoe (1911), Eva Braun (1912), Mary Leakey (1913), Zsa Zsa Gabor [Sári Gábor] (1917), Elmore Rual ‘Rip’ Torn, Jr. (1931), François Truffaut (1932), Tom Brokaw (1940), Sarah Brady (1942), Bob Marley (1945), Natalie Cole (1950) & Awkwafina [Nora Lum] (1988) were born #OnThisDay. Hisham ibn ‘Abd al-Malik, 10th Umayyad caliph of Córdoba (743), Charles II of England & Scotland (1685), Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1783), Carlo Goldoni (1793), Joseph Priestley (1804), Gustav Klimt (1918), George VI of England (1952), Emilio Aguinaldo (1964), Barbara Tuchman (1989), Danny Thomas (1991), Arthur Ashe (1993), Joseph Cotten (1994), Norman Del Mar (1994), Gwendoline ‘Gwen’ Watford (1994), Lazar Berman (2005), Karl Haas (2005), Nello Santi (2020) & George P. Shultz (2021) died on this day. Maximilian von Habsburg proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor (1508), Henri de Bourbon became leader of France’s Huguenots (1577), Cardinal Mazarin fled Paris (1651), Huguenots concluded the Peace of La Rochelle with the French government (1626), James II of England & James VII of Scotland succeeded Charles II on his death (1685), Britain declared war on France (1778), France recognized the United States in the Treaty of Alliance (1778), Stamford Raffles founded Singapore as a British trading port (1819), 86 formerly enslaved African Americans sponsored by the American Colonization Society departed the United States to establish a settlement in Africa (1820), the US Census revealed a population of 9,638,453 with 1,771,656 African Americans (18.4%), Māori chiefs in New Zealand signed the Treaty of Waitangi with representatives of the British crown (1840), Robert Schumann’s 3rd Symphony (‘Rhenisch’) premiered in Düsseldorf (1851), Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston formed a new British government (1855), first meeting of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America (1861), the US Senate ratified a treaty ending the Spanish-American War (1899), the Weimar Republic’s first day (1919), Anna Anderson arrived in New York claiming to be Nicholas II’s daughter Grand Duchess Anastasia (1928), Paul von Hindenburg & Franz von Papen terminated the Prussian parliament (1933), John Steinbeck’s novella “Of Mice & Men” published (1937), Spain’s Republican government fled to France (1939), Benito Mussolini removed his son-in-law Conte Galeazzo Ciano as foreign minister & assumed the role himself (1943), Magnum Photos founded in Paris by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger & David Seymour (1947), Elizabeth II succeeded George VI as queen of England (1952), French prime minister Guy Mollet pelted with tomatoes in Algiers (1956), Fidel Castro interviewed by Edward R. Murrow (1959), Britain & France signed an accord to create a tunnel under the English Channel (1964), Cultural Revolution in Albania (1967), Muriel Humphrey succeeded Hubert Humphrey as US Senator from Minnesota (1978), John Wayne Gacy went on trial in Cook County for the murder of 33 young men in Illinois (1980) John Lennon’s Beatles colleagues recorded a tribute to him (1981), Klaus Barie put on trial for war crimes in France (1983), Ronald Reagan outlined the ‘Reagan Doctrine’ in his state of the union address (1985), tennis champion Arthur Ashe died of AIDS at 49 (1993), Corsica’s French prefect Claude Erignac assassinated in Ajaccio (1998), Washington National Airport renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport (1998), Poland’s president Andrzej Duda signed a controversial Holocaust law outlawing accusations of Polish complicity during the Nazi occupation (2018), the first COVID-19 death in the United States (2020) on this day.
February 7
Empress Matilda (1102), Sir Thomas More (1478), Jacob de Witt (1589), Maria Louise van Hessen-Kassel [Marijke Meu] (1688), Anna Ivanova Romanova, empress of Russia (1693), John Deere (1804), Charles Dickens (1812), Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867), [Harry] Sinclair Lewis (1885), James Hubert ‘Eubie’ Blake (1887), Henry Puyi (1906), Clarence ‘Buster’ Crabbe (1908), George Lascelles, Earl of Harewood (1923), Herb Kohl (1935), Garth Brooks (1962), Eddie Izzard (1962), Chris Rock (1966), & Ashton Kutcher (1978) were born #OnThisDay. Qianlong emperor of Qing China (1799), Elihu Root (1937), Harvey Firestone (1938), Daniel François Malan (1959), Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (1967), Joseph Mengele (1979), Witold Lutosławski (1994), George Trevelyan (1996), Hussein ibn Talal, king of Jordan (1999), Anne Morrow Lindbergh (2001), Blossom Dearie (2009), Albert Finney (2019), John Dingell (2019), Orson Bean (2020) & Li Wenliang (2020) died on this day. Edward of Caernarfon (the future Edward II) became the first English Prince of Wales (1301), the Treaty of Brussels dividing the Habsburg empire between Spanish & Austrian branches (1522), Philip II established the Spanish Inquisition in Latin America (1569), Mikhail Romanov became tsar of Russia (1613), the Academie Française began compiling a dictionary of the French language (1639), Nicolas Fouquet appointed Frances’ surintendant des finances (1653), the Great Siege of Gibraltar lifted by France & Spain after three years & seven months (1783), Domenico Cimarosa’s opera “Il Matrimonio Segreto” premiered in Vienna (1792), ratification of the 11th Amendment to the US Constitution (1795), the 6th Baron Byron made his maiden speech in the House of Lords (1812), Belgium’s constitution adopted (1831), the Portland Vase shattered into more than 80 pieces by a drunker visitor to the British Museum (1845), Gustave Flaubert acquitted on a charge of obscenity for his novel “Madame Bovary” (1857), the Great Baltimore Fire began (1904), “Felix the Cat” animated film released (1936), Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio” premiered in Manhattan (1940), the British government announced its intention to end British rule in Palestine (1947), the US recognized Bảo Đại as emperor of Vietnam (1950), the Beatles arrived in New York (1964), Yasser Arafat became president of the PLO (1969), Elizabeth Hanford Dole sworn in as the first female US secretary of transportation (1983), “New York, New York” became the official anthem of New York City (1985), Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier fled Haiti for France (1986), Corazon Aquino defeated Ferdinand Marcos but the dictator stole the election (1986), massive demonstrations against police brutality in South Korea (1987), tennis superstar Björn Borg apparently attempted suicide in Milan (1989), Jean-Bertrand Aristide sworn in as Haiti’s first elected president (1991), Maastricht Treaty signed by 12 member states of the European Community (EC) created the European Union (EU) (1992), Crown Prince Abdullah became king of Jordan on the death of his father Hussein (1999), George W. Bush announced a plan for ‘faith-based initiatives’ (2002), Eugène Delacroix’s painting “Liberty Leading the People” vandalized at the Louvre-Lens museum (2013), Donald Trump’s aide Rob Porter resigned in the wake of physical abuse allegations by ex-wives (2018), a study published in “Nature” contended that all citrus fruit can be traced to the southeast foothills of the Himalayas (2018), new research showed that kangaroos learned to hop 20 million years ago — far earlier than previously thought (2019), Sierra Leone’s president Julius Maada Bio declared a national emergency over rape & sexual assault (2019) & France expelled Italy’s ambassador after Italy’s deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio met with Gilets Jaunes protesters (2019) on this day.
February 8
William Tecumseh Sherman (1820), Jules Verne (1828), Dmitri Mendeleev (1834), Theodor Lessing (1872), Martin Buber (1878), Franz Marc (1880), Joseph Schumpeter (1883), Edith Evans (1888), King Vidor (1894), Tuku Abdul Rahman (1903), Georges Guétary (1915), Lana Turner (1921), Nexhmije Hoxha (1921), Audrey Meadows [Cotter] (1922), Jack Lemmon (1925), James Dean (1931), John Williams (1932), Elly Ameling (1933), Ted Koppel (1940), Nick Nolte (1941), Mary Steenburgen (1953), John Grisham (1955), Mauricio Macri (1959), Benigno Aquino III (1960) & Cecily Strong (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Mary, Queen of Scots (1587), Alexis I [Aleksey Mikhailovich], first Romanov tsar of Russia (1676), Peter the Great [Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov], tsar of Russia (1725), Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (1921), Fritz Todt (1942), J. William Fulbright (1995), Halldór Laxness (1998), Enoch Powell (1998), Iris Murdoch (1999), Anna Nicole Smith (2007), Eva Dahlbeck (2008), Violetta Verdy (2016), Nicolai Gedda (2017) & Mary Wilson (2021) died on this day. Flavius Constantine became co-emperor as Emperor Constantius III of the Western Roman Empire with Honorius (421); the University of Leiden founded (1575), Marcy, Queen of Scots beheaded at Fotheringay Castle (1587), Giordano Bruno convicted of heresy by the Vatican & sentenced to be burnt at the stake (1600), Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex led a rebellion against Elizabeth Tudor in London (1601), William & Mary College became the second college in North America (1693), “Flora” performed in Charleston — the first opera performance in the British colonies of North America (1693), the Battle of Eylau — the first which Napoléon didn’t win (1807), Franz I of Austria declared war on France (1809), the Ausgleich established the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary (1867), Japanese torpedo boats attacked Russian ships near Port Arthur, launching the Russo-Japanese War (1906), France & Germany signed a treaty concerning Morocco (1909), the Boy Scouts of America incorporated by William D. Boyce (1910), a US-sponsored coup d’état overthrew Miguel Devila as president of Honduras (1911), D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” opened in Los Angeles (1915), Swiss men voted against women’s suffrage (1920), Bolshevik troops captured Odessa, bringing an end to foreign involvement in the resistance to Bolshevik rule (1920), first execution by lethal gas in the US carried out in Nevada (1924), Sean O’Casey’s “Plough & Stars” opened at the Abbey Theater in Dublin (1926), Congress encouraged Franklin Delano Roosevelt to imprison Japanese Americans for the duration of World War II (1942), Guadalcanal secured by US troops (1943), Portugal’s dictator António de Oliveira Salazar banned opposition parties (1946), Elizabeth II issued a decree that the British royal family would continue to be known as the House of Windsor & that her descendants would take the name ‘Mountbatten-Windsor’ (1960), “Stop in the Name of Love” released by the Supremes (1965), Lyndon Baines Johnson deployed the first US combat troops to Vietnam (1965), Orangeburg Massacre — three African Americans shot dead by police in South Carolina (1968), “Planet of the Apes” premiered in Manhattan (1968), “Good Times” premiered on CBS (1974), 1800 couples wed in Korea by the Unification Church (1975), Martin Scorsese’s film “Taxi Driver” released (1976), “Hustler” publisher Larry Flynt sentenced on obscenity charges (1977), Ariel Sharon resigned as Israel’s defense minister after a Knesset inquiry found him indirectly responsible for the 1982 Sabra & Chatila Massacre (1983), “60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney suspended by CBS for racial remarks attributed to him by a gay magazine (1990), Jack Nicholson’s road rage incident (1994), Jefferson Beauregard Sessions confirmed by the Senate as US attorney general (2017), Jeff Bezos accused the National Enquirer of blackmail (2019), Thailand’s king Vajiralongkorn issued a royal decree calling Princess Ubolratana’s candidacy for prime minister ‘improper & highly inappropriate’ (2019), Myanmar’s military junta declared martial law to stop protests over its coup d’état (2021).
February 9
Constantine XI Dragases, last Byzantine Emperor (1404), William Henry Harrison (1773), Alban Berg (1885), Ronald Colman (1891), Carmen Miranda (1909), Dean Rusk (1909), Harald Genzmer (1909), Heather Angel (1909), John Eustace Theodore Brancker (1909), Kathryn Grayson [Zelma Hedrick] (1922), Brendan Behan (1923), Garret FitzGerald (1926), Roger Mudd (1928), Janet Suzman (1939), J.M. Coetzee (1940), Sheila James Kuehl (1941), Carole King (1942), Joe Pesci (1943), Ryland Davies (1943), Joseph Stiglitz (1943), Alice Walker (1944), Mia [Maria] Farrow (1945), Jim Webb (1946), Carla Del Ponte (1947), Judith Light (1949), Jay Inslee (1951), Ciarán Hinds (1953), Amanda Roocroft (1966), Zhang Ziyi (1979), John Walker Lindh (1981), Tom Hiddleston (1981) & Michael B. Jordan (1987) were born #OnThisDay. Minamoto no Yoritomo (1199), Agnès Sorel (1450), Henry Stuart, Lorde Darnley, king of Scotland (1567), Henri François d’Aguesseau (1751), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1881), Paul Laurence Dunbar (1906), Ernst von Dohnányi [Dohnányi Ernő] (1960), Sophie Tucker [Kalish] (1966), Bill Haley (1981), Yuri Andropov (1984), Jarmila Novotná (1994), Margaret Rose, Countess of Snowdon (2002), Ian Richardson (2007), Mirella Freni (2020) & Armando ‘Chick’ Corea (2021) died on this day. Sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion against Mary Tudor defeated in the Battle of London (1554), Sir Robert Walpole created 1st Earl of Orford (1742), John Quincy Adams elected sixth president by the US House of Representatives (1825), the Roman Republic declared following the flight of Pope Pius IX (1849), Jefferson Davis & Alexander Stephens elected president & vice-president of the Confederate States of America (1861), the first Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii (1885), Grover Cleveland declared a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese violence (1886), the US Department of Agriculture established as a cabinet-level federal agency (1889), Giuseppe Verdi’s last opera “Falstaff” premiered at the Teatro alla Scala di Milano (1893), British troops looted & burned Benin City, destroying the kingdom of Benin (1897), Japanese troops landed at Incheon, launching an invasion of Korea (1904), Ukraine signed a peace traty with the Central Powers (1918), Norway’s sovereignty over Svalbard recognized by an international treaty (1920), daylight savings time instituted (1942), Sen. Joe McCarthy alleged Communist infiltration of the US State Department (1950), Joanne Woodward became the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1960), the Beatles’ first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” drew 73.7 million viewers (1964), an “All in the Family” episode may have been the first with a gay theme in the history of TV (1971), Satchel Paige became the first Negro League veteran to be nomminated to the Baseball Hall of Fame (1971), “The Simpsons” became the longest running animated series in cartoon history with its 167th episode on Fox TV (1997), Bernie Sanders won 60% of the vote in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary to Hillary Clinton’s 38% (2016), Bong Joon-ho’s film “Parasite” became the first non-English-language film to win an Academy Award for best picture (2020) & the US Senate began the impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump (2021) on this day.
February 10
William Congreve (1670), Charles Lamb (1775), Boris Pasternak (1890), Jimmy Durante (1893), Bill Tilden (1893), Harold Macmillan (1894), Bertolt Brecht (1898), Stella Adler (1901), William ‘Chick’ Webb (1905), Erik Rhodes [Ernest Sharpe] (1906), Lon Chaney, Jr. (1906), Cesare Siepi (1923), Leontyne Price (1927), Robert Wagner (1930), Roberta Flack (1939), Mark Spitz (1950), Lee Hsien Loong (1952), George Stephanopoulos (1961), Glenn Beck (1964), Laura Dern (1967) & Keeley Hawes (1976) were born #OnThisDay. Henry Lord Darnley, king consort of Scotland (1567), Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1755), Alexander Pushkin (1837), Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II (1918), Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (1918), Wilhelm Röntgen (1923), Pope Pius XI [Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti] (1939), Laura Ingalls Wilder (1957), Alex Haley (1992), Paul Monette (1995), Abraham Beame (2001), Ron Ziegler (2003), Arthur Miller (2005), Shirley Temple (2014) & Larry Flynt (2021) died on this day. 62 scholars & 30 or more locals killed in the St. Scholastica’s Day riot in Oxford (1355), Albert of Prussia invested with the duchy (1525), 12 Anabaptists ran through the streets of Amsterdam naked (1535), the Académie Française founded by Cardinal Richelieu (1635), the Treaty of Paris ended the French & Indian War (a.k.a., the Seven Years’ War) (1763), Voltaire returned to Paris to great acclaim after 28 years (1778), Simón Bolívar named dictator by the Congress of Peru (1824), Alexander Pushkin is fatally injured in a duel with French officer Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d’Anthès (1837), Mormons began their westward migration from Nauvoo to the Great Salt Lake in Utah (1846), the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) formed in New York City (1870), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony in F premiered (1878), Henry Morton Stanley departed for the Congo (1879), Jacques Offenbach’s opera “Les Contes d’Hoffman” premiered in Paris (1881), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “Snegurochka” (The Snow Maiden) premiered in St. Petersburg (1882), the New York Times began using slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print” (1897), Russia & Japan declared war on each other, officially launching the Russo-Japanese War (1904), Gen. Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim organized a ‘White Guard’ in Finland to challenge the Bolshevik ‘Red Guard’ (1918), New Delhi became the capital of India (1931), Adolf Hitler proclaimed the end of Marxism (1933), the first ship full of Jewish immigrants broke through British lines to reach Palestine (1934), Carol II of Romania drove out the dictator Goga (1938), Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” hit #1 on the charts (1940), William Hanna & Joseph Barbera’s cartoon “Tom & Jerry” debuted (1940), Glenn Miller was awarded the first ever gold record for selling a million copies of “Chattanooga Choo Choo” (1942), a ‘Manifesto of the Algerian People’ issued (1943), Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” premiered at the Morosco Theater in Manhattan (1949), Jawaharlal Nehru led the Congress party to victory in India’s first general election (1952), Dwight Eisenhower warned against US intervention in Vietnam (1954), Ralph Nader testified before Congress about unsafe practices in the auto industry (1966), the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution ratified (1967), Carole King’s “Tapestry” album released (1971), BBC banned “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” by Wings (1972), South Africa’s president F. W. de Klerk announced Nelson Mandela would be freed on February 11 (1990), Lithuania voted in favor of independence from the Soviet Union (1991), Mike Tyson convicted of rape (1992), Garry Kasparov lost a chess game against IBM’s computer Deep Blue (1996), Maine voters voted to repeal a 1997 gay rights law, making it the first US state to do so (1998), Charles, Prince of Wales announced his engagement to Camilla Parker-Bowles (2005), Luciano Pavarotti gave his last performance, singing “Nessun dorma” at the 20th Winter Olympic Games in Torino (2006), 400 members of Southern Baptist churches implicated in the sexual abuse of over 700 victims, as reported by the Houston Chronicle & the San Antonio Express-News (2019), 40% decline of insect populations globally with 30% endangered, as found in a global review (2019), Amy Klobuchar announced her presidential candidacy (2019), Childish Gambino became the first rapper to win Grammy Awards for best song & best record for “This Is America” at the 61st Grammy Awards ceremony (2019) & nine women accused Costa Rica’s president Óscar Arias Sánchez of sexual assault (2019) on this day.
February 11
Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII & queen of England (1466), Alexander H. Stephens (1812), Thomas Alva Edison (1847), Feodor Chaliapine (1873), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900), Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909), Eva Gabor (1919), Lloyd Bentsen (1921), Leslie Nielsen (1926), Michel Sénéchal (1927), Tina Louise (1934), Mary Quant (1934), Manuel Noriega (1934), Mel Carnahan (1934), Francesco Pennisi (1934), John Surtees (1934), Patrick Holmes Sellors (1934), Burt Reynolds (1936), John Ellis ‘Jeb’ Bush (1953), Tammy Baldwin (1962), Sheryl Crow (1962), Scott Kolden (1962), Eric Vanderaerden (1962), Sarah Palin (1964), Jennifer Aniston (1969), Damian Lewis (1971), Alex Jones [Emeric] (1974), Brian Newman (1974), Wally Richardson (1974), Zain Verjee (1974) & Jaroslav Špaček (1974) were born #OnThisDay. Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus (55), Theodora (Byzantine empress) (867), Minamoto no Yoshitomo (1160), Elizabeth of York, queen of England (1403), René Descartes (1650), Vicente Martín y Soler, (1806), Sergei Eisenstein (1948), Patrice Lumumba (1961), Sylvia Plath (1963), Eleanor Powell (1982), Sorrell Booke (1994), Roger Vadim (2000), Tom Lantos (2008), [Lee] Alexander McQueen (2010), Whitney Houston (2012) & Bob Simon (2015) died on this day. Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus died under mysterious circumstances (probably murdered by Nero) (55), Henry VIII of England signed a treaty of alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V against François I of France (1543), voltaire returned to Paris from exile (1778), Sacagawea gave birth to her first child, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau (1805), Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a redistricting bill in the first act of ‘gerrymandering’ (1812), Norway’s independence from Denmark proclaimed (1814), University College London (1826), Gaetano Donizetti’s opera “La Fille du Regiment” premiered in Paris (1840), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “I Lombardi” premiered in Milan (1843), the first women’s public restroom opened in London’s Bedford Street (1852), Abraham Lincoln took the train from Springfield to Washington, D.C. for the last time (1861), Japan adopted the Meiji constitution (1889), Oscar Wilde’s “Salomé” premiered in Paris (1896), Congress enacted the anti-trust Expedition Act (1903), Emma Goldman arrested for lecturing on birth control (1916), Friedrich Ebert elected president of Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919), Semana de Arte Moderna (Modern Art Week) opened in São Paulo — the beginning of modernism in Brazil (1922), the “Archie” comic book debuted (1942), Gen. Dwight Eisenhower named supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe (1943), Declaration of Liberated Europe signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill & Joseph Stalin after the Yalta Conference (1945), Marie-Bernarde Soubirous claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary at Lourdes (1858), Ruth Carol Taylor became the first woman hired as a flight attendant (1958), Robert Weaver became the first AFrican American appointed to a cabinet-level position in the US federal government (1961), Julia Child’s show “The French Chef” premiered (1963), Japan launched its first space satellite (1970), Margaret Thatcher defeated Edward Heath in a challenge for the leadership of the British Conservative Party (1975), China lifted a ban on works of Aristotle, William Shakespeare & Charles Dickens (1978), “Total Eclipse of the Heart” sung by Bonnie Tyler and composed by Jim Steinman released as a single (1983), Anthony Kennedy appointed to the US Supreme Court (1988), Nelson Mandela released after 27 years in prison in South Africa (1990), Janet Reno became the first woman appointed US attorney general (1993), Pluto moved beyond Neptune, becoming once again the solar system’s outermost planet (for 228 more years) (1999), abortion in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy legalized by referendum in Portugal (2007), Hosni Mubarak resigned as president of Egypt & transferred power to the Supreme Military Council after 18 days of protests (2011), Israel renewed its pursuit of genocide in Gaza with four air strikes on the Gaza Strip (2012), Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation (effective Feb. 28), the first pope to resign since 1415 (2013), CNN & PBS broadcast the sixth Democratic presidential debate from Milwaukee (2016), Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary (2020), the World Health Organization named the novel corona virus ‘COVID-19’ (2020), & Joe Biden rescinded Donald Trump’s executive order used to fund the border wall (2021) on this day.
February 12
Lorenzo Campeggio (1474), Thomas Campion (1567), Cotton Mather (1663), Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760), Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (1768), Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777), Peter Cooper (1791), Abraham Lincoln (1809), Charles Darwin (1809), George Meredith (1828), Anna Pavlova (1881), Omar Bradley (1893), Roy Harris (1898), Lee Byung-chul (founder of Samsung) (1910), Joseph L. Alioto (1916), Forrest Tucker (1919), Franco Zeffirelli (1923), Joe Garagiola (1926), Arlen Specter (1930), Annette Crosbie (1934), Fang Lizhi (1936), Ehud Barak (1942), Simon MacCorkindale (1952), Arsenio Hall (1956), Brett Kavanaugh (1965), Christina Ricci (1980) & Sarah Lancaster (1980) were born #OnThisDay. Lady Jane Grey (1554), Lord Guildford Dudley (1554), Nicholas Throckmorton (1571), Marie-Louise d’Orléans, consort of Carlos II & queen of Spain (1689), Marie-Adélaïde of Savoie, mother of Louis XV of France (1712), Pierre de Marivaux (1763), Ethan Allen (1789), Immanuel Kant (1804), Hans von Bülow (1894), Lillie Langtry [Emilie Charlotte Le Breton] (1929), Auguste Escoffier (1935), Grant Wood (1942), James Cash Penney (1971), Sal Mineo (1976), Jean Renoir (1979), Jean Dixon (1981), Anna Anderson [Franziska Schanzkowska] (1984), Robert F. Wagner, Jr. (1991), Charles M. Schulz (2000), Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Garrett (2011), Kenneth Mars (2011), David Carr (2015), Al Jarreau (2017) & Lyndon LaRouche (2019) died on this day. Battle of the Herrings (1429), Muslims of Granada subjected to forced conversion (1502), Lady Jane Grey & Lord Guildford Dudley executed for treason by Mary Tudor (1554), the Great Northern War began (1700), Georgia founded by James Oglethorpe (1733), Gustav III succeeded Adolf Frederik as king of Sweden (1771), Congress enacted the first fugitive slave law (1793), Joseph Haydn’s song “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser” (God Save Emperor Francis) premiered in Vienna (1797), Argentine revolutionary José de San Martín routed Spanish forces in Chile (1817), Chile gained independence from Spain (1818), Ecuador annexed the Galapagos Islands (1832), the Marquess of Salisbury formed a second government in coalition with the Liberal Unionist Party (1886), Henrik Ibsen’s “Fruen fra havet” (The Lady from the Sea) premiered in Oslo (1889), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded (1909), China adopted the Gregorian calendar (1912), Puyi abdicated as Qing emperor of China (1912), George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue” premiered at the influential concert “Experiment in Modern Music” held by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra at the Aeolian Hall in Manhattan (1924), Gen. Erwin Rommel arrived in Libya with the Afrika Korps to reinforce Italian troops (1941), Christian Dior presented his ‘New Look’ collection (1947), the Lincoln Memorial penny replaced the sheaves of wheat design (1959), Argentina requests the extradition of ex-president Juan Domingo Perón (1963), North Vietnam began the release of US POWs following the signing of the Paris peace accords (1973), Sal Mineo stabbed to death in Hollywood (1976), Barbara Harris became the first female bishop of a US Episcopal Church diocese (1989), “The Scream” by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1893 pastel version) stolen in Oslo (1994), Bill Clinton acquitted by the US Senate at the end of his impeachment trial (1999), Slobodan Milošević war crimes trial began at the International Criminal Court in the Hague (2002), Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the City of San Francisco to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples (2004), Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s public art work “The Gates” opened in Manhattan’s Central Park (2005), the Writers’ Guild of America’s strike endeded after 100 days (2008), former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin found guilty on corruption charges & sentenced to 10 years in prison (2014), Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán found guilty of all 10 federal crimes he was charged with (2019) & Tokyo Olympics head Yoshiro Mori resigned after comments about talkative women making meetings “drag on too long” (2021) on this day.
February 13
Japan’s first emperor Jimmu Tennō (711 BCE), Marie de Bourgogne (1457), Pope Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi) (1599), Jean de la Badie (1610), Lord Randolph Churchill (1849), Feodor Chaliapin (1873), Bess Truman (1885), Georgios Papandreou (1888), Grant Wood (1891), Georges Simenon (1903), William Shockley (1910), Aung San (1915), ‘Tennessee’ Ernie Ford (1919), Eileen Farrell (1920), Michael Anthony Bilandic (1923), Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber (1924), Omar Torrijos Herrera (1929), Caroline Blakiston (1933), Emanuel Ungaro (1933), Kim Novak [Marilyn] (1933), George Segal (1934), Oliver Reed (1938), Jerry Springer (1944), Stockard Channing (1944), Peter Gabriel (1950), Joyce DiDonato (née Flaherty) (1969), Anders Behring Breivik (1979), Rafael Márquez (1979) & Mena Suvari (1979) were born #OnThisDay. Kenneth I of Scotland [Kenneth MacAlpin] (858), Isabella d’Esta of Mantua (1539), Catherine Howard, queen of England (1542), Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (1542), Karl X Gustav (1660), Elizabeth Stuart, Electress of the Palatinate & ‘Winter Queen’ of Bohemia (1662), Cotton Mather (1728), Richard Wagner (1883), Alfred Einstein (1952), Dame Christabel Pankhurst (1958), Georges Rouault (1958), Alice ‘Lily’ Pons (1976), Walt Rostow (2003) & Stacy Keach, Sr. (2003) died on this day. Henri III was crowned king of France at Rheims (1575), Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome to face heresy charges (1633), England’s parliament adopted the Bill of Rights limiting the power of the monarch & proclaimed William & Mary proclaimed the only joint sovereigns in British history (1689), Glencoe Massacre of MacDonalds by the Campbell clan (1692), the College of William & Mary opened in Williamsburg (1693), Sweden defeated Russia & Saxony at the Battle of Fraustadt (1706), arrest of the Marquis de Sade (1777), Abraham Lincoln declared president of the United States (1861), the moving picture projector patented (1895), Theodore Roosevelt spoke to the New York City Republican Club on race relations (1905), British suffragists stormed the Houses of Parliament, 60 women arrested (1907), the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) founded at Hotel Claridge in Manhattan (1914), Mata Hari arrested in Paris on espionage charges (1917), Switzerland’s perpetual neutrality recognized by the League of Nations (1920), the New York Renaissance became the first professional African American basketball team (1923), Bruno Hauptmann found guilty of the kidnapping & murder of Charles Lindbergh’s baby son (1935), the “Prince Valiant” comic strip first published (1937), Adolf Hitler cancelled his planned invasion of Britain (Operation Sea Lion) (1942), 22,000 or more killed in the firestorm created by the Allied bombing of Dresden (1945), Soviet troops captured Budapest after a 49-day battle with Nazi German forces that killed 159,000 (1945), Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized in New Orleans with Martin Luther King, Jr. as president (1957), Lyndon Baines Johnson approved Operation Rolling Thunder (1965), Bob Fosse’s film “Cabaret” released (1972), Major Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo seized power in Nigeria (1976), Konstantin Chernenko succeeded Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party (1984), the US, UK & France approved German plans for reunification (1990), Joseph Stiglitz became chief economist of the World Bank (1997), the last original “Peanuts” comic strip appeared in newspapers one day after the death of Charles M. Schulz (2000), Taiwan opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou resigned as chairman of the Kuomintang party after being indicted by Taiwan High Prosecutors Office on charges of embezzlement when mayor of Taipei & announced his candidacy for 2008 presidential election (2007), Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd made a historic apology to indigenous aboriginal Australians, including the Stolen Generations (2008), Michael Flynn resigned as Donald Trump’s national security adviser over dealings with Russia (2017), Harrison Ford involved in a near miss while flying a plane in Orange County (2017), the ANC demanded that Jacob Zuma step down as president of South Africa (2018), an Israeli police report recommended prosecution of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2018), NASA’s Spirit Rover mission ended after 15 years due to a sandstorm on Mars (2019), 57 members of the Senate voted to convict Donald Trump while 43 voted for acquittal, falling short of the two thirds needed to convict & remove him following impeachment in the House of Representatives (2021), Mario Draghi sworn in as prime minister of Italy (2021) & archaeologists announced the discovery of the oldest known beer factory in Abydos dating from Egypt’s early dinastic period (3150-2613 BCE) (2021) on this day.
February 14
Pandolfo Petrucci (1452), Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur (1483), Pier Francesco Cavalli (1602), Sybilla Schwarz (1621), Fernando Sor (1778), Otis Tufts (1804), Frederick Douglass (1818), Jack Benny [Benjamin Kubelski] (1894), Max Horkheimer (1895), Thelma Ritter (1902), Jimmy Hoffa (1913), Hugh Downs (1921), Fanne Foxe [Annabella Battistella] (1936), Paul Tsongas (1941), Donna Shalala (1941), ‘Big Jim’ Sullivan [Tomkins] (1941), Michael Bloomberg (1942), Carl Bernstein (1944), Gregory Hines (1945), Hans Adam, prince of Liechtenstein (1945), Raymond Joseph Teller (1948), Renée Fleming (1959) & Mark Rutte (1967) were born #OnThisDay. Richard II of England (1400), Benvenuto Cellini (1571), Maria Luisa of Savoy, queen consort to Philip V of Spain (1714), James Cook (1779), William Blackstone (1780), Vicente Guerrerro (1831), Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (1884), William Tecumseh Sherman (1891), P.G. Wodehouse (1975), Frederick Loewe [Friedrich Löwe] (1988), U Nu (1995), Dolly the Sheep (2003), Louis Jourdan [Louis Robert Gendre] (2015), Alan Howard (2015) & Ruud Lubbers (2018) died on this day. St. Valentine may have been beheaded (270), 900 Jews burned alive in Strasbourg after being blamed for causing the Black Death (1349), Holy Roman Emperor Charles V entered Ghent & executed rebels (1540), Mary Tudor had Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared a heretic (1556), Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I drove Jews out of Vienna (1670), Captain James Cook killed in Hawaii (1779), Chief Justice John Marshall declared that any act of Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is null & void (1803), James Knox Polk became first serving US president to have his photograph taken (by Matthew Brady in New York City) (1849), Oregon admitted as the 33rd state (1859), Morehouse College founded in Georgia (1867), Seraph Young voted in Utah two days after the legislature gave women the vote — becoming the first woman to vote in the US (1870), Theodore Roosevelt’s wife & mother died on the same day just hours apart from each other (1884), the first trainload of California oranges left Los Angeles via the transcontinental railroad (1886), Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest” premiered in London (1895), Austrian Zionist Theodor Herzl published “Der Judenstaat” (The Jewish State), encouraging Jews to purchase land in Palestine (1896), Arizona admitted as the 48th state (1912), seven gangsters killed on Al Capone’s orders in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago (1929), the first “Dracula” film (starring Bela Lugosi) released (1931), Gen. Erwin Rommel led his Afrika Korps to victory over US & British troops at the Battle of the KAsserine Pass (1943), Federico Fellini’s film “8½” starring Marcello Mastroianni & Claudia Cardinalle released (1963), Richard Nixon installed a secret taping system in the White House (1971), Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie for “Satanic Verses” (1989), Voyager 1 took the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ photo of earth (1990), Jonathan Demme’s film “The Silence of the Lambs” released (1991), Rafik Hariri assassinated in Lebanon (2005), six killed & 18 injured in a mass shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb (2008), Oscar Pistorius charged with the murder of Reeva Steenkamp (2013), Ellen (now Elliott) Page came out as gay (2014), Jacob Zuma resigned as president of South Africa (2018), 17 killed in the Parkland High School mass shooting in Florida (2018), Amazon cancelled plans to move into Long Island City (2019) & William Barr was confirmed as US attorney general by the US Senate (2019) on this day.
February 15
Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund (1368), Piero di Lorenzo de Medici (1471), Philipp Melanchthon (1497), Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (1519), Charles de Guise (1524), Galileo Galilei (1564), Anne Jules, Duc de Noailles (1650), Charles-André Van Loo (1705), Louis XV (1710), Jeremy Bentham (1748), Henry Steinway [Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg] (1797), Cyrus McCormick (1809), Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812), Susan B. Anthony (1820), Elihu Root (1845), Robert Fuchs (1847), William Pickering (1858), Alfred North Whitehead (1861), Ernest Shackleton (1874), John Barrymore (1882), Gale Sondergaard (1899), Georges Auric (1899), Christmas Humphreys (1901), Harold Arlen [Hyman Arluck] (1905), Jean Langlais (1907), Cesar Romero (1907), Hale Boggs (1914), Kevin McCarthy (1914), Arthur Sydney Martin (1914), R.W. Woods (1914), John B. Anderson (1922), Yelena Bonner (1923), Harvey Korman (1927), James Schlesinger (1929), [Patricia] Claire Bloom (1931), Susan Brownmiller (1935), John Adams (1947), Marisa Berenson (1947), Russell ‘Rusty’ Hamer (1947), Art Spiegelman (1948), Donna Hanover Giuliani (1950), Jane Seymour [Joyce Frankenberg] (1951), Melissa Manchester (1951), Matt Groening (1954) & Chris Farley (1964) were born #OnThisDay. Gisela von Schwaben, Holy Roman Empress & wife of Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II (1043), Michael Praetorius [Schultze] (1621), Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1637), Karl XIII of Sweden (1818), Henry Addington, first Viscount Sidmouth (1844), Mikhail Glinka (1857), Leopold Damrosch (1885), H.H. Asquith (1928), Nat King Cole (1965), Edgar Snow (1972), Karl Richter (1981), Ethel Merman [Zimmermann] (1984), Boris Goldovsky (2001) & Howard K. Smith (2002) died on this day. Socrates sentenced to death by the city of Athens (399 BCE), Ferdinand III succeeded Ferdinand II as Holy Roman Emperor (1637), Jean-Baptiste Lully’s opera “Armide” premiered in Paris (1686), Austria, Prussia & Saxony signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg bringing the Seven Years’ War (the French & Indian War) to an end (1763), St. Louis founded as a French trading post in Missouri by Pierre Laclède (1764), premiere in Vienna of “An der Schönen Blauen Danau” waltz of Johann Strauß (1867), the USS maine exploded in Havana harbor, prompting William Randolph Hearst to start a propaganda campaign to prod the US to declare war on Spain (1898), Morris & Rose Michtom put the first teddy bear on sale in the US (1903), British Labour Party founded (1906), Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak mortally wounded in an assassination attempt on Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Miami (1933), Adolf Hitler announced construction of the Volkswagen Käfer (Beetle) (1037), Norway’s Sonja Henie won a third consecutive gold medal at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Games (1936), Lillian Hellman’s play “The Little Foxes” premiered in New York City (1939), Maria Callas made her professional debut as Beatrice in Franz von Suppé’s opera “Boccaccio” at the Olympia Theatre in Athens (1941), Singapore surrendered to the Japanese (1942), “We Can Do It!” wartime propaganda poster produced by J. Howard Miller (1943), Walt Disney’s animated film “Cinderella” premiered in Boston (1950), Joseph Stalin’s USSR & Mao Zedong’s PRC signed a mutual defense treaty (1950), George VI of England buried in Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel (1952), Canada replaced the Union Jack with the maple leaf flag (1965), the United Kingdom decimalized its currency, abondoning the pence & shilling system after 1,200 years (1971), escaped mass murderer Ted Bundy recaptured (1978), Lillian Hellman sued Mary McCarthy for libel (1980), Ferdinand Marcos won a rigged presidential election in the Philippines (1986), end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1989), Jeffrey Dahmer found sane and guilty of killing 15 boys (1992), “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” won a BAFTA for best film at the 57th British Film & Television Awards (2004), demonstrations against Muammar al-Gaddafi’s dictatorship broke out in Libya (2011), Barack Obama awarded Maya Angelou the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2011), the first known case of a transgendered woman breastfeeding reported in “Transgender Health Journal” in US (2018), Hailemariam Desalegn surprised Ethiopia by resigning as prime minister (2018), & Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the first woman & the first African to lead the World Trade Organization (2021) on this day.
February 16
Zhao Shu, Yingzong emperor of Song China (1032), Nichiren (1222), Gaspard de Coligny (1519), Friedrich Wilhelm, der Große Kurfürst von Preußen (1620), Narai the Great of the Ayutthaya kingdom of Siam (1643), Giambattista Bodoni (1740), Johann Heinse (1746), Charles Pichegru (1761), Johann Strauß III (1866), George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876), George F. Kennan (1904), Hugh Beaumont (1909), Vera-Ellen [Westmeier Rohe] (1921), Hua Guofeng (1921), Geraint Evans (1922), Salvatore ‘Sonny’ Bono (1935), Carl Icahn (1936), John Corigliano (1938), Kim Jong-il (1942), Gabriel Brnčić (1942), Bob Hammond (1942), Anthony Dowell (1943), Eckhart Tolle (1948), Séamus Brennan (1948), Margaux Hemingway (1954), LeVar Burton (1957), Ice-T [Tracy Marrow] (1958), Mahershala Ali [Mahershalalhashbaz George] (1974) & Jon Ossoff (1987) were born #OnThisDay. Pierre-Paul Prud’hon (1823), Félix Faure (1899), Giosuè Carducci (1907), Keith Haring (1990), Edmund Gerald ‘Pat’ Brown (1996), Eleanor ‘Sis’ Daley (22003) & Boutros Boutros-Ghali (2016) died on this day. Pope Gregory the Great decreed that “God bless You” is the correct response to a sneeze (600), Andrew of Longjumeau dispatched by Louis IX of France as his ambassador to meet with the Khan of the Mongols (1249), Maximilian von Habsburg elected King of the Romans at Frankfurt (1486), the Battle of Great Torrington in Devon — the last major battle of the English Civil War (1646), the first known cheque written (£400) — now on display in Westminster Abbey (1659), publication of Sir Thomas Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” (1751), Lt. Stephen Decatur led a daring US mission in the First Barbary War (1804), Gallaudet College founded in Washington, D.C. (1857), Fort Donelson captured by Union troops under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (1862), Jules Massenet’s opera “Werther” premiered in Vienna (1892), Chung Sai Yat Po published in San Francisco — the first Chinese-language daily newspaper in the US (1900), Serbia mobilized against Austria-Hungary 91909), Howard Carter & Egyptian workers opened the tomb of Tutankhamun (1923), fascist Pehr Evind Svinhufvud became president of Finland (1931), the Catholic newspaper Germania warned agains tNazis & Communists (1933), Austrian Civil War ended with the defeat of the Social Democrats and the Republican Schutzbund (1934), the Frente Popular (People’s Front) won elections in Spain (1936), “Bringing Up Baby” — directed by Howard Hawks & starring Katharine Hepburn & Cary Grant — released (1938), Japanese soldiers machine gunned Australian & British soldiers & nurses in the Bangka Island massacre (1942), Joseph Stalin denounced the United Nations as “a weapon of aggressive war” (1951), Ingmar Bergman’s film “Det Sjunde Inseglet” (The Seventh Seal) released (1957), Fidel Castro sworn in as prime minister of Cuba after overthrowing the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1959), Hannah Arendt’s controversial account of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann first published in “The New Yorker” (1963), the Beatles’ second appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” (1964), the first 911 call placed in the US (1968), Mário Soares became the first democratically elected civilian president of Portugal (1986), the remains of former Emperor Haile Selassie found on the grounds of tthe imperial palace in Ethiopia (1992), O.J. Simpson’s 1968 Heisman Trophy sold for $230,000 to help settle a $33.5 million civil judgement against him (1999) & Pope Francis defrocked ex-cardinal & archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick for sexually abusing minors and adults. First Cardinal to be removed for sexual abuse — the first cardinal to be removed for sexual abuse (2019) on this day.
February 17
François, Duc de Guise (1519), Arcangelo Corelli (1653), Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (1699), René Laënnec (1781), Henri Vieuxtemps (1820), Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Gräfin von Landsfeld (a.k.a., Lola Montez) (1821), Aaron Montgomery Ward (1844), Friedrich Krupp (1854), Edward German (Jones), William Cadbury (1867), André Maginot (1877), Hans Morgenthau (1904), Red Barber (1908), Margaret Truman (1924), Chaim Potok (1929), Hal Holbrook (1925), Nicholas Ridley (1929), Dame Patricia Routledge (1929), Alan Bates (1934), Barry Humphries (1934), Mary Frances Berry (1938), Huey P. Newton (1942), Mo Yan (1955), Aryeh Deri (1959), Lou Diamond Phillips (1962), Michael Jordan (1963), Harisu (1975), Paris Hilton (1981), Bonnie Wright (1991) & Ed Sheeran (1991) were born #OnThisDay. Giordano Bruno (1600), Gregorio Allegri (1652), Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1673), Heinrich Heine (1856), Christopher Latham Sholes (1890), Geronimo (1909), Wilfrid Laurier (1918), Albert I of Belgium (1934), Bruno Walter (1962), Lee Strasberg (1982), Thelonious Monk (1982), Erik Rhodes [Ernest Sharpe] (1990), Randy Shilts (1994), José López Portillo (2004), Kathryn Grayson [Zelman Hedrick] (2010) & Rush Limbaugh (2021) died on this day. Lancastrians defeated Yorkists at the Second Battle of St. Albans in the Wars of the Roses, recapturing Henry VI (1461), a German peasant army defeated the ducal army of Schleswig-Holstein at the Battle of Hemmingstedt (1500), the Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque entered Goa (1510), Boris Godunov chosen tsar of Russia (1598), Giordano Bruno burned at the stake by the Roman Inquisition in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome (1600), Myles Standish elected first commander of the Plymouth Colony (1621), Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera “Siroe, Re di Persia” premiered in London (1728), the first partition of Poland treaty signed by Austria, Prussia & Russia (1772), the US House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson as president, breaking a tie in the electoral college (1801), the US Senate ratified the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812 (1815), the US Senate passed the Missouri Compromise (1820), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Un Ballo in Maschera” premiered in Naples (1859), South Carolina’s capital city Columbia sacked by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union army (1865), Gyula Andressy named prime minister of Hungary (1867), Alexander II of Russia survived an assassination attempt (1880), Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly” premiered in Milan (1904), Irving Berlin’s musical “Face the Music” premiered in Manhattan (1932), Chaim Weitzman elected the first president of Israel (1949), the comic strip “BC” first published (1958), the British House of Commons voted to join the European Community (1972), Richard Nixon flew to China (1972), Luciano Pavarotti received a record 17 curtain calls after his performance in “La Fille du Régiment” at New York’s Metropolitan Opera (1972), Henry Kissinger met with Mao Zedong in Beijing (1973), China invaded Vietnam, initiating the Sino-Vietnamese War (1979), Chrysler reported the largest corporate losses in US history (1981), the first francophone summit convened at Versailles (1986), Germany’s president Christian Wulff resigned in a corruption scandal (2012), Rafael Correa won re-election in Ecuador in a landslide (2013), “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” premiered on NBC (2014), the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig revealed the oldest case of human-Neanderthal mating (100,000 years ago) (2016) & Sen. Ted Cruz flew to Cancun for a vacation in the midst of a winter disaster in Texas, provoking condemnation & ridicule (2021) on this day.
February 18
Qin Shi Huang Di (259 BCE), St. Jadwiga, queen of Poland (1374), Mary Tudor (1516), Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1609), Johan Göransson Gyllenstierna (1635), Jacques Cassini (1677), Alessandro Volta (1745), Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848), Níkos Kazantzákis (1883), Wendell Wilkie (1892), André Breton (1896), Hans Asperger (1906), Jack Palance [Vladimir Palahniuk] (1920), Helen Gurley Brown (1922), George Kennedy (1925), John Warner (1927), Johnny Hart (1931), Toni Morrison [Chloe Anthony Wofford] (1931), Miloš Forman (1932), Yoko Ono Lennon (1933), Aldo Ceccato (1934), Paco Rabaane [Francisco Cuervo] (1934), Audre Lorde (1934), István Szabó (1938), Eliot Engel (1947), Princess Maria Christina [Marijke] of the Netherlands (1947), Carolyn Maloney (1948), Sinead Cusack 1948), Cybill Shepherd (1950), John Hughes (1950), John Travolta (1954), Bruce Rauner (1957), Greta Scacchi (1960), Matt Dillon (1964), Dr. Dre [Andre Romelle Young] (1965) & Molly Ringwald (1968) were born #OnThisDay. Kublai Khan (1294), Fra Angelico (1455), George, Duke of Clarence (1478), Martin Luther (1546), Michelangelo Buonarroti (1564), Louis, Duc de Bourgogne (1712), August Gottlieb Meißner (1807), Giacomo Quarenghi (1817), Gyula Andrássy Sr. (1890), Charles Lewis Tiffany (1902), George Dayton (1938), Niceto Alcalá-Zamora (1949), Gustave Charpentier (1956), Hugh Gaitskell (1963), Robert Oppenheimer (1967), Maria Franziska von Trapp (2014) & Norma McCorvey (2017) died on this day. Jerusalem re-taken by the Christian Crusader kingdom in a peace treaty between Holy Roman Emperor Frederik II & Egyptian ruler Al-Kamil (1219), George, Duke of Clarence executed by his brother Edward IV of England (1478), Henry Tudor created Prince of Wales (1503), Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II ordered the execution of Albrecht von Wallenstein (1634), John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” published in London by Nathaniel Ponder (1678), Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II banned child labor for children under 8 within his Habsburg domains (1787), Ohio University chartered as the first land grant college in the US (1804), Napoléon Bonaparte led French troops to victory over Austria & Württemberg at the Battle of Montereau (1814), the American Party (‘Know Nothings’) nominated former president Millard Fillmore as its first presidential candidate (1856), Chinese residents in the fledging state of Sarawak rebel against the ‘White Rajah’ James Brooke (1857), Jefferson Davis inaugurated as president of the Confederacy in Montgomery (1861), Vittorio Emmanuele II of Sardinia became the first king of a united Italy (1861), direct telegraph link between Britain & New Zealand established (1876), Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi awarded a patent for his design for the Statue of Liberty (1879), Gen. Charles Gordon arrived in Khartoum (1884), Russian police seized all copies of Leo Tolstoy’s “What I Believe In” (1884), Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” published in the US (1885), Winston Churchill made his maiden speech in the British House of Commons (1901), Jules Massenet’s opera “Le jongleur de Notre-Dame” premiered in Monte Carlo (1902), “Nude Descending a Staircase” by Marcel Duchamp causes an uproar when shown in New York (1913), Germany began a blockade of Britain (1915), British troops occupy Dublin (1921), US Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby resigned over the Teapot Dome scandal (1924), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced the winners of the first Academy Awards (1929), Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto (1930), Japan established the puppet empire of Manchukuo (1932), Japanese troops landed on Bali (1942), Weiße Rose (White Rose) anti-Nazi Resistance leaders Hans & Sophie Scholl arrested in Munich (1943), Nepal became a constitutional monarchy (1951), the first Church of Scientology established in Los Angeles (1954), church deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson beaten & shot during a peaceful march in Alabama (1965), Gambia independent from Britain (1965), thousands in West Berlin demonstrated against US involvement in the Vietnam War (1968), the Chicago Seven found innocent of incitement to riot (1970), Richard Nixon announced the Nixon Doctrine (1970), California’s Supreme Court abolished the death penalty (1972), -52°F (-47°C) in Old Forge set a state record low in New York (1979), Pierre Elliott Trudeau led the Liberal Party to victory in Canada’s parliamentary elections (1980), the first anti-smoking ad appeared on TV in the US (1986), Anthony Kennedy sworn in as a US Supreme Court justice (1988), Andrea Bocelli made his operatic debut as Rodolfo in “La Bohème” at the Teatro Comunale in Cagliari (1998), FBI agent Robert Hanssen arrested for spying for the Soviet Union (2001), nearly 200 died in a Daegu subway fire in South Korea (2003), the Bibliothèque Nationale de France purchased the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova for €7 million (2010), WikiLeaks published documents leaded by Chelsea Manning (2010), demonstrations against Viktor Yanukovych on the Maidan launched the Ukrainian Revolution (2014), 16 states sued Donald Trump over his use of emergency powers to build a border wall (2019), the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy (2020), Donald Trump commuted the 14-year sentence of former Gov. of Illinois Rod Blagojevich’s corruption conviction (2020) & Facebook blocked users in Australia from accessing news sites (2021) on this day.
February 19
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473), David Garrick (1717), Luigi Boccherini (1743), William III of the Netherlands (1817), Adelina Patti (1843), Constantin Brancuşi (1876), Gabriele Münter (1877), Álvaro Obregón (1880), Cedric Hardwicke (1893), Merle Oberon (1911), Lee Marvin (1924), Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (1932), William ‘Smokey’ Robinson (1940), Amy Tan (1952), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (1953), Jeff Daniels (1955), Roger Goodell (1959), Prince Andrew, Duke of York (1960), Seal [Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel] (1963), Gil Shahan (1971), Haylie Duff (1985) & Millie Bobby Brown (2004) were born #OnThisDay. Amir Timur, a.k.a., Tamerlane (1405), André Gide (1951), Knut Hamsun (1952), Deng Xiaoping (1997), Charles Trenet (2001), Silvia Rivera (2002), Umberto Eco (2016), [Nelle] Harper Lee (2016) & Karl Lagerfeld (2019) died on this day. Lucius Septimius Severus defeated Clodius Albinus at the Battle of Lugdunum (Lyon) (197), Emperor Constantius II closed all pagan temples in the Roman Empire (356), Henry VII’s Lady Chapel consecrated in Westminster Abbey (1516), François, Duc d’Alençon & Anjou, made Duke of Brabant & hereditary sovereign of the Netherlands (1582), Sigismund III of Vasa crowned king of Sweden (1594), Georg Friedrich Händel’s “Alexander’s Feast” premiered at the Covent Garden Theatre in London (1736), Pope Pius VI ceded Papal territories of Avignon, Venaissin, Ferrara, Bologna & the Romagna to France in the Peace of Tolentino (1797), Aaron Burr arrested on treason charges 91807), the first rescue team reached the Donner Party in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California (1847), Thomas Alva Edison granted a patent for his gramophone (phonograph) (1878), British premiere of Richard Strauss’ opera “Elektra” (1910), Riccardo Zandonai’s opera “Francesco da Rimini” premiered in Turin (1914), four-year old Charlotte May Pierstorff mailed by train from Idaho to her grandparents’ house 73 miles away in most famous ‘child in the post’ instance (1914), Manuel Azaña became Prime Minister of Spain for the second time (1936), Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on the interment of Japanese Americans (1942), Japanese troops landed on Timor (1942), the US 5th Fleet launched the invasion of Iwo Jima (1945), Albania disavowed what Enver Hoxha denounced as Chinese ‘revisionism’ (1961), Nikita Khrushchev informed John F. Kennedy that Russia was withdrawing troops from Cuba (1963), Betty Friedan’s manifesto “The Feminine Mystique” published (1963), “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” debuted on NET (now PBS) (1968), the. Chicago Seven acquitted of riot conspiracy but found guilty of inciting riot but their sentences were overturned on appeal (1970), the single “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” released by Tony Orlando & Dawn (1973), exiled Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn reunited with his family (1974), the Frente Polisario formed the Democratic Republic of Sahara in Western Sahara (former Spanish Sahara) (1976), Cherry Coke introduced by Coca-Cola (1985), Mickey Mouse welcomed in China (1985), the soap opera “Eastenders” premiered on the BBC (1985), Tiger Woods publicly apologized for his extramarital affairs (2010), Bashar al-Assad ordered the bombing of Gouta which killed more than 300 Syrian civilians in the midst of the genocidal civil war (2018), Bernie Sanders announced his second presidential candidacy (2019), New York City banned race-based hair discrimination (2019), the Vatican confirmed secret Catholic Church guidelines for the children of priests (2019) & a German gunman opened fire in a bar in Hanau, killing nine in a racially motivated attack (2020) on this day.
February 20
Carl Czerny (1791), Angelina Grimké (1805), Mary Garden (1874), Ansel Adams (1902), Millicent Fenwick (1910), Gloria Vanderbilt (1924), Robert Altman (1925), Roy Cohn (1927), Sidney Poitier (1927), Larry Hovis (1936), Christoph Eschenbach (1940), Buffy Saint-Marie (1941), Mitch McConnell (1942), Brenda Blethyn (1946), Sandy Duncan (1946), Ivana Trump (1949), Gordon Brown (1951), Riccardo Chailly (1953), Patty Hearst Shaw (1954), Charles Barkley (1963), Cindy Crawford (1966), Kurt Cobain (1967), Vaginal Davis (1969), Trevor Noah (1984), Rihanna [Robyn Rihanna Fenty] (1988) & Sally Rooney (1991) were born #OnThisDay. Al-Musta’sim, last Abbasid caliph of Baghdad (1258), Philip William, Prince of Orange (1618), John Dowland (1626), Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II (1790), Frederick Douglass (1895), Boutros Ghali (1910), Robert Peary (1920), Percy Grainger (1961), Ferenc Fricsay (19663), Chester Nimitz (1966), Anthony Asquith (1968), Ernest Ansermet (1969), Walter Winchell (1972), Joseph Szigeti (1973), Alice Longworth Roosevelt (1980), Dick York (1992), Roberto D’Aubuisson (91992), Ferruccio Lamborghini (1993), Derek Jarman (1994), Tōru Takemitsu (1996), Gene Siskel (1999), Maurice Blanchot (2003), Sandra Dee [Alexandra Zuck] (2005), Hunter S. Thompson (2005), Alexander Haig, Jr. (2010), Peter Mondavi (2016) & Dominick Argento (2019) died on this day. Al-Musta’sim — the last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad — died in the Mongol sack of Baghdad by being rolled up in a carpet & trampled to death (1258), Edward VI crowned king of England (1547), Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera “Giulio Cesare in Egitto” premiered at the King’s Theatre Haymarket in London (1724), Andreas Hofer executed for leading the Tyrolean resistance to Napoléon’s occupation (1810), Gioachino Rossini’s opera “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome (1816), the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in Manhattan (1872), France’s prime minister Georges Clémenceau injured during an assassination attempt (1919), American Samoa organized as a US territory (1929), Virgil Thomson & Gertrude Stein’s opera “Four Saints in Three Acts” opened on Broadway (1934), Anthony Eden resigned as British foreign secretary to protest Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany (1938), Adolf Hitler announced his support for Japan in its war with China (1938), 20,000 attended a rally in Madison Square Garden held by the American pro-Nazi German American Bund (1939), Larry Clinton & his Orchestra recorded “Limehouse Blues” (1940), Lt. Edward O’Hare became the first US flying ace of World War II with a raid against the Japanese in Rabaul (1942), the Batman & Robin comic strip first published in newspapers (1944), US victory in the Battle of Eniwetok (1944), Earl Mountbatten of Burma appointed last viceroy of India to oversee independence (1947), abolition of the kingdom of Prussia (1947), John Huston’s film “The African Queen” released in the US (1952), John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth aboard Friendship 7 (1962), Atlanta Constitution editor Reg Murphy kidnapped (1974), the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) disbanded (1976), the Irish government defied the Roman Catholic Church, approving the sale of contraceptives (1985), Brian Boitano won a gold medal in figure skating at the Olympics (1988), a gigantic statue of Albania’s dictator Enver Hoxha brought down by a mob of angry protesters in Tirana (1991), Ross perot announced his presidential candidacy on “Larry King Live” (1992), Pope John Paul II demanded enforcement of discrimination based on sexual orientation (1994), 100 killed in a fire in a nightclub in the Rhode Island town of West Warwick (2003), Donald Trump won the South Carolina Republican presidential primary with 32.5% of the vote (2016), Jeb Bush suspended his presidential campaign (2016), Hillary Clinton won the Nevada Democratic caucuses with 52.6% of the vote (2016) & the Burmese military killed two & wounded 40 protestors in demonstrations against the coup d’état in Myanmar (2021) on this day.
February 21
Peter III of Russia (1728), Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794), John Henry Newman (1801), Léo Delibes (1836), Charles-Marie Widor (1844), Andrés Segovia (1893), Anaïs Nin (1903), Ann Sheridan (1915), Lucille Bremer (1917), Robert Mugabe (1924), Sam Peckinpah (1925), Erma Bombeck (1927), Hubert de Givenchy (1927), Nina Simone [Eunice Waymon] (1933), Rue McClanahan (1934), Barbara Jordan (1936), Harald V of Norway (1937), John Lewis (1940), Margarethe Von Trotta (1942), David Geffen (1943), Alan Rickman (1946), Tricia Nixon Cox (1946), Tyne Daly (1946), Olympia Snowe (1947), Christine Ebersole (1953), Kelsey Grammer (1955), Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (a.k.a., Clark Rockefeller) (1961), Mark Kelly (1964), Scott Kelly (1964), Charlotte Church (1986) & Elliot (née Ellen) Page (1987) were born #OnThisDay. James I of Scotland (1437), Pope Julius II (1513), Baruch Spinoza (1677), Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore (1715), Eugène de Beauharnais (1824), Gustave Caillebotte (1894), Anne Frank (1945), Malcolm X [Little] (1965), Bronislava Nijinska (1972), Tim Horton (1974), Margot Fonteyn (1991), Billy Graham (2018) & Stanley Donen (2019) died on this day. Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket canonized by Pope Alexander III (1173), Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) faced her first day of interrogation during her heresy trial (1431), Boris Godunov crowned tsar of Russia (1598), Mikhail Romanov elected tsar of Russia, beginning the Romanov dynasty (1613), Congress enacted the Presidential Succession Act (1792), France’s new constitution established freedom of religion for the first time (1795), the Greek war of independence from Ottoman Turkey began (1821), Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels’ “Communist Manifesto” published in London (1848), Confederate troops defeated Union forces at the Battle of Valverde in the first major Civil War engagement west of the Mississippi (1862), Benjamin Disraeli succeeded William Gladstone as British prime minister (1874), the Washington Monument dedicated (1885), the Battle of Verdun began (1916), British & Australian troops captured Jericho (1918), Franz Lehár’s operetta “Der Zarewitsch” premiered (1927), Alka Seltzer introduced (1931), Japans prime minister Hideki Tojo made himself army chief of staff (1944), Malcolm X assassinated by agents of the Nation of Islam (1965), Henry Kissinger began secret negotiations with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho (1970), Richard Nixon met Mao Zedong in Beijing (1972), Watergate conspirators John Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman & John Ehrlichman sentenced (1975), Bill Maher’s political talk show “Real Time with Bill Maher” debuted on HBO (2003), Barack Obama met with the Dalai Lama (2014), Ukrainian police in Kiev killed 27 protestors on the Maidan & injured at least 570 (2017), Niger’s first democratic transfer of power with Mohamed Bazoum’s election as president (2021), Narendra Modi declared victory over COVID-19 just two months before India was overwhelmed by a massive second wave (2021), Vladimir Putin recognized Russia-backed separatists in the. Donbas & Luhansk areas of Ukraine (2022) & Colombia’s constitutional court decriminalized abortion (2022) on this day.
February 22
Charles VII of France (1403), George Washington (1732), Johann Nikolaus Forkel (1749), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788) Robert Baden-Powell (1857), Olave Baden-Powell (1889), Robin G. Collingwood (1880), Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892), Luis Buñuel (1900), Jean-Bédel Bokassa (1921), Marni Nixon (1929), Ted Kennedy (1932), Christine Keeler (1942), Jonathan Demme (1944), Julie Walters (1950), Miou-Miou (Sylvette Herry) (1950), Steve Irwin (1962) & Drew Barrymore (1975) were born #OnThisDay. Amerigo Vespucci (1512), Catherine Monvoisin (1680), Charles Le Brun (1690), Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen (1797), Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1875), John Jacob Astor III (1890), Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure (1913), Hans Scholl & Sophie Scholl (1943), Kasturba Gandhi (1944), Winthrop Rockefeller (1973), Angela Baddeley (1976), Florence Ballard (1976), Oskar Kokoschka (1980), Andy Warhol (1987), David Susskind (1987), Jonas Savimbi (2002), Daniel Pearl (2002), Simone Simon (2005), Wolfgang Sawallisch (2013) & Nanette Fabray (2018) died on this day. Pope Urban VIII consecrated Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s baldacchino in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome (1633), French troops entered Brussels (1746), the Battle of Buena Vista between the US & Mexico began (1847), Oscar Wilde’s play “Lady Windermere’s Fan” premiered in London (1892), Gen. Douglas MacArthur to pull US troops out of the Philippines (1942), Weiße Rose members Hans Scholl & Sophie Scholl executed in Berlin (1943), US chargé d’affaire George Kennan wired an 8,000-word telegram from Moscow to the State Department outlining the doctrine of ‘containment’ that would become US policy toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War (1946), Sukarno surrendered all executive authority to Gen. Haji Mohammad Suharto in a coup d’état establishing his ‘New Order’ dictatorship in Indonesia (1967), end of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam (1967), the US hockey team defeated the Soviet team at the XIIIth Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid in the ‘Miracle on the Ice’ (1980), Sinaloa cartel baron Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera captured in Mazatlán (2014) & Donald Trump issued an executive order rescinding Barack Obama’s executive order on transgender identity & public restroom usage (2017) on this day.
February 23
Nicolas Fouquet (1615), Samuel Pepys (1633), Georg Friederich Händel (1685), John Sutter (1803), George Watts (1817), César Ritz (1850), W.E.B. Du Bois (1868), Liang Qichao (1873), Karl Jaspers (1883), Victor Fleming (1889), Erich Kästner (1899), William Shirer (1904), Louis Stokes (1925), Régine Crespin (1926), Sylvia Chase (1938), Peter Fonda (1940), Naruhito, emperor of Japan (1960), Kristin Davis (1965), Michael Dell (1965), Niecy Nash [Carol Denise Ensley] (1970), Aziz Ansari (1983), Emily Blunt (1983) & Dakota Fanning (1994) were born #OnThisDay. Zhezong emperor of China (1100), Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1447), Zhu Qizhen, Yingzong emperor of Ming China (1464), Gentile Bellini (1507), Diego Colón (son of Christopher Columbus) (1526), Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk (1554), Georg Muffat (1704), Stanislaw Leszcynski of Poland (1766), Joshua Reynolds (1792), John Keats (1821), John Quincy Adams (1848), Carl Friedrich Gauss (1855), Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson (1927), Nellie Melba [Helen Mitchell] (1931), Edward Elgar (1934), Stefan Zweig (1942), Tomoyuki Yamashita [Yamashita Tomobumi] (1946), Stan Laurel (1965), José Napoleon Duarte (1990), James Herriot (1995) & Katherine Helmond (2019) died on this day. Diocletian began the Roman persecution of Christians, razing the church at Nicomedia (303), Johannes Gutenberg printed his first Bible (1455), Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s expedition set off from Mexico in search of the 7 cities of Cibola (1540), France initiated its fifth ‘holy war’ against Huguenots (1574), Charles XI became king of Sweden (1660), Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I rescued from a fire in the Hofburg in Vienna (1668), William III proclaimed king of England (1689), Baron von Steuben joined the Continental Army at Valley Forge (1778), Cato Street conspiracy unconvered revealing an attempt to murder the British prime minister & his cabinet ministers (1820), Boston incorporated as a city in Massachusetts (1822), the Battle of the Alamo began (1836), Abraham Lincoln arrived in Washington, D.C. (1861), Zachary Taylor led US troops against the Mexican army at the Battle of Buena Vista (1847), Mississippi readmitted to the Union (1870), Alabama became the first US state to enact an antitrust law (1883), the Times of London published the world’s first classified ad (1886), the Tootsie Roll introduced by Leo Hirshfield (1896), Émile Zola imprisoned for his “j’accuse” letter accusing the French government of anti-Semitism & wrongly jailing Alfred Dreyfus (1898), Japan imposed a treaty on Korea turning it into a Japanese protectorate (1904), Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist Party in Italy (1919), Leopold III crowned king of Belgium (1934), Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land” (1940), Walt Disney’s animated film “Pinocchio” released (1940), Joseph Stalin ordered the forced deportation of the chechen & Ingush people to Central Asia (1944), US forces defeated Japanese at the Battle of Eniwetok (1944), US Marines raised an American flag on Mt. Suribachi in Iwo Jima, captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo by Joe Rosenthall (1945), Jonas Salk initiated the first mass polio inoculation in Pittsburgh (1954), Luciano Pavarotti made his debut in “La Traviata” at the Wiener Staatsoper (1963), Milton Obote seized power in a coup d’état in Uganda (1966), the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution adopted regarding presidential succession (1967), Guyana became a republic (1970), Juan Carlos of Spain defeated the ‘Tejerazo’ coup d’état by Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero Molina (1981), Edwin Meese III confirmed by the US Senate as attorney general (1985), military coup d’état in Thailand (1991), Danny Boyle’s film “Trainspotting” opened in the UK & Ireland (1996), scientists in Scotland announced the cloning of Dolly the sheep (1997), Osama bin LAden published a fatwa declaring jihad against all Jews & Crusaders (1998), Jason Collins made history to be the first openly gay athlete to play in the NBA (2014), Donald Trump won the Nevada primary & Bernie Sanders won the Nevada Democratic caucuses (2016), Sudan’s dictator president Omar al-Bashir declared a national emergency (2019), Muhammadu Buhari won re-election as president of Nigeria (2019), Ahmaud Arbery murdered by two white supremacists in Georgia (2020), demonstrations in Delhi against India’s new citizenship law enacted by the BJP majority in parliament (2020) on this day.
February 24
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463), Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500), Don Juan of Austria (1545), Holy Roman Emperor Matthias (1557), Charles Le Brun (1619), Gen. John Burgoyne (1723), Wilhelm Grimm (1786), Edwin Freiherr von Manteuffel (1809), Georg Leo von Caprivi (1831), Winslow Homer (1836), Arrigo Boito (1842), Chester Nimitz (1885), Abe Vigoda (1921), Michael Harrington (1928), Michel Legrand (1932), Jay Sandrich (1932), Bettino Craxi (1934), Renata Scotto (1934), Barry Bostwick (1944), Steve Jobs (1955), Paula Zahn (1956), Judith Butler (1956) & Eddie Murray (1956) were born #OnThisDay. Æðelbert of Kent (616), François, Duc de Guise (1563), Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1704), Carlo Buonaparte (1785), Robert Fulton (1815), Joshua Chamberlain (1914), Malcolm Forbes (1990), Dinah Shore (1994), Henny Youngman (1998) & Sridevi Kapoor (2018) died on this day. Diocletian issued the first imperial edict ordering the persecution of Christians throughout the Roman Empire (303), St. Francis of Assisi recieved his vocation in Portiuncula at the age of 26 (1208), a Danish victory over Sweden at the Battle at Falköping (1389), Holy Roman Emperor Charles V crushed the French army in the Battle of Pavia, killing 15,000 & capturing François I of France (1525), Ferdinand von Habsburg crowned king of Bohemia (1527), Charles V crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement V (1530), Pope Gregory XIII announced the Gregorian ‘New Style’ calendar (1582), Claudio Monteverdi’s opera “Orfeo” premiered in Mantua (1607), Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera “Rinaldo” premiered at the Haymarket Theatre in London (1711), London’s Drury Lane Theatre burned to the ground, leaving owner Richard Brinsley Sheridan destitute (1804), Agustín de Iturbide & Vicente Guerrero agreed to the Plan of Iguala for Mexico as a constitutional monarchy (1821), Col William Travis issued a call for help on behalf of Texans defending the Alamo in San Antonio (1836), Louis-Philippe abdicated & France was declared a republic (1848), Arizona Territory created (1863), the US House of Representatives voted 126 to 47 to impeach Andrew Johnson (1868), Henrik Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt” premiered in Oslo (1876), Fernand de Lesseps’ company began work on Panama Canal (1881), China & Russia signed the Sino Russian Treaty of Ili (1881), Louisville (KY) became the first local government in the US to adopt the secret (‘Australian’) ballot (1888), the American University chartered by an act of the Congress (1893), the Cuban war for independence from Spain began (1895), US ambassador to the UK Walter Page presented with the ‘Zimmerman Telegram’ from Germany promising Mexico restoration of Texas, Arizona & New Mexico in return for its participation in World War I on the Axis side (1917), Estonia’s independence guaranteed by a peace treaty (1920), Mohandas Gandhi released from jail (1924), the League of Nations demanded that Japan withdraw from Manchuria (1933), Argentina’s minister of war Juan Domingo Perón led a coup d’état (1944), Manila liberated from Japanese occupation (1945), Juan Domingo Perón elected president of Argentina (1946), Israel & Egypt signed an armistice agreement (1949), the Labour Party won a British parliamentary election by five seats (1950), Cole Porter’s last musical “Silk Stockings” opened on Broadway (1955), Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana ousted as president in a coup d’état (1966), north Vietnam ended the Tet Offensive (1968), “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” starring Maggie Smith premiered in London (1969), Jimmy Carter announced that US foreign aid would take human rights into consideration (1977), war broke out between North & South Yemen (1979), Prince Charles announced his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer (1981), the US Supreme Court voted 8-0 to overturn the $200,000 settlement awarde to Rev. Jerry Falwell for a parody in “Hustler” magazine (1988), the US-led Gulf War ground offensive against the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait began (1991), Elton John knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in London (1998), “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” won for best film, & Peter Jackson won for best director 55th British Film & Television Awards (BAFTAs) (2002), “No Country for Old Men”, Daniel Day-Lewis & Marion Cotillard won Oscars at the 80th Academy Awards ceremony (2008), “Green Book” (best film), Alfonso Cuarón (best director), Rami Malek (best actor) & Olivia Colman (best actress) won Oscars at the 91st Academy Awards: Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards ceremony (2019), Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape (2020), Donald Trump began a visit to India to meet prime minister Narendra Modi (2020), Zahir Zakir Jaffer sentenced to death in Islamabad for the rape, murder & beheading of Noor Muqaddam after she refused to marry him, highlighting violence towards women in Pakistan (2022) & Russia began its invasion of Ukraine before dawn (2022) on this day.
February 25
Carlo Goldoni (1707), René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou (1714), Armand-Louis Couperin (1727), José de San Martín (1778), Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841), Benedetto Croce (1866), Enrico Caruso (1873), John Foster Dulles (1888), Myra Hess (1890), Meher Baba (1894), Herbert Manfred ‘Zeppo’ Marx (1901), Millicent Fenwick (1910), Jim Backus (1913), Anthony Burgess (1917), Bobby Riggs (1918), Sun-myung Moon (1920), Sally Jessy Raphael (1935), Bob Schieffer (1937), Tom Courtenay (1937), George Harrison (1943), Néstor Kirchner (1950), Carrot Top [Scott Thompson] (1965), Téa Leoni (1966), Sean Astin (1971), Julio Iglesias, Jr. (1973) & Chelsea Handler (1975) were born #OnThisDay. St. Walburga (779), Dafydd ap Llywelyn, king of Gwynedd (1246), Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1601), Albrecht von Wallenstein (1634), Friedrich (Frederick) I of Prussia (1713), Sir Christopher Wren (1723), Daoguang, 8th Qing emperor of China (1850), Thomas Moore (1852), John Tenniel (1914), Mark Rothko [Marcus Rothkovich] (1970), Elijah Muhammad [Elijah Robert Poole] (1975), Tennessee Williams (1983), James Coco (1987), Baruch Goldstein (1994), Maurice André (2012), C. Everett Koop (2013) & Hosni Mubarak (2020) died on this day. Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius as his successor (138), Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth Tudor (1570), Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex executed for treason (1601), Irish captain Walter Devereaux killed Albrecht von Wallenstein on the orders of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1634), more than 100 principalities abolished in a major internal reorganization of the Holy Roman Empire — reducing the number of its principalities from nearly 300 to just 39 in the ‘deutsche Mediatisierung’ (German mediatization & secularization) authorized by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluß (Final Recess of the Imperial Deputation) (1803), (1828), John Adams (son of John Quincy Adams) married his first cousin, Abigail Smith (1828), Victor Hugo’s play “Hernani” premiered in Paris (1830), Samuel Colt patented the first multi-shot revolving-cylinder revolver (1836), P. T. Barnum exhibited African American slave Joice Heth, claiming she was the 161 year-old nursemaid to George Washington (1836), Hiram R. Revels sworn in as the first African American member of Congress as a Republican US Senator from Mississippi (1870), J M Synge’s “Riders to the Sea” premiered at the Irish National Theater Society (1904), the US declared the Dominican Republic a protectorate (1907), Marie-Adélaïde, the eldest of six daughters of Guillaume IV, became the first reigning Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (1912), the 16th Amendment to the Constitution provided the legal basis for the progressive income tax (1913), the Living Buddha Hutuktu crowned king of Mongolia as the country declares independence from China (1921), Francisco Franco became Spain’s youngest general at 33 (1926), Austrian immigrant Adolf Hitler obtained German citizenship (1932), Turkey declared war on Germany (1945), Communists seized control of Czechoslovakian government and Klement Gottwald became prime minister (1948), Gamal Abdel Nasser appointed prime minister of Egypt (1954), Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1956), Congress enacted the Legal Tender Act authorizing the US government to use paper currency to pay its debts in lieu of gold or silver, helping to fund the Union war effort in the Civil War (1862), Cassius Clay (a.k.a., Muhammad Ali) became the world heavyweight boxing champion (1964), Stephen Sondheim’s musical “A Little Night Music” premieres at Shubert Theatre in Manhattan (1973), the British political comedy “Yes Minister” — written by Antony Jay & Jonathan Lynn & starring Paul Eddington, Nigel Hawthorne & Derek Fowlds — premiered on BBC2 (1980), Corazon Aquino became president of the Philippines as the dictator Ferdinand Marcos fled the country (1986), the Republic of Korea adopted the first fully democratic constitution in South Korea’s history (1988), Nicaraguans voted out the Sandinistas (1990), Israeli extremist Baruch Goldstein massacred 30 Palestinians in illegally occupied Hebron (1994), “Gladiator” won for best film & Ang Lee won for best director at the 54th British Film & Television Awards (BAFTAs) (2001), Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” opened in the US (2004), “The Departed” (best film), Forest Whitaker (best actor) & Helen Mirren (best actress) won Oscars at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony (2007), in the Irish general election, the Fianna Fáil-led government suffered the worst defeat of a sitting government since the formation of the Irish state in 1921 (2011), French fashion house Christian Dior suspended its chief designer John Galliano after he was arrested for an anti-Semitic verbal attack in Paris (2011), the Syrian army killed 100 civilians in artillery shelling of Homs and Hama (2012) Al-Qaeda suicide bombing killed at least 26 people in Mukalla (Yemen) (2012), Raúl Castro announced he would not seek another term as president of Cuba in 2018 (2013), Tom Perez elected chair of the Democratic National Committee (2017), Norway won a record 39 medlas (19 gold) at the Pyeongchang XXIII Winter Olympic Games (2018) & Xi Jinping faced skepticism over his claim that China had eradicated extreme poverty (2021).
February 26
Holy Roman Emperor Wenceslas of Bohemia (1361), Christopher Marlowe (baptized) (1564), Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671), Victor Hugo (1802), Honoré Daumier (1808), Nathan Kelley (1808), Levi Strauss (1829), Alexander III of Russia (1845), William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody (1846), Herbert Henry Dow (1866), Frank Bridge (1879), Jean Negulesco (1900), John Herbert ‘Jackie’ Gleason (1916), Robert Taft, Jr. (1917), Tony Randall [Leonard Rosenberg] (1920), Noboru Takeshita (1924), Antoine ‘Fats’ Domino (1928), Ariel Sharon (1928), Monique Leyrac (1928), Aldonis Kalniņš (1928), Anatoli Vassilyevich Filipchenko (1928), Robert Novak (a.k.a., ‘the Prince of Darkness’) (1931), Johnny Cash (1932), Emma Kirkby (1949), Elizabeth George (1949), Helen Clark (1950), Michal Bolton [Bolotin] (1953), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954), Michel Houellebecq (1958), Tim Kaine (1958), Wang Dan (1969), Erykah Badu [Erica Abi Wright] (1971) & John Tartaglia (1978) were born #OnThisDay. Roger Mortimer, 2nd Earl of March (1360), Eric XIV of Sweden (1577), Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife (1959), Mohammed V of Morocco (1961), Jimmie Lee Jackson (1965), Karl Jaspers (1969), Eugene Fodor (2011), Theodore Hesburgh (2015) & Nexhmije Hoxha (2020) died on this day. Valentinian I proclaimed Roman emperor (364), English Catholic priest William Sawtrey convcited of heresy (Lollardy) (1401), the Roman Inquisition demanded that Galileo Galilei recant (1616), the Bank of England issued its first £1 note (1797), Napoléon Bonaparte left Elba to begin ‘Les Cents Jours’ (1815), Russia’s Tsar Nicholas I revoked the Polish constitution (1832), the Seconde République Française (2nd French Republic) proclaimed (1848), Abraham Lincoln signed the National Currency Act into law (1863), the New York state legislature established the New York City Metropolitan Board of Health (1866), Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 (‘Tragic’) premiered in Vienna (1869), the Berlin Conference recognized Léopold II of Belgium’s control of the Congo & British control of Nigeria (1885), Henrik Ibsen’s play “Hedda Gabler” premiered in Oslo (1891), Ottoman Turkey recognized Austria’s annexation of Bosnia & Herzegovina in exchange for compensation (1909), Russian troops seized the Persian city of Kermansjah (1916), Woodrow Wilson informed of the Zimmermann Telegram (1917), Russian army mutiny in response to Nicholas II’s orders to quell civil unrest in Petrograd (1917), Woodrow Wilson designated the Grand Canyon a national park (1919), Adolf Hitler went on trial for treason in organizing the Beer Hall Putsch failed coup d’état in Munich (1924), Calvin Coolidge designated Grand Teton a national park (1929), Adolf Hitler authorized the creation of the Third Reich’s Luftwaffe (1935), Adolf Hitler introduced Ferdinand Porsche’s ‘Volkswagen’ (1936), military coup d’état in Japan (1936), Werner Heisenberg gave a lecture on nuclear fission for Nazi officials (1942), Winston Churchill announced Britain’s atomic bomb (1952), Allen Dulles appointed the fifth director of the CIA (1953), the US Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in public transportation unconstitutional (1962), mass graves discovered in Hue after 2,800 South Vietnamese civilians were massacred by North Vietnamese troops during the Tet Offensive (1968), Desi Bouterse instigated a military coup d’état in Surinam (1980), Egypt & Israel exchanged ambassadors for the first time (1980), Rev. Jesse Jackson acknowledged his ‘Hymies in Hymietown’ comment (1984), the last US Marines left Beirut (1984), Sandinistas defeated in Nicaragua’s parliamentary elections (1990), US & coalition forces bombed Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait, creating the ‘Highway of Death’ (1991), the World Trade Center bombed in Manhattan (1993), Texas cattlemen lost their defamation suit against Oprah Winfrey (1998), George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin (2012), Seth Rogen testified about Alzheimer’s disease before the US Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services (2014), “Moonlight” won the Academy Award for best film at the 89th Academy Awards ceremony after “LaLa Land” was mistakenly declared the winner in the biggest mix-up in the history of the Oscars (2017), the city of Venice introduced a day tax on visitors (2019) & Amnesty International issued a report on Eritrean crimes against humanity committed in an attack on the Ethiopian city of Aksum 28-29 November (2021) on this day.
February 27
Constantine the Great (272), Lord George Bentinck [William George Frederick Cavendish Bentinck] (1802), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807), Hubert Parry (1848), Hugo Black (1886), Lotte Lehmann (1888), William Demarest (1892), Marian Anderson (1897), John Steinbeck (1902), Michael Fox (1921), Joanne Woodward (1930), Elizabeth Taylor (1932), Ralph Nader (1934), Mirella Freni (1935), Paddy Ashdown (1941), Charlayne Hunter-Gault (1942), Timothy Spall (1957), Chelsea Clinton (1980) & Josh Groban (1981) were born #OnThisDay. Louis Vuitton (1892), Ivan Pavlov (1936), Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1985), S.I. Hayakawa (1992), Harold Acton (1994), Spike Milligan (2002), Fred Rogers (2003), Otis Chandler (2006), William F. Buckley, Jr. (2008), Van Cliburn (2013), Leonard Nimoy (2015), Boris Nemtsov (2015), & George Kennedy (2016) died on this day. Sachsen (Saxony) & Hessen (Hesse) formed the Protestant Torgauer Bund (League of Torgau) to oppose Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s Edict of Worms (1526), Protestant princes formed the Schmalkaldischer Bund (Schmalkaldic League) (1531) to defend Luthernism against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1531), the first Russian embassy arrived in London (1557), Henri IV crowned king of France (1594), Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I expelled Jews from Austria (1670), Ludwig van Beethoven’s 8th Symphony in F premiered in Vienna (1814), first Mardi Gras in New Orleans (1827), Robert Schumann saved from a suicide attempt in Rhine River (1854), Abraham Lincoln’s speech at Cooper Union in Manhattan helped propelled him to the White House (1860), Mathew Brady photographed Abraham Lincoln for the cover of Harper’s Bazaar (1860), John Menard became the first African American to give a speech to Congress in the US Capitol (1869), Charlotte Ray graduated from Howard University, becoming the first African American female lawyer in the US (1872), the Dominican Republic declared its independence from Spain (1844), the first Union prisoners of war arrived at the Confederate prison in Andersonville (1864), Sigmund Freud & Carl Jung met for the first time in Vienna (1907), the International Working Union of Socialist Parties founded in Vienna (1921), Fascists incited a riot in Florence (1921), Reichstag fire (1933), Britain & France recognized Francisco Franco’s fascist regime in Spain (1939), “Rebecca”, James Stewart & Ginger Rogers won Academy Awards at the 13th Academy Awards ceremony (1941), Rosenßtrasse protest in Berlin (1943), Chaim Weizmann became the first president of the state of Israel (1949), Gen. Chiang Kai-shek elected president of the Republic of China on Taiwan (1950), Mao Zedong’s famous speech to the Supreme State Conference “On Correct Handling of Contradictions Among People” expounding Maoist ideals (1950), Ngô Đình Diệm’s palace bombed by dissident air pilots in a failed assassination attempt against South Vietnam’s president (1962), Italy’s government solicited suggestions on how to prevent the Leaning Tower of Pisa from collapsing (1964), CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite delivered a scathing editorial on America’s chances of winning the Vietnam War (1968), Hafez al-Assad seized power in a coup d’état in Syria (1969), Shanghai Communiqué issued by Richard Nixon & Zhou Enlai (1972), American Indian Movement members occupied Wounded Knee in South Dakota (1973), final meeting between Richard Nixon & Mao Zedong (1976), Donald Regan resigned as White House chief of staff (1987), Britain’s House of Lords ended male primogeniture, agreeing to end 1,000 years of male precedence by giving a monarch’s first-born daughter the same claim to the throne as any first born son (1998), Olusegun Obasanjo became Nigeria’s first elected president since 1983 (1999), “The King’s Speech” (best film) & Colin Firth (best actor) & Natalie Portman (best actress) won Academy Awards at the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony (2011), Pope Benedict XVI gave his farewell address to the Vatican City (2013), Arseniy Yatsenyuk appointed Ukraine’s prime minister (2014), Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a ‘religious freedom’ bill that would have allowed businesses to turn away gay customers (2014), Russian politician Boris Nemtsov assassinated in Moscow (2015), second summit between Donald Trump & Kim Jong-un in Hanoi (2019), Luke Perry suffered a stroke in LA (2019), Dow Jones Index suffered its biggest points fall in history, closing down 1,190.95 in New York amid concerns about COVID-19 (2020), Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine approved in the US (2021).
February 28
Margaret of Scotland, queen of Norway (1261), Michel de Montaigne (1533), Jost Bürgi [Jobst Bürg] (1552), René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683), Alexei, tsarevich of Russia (1690), Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm (1712), John Tenniel (1820), Geraldine Farrar (1882), Vaslav Nijinsky (1890), Linus Pauling (1901), Vincente Minnelli (1903), Stephen Spender (1909), Clara Petacci (1912), Charles Durning (1923), Svetlana Alliluyeva (1926), Frank Gehry (1929), Gavin MacLeod [Allan See] (1931), Tommy Tune (1939), Mario Andretti (1940), Paul Krugman (1953) & Gilbert Gottfried (1955) were born #OnThisDay. Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor (1525), Christian IV (1648), Henry James (1916), Friedrich Ebert (1925), Alfonso XIII of Spain (1941), Maxwell Anderson (1959), Henry Luce (1967), Mr. Ed (the talking horse) (1979), Olof Palme (1986), Aisin Gioro Pu Chieh (brother Pu Yi, the last emperor of China) (1994), Arthur M. Schlesinger (2007), Paul Harvey (2009), Annie Girardot (2011), Jane Russell (2011) & André Previn [Andreas Priwin] (2019) died on this day. Liu Bang’s coronation as the Gaozu Emperor initiated four centuries of Han dynasty rule over China (202 BCE), Valentinian I became Roman emperor (364), Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec Emperor, was tortured & murdered by (1215), Magnus Stenbock’s Swedish forces defeated Jørgen Rantzau’s invading Danish army at the Battle of Helsingborg (1710), Henry Fielding’s novel “Tom Jones” was published (1749), John Wesley chartered the first Methodist Church in the US (1784), French Gen. Charles Pichegru arrested for organizing the Pichegru Conspiracy to overthrow Napoléon (1804), the first public performance of Franz Schubert’s song “Schäfers Klageleid” (1819), Dr. Elias Lönnrot published the Finnish epic poem the Kalevala (1835), Sweden’s prime minister Olof Palme was assassinated while walking home (1986), the University of Utah opened in Salt Lake City (1850), the Republican Party founded in a school house in Ripon (1854), the Arkansas state legislature enacted a law requiring free African Americans to choose exile or slavery (1859), France ousted Madagascar’s Queen Ranavalona (1896), Maurice Ravel’s orchestral suite “Le tombeau de Couperin” premiered in Paris (1920), on Adolf Hitler’s advice, Paul von Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree eliminating civil liberties in Germany & outlawing the German Communist Party (KPD) (1933), Chiang Kai-shek killed 28,000 Taiwanese in the Feb. 28 Massacre suppressing a popular uprising in Taiwan (1947), James Watson & Francis Crick took credit for Rosalind Franklin’s discovery of DNA while conspiring to obscure their use of her work for which they received a Nobel Prize (1953), John F. Kennedy appointed Henry Kissinger a special advisor (1961), Congress created the Colorado Territory (1861), a West German court rules that impostor Anna Anderson failed to prove that she was missing Russian duchess Anastasia Romanov, ending a legal case that lasted almost 30 years (1967), Richard Nixon concluded his week-long visit to China (1972), Spain withdrew from Western Sahara, leaving Ceuta & Melilla (Spanish Morocco) as the last European possessions in Africa (1976), J. Paul Getty left a $1.2 billion bequest to the museum he created (1982), CBS aired the final episode of “M*A*S*H”, a 2-hour special directed by series star Alan Alda titled “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” to a record audience of 125 million (1983), the British satirical puppet show “Spitting Image” premiered on ITV (1984), Saddam Hussein ended the Gulf War by accepting a ceasefire following Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait (1991), the US Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco (1993), the Brady Law came into effect (1994), US fighter planes shot down four Serbian war planes in the first NATO’s military action in the alliance’s history (1994), Serbian police began the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in the Kosovo War (1998), former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrested on corruption charges upon returning to Thailand from exile (2008), Pope Benedict XVI resigned as pope (2013), Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade the Crimea (2014), the lost Caravaggio painting “Judith & Holofernes” (1607) announced rediscovered in a Toulouse attic in 2014 to be auctioned worth $171 million (2019), Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un ended without any agreement (2019), Myanmar security forces opened fire on protests around the country, killing at least 18 in the bloodiest day since the military coup (2019), Chadwick Boseman was posthumously awarded a Golden Globe for best actor (2021) on this day.
March 1
Martial (40), Sandro Botticelli (1445), Wladyslaw Jagiello, king of Bohemia & Hungary (1456), Albrecht V von Wittelsbach, duke of Bavaria (1528), Caroline von Brandenburg-Ansbach, wife of Georg II & queen of England (1683), Fryderyk Franciszek (Frédéric François) Chopin (1810), Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848), Lytton Strachey (1880), Oskar Kokoschka (1886), Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896), Glenn Miller (1904), David Niven (1910), Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914), (Fannye) Dinah Shore (1917), Terrence Cardinal Cooke, archbishop of New York (1921), Yitzhak Rabin (1922), Harry Belafonte [Harold George Ballanfanti, Jr.] (1927), John Breaux (1944), Roger Daltrey (1944), Dirk Benedict (1945), Alan Thicke (1947), Zoia Ceauşescu (1949), Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (1954), Javier Bardem (1969), Lupita Nyongo (1983) & Justin Bieber (1994) were born #OnThisDay. David (patron saint of Wales) (589), Lothair, king of the West Franks (986), Stephen II of Hungary (1131), Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II (1792), Francisco Solano López (1870), Gabriele d’Annunzio (1938) & Jack Welch (2020) died on this day. Romulus (the first king of Rome) celebrated the first Roman triumph after his victory over the Caeninenses following the Rape of the Sabine Women (752 BCE), Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis, conquered Damascus (1260), François de Guises’ troops fired on a Huguenot congregation in Vassy — the first event in the Wars of Religion that would tear France apart (1562), Estácio de Sá founded the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil (1565), Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, & Tituba arrested for witchcraft in Massachusetts, initiating the Salem witch hunt (1692), the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation (1781), presidential succession act enacted by Congress (1785), Congress authorized the first US Census (1790), Ohio became the 17th state (1803), John Tyler signed a resolution annexing the Republic of Texas (1845), Howard University chartered in Washington, D.C. (1867), Ulysses Grant signed a bill into law creating Yellowstone, the first national park (1872), “A Study in Scarlet” by Arthur Conan Doyle — the first Sherlock Holmes story — published (1890), 80,000 Ethiopians defeated 20,000 Italians at the Battle of Adwa in Ethiopia (1896), the Zimmermann Telegram published in the US (1917), Russian sailors revolted in Kronstadt (1921), Charles & Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s baby kidnapped (found dead May 12) (1932), Henry Pu Yi crowned the Kangde emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (1934), the Bank of England nationalized 252 years after its establishment (1946), the International Monetary Fund began operation (1947), Joseph Stalin suffered a stroke & collapsed (dying four days later) (1953), Israel killed 48 in an assault on Gaza (1955), cellist Jacqueline du Pré’s debut at the Wigmore Hall in London (1961), John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps (1961), the Ba’ath Party seized power in Syria (1966), the Soviet probe Venera 3 crashed into Venus (1966), Dominica & St. Lucia gain independence from Britain (1967), US House of Representatives voted 307-116 to expel Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1967), Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s South Bank Centre opened (1967), Bruno Kreisky led the Social Democratic Party to victory in Austria’s parliamentary elections (1970), Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” released (1973), seven of Richard Nixon’s aides indicted by the Watergate grand jury (1974), Terry Nichols convicted of state murder charges & being an accomplice to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (2004), Barack Obama warned Vladimir Putin about involvement in Ukraine (2014), Hillary Clinton & Donald Trump swept the Super Tuesday primaries (2016), Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the presidential race (2020) the first known COVID-19 case in New York identified (2020) & Nicholas Sarkozy was sentenced to three years in France for bribery (2021) on this day.
March 2
Robert II of Scotland (1316), Camille Desmoulins (1760), DeWitt Clinton (1769), Sam Houston (1793), [Friedrich] Bedřich Smetana (1824), Carl Schurz (1829), Théophile Ysaÿe (1865), Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) (1876), Kurt Weill (1900), Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) (1904), Dezi Arnaz (1917), Mikhail Gorbachev (1931), Porky the Pig (1935), Abdelaziz Bouteflika (1937), Lou Reed (1942), Karen Carpenter (1950), Jon Bon Jovi (1962) & Daniel Craig (1968) were born #OnThisDay. Lothair, king of the Franks (855), John Wesley (1791), Berthe Morisot (1895), D.H. Lawrence (1930) & Howard Carter (1939) died on this day. Charles I dissolved England’s parliament & jailed 9 MPs (1629), The Loves of Mars and Venus becomes the first ballet performed in England (1717), Napoléon Bonaparte appointed commander-in-chief of the French army in Italy (1796), Congress banned the slave trade within the US (1807), Arkansas Territory organized (1819), Texas declared its independence from Mexico (1836), the University of Illinois opened (1868), Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election by 185-184 (1877), Queen Victoria narrowly escaped assassination (1882), Alexander II became tsar of Russia (1855), William McKinley signed the bill into law creating Mt. Rainier National Park (1899), the Martha Washington Hotel for women opened in NYC (1803), Vladimir Jabotinsky formed a Jewish militia in Palestine (1915), Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act into law granting Puerto Ricans citizenship (1917), “King Kong” premiered in NYC (1933), the Battle of the Bismarck Sea (1943), “Casablanca” won the Academy Award for best film (1944), Ho Chi Minh elected president of North Vietnam (1946), Morocco declared independence from France (1956), “The Sound of Music” was released (1965), Sen. Robert F. Kennedy proposed a plan to end the Vietnam War (1967), Soviet & Chinese forces fired on each other at a border outpost on the Ussuri River (1969), Jean-Bédel Bokassa appointed himself president for life of Central African Republic (1972), Pioneer 10 launched to Jupiter (1972), a grand jury named Richard Nixon an unindicted co-conspirator in the Watergate cover-up (1974), Charlie Chaplin’s corpse stolen from a cemetery in Switzerland (1978), Greyhound Bus strike (1990), Augusto Pinochet left the UK for Chile after being informed by British home secretary Jack Straw that he wouldn’t be extradited to Spain (2000), Operation Anaconda as part of the US invasion of Afghanistan (2002), police killed 8 protesters in Yerevan demonstrating against the Armenian presidential election (2008), “12 Years a Slave,” Matthew McConaughey & Cate Blanchett won Academy Awards at the 86th Academy Awards ceremony (2014), Russia’s parliament approved Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea (2014), US attorney general Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation of Donald Trump’s campaign (2017), Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the Democratic presidential race & endorsed Joe Biden (2020), Vladimir Putin proposed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage (2020), six Dr. Seuss withdrawn by Dr. Seuss Enterprises for their racist & insensitive imagery (2021) & Dolly Parton received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on this day.
March 3
Reginald Cardinal Pole (1500), Gyula Andrássy, Sr., prime minister of Hungary (1832), George Pullman (1831), Alexander Graham Bell (1847), Charles [Carlo] Ponzi (1882), Matthew Ridgway (1895), Jean Harlow [Harlean Harlow Carpenter] (1911), Lee Radziwill Ross (1933), Miranda Richardson (1958), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (1962), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (1965) & Camila Cabello [Karla Camila Cabello Estrabao] (1997) were born #OnThisDay. Vladimir III Rurikovich, Grand Prince of Kiev (1239), Johann Friedrich the Generous, Elector of Saxony & head of the Schmalkaldic League (1554), Robert Hooke (1703), Aurangzeb, 6th Mughal emperor (1707), Robert Adam (1792), Lou Costello (1959), Paul Wittgenstein (1961), Hergé [Georges Prosper Remi] (1983), Marguerite Dura (1996), Fred Friendly (1998), Giuseppe di Stefano (3008), Michael Foot (2010), René Préval (2017) & Roger Bannister (2018) died on this day. Andrea Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico inaugurated in Vicenza (1585), premiere of Joseph Haydn’s 101st Symphony in D (1794), Congress passed the Missouri Compromise (1820), premiere of Felix Mendelssohn’s 3rd (‘Scottish’) Symphony (1842), Congress overrode John Tyler’s veto — the first Congressional override of a presidential veto in US history (1845), Florida admitted as the 27th state (1845), Minnesota Territory organized (1849), Alexander II signed the Emancipation Manifesto freeing Russia’s serfs (1861), Abraham Lincoln approved the charter of the National Academy of Sciences (1863), Idaho Territory organized (1863), Congress enacted a conscription law instituting the first wartime draft in US history (1863), Abraham Lincoln established the US Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, & Abandoned Lands established to help destitute freed African Americans (1865), the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation opened (1865), Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen” premiered at the Opéra Comique in Paris (1875), Rutherford B. Yahes inaugurated as the 19th US president in a private ceremony (1977), Bulgaria liberated from Ottoman Turkey in the Peace of San Stefano (1878), the US Geological Survey created by Congress (1879), American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) incorporated (1885), Anne Sullivan began teaching six-year-old Helen Keller (1887), Tsar Nicholas II agreed to significant concessions in response to the first Russian Revolution (1905), Ida B. Wells insisted on marching with the Illinois delegation through Washington, D.C. despite African American women being told by organizers Alice Paul & Lucy Burns to march in a separate section (1913), D.W. Griffith’s film “The Birth of a Nation” opened in Manhattan (1915), Congress enacted the first excess profits tax on US corporations (1917), German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann confirmed the authenticity of the ‘Zimmermann Telegramm’ which generated support for the US declaration of war on Germany in April (1917), Bolsheviks forced to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany & Austria (1918), the Senate rejected US membership of the International Court of Justice in the Hague (1923), Herbert Hoover signed a bill into law making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official US national anthem (1931), Cab Calloway recorded “Minnie the Moocher” (the first million record jazz music seller) (1931), Mount Rushmore dedicated (1933), 173 killed in the Bethnal Green Underground station disaster during an air raid in London (1943), Finland declared war on Nazi Germany (1945), “Heartbreak Hotel” became Elvis Presley’s first hit to make it to Billboard’s top 10 (1956), Morocco gained independence from France (1956), Hassan II became king of Morocco (1961), Winnie Mandela sentenced to a year in prison in South Africa (1971), Stone Mountain sculpture of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee & Stonewall Jackson completed in Georgia (1972), Linda McCartney charged with possession of marijuana in the US (1975), Pierre Elliott Trudeau sworn in for the second time as prime minister of Canada (1980), “Moonlighting” with Cybill Shepard & Bruce Willis premiered on ABC (1985), Robert McFarlane got a $20,000 fine & two years probation for his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair (1989), Los Angeles police severely beat Rodney King (1991), Switzerland voted to lower the voting age from 20 to 18 (1991), George H.W. Bush apologized for breaking his promise not to raise taxes (1992), the Republic of Bosnia & Herzegovina established (1992), Joe Biden won nine states & Bernie Sanders won four in Democratic presidential primaries on Super Tuesday (2020) & Sarah Everard was raped & murdered by a British policeman after being arrested in London under false pretenses (2021) on this day.
March 4
Blanche of Castile (1188), Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394), Antonio Vivaldi (1678), Knute Rockne (1888), Eleanor ‘Sis’ Daley (1907), Harry Helmsley (1909), Giorgio Bassani (1916), Joan Greenwood (1921), Richard DeVos (1926), Bernard Haitink (1929), Alice Rivlin (1931), Leslie Gelb (1937), Paula Prentiss [Ragusa] (1938), Rick Perry (1950), François Fillon (1954), Jim Dwyer (1957), Patricia Heaton (1958), Chaz [née Chastity Sun] Bono (1969), Jazmin Grace Grimaldi of Monaco (1992) & Bobby Kristina Brown (1993) were born #OnThisDay. Stephan III of Hungary (1172), Saladin (1193), Louis III, Prince de Condé & Duc de Bourbon (1710), Jean-François Champollion (1832), Nikolai Gogol (1852), Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1858), Alexander H. Stephens (1883), Franz Marc (1916), William Carlos Williams (1963), Ding Ling (1986), Nicholas Ridley (1993), John Candy (1994), Minnie Pearl [Sarah Ophelia Colley] (1996), Harry Blackmun (1999), Harold Stassen (2001), Thomas Eagleton (2007), Luke Perry (2019) & Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (2020) died on this day. Friedrich Barbarossa elected Holy Roman Emperor (1152), Mongol forces of Batu Khan defeated Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal near Yaroslavl (1238), Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) crowned king of Poland (1386), Edward Plantagenet laid claim to the throne of England as Edward IV in London (1461), James IV of Scotland concluded an alliance with France against England (1492), Anne Boleyn made her debut at the English court at the Green Castle pageant (1522), Jakarta renamed ‘Batavia’ by the Dutch (1621), Charles I of England granted a royal charter to the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628), Charles II of England declared war on the Netherlands (1665), Quaker William Penn received a charter from Charles II of England for Pennsylvania (1681), Jews expelled from Lübeck (1699), first sighting of the Orion nebula by William Herschel (1774), the first US Congress met & declared the Constitution in effect (1789), France divided into 83 départements & the old provinces abolished (1970), Vermont admitted as the 14th state (1791), George Washington’s second inauguration as president of the United States (133 word speech), John Adams inaugurated as the second president of the United States (1797), Andrew Jackson’s inaugural open house at the White House turned into an embarrassing chaotic brawl (1829), Vincenzo Bellini’s opera “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” premiered at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice (1830), Chicago incorporated as a city (1837), William Henry Harrison gave the longest US presidential inauguration speech (8,443) before serving the shortest term as president (1841), Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration (1861), Idaho Territory created (1863), the Confederate Congress approved the official Confederate flag (1865), John Wilkes Booth attended Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration (1865), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Swan Lake” had its world premiere with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow (1877), Gustav Mahler conducts the premiere of his incomplete 2nd Symphony (‘Resurrection’) in Berlin, Germany, with the Berlin Philharmonic (1895), the first cases of ‘Spanish flu’ reported at a US Army hospital in Kansas (1918), Finland declared war on Nazi Germany (1945), Princess Elizabeth joined the British Auxiliary Transport Service as a driver (1945), the United Nations Security Council recommended UN membership for Israel (1949), Ernest Hemingway finished writing “The Old Man & the Sea,” which would go on to win the 1953 Pulitzer Prize (1952), Ronald Reagan & Nancy Davis married (1952), Lucille Ball & Dezi Arnaz divorced (1960), John Lennon provoked a media frenzy by saying that the Beatles were “bigger than Jesus” (1966), Harold Wilson replaced Edward Heath as British prime minister (1974), Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) came to power (1980), the Louvre pyramid designed by I. M. Pei inaugurated by François Mitterrand in Paris (1989), John Candy died of a sudden heart attack (1994), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also applied when both parties are the same sex (1998), Danish golfer Mianne Bagger became the first openly transgendered athlete to compete in a professional golf tournament when she played the Women’s Australian Open (2004), Martha Stewart released from prison after serving five months for perjury in an insider trading case (2005), the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes & crimes against humanity in Darfur — the first sitting head of state to be indicted (2009), Vladimir Putin won the presidential election in Russia amidst allegations of widespread voter fraud (2012), the College of Cardinals met to select the successor to retiring Pope Benedict XVI (2013), Ben Carson dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination (2016), Gary Oldman won an Academy Award for best actor for “Finest Hour” (2018), Sergei Skripal & his daughter Yulia Skripal poisoned by a nerve agent in Salisbury on the orders of Vladimir Putin (2018), Jane Philpott resigned from Justin Trudeau’s government to protest his complicity in the scandal involving bribes from SNC-Lavalin (2019), Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the Democratic presidential race after winning just one delegate in the Super Tuesday primaries (2020), World Weather Attribution published a study confirming that human-caused climate changed made the 2020 Australian bushfire season much worse (2020), Moscow’s ‘once in a century’ winter was the hottest in 140 years with an average temperature 7.5 C (13.5 F) with virtually no snow (2020) on this day.
March 5
Henry II of England (1133), David II of Scotland (1324), Louis I (‘the Great’) of Hungary & Poland (1326), Gerardus Mercator (1512), Johann Georg I, Kurfürst von Sachsen (Elector of Saxony) (1585), Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac (1658), Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696), Frank Norris (1870), Rosa Luxemburg (18871), Sir William Beveridge (1879), Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887), Soong Mei-ling [Madame Chiang Kai-shek] (1897), Zhou Enlai (1898), Rex Harrison (1908), Momofuku Ando (1910), Dean Stockwell (1936), Olusẹgun Ọbasanjọ (1937), Felipe González (1942), Elaine Paige (1948), Eugene Fodor (1950), Russell Feingold (1953), Andy Gibb (1958), Aasif Mandvi [Mandviwala] (1966) & Feng Congde (1966) were born #OnThisDay. Crispus Attucks (1770), Joseph Stalin (1953), Sergei Prokofiev (1953), Herman J. Mankiewicz (1953), Patsy Cline [Virginia Henlsely] (1963), Mohammad Mosaddegh (1967), Yip Harburg [Isidore Hochberg] (1981), John Belushi (1982), Tito Gobbi (1984), William Powell (1984), Hugo Chávez (2013), Nikolaus Harnoncourt (2016) & Kurt Moll (2017) died on this day. Roman Emperor Julian left Antioch with an army of 90,000 to attack the Sassanid Empire in a campaign that would lead to his own death (363), Henry VII of England granted John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) a commission to explore North America (1496), “De Revolutionibus” by Nicolaus Copernicus placed on the Roman Catholic Church’s banned books index (1616), Gustavus Adolphus led his Swedish army to victory over the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III’s forces at the Battle of Jankau in Bohemia (1645), the first American production of a play by William Shakespeare — “Richard III” in Manhattan (1750), Don Antonio de Ulloa of Spain took possession of the Louisiana Territory from France as its first Spanish governor (1766), African American Crispus Attucks & four others killed by British soldiers on King Street in the Boston Massacre (1770), Ludwig van Beethoven’s 4th Symphony in B premiered in Vienna (1807), Britain declared war on Burma, initiating the First Burmese War (1824), Charlotte Brontë wrote to the Reverend Henry Nussey to decline his offer of marriage (1839), Heinrich Steinweg founded Steinway & Sons in New York (1853), the Royal Opera House destroyed in a fire in London’s Covent Garden (1856), abolitionists established Crispus Attucks Day in Boston (1858), Parma, Tuscany, Modena & Romagna vote in referendums to join the Kingdom of Sardinia (1860), Arrigo Boito’s opera “Mefistofele” premiered in Milan (1868), Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial began in the US Senate (1868), Winston Churchill gave his ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in Missouri (1946), ‘Guerrillero Heroico’ photo of Che Guevara taken by Alberto Korda in Havana (1960), the graves of Nicholas II of Russia & the tsar’s family were found in St. Petersburg (1995), “The Osbournes” premiered on MTV (2002), the “Planet Earth” documentary narrated by David Attenborough premiered on the BBC (2006), Nicolás Maduro assumes the presidency after the death of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (2013), Bugatti announced the most expensive new car ever made — the La Voiture Noire costing €16.7 million (almost $19 million) — of which only one will be made (2019) & Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the Democratic presidential race (2020) on this day.
March 6
John of Gaunt (1340), Jacob Fugger (1459), Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475), Cyrano de Bergerac (1619), Casimir Pulaski (1747), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806), Philip Sheridan (1831), George Dayton (1857), Oscar Straus (1870), Lou Costello (1906), Kirill Kondrashin (1914), Julius Rudel (1921), Ed McMahon (1923), William Webster (1924), Alan Greenspan (1926), H.C. Robbins Landon (1926), Gabriel García Márquez (1927), Lorin Maazel (1930), Marion Barry (1936), Ivan Boesky (1937), Valentina Tereshkova (1937), Kiri Te Kanawa (1944), Rob Reiner (1947), Suzanne Crough (1963), Connie Britton (1967), Shaquille O’Neal (1972), Yannick Nézet-Séguin (1975) & Alaska Thunderf**k [Justin Andrew Honard] (1985) were born #OnThisDay. Davy Crockett (1836), Jim Bowie (1836), Constanze Mozart (1842), Louisa May Alcott (1888), Gottlieb Daimler (1900), John Philip Sousa (1932), Anton Cermak (1933), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1935), Nelson Eddy (1967), William Hopper (1970), Thurston Dart (1971), Pearl Buck (1973), Ayn Rand [Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum] (1982), Cathy Berberian (1983), Martin Niemöller, (1984), Georgia O’Keeffe (1986), Melina Mercouri (1994), Simon Cadell (1996), Michael Manley (1997), Jean Baudrillard (2007), Ernest Gallo (2007) & Nancy Reagan (2016) died on this day. Ferdinand Magellan reached Guam (1521), Ferdinand II issued his Edict of Restitution asserting his absolute power as Holy Roman Emperor (1629), Louis XIV of France signed a treaty with the Elector of Brandenburg (1664), the Treaty of Rastatt ended hostilities between France & Austria & brought the War of the Spanish Succession to an end (1714), Napoléon captured Jaffa in Ottoman Palestine (1799), Illinois enacted the first state vaccination legislation in the US (1810), James Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise bill into law (1820) Edgar Allan Poe expelled from the military academy at West Point (1831), Thomas Carlyle’s maid accidentally burned the first volume of his history of the French Revolution (1835), Davy Crockett & Jim Bowie were killed along with hundreds of other Texans as Mexican soldiers took the Alamo in San Antonio (1836), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “La Traviata” premiered in Venice (1853), the US Supreme Court ruled that African Americans could not be US citizens in the landmark Dred Scott case (1857), Dmitri Mendeleev presented the first periodic table of the elements to the Russian Chemical Society (1869), Bayer patented aspirin (1899), Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II survived a failed assassination attempt in Bremen (1901), Poland occupies the free city of Danzig (Gdańsk) (1933), Julius & Ethel Rosenberg went o trial (1951), Georgy Malenkov succeeded Joseph Stalin as first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party one day after his death (1953), Dred Scott’s grave discovered on the 100th anniversary of the US Supreme Court ruling against him (1957), Joseph Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Allilujeva approached the US Embassy in New Delhi & asked for political asylum (1967), the Beatles released the single “Let It Be” (1970), Walter Cronkite signed off as anchorman of CBS Evening News (1981), Helmut Kohl led the CDU/CSU to victory in German Bundestag elections (1983), George H.W. Bush declared victory over Iraq in the Gulf War (1991), Pope Francis announced the canonization of murdered Salvadorean Archbishop Óscar Romero (2018), Forbes names Amazon founder Jeff Bezos the world’s richest person for the first time at $112 billion, Bill Gates no. 2 (2018), Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg reveals plans to turn the social media platform into a more “privacy-focused platform” (2019) & the Dalai Lama got a COVID-19 vaccine (2021) on this day.
March 7
Lucilla (daughter of Marcus Aurelius & sister of Commodus) (148), Publius Septimius Geta (189), Rob Roy (1671), Alessandro Manzoni (1773), Antoine César Becquerel (1788), John Herschel (1792), Luther Burbank (1849), Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850), Piet Mondrian (1872), Maurice Ravel (1875), Anna Magnani (1908), Jacques Chaban-Delmas (1915), Patrick ‘Paddy’ Clancy (1922), Antony Armstrong-Jones [Viscount Snowdon] (1930), Willard Scott (1934), Michael Eisner (1942), Tammy Faye Bakker (Messner) (1942), Bryan Cranston (1956), Alan Hale (1958), Donna Murphy (1959), Denyce Graves (1964), Wanda Sykes (1964), Rachel Weisz (1970), Jenna Fischer (1974), Ricardo Rosselló (1979), Laura Prepon (1980) & Amanda Gorman (1998) were born #OnThisDay. Aristotle (322 BCE), Antoninus Pius (161), Thomas Aquinas (1274), Guido Starhemberg (1737), Aristide Briand (1932), Alice B. Toklas (1967), Kirill Kondrashin (1981), Jacob Javits (1986), Leonie Rysanek (1998), Stanley Kubrick (1999), Charles Gray (2000), Ali Farka Touré (2006) & Lynne Stewart (2017) died on this day. Antoninus Pius was succeeded by co-emperors Marcus Aurelius & Lucius Verus (161), Constantine declared Sunday (the day of Solis Invicti) a day of rest throughout the Roman Empire (321), Pope Clement VII denied Henry VIII’s request for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon (1530), George III charged Bostonians with attempting to injure British commerce (1774), Napoléon’s French army entered Rome, the prelude to his creation of the Roman Republic (1798), Napoléon’s French army defeated Russian & Prussian forces at the Battle of Craonne (1814), Daniel Webster endorsed the Compromise of 1850 (1850), Alexander Graham Bell obtained a patent for the telephone (1876), Gilbert & Sullivan’s last operetta “Grand Duke” premiered in London (1896), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” collection published in London after public pressure to revive his famous detective (1905), Leon Trotsky led the Red Army in an attack on the sailors of Kronstadt naval base (1921), “The New Republic” published Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1923), the New York Times agreed to capitalize the ‘N’ in ‘Negro’ (1930), Adolf Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by sending German troops into the Rhineland (1936), Josep Broz Tito formed a government in Yugoslavia (1945), Bikini Atoll islanders evacuated by the US government to make way for a nuclear testing site (1946), the Guomintang & the Communist Party of China resumed a full-fledged civil war (1947), Italian rule of the Dodecanese islands ended as they rejoined Greece (1948), Alabama state troopers attacked & assaulted African American civil rights activists on ‘Bloody Sunday’ (1965), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party won parliamentary elections in Pakistan (1977), after rejecting what the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) said was a final offer, representatives of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) called a strike, costing the Hollywood studios over $500 million over five months (1988), Nelson Mandela rejected demands by white right-wingers for separate homeland in South Africa (1994), the United States Supreme Court rules in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use (1994), the first democratically elected Palestinian parliament formed (1996), Charlie Sheen fired from the CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men” (2011), Hilary Mantel awarded the 2013 David Cohen Prize for literature (2013), the UN Security Council approved further North Korean sanctions for its nuclear testing (2013), 54 people killed & 143 wounded by 5 Boko Haram suicide bombings in Maiduguri in Nigeria (2015), Prince Harry & Meghan Marle alleged racist abuse by the palace in an interview with Oprah Winfrey (2021) & Andrew Cuomo adamantly refused to resign as governor of New York in the face of multiple credible accusations of sexual assault (2021) on this day.
March 8
Anne Bonny (1702), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714), Karl Ferdinand von Graefe (1787), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841), Franco Alfano (1876), Mátyás Rákosi (1892), Konstantinos Karamanlis (1907), Claire Trevor [Wemlinger] (1910), Alan Hovhaness (1911), Eva Dahlbeck (1920), Alan Hale, Jr. (1921), Cyd Charisse [Tula Finklea] (1922), Shigeru Mizuki (1922), Richard Fariña (1937), Juvénal Hayarimana (1937), Robert Tear (1939), Johnny Ventura [Juan de Dios Ventura] (1940), Lynn Redgrave (1943), Carole Bayer Sager (1947), Aidan Quinn (1959), Lester Holt (1959), Freddie Prinze, Jr. (1976) & James Van Der Beek (1977) were born #OnThisDay. Francesco Sforza, Duca di Milano (1466), Jules Cardinal Mazarin (1661), William III of England (1702), Karl XIV Johan of Sweden & Norway (1844), Edward John Dent (1853), Hector Berlioz (1869), Millard Fillmore (1874), Henry Ward Beecher (1887), William Howard Taft (1930), Sherwood Anderson (1941), Thomas Beecham (1961), William Walton (1983), Joe DiMaggio (1999), Abu Abbas [Muhammad Zaidan] (2004), Max Von Sydow (2020) & Trevor Peacock 92021) died on this day. Henry VIII recognized as supreme head of the Church of England by the Convocation of Canterbury (1531), Peace of Roskilde between Denmark & Sweden (1658), Anne Stuart succeeded William III as queen of England, Scotland & Ireland (1702), the Wiener Stadtbank established in Vienna (1706), Pennsylvania militiamen murdered 96 Native American Christians in the Gnadenhutten Massacre in Ohio (1782), Oscar I succeeded Karl Johan as king of Sweden & Norway (1844), US Commodore Matthew Perry’s second trip to Japan (1854), St. Augustine surrendered to Union troops (1861), Susan B. Anthony testified before the US House Judiciary Committee in favor of a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote (1884), New York enacted the first state law in the US requiring the licensing of dogs (1894), the 2nd symphony of Jean Sibelius premiered in a performance by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society (1902), the Internal Revenue Service began to levy & collect income taxes in the US (1913), the February Revolution began in Petrograd, leading to Nicholas II’s overthrow (1917), Edwin Hubble’s photo showed as many galaxies as the Milky Way had stars (1934), Japanese forces captured Rangoon (1942), the Dutch colonial army on Java surrendered to Japan (1942), the US Supreme Court ruled in McCollum v. Board of Education that religious instruction in public schools was unconstitutional (1948), ‘Lonely Hearts Killers’ Martha Beck & Raymond Martinez Fernandez executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in New York (1951), Egypt opened the Suez Canal (1957), Malcolm X resigned from the Nation of Islam (1964), US Marines landed at Da Nang (1965), Paul & Linda McCartney fined £100 for growing cannabis (1973), Charles de Gaulle Airport opened in Paris (1974), China ended its invasion of Vietnam, withdrawing troops (1979), Ronald Reagan used the term ‘Evil Empire’ to describe the USSR in a speech in Florida (1983), Martina Navratilova became the first tennis player to earn $10 million (1986), Joel & Ethan Coen’s film “Fargo” released in the US (1996), “Beavis & Butthead” premiered on MTV (1993), the US Supreme Court upheld the murder convictions of Timothy McVeigh (1999) & Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with 239 people disappeared (2014) on this day.
March 9
Amerigo Vespucci (1454), Alexis I of Russia [Aleksey Mikhaylovich], Tsar of Russia (1645-76) (1629), Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau (1749), Leland Stanford (1824), Ernest Bevin (1881), Vyacheslav Molotov [Skryabin] (1890), Vita Sackville-West (1892), Samuel Barber (1910), Mickey Spillane [Frank Morrison Spillane] (1918), James L. Buckley (1923), André Courrèges (1923), Walter Kohn (1923), Thomas Schippers (1930), Yuri Gagarin (1934), Joyce Van Patten (1934), Raul Julia (1940), Bobby Fischer (1943), Michael Kinsley (1951), Bobby Sands (1954), Fernando Bujones (1955), Faith Daniels (1957), Martin Fry (1958), Kato Kaelin (1959), Lonny Price (1959), Juliette Binoche (1964) & Matteo Salvini (1973) were born #OnThisDay. Sverre of Norway (1202), David Rizzio (1566), Jules Cardinal Mazarin (1661), Johann Pachelbel (1706), Arnold Toynbee (1883), Wilhelm I, king of Prussia & first emperor of the Second German Reich (1888), Frank Wedekind (1918), Carrie Chapman Catt (1947), Kurt Georg Kiesinger (1988), Robert Mapplethorpe (1989), Menachem Begin (1992), George Burns (1996), John Profumo (2006), David Broder (2011), James Levine (2021) & Roger Mudd (2021) died on this day. Liu Che began his 54-year-long reign as the Emperor Wu of Han (141 BCE), Lithuania first mentioned in the annals of Quedlinburg (1009), Augsburg became a free imperial city (1276), Pedro Álvares Cabral departed Lisbon at the head of a 13-ship expedition to India that would claim Brazil for Portugal (1500), Martin Luther began preaching his ‘Invocavit’ sermons in Wittenberg (1522), Naples banned kissing in public (1562), Mary, Queen of Scots’ private secretary David Rizzio murdered on the orders of the king consort of Scotland (Henry, Lord Darnley) (1566), Sweden & Russia signed the Peace of Stolbowa (1617), Jean Calas was posthumously exonerated for the murder of his son after a successful public campaign by Voltaire (1765), Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” published (1776), Spain began a siege of the city of Pensacola (1781), the French Foreign Legion founded (1834), Prussia’s government limited the work week for children to 51 hours (1839), the US Supreme Court freed kidnapped slaves from the Spanish schooner Armistad in US v. Armistad (1841), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Nabucco” premiered in Milan (1842), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Ernani” premiered in Venice (1844), Carl Otto Nicolai’s opera “Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor” premiered at the Königliches Opernhaus in Berlin (1849), Ulysses S. Grant appointed commander of the Union army (1864), Ambroise Thomas’ opera “Hamlet” premiered in Paris (1868), the Great Blizzard of 1891 began in England, killing 200 people & 6,000 animals (1891), Mexican general Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa attacked the New Mexico border town of Columbus (1916), Germany declared war on Portugal (1916), the Bolshevik Party became the Communist Party (1918), a Ukrainian mob massacred the Jews of Seredino Buda (1918), Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht’s satirical opera “The Rise & Fall of the City of Mahagonny” premiered in Leipzig (1930), Eamon de Valera became president of the Irish Republic (1932), Henry PuYi installed as emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (1932), Adolf Hitler announced the creation of the Nazi Luftwaffe (1935), 34 US B-29 Superfortresses dropped 120,000 fire bombs on Tokyo (1945), Joseph Stalin’s funeral in Moscow ended four days of national mourning (1953), Edward R. Murrow publicly criticized Sen. Joe McCarthy on “See It Now” (1954), Dwight Eisenhower privately criticized Sen. Joe McCarthy in a letter to a friend (1954), the Barbie doll made its debut at the American Toy Fair in Manhattan (1959), Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser declared that Gaza belonged to the Palestinian people (1962), the US Supreme Court issued a decision in New York Times vs. Sullivan declaring that public officials must prove malice to claim libel & recover damages (1964), the last Japanese soldier in the Philippines surrendered 29 years after the end of World War II (1974), major league baseball teams ordered to open their locker rooms to reporters in the wake of a sex discrimination lawsuit (1979), Dan Rather appointed led anchor of the CBS evening news (1981), the first Adopt-a-Highway sign went up on Highway 69 on Texas (1985), Audrey Hepburn appointed a UNICEF Special Ambassador (Goodwill Ambassador 1989) (1988), Eastern Airlines filed for bankruptcy (1989), the Senate rejected George H.W. Bush’s nomination of John Tower as US defense secretary (1989), the Soviet Union officially accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (1989), Dr. Antonia Novello sworn in as the first Latino & first female US surgeon general (1990), “The Suze Orman Show” premiered on CNBC (2002), liquid water discovered on Saturn’s moon Enceladus (2006), the US Justice Department released an internal audit that found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had acted illegally in its use of the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens (2007), Italy announced a national COVID-19 lockdown (2020), Piers Morgan left ITV’s “Good Morning” after 41,000 complaints made about him saying he did not believe Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s statement about her mental health (2021), Elizabeth II publicly expressed ‘concern’ after Harry & Meghan alleged racism within the British royal family (2021) on this day.
March 10
Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452), Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I (1503), Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk (1538), Lorenzo da Ponte [Emanuele Conegliano] (1740), Friedrich von Schlegel (1772), Louise, wife of Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia (1776), Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788), Pablo de Sarasate (1844), Kate Sheppard (1847), Lillian Wald (1867), Arthur Honegger (1892), Eva Turner (1892), Gregory La Cava (1892), Leon Bismarck ‘Bix’ Beiderbecke (1903), Richard Haydn (1905), Charles Groves (1915), Heywood Hale Broun (1918), James Earl Ray (1928), Sara Montiel (1928), Chuck Norris (1940), David Rabe (1940), [Avril] Kim Campbell (1947), Bob Greene (1947), Morgan Tsvangirai (1952), Osama bin Laden (1957), Adolfo Horta (1957), Matt Knudsen (1957), Shannon Lee Tweed (1957), Sharon Stone (1958), Prince Edward (1964), Jon Hamm (1971), Robin Thicke (1977), Janet Mock (1983) & Carrie Underwood (1983) were born #OnThisDay. Tiberius Claudius Nero (37 CE), John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1792), Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1819), Muzio Clementi (1832), Maximilian II of Bavaria (1864), Giuseppe Mazzini (1872), Harriet Tubman [Araminta Ross] (1913), Jan Masaryk (1948), Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor (1973), E. Power Biggs (1977), Konstantin Chernenko (1985), Ray Milland (1986), Andy Gibb (1988), Lloyd Bridges (1998), Anna Moffo (2006) & Hubert de Givenchy (2018) died on this day. Romans sunk the Carthaginian fleet in the Battle of the Aegates Islands, bringing the First Punic War to an end (241 BCE), Jews excluded from public office in the Roman Empire (418), Ben Ahmad’s Giralda minaret for the Almohad mosque in Seville completed (1198), Bishop Tomés de Berlanga discovered the Galapagos Islands (1535), Elizabeth I of England gives Johan Casimir £20,000 to aid Dutch rebellion (1578), Britain declared war on Spain (1624), France’s Louis XIV declared himself his own chief minister (1661), Peter the Great of Russia began his tour of Europe (1697), Huguenot Jean Calas died after being tortured, inspiring Voltaire to launch a campaign to exonerate him & advance religious toleration & legal reform (1762), the first British census found a population of 10 million (1801), Louis Philippe established the French Foreign Legion to support France’s war in Algeria (1831), Abraham Lincoln applied for a patent for a boat-lifting device (1849), Britain & France recognized Zanzibar’s independence (1862), the US issued its first paper money in the form of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 and $1000 notes (1862), Abraham Lincoln appointed Ulysses Grant commander of the Union armies (1864), Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call (1876), premiere of Caesar Franck’s symphonic poem for chorus & orchestra “Psyché” (1888), Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) became a French colony (1893), the Japanese army captured Mukden (Shenyang) (1905), premiere of Maurice Ravel’s “Sonatine” by pianist Paule de Lestang in Lyon (1906), the Republic of China abolished slavery (1910), Ottoman Turkish troops began their evacuation of Baghdad (1917), the British parliament enacted the Home Rule Act, which was rejected by the counties that would eventually form the Irish Republic (1920), Nevada became the first state to regulate narcotics (1933), William Wyler’s film “Jezebel” starring Bette Davis & Henry Fonda premiered (1938), WCBS-TV in New York City broadcast Ruggero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” in the first televised broadcast of an opera in the US (1940), more than 100,000 Japanese died in the firebombing of Tokyo (1945), US troops landed on Mindanao in Operation Victor IV (1945), Czechoslovakia’s Communist government announced the ‘suicide’ of foreign minister Jan Masaryk (1948), military coup d’état in Cuba led by General Fulgencio Batista (1962), a popular uprising against Chinese occupation of Tibet began in Lhasa (1959), Simon & Garfunkel recorded the first version of “The Sound of Silence” at Columbia Studios in New York City (1964), James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1969), the US Army charged Capt. Ernest Medina & four other soldiers in the My Lai Massacre of March 1968 (1970), Peter Bogdanovich’s film homage to screwball comedies — “What’s Up, Doc?” — starring Ryan O’Neal, Barbra Streisand, Madeline Kahn & Kenneth Mars premiered (1972), the rings of Uranus discovered (1977), “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” opened at the Belasco Theater in Manhattan for 45 performances (1975), Kim Carnes released the single “Bette Davis Eyes” (1981), Ronald Reagan announced economic sanctions against Libya (1982), France’s ruling Parti Socialiste Français lost parliamentary elections (1985), Andy Gibb died at 30 (1988), anti-abortion extremist Michael Frederick Griffin murdered Dr. David Gunn (1993), a million Greeks attended Melina Mercouri’s funeral (1994), New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani visited Israel (1996), Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel warned Vladimir Putin that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was illegal (2014), judges upheld the impeachment of Park Geun-hye, the first woman elected president of the Republic of Korea (2017), Xi Jinping visited Wuhan three months after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic there (2020), Russia’s Duma enacted legislation allowing Vladimir Putin to be president for life (2020) & the Senate confirmed Joe Biden’s appointment of Merrick Garland as US attorney general (2021) on this day.
March 11
Torquato Tasso (1544), Marius Petipa (1819), Frederick IX of Denmark (1899), Lawrence Welk (1903), Helmuth von Moltke (1907), Harold Wilson (1916), Astor Piazzolla (1921), Ralph Abernathy (1926), Rupert Murdoch (1931), Nigel Lawson (1932), Sam Donaldson (1934), Antonin Scalia (1936), Catharina ‘Nina’ Hagen (1955), the Lady Chablis [Benjamin Knox] (1957), Qasem Soleimani (1957) & Jesse Jackson, Jr. (1965) were born #OnThisDay. Elagabalus (222), Eulogius of Córdoba (859), Charles Sumner (1874), Benjamin Waugh (1908), Pierre Renoir (1952), Oscar Mayer (1955), Geraldine Farrar (1967), Erle Stanley Gardner (1970) & Slobodan Milošević (2006) died on this day. Roman emperor Elagabalus murdered by the Praetorian Guard (222) Giovanni de’ Medici elected Pope Leo X (1513), Queen Anne withheld royal assent from the Scottish militia bill, the last time a British monarch vetoed legislation (1708), Sotheby’s held its very first auction (of books) in London (1744), Benjamin Banneker & Pierre Charles L’Enfant began laying out Washington, D.C. (1789), Prussian Jews granted citizenship (1812), a 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn revived Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St Matthew Passion,” conducting a performance in Berlin (1829), Chiefs Hone Heke and Kawiti led 700 Māoris to chop down the British flagpole & drive settlers out of the British colonial settlement of Kororareka because of breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi in the Flastaff War in New Zealand (1845), Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine & Robert Baldwin became the first prime ministers of the province of Canada to be democratically elected under a system of responsible government (1848), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto” premiered in Venice (1851), delegates from seven Southern states adopted the constitution of the Confederate States of America (1861), Abraham Lincoln removed George McClellan as commander-in-chief of the Union armies (1862), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Don Carlos” premiered in Paris (1867), Japan annexed Okinawa (1872), Fridtjof Nansen set out on a voyage to study Arctic zoology (1882), US Army mess cook Private Albert Gitchell of Fort Riley became the first documented case of Spanish flu in a global pandemic that would kill 50-100 million (1918), Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the lend-lease bill into law (1941), Lorraine Hansberry’s stage drama “A Raisin in the Sun” — the first Broadway play by a black woman — starring Ruby Dee & Sidney Poitier opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in Manhattan (1959), Indonesia’s president Sukarno signed the ‘Supersemar’ order giving army commander Lt. Gen. Suharto the authority to do whatever he “deemed necessary” to restore order (1965), Indonesia’s president overthrown in a coup d’état led by Sukarno Lt. Gen. Suharto (1965), Augusto Pinochet’s second term began under Chile’s new authoritarian constitution (1981), Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded Konstantin Chernenko as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party (1985), Paul McCartney knighted by Elizabeth II (1997), the International Criminal Court held its inaugural session in the Hague (2003), a terrorist attack on Atocha station & trains in Madrid killed 193 & injured more than 2,000 (2004), Michelle Bachelet inaugurated as the first female president of Chile (2006), Plácido Domingo named “The King of Singers” in BBC Music Magazine (2008), Sebastián Piñera elected president of Chile (2010), the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan caused a tsunami to hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant — the second worst nuclear disaster in history after Chernobyl (2011), 16 Afghan civilians killed by a US soldier (2012), the European Union banned the sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals (2013), North Korea cut the phone line with South Korea, breaching the 1953 armistice (2013), 99.8% of Falkland Islanders voted to remain an overseas British territory in a referendum on sovereignty (2013), China’s National People’s Congress approved the removal of term limits, allowing Xi Jinping to be president for life (2018), Israel’s president Reuven Rivlin rejected prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that “Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people & only it” (2019), Algeria’s president Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced he would not seek a fifth term & postponed elections after mass protests (2019), COVID-19 declared a pandemic by the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, with 121,564 cases worldwide and 4,373 deaths (2020), Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 23 years for sexual assault (2020), Prince William said the royal family is “very much not a racist family” in his first public comments since Harry & Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey (2021) on this day.
March 12
Prince Charles, Comte de Valois (1270), Giuliano de’ Medici (1479), André Le Nôtre (1613), Anne Hyde, queen of England (1637), Victor-Maurice, Comte de Broglie (1647), George Berkeley (1685), Thomas Arne (1710), Luitpold von Bayern (1821), Gustav Kirchhoff (1824), Clement Studebaker (1831), Charles Boycott (1832), Salvatore di Giacomo (1860), Gabriele d’Annunzio (1863), Hans Knappertsbusch (1888), Vaslav Nijinsky (1890), Michael Polany (1891), Agathe von Trapp (1913), Gordon MacRae (1921), Giovanni ‘Gianni’ Agnelli (1921), Jack Kerouac (1922), Lane Kirkland (1922), Raúl Alfonsín (1927), Edward Albee (1928), U Win Tin (1929), Andrew Young (1932), Al Jarreau (1940), Ratko Mladić (1942), Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano (1945), Liza Minnelli (1946), Mitt Romney (1947), James Taylor (1948), Kent Conrad (1948), Darryl Strawberry (1962), Tammy Duckworth (1968) & Jake Tapper (1969) were born #OnThisDay. Pope Innocent I (417), Pope Gregory I (‘Gregory the Great’) (604), Cesare Borgia (1507), John Bull (1563), Tirso de Molina (1648), George Berkeley (1753), George Westinghouse (1914), Sun Yat-Sen (1925), David Beatty (1936), Charles-Marie Widor (1937), Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker (1955), Eugene Ormandy [Blau] (1985), Yehudi Menuhin (1999), Morton Downey, Jr. (2001), Victor Sokolov (2006) & Howard Metzenbaum (2008) died on this day. Orvieto city officials announced that they would behead & burn Jewish-Christian couples (1350), University of Vienna founded (1365), Bermuda became a British colony (1609), the Dutch settlement on Java renamed ‘Batavia’ (1619), Ignatius de Loyola declared a saint (1622), Abel Tasman became the first European to reach New Zealand (1642), the dethroned James II of England landed in Ireland (1689), Jean-Baptiste Pointe de Sable founded the settlement that would become Chicago (1773), the rebuilt Theatre Royal in London’s Drury Lane (1794), Austria declared war on France (1799), the ballet La Sylphide first premiered at the Opéra de Paris (1832), France’s Second Republic established (1848), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Simon Boccanegra” premiered in Venice (1857), Union troops began their disastrous Red River campaign in Louisiana (1864), Britain annexed Basutoland (later Lesotho) (1868), Coca-Cola sold in glass bottles for the first time (1894), Mohandas Gandhi began his march to the sea to protest the British salt tax in India (1930), Franklin Delano Roosevelt broadcast his first ‘fireside chat’ by radio (1933), Paul Hindemith’s “Mathis der Maler” premiered in Berlin (1934), Nazi Germany invaded Austria (Anschluß) (1938), Pope Pius XII’s coronation in the Vatican (1939), Finland ceded 11% of its territory to the Soviet Union in the Moscow Peace Treaty (1940),Gen Friedrich Fromm executed by firing squad for his part in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler (1945), the Italian Communist Party called for an armed uprising in Italy (1945), the Soviet Union returned Transylvania to Romania (1945), Harry Truman announced the Truman Doctrine on Soviet Communist containment (1947), 58% of Belgians voted for the return of Léopold III (1950), North Korean troops driven out of Seoul (1951), “Dennis the Menace” comic strip first appeared in the British comic magazine “The Beano” (1951), premiere of Arnold Schoenberg’s opera “Moses und Aron” in a concert performance in Hamburg (1954), Random House & Houghton-Mifflin co-published “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss (1957), British Empire Day renamed ‘Commonwealth Day’ (1958), the US House of Representatives followed the Senate in voting in favor of Hawaii’s statehood (1959), Indonesia’s parliament stripped Sukarno of authority & named Gen. Suharto as acting president (1967), Mauritius gained independence from Britain (1968), Hafez al-Assad named himself president of Syria (1971), Anwar Sadat pledged to regain territory Egypt lost to Israel (1977), John Wayne Gacy found guilty of murdering 33 men & boys in Chicago (1980), the Church of England ordained (33) women as priests for the first time (1994), the Congress party lost parliamentary elections in India (1995), former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary & Poland joined NATO (1999), Chris Wedge & Carlos Saldanha’s film “Ice Age” premiered (2002), Elizabeth Smart found after having been missing for nine months (2003), backlash against the Dixie Chicks over their criticism of George W. Bush for initiating the Iraq war (2003), Roh Moo-hyun became the first president of the Republic of Korea to be impeached (2004), Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin & dozens of others charged in the ‘Varsity Blues’ college admissions scandal (2019), Theresa May’s government suffered a second defeat on a Brexit deal with 391 British MPs voting against & 242 voting for (2019), Broadway went dark after NewYork City & state officials imposed restrictions that closed theaters for an unprecedented 32 days (2020), Mario Draghi imposed new COVID restrictions in Italy as cases exceeded 25,000 a day (2021) on this day.
March 13
Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II (1741), Charles, 2nd Earl Grey (1764), Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781), Hugo Wolf (1860), Hugh Walpole (1864), Fritz Busch (1890), John Van Vleck (1899), Mircea Eliade (1907), L. Ron Hubbard (1911), William Casey (1913), Edward O’Hare (1914), Lindy Boggs [Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs] (1916), Rosalind Elias (1931), Frank Murkowski (1933), Neil Sedaka (1939), Mahmoud Darwish (1941), Yonaton Netanyahu (1946), Lesley Collier (1947), William H. Macy (1950), Charles Krauthammer (1950), Dana Delany (1956), Jamie Dimon (1956) & Rick Lazio (1958) were born #OnThisDay. Alexander II (1881), Leland Stanford, Jr. (1884), Benjamin Harrison (1901), Susan B. Anthony (1906), Sergei Witte (1915), Clarence Darrow (1938), Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (1938), Stephen Vincent Benét (1943), John Pierpont Morgan, Jr. (1943), Catherine ‘Kitty’ Genovese (1964), Fannie Lou Hamer (1977), Gerald Moore (1987), Bruno Bettelheim (1990), Karl Münchinger (1990), Garson Kanin (1999), Bidu Sayão (1999), Hans-Georg Gadamer (2002), Maureen Stapleton (2006), Reuben Askew (2014), Breonna Taylor (2020) & Kenneth Cooper (2021) died on this day. Muhammad’s Muslim forces defeated the Meccan army at the Battle of Badr (624), the Comte d’Anjou defeated Huguenots at the Battle of Jarnac (1569), the first meeting of what would become the Academie Française chez Valentin Conart (1634), Cambridge College renamed for John Harvard (1639), Jews denied the right to build a synagogue in New Amsterdam (1656), Massachusetts gained title to Maine for $6,000 (1677), William Herschel discovered Uranus (1781), Luigi Cherubini’s opera “Medée” premiered in Paris (1797), Uncle Sam made his debut in the “New York Lantern” weekly (1852), Jefferson Davis signed a bill into law authorizing the Confederate army to enlist slaves as soldiers (1865), the US Senate began the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson (1868), the Arkansas state legislature enacted an anti-Ku Klux Klan law (1869), Chester Greenwood patented earmuffs (1877), Alexander II of Russia assassinated in St. Petersburg (1881), Mahdist forces began the siege of Khartoum (1884), the US adopted standard time (1884), the Great Blizzard of 1888 (1888), France limited the working day for women & children to 11 hours (1900), Mata Hari performed her dance act for the first time at the Musée Guimet in Paris (1905), Mongolia declared independence from China (1921), Tennessee made the teaching of evolution illegal (1925), Clyde Tombaugh announced the discovery of Pluto at Lowell Observatory (1930), Joseph Goebbels became Nazi Germany’s minister of information & propaganda (1933), Nazis liquidated the Jewish ghetto in Kraków while Oskar Schindler saved his workers by keeping them in his factory overnight (1943), Queen Wilhelmina returned to the Netherlands (1945), Paul-Henri Spaak formed a Belgian government that would fall on March 31 (1946), Viet Minh General Võ Nguyên Giáp initiated the assault on French forces at Dien Bien Phu (1954), the Beatles released the single “Lady Madonna” in the UK (1968), Apollo 9 returned to earth (1969), the European Monetary System created (1979), the New Jewel Movement overthrew Matthew Gairy’s dictatorship in Grenada (1979), John Wayne Gacy received a death sentence for the murder of 12 men & boys in Illinois (1980), cult leader Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo murdered mark Kilroy at Rancho Santa Elena in Mexico (1989), the drag ball scene documentary “Paris Is Burning” premiered (1991) 33.3% of Austrians voted for the extreme right-wing Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs) (FPÖ) (Freedom Party) (1994), Luciano Pavarotti’s last stage performance in Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca” at the Met (2004), Bob Iger named CEO of Walt Disney Int’l., succeeding Michael Eisner (2005), Encyclopaedia Britannica announced that it would no longer publish printed versions of its encyclopedia (2012), the European Parliament rejected a European Union budget for the first time (2013), Jorge Mario Bergoglio elected Pope Francis (2013), the Knesset voted 65-1 to end the military service exemption for Orthodox Jewish seminary students in Israel (2014), Donald Trump fired nRex Tillerson as secretary of state in a tweet (2018), National Geographic magazine admitted its past coverage was racist in a special issue to mark 50 years since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. (2018), Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort sentenced to a further 43 months in jail in addition to his previous 47 months (2019), Donald Trump designated Medgar & Myrlie Evers’ house in Jackson a national monument (2019), California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an indefinite moratorium on the death sentence in the state (2019), British MPs voted 321 to 278 to reject Theresa May’s no-deal Brexit (2019) & African American Breonna Taylor was shot & killed by police in Louisville (2020) on this day.
March 14
Johann Strauß der Ältere (1804), Vittorio Emmanuele II of Sardinia & Italy (1820), Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835), Umberto I of Italy (1844), Paul Ehrlich (1854), Albert Einstein (1879), Sylvia Beach (1887), Raymond Aron (1905), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908), Diane Arbus [Nemerov] (1923), Frank Borman (1928), Michael Caine (1933), Quincy Jones, Jr. (1933), Billy Crystal (1948), Tom Coburn (1948), Albert II of Monaco (1958), Danny Meyer (1958), Zbigniew Karkowski (1958), Grace Park (1974) & Simone Biles (1997) were born #OnThisDay. Thomas Malory (1471), Frederick Henry, stadtholder & prince of Orange (1647), Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1811), Karl Marx (1883), George Eastman (1932), Susan Hayward (1975), Busby Berkeley [Enos] (1976), Fannie Lou Hamer (1977), Huw Wheldon (1986), Willi Apel (1988), Zita of Bourbon-Parma, empress of Austria & queen of Hungary (1989), Howard Ashman (1991), Peter Graves [Aurness] (2010), Tony Benn (2014) & Stephen Hawking (2018) died on this day. Venice forced Caterina Cornaro — the last queen of Cyprus — to abdicate (1489), Henri IV of France defeated the Catholic League at the Battle of Ivry (1590), Ultimate Pi Day (1592), England granted a patent for Providence Plantations (now Rhode Island) (1644), Bavaria, Cologne, France & Sweden signed the Truce of Ulm near the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1647), Scotland dismissed William III & Mary Stuart as king & queen (1689), Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin machine (1794), Henry Addington became prime minister of the United Kingdom after his friend William Pitt the Younger resigned, being unable to persuade George III of the need for Catholic Emancipation (1801), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Macbeth” premiered at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence (1847), Gioachino Rossini’s “Petite Messe Solennelle” premiered at his home in Paris (1864), Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera “Mikado” premiered at the Savoy Theatre in London (1885), the German supreme court banned the Nazi party (1923), Warren Harding became the first president to pay taxes (1923), Nazi Germany dissolved the republic of Czechoslovakia (1939), Nazi liquidation of the Kraków Jewish ghetto (1943), FBI’s “10 Most Wanted Fugitives” program began (1950), Jack Ruby sentenced to death for Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder (1964), “Born Free” released (1966), Mikhail Gorbachev elected president of the Soviet Union (1990), Cedar Revolution demonstrations against the Syrian military presence in Lebanon following the assassination of prime minister Rafik Hariri (2005), Mike Wallace retired from “60 Minutes” after 37 years with the CBS show (2006), Xi Jinping named president of the People’s Republic of China (2013), Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops out of Syria (2016), Marco Rubio dropped out of the Republican presidential race (2016), a NASA twin study found that Scott Kelly was no longer identical to his twin brother after one year in space, 7% of his genes altered (2018), Angela Merkel sworn in for a fourth germ as Germany’s Bundeskanzlerin (2018), Brazilian human rights activist Marielle Franco murdered in Rio de Janeiro (2018) & Beto O’Rourke announced his presidential candidacy (2019) on this day.
March 15
St. Nicholas [Nikolaos of Myra] (270), the Shunzhi emperor of Qing China (1638), Cesare Beccaria (1738), Andrew Jackson (1767), William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779), John Snow (1813), Eduard Strauß (1835), Rezā Shāh Pahlavi [Rezā Khan], Shah of Iran (1925-41) (1878), Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887), Colin McPhee (1900), Richard Ellmann (1918), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933), Kate Bornstein (1948), Howard Koh (1952) & Eva Longoria (1975) were born #OnThisDay. Julius Caesar (44 BCE), Odoacer [Odiaker] (493), Aristotle Onassis (1975), Leonide Massine (1979), René Clair (1981), Rebecca West (1983), Dr. Benjamin Spock (1998) & Ann Sothern (2001) died on this day. Julius Caesar assassinated on the Ides of March (44 BCE), Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great murderered King Odoacer of Italy with his sword at a banquet in Ravenna (493), Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first voyage to the New World (1493), George Washington put an end to the Newburgh Conspiracy (1783), Maine admitted as the 23rd state (1820), Hungary’s Revolution of 1848 (1848), the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first professional baseball team (1869), New York State introduced voting machines (1892), an exhibition of the late Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings in Paris created a sensation in the art world (1901), Finland became the first European country to grant women the right to vote (1907), Maurice Ravel’s “Rapsodie Espanole” premiered (1908), Nicholas II abdicated as tsar of Russia in favor of his brother Grand Duke Michael (1917), Benito Mussolini eliminated the multi-party system in Italy (1928), Adolf Hitler summoned Czechoslovakia’s president Emil Hácha to Berlin to inform him of Nazi Germany’s imminent attack on Czechslovakia, reneging on his pledge in the Munich peace pact & ordering Nazi Germany’s invasion & annexation of Czechoslovakia (1939), British prime minister Clement Attlee agreed to grant India independence (1946), UN forces recapture Seoul — the fourth & final time the city changes hands in the Korean War (1951), Mohammed Mossadegh’s government nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (1951), Lyndon Baines Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress, calling for passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965), British foreign secretary George Brown resigned after having a drunken row with prime minister Harold Wilson (1968), Francis Ford Coppola’s film “The Godfather” released (1972), four Los Angeles Police Department police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King (1991), Hu Jintao became president of the People’s Republic of China (2003), an Australian white supremacist killed 51 & wounded 40 in a mosque in Christchurch in the deadliest day in New Zealand’s recent history (2019), the Vatican issued a judgement that priests cannot bless same-sex unions, that God “does not and cannot bless sin” (2021), Deb Haaland confirmed as US Secretary of the Interior by the Senate, becoming the first Native American to lead a cabinet agency (2021) on this day.
March 16
Caroline Herschel (1750, James Madison (1751), Napoléon IV, Prince Imperial (1856), Mike Mansfield (1903), Dr. Joseph Mengele (1911), Patricia [Thelma Catherine] Nixon (1912), Reginald Leo McKern (1920), Jerry Lewis [Joseph Levitch] (1926), Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927), Karlheinz Böhm (1927), Christa Ludwig (1928), Teresa Braganza (1935), David Del Tredici (1937), Bernardo Bertolucci (1941), Robert Guéï (1941), Erik Estrada (1949), Isabelle Huppert (1953), Jorge Ramos (1958), Flavor Flav [William Drayton, Jr.] (1959), Jens Stoltenberg (1959) & Phung Vuong (1963) were born #OnThisDay. Valentinian III (455), Anne Neville (1485), Giovanni Pergolesi (1736), Christian Augustus von Anhalt-Zerbst (1747), Selma Lagerlöf (1940), Constantin Brancuşi (1957), Thomas E. Dewey (1971), Kamal Jumblatt (1977), Jean Monnet (1979), Arthur Godfrey (1983) & Rachel Corrie (2003) died on this day. Babylonians captured Jerusalem, replacing Jehoiachin with Zedekiah as king (597 BCE), pogrom of Jews in York (1190), the Mughal emperor Babur defeated Rana Sanga’s Rajput forces at the Battle of Khanua (1527), Louis XIV sent French troops to Ireland (1690), Count Jacob Johan Anckarström shot Gustav III of Sweden at a masked ball (1792), the US Military Academy established at West Point (1802), slavery approved & legalized by the constitution of the Republic of Texas (1836), Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” published by Ticknor, Reed and Fields in Boston (1850), Arizona Territory voted to secede from the Union (1861), Edward Clark replaced Sam Houston as governor of Texas after he was ousted for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy (1861), Hiram Revels became the first African American to give an official speech in the US Senate (1869), the US Senate ratified the Geneva Convention of 1864 (1882), Jules Massenet’s opera “Thaïs” — featuring his celebrated “Méditation” — premiered in Paris (1894), Gustav Mahler’s “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen” premiered (1896), Sir Arthur Evans rediscovered the Bronze Age city of Knossos in Crete (1900), First Lady Helen Herron Taft planted the first cherry tree in Washington, D.C. (1912), Grand Duke Michael declined to succeed Nicholas II as tsar of Russia (1917), Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s “Der Unbestechliche” premiered in Vienna (1923), Benito Mussolini’s Italy annexed Fiume (1924), Adolf Hitler ordered German re-armament in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles (1935), National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D.C. (1941), British bombers destroyed 90% of Würzburg & killed 5,000 in only 20 minutes (1945), Billie Holiday released from prison early for good behavior (1948), Dwight Eisenhower upheld the use of atomic weapons in case of war (1955), 400 Vietnamese civilians killed in the My Lai Massacre (1968), Robert F. Kennedy announced his presidential candidacy (1968), Harold Wilson announced his resignation as British prime minister (1976), Jimmy Carter argued for a Palestinian state (1977), Aldo Moro kidnapped by the Red Brigade (1978), Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson taken hostage in Beirut (1985), a federal grand jury indicted Oliver North & John Poindexter in the Iran-Contra affair (1988), Ronald Reagan ordered US troops to Honduras (1988), Tonya Harding pleaded guilty to a felony attack on former Olympic figure skating teammate Nancy Kerrigan (1994), the Mississippi House of Representatives formally abolished slavery & ratifies 13th Amendment (1995), Robert Blake acquitted of the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley (2005), the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to establish the UN Human Rights Council (2006), J.P. Morgan Chase bought investment bank Bear Stearns for $2 per share (2008), Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court (2016), Otto Warmbier sentenced to 15 years hard labor in North Korea (2016), a declassified US intelligence report concluded that Vladimir Putin authorized covert efforts to re-elect Donald Trump (2021), a white supremacist shot & killed eight Asian American women at three different spas in Atlanta (2021) on this day.
March 17
James IV of Scotland (1473), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537), Roger Brooke Taney (1777), Gottlieb Daimler (1834), Paul Ramadier (1888), Eisaku Satō (1901), Bayard Rustin (1910), Nat King Cole (1919), Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1922), Myrlie Evers-Williams (1933), Rudolf Nureyev (1938), John Wayne Gacy (1942), Patrick Duffy (1949), Kurt Russell (1951), Lesley-Anne Down (1954), Cynthia McKinney (1955), Gary Sinise (1955), Dana Reeve (1961), Rob Lowe (1964), [Lee] Alexander McQueen (1969), Stormy Daniels [Stephanie Clifford] (1979), & Martin Shkreli (1983) were born #OnThisDay. Antonius Marcus Aurelius (180), Saint Patrick (461), Giuliano de’ Medici (1516), François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1680), Ramon Magsaysay (1957), Luchino Visconti (1976), Helen Hayes (1993), George F. Kennan (2005), Oleg Cassini (2006), John Demjanjuk (2012) & Lyle Waggoner (2020) died on this day. Commodus succeeded Marcus Aurelius as Roman emperor after the death of his father (180), Saint Patrick died at Saul in Downpatrick (Ireland) (432), the armies of Castile & Murcia defeated forces of the Emirate of Granada at the Battle of Los Alporchones (1452), Ferdinand Magellan reached the Philippines (1521), François I of France released from captivity in Spain (1526), the first recorded St. Patrick’s Day parade was held in St. Augustine in Spanish Florida (1601), St. Patrick’s Day first celebrated in New York City at the Crown & Thistle Tavern (1756), New York City’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade (1762), George Washington forced British troops to evacuate Boston (1776), Friedrich Schiller’s play “Wilhelm Tell” premiered (1804), Japanese representatives arrived in San Francisco to sign a Treaty of Friendship with the United States (1860), Italy’s reunification complete (1861), Isadora Duncan gave her first European performance in London (1900), at a show in Paris, 71 Vincent van Gogh’s paintings caused a sensation 11 years after his death (1901), the Camp Fire Girls organization founded (1912), Vladimir Lenin proclaimed a New Economic Policy for the USSR (1921), Kronstadt sailors’ revolt against Bolshevik rule (1921), March Constitution of Poland’s Second Republic adopted (1921), Benito Mussolini’s Italian air force supported Francisco Franco by bombing Barcelona (1938), the Battle of Nanjing between Japan & the Guomindang (1939), the Philippines’ president Ramon Magsaysay & 24 others killed in a plane crash on Mt. Maunggal in Cebu (1957), Mount Agung erupted on Bali killing 1,900 (1963), the Bee Gees made their US TV debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” performing “To Love Somebody” & “Words” (1968), Golda Meir became Israel’s fourth prime minister & first woman to hold the office (1969), Franklin Delano Roosevelt married Eleanor Roosevelt (1905), Elizabeth II opened the new London Bridge (1973), Lithuania rejected a Soviet demand to renounce its independence (1990), Robin Cook resigned from Tony Blair’s cabinet in protest over British plans to join the US in making war on Iraq’s Saddam Hussein (2003), New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, succeeded by David Paterson (2008), Vladimir Putin declared the Republic of Crimea independent of Ukraine (2014), New York’s Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced her presidential candidacy (2019) & Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro arrived in Washington, DC for meetings with Donald Trump (2019) on this day.
March 18
Mary Tudor, queen of France (1496), François de Valois, duc d’Alençon, duc d’Anjou & duc de Brabant (1556), Frederik III of Denmark (1609), John C. Calhoun (1782), Grover Cleveland (1837), Stéphane Mallarmé (1842), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844), Rudolf Diesel (1858), Neville Chamberlain (1869), Edgar Cayce (1877), Cluny MacPherson (1879), Edward Everett Horton (1886), Wilfred Owen (1893), Robert Donat (1905), Ernest Gallo (1909), Chiang Ching-huo (1910), Margaret, princess of Heese & the Rhine (1913), Peter Graves [Aurness] (1926), Fidel Ramos (1928), Jürgen Schadeberg (1931), F.W. de Klerk (1932), John Updike (1932), Shashi Kapoor [Balbir Raj Kapoor] (1938), Wilson Pickett (1941), James Conlon (1950), Vanessa Williams (1963), Bonnie Blair (1964), Queen Latifah [Dana Owen] (1970) & Reince Priebus [Rheinhold Priebus] (1972) were born #OnThisDay. Marcus Aurelius Alexander (235), Edward the Martyr, king of the Anglo-Saxons (978), Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar (1314), Robert Walpole (1745), Anna Leopoldovna, regent of Russia (1746), Lawrence Sterne (1768), Anne Robert Turgot (1781), Johnny Appleseed [John Chapman] (1845), George I of Greece (1913), Eleftherios Venizelos (1936), Farouk I of Egypt (1965), Lauritz Melchior (1973), Erich Fromm (1980), Umberto II of Italy (1983), Bernard Malamud (1986), Gösta Winbergh (2002), Natasha Richardson (2009) & Chuck Berry [Charles Andersen] died on this day. Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (a.k.a., ‘Caligula’) proclaimed emperor by the Roman Senate after it annulled Tiberius’ will (37), Edward the Martyr, king of England murdered, possibly on the orders of his stepmother Queen Ælfthryth (978), the first Lateran Council in Rome ratified the Concordat of Worms (1123), Crusaders killed 57 Jews in Bury St. Edmunds (1190), Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II browned himself king of Jerusalem (1229), Kraków ravaged by Mongols (1241), Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, burned at the stake by Philip IV of France (1314), the first public bus service began operating in Paris as the ‘Carosses à Cinq Sou’ (until 1675), promoted by Blaise Pascal (1662), the British parliament repealed the hated Stamp Act (1766), Wells Fargo launched (1952), Richard Nixon ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia (1969), Paris Commune revolt (1871), Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Frederick Douglass marshal of Washington, D.C. (1877), the Barnum & Bailey Circus debuted at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan (1881), Otto von Bismarck resigned after 19 years as Reichskanzler after disagreement with Kaiser Wilhelm II (1890), William Pickering discovered Saturn’s moon Phoebe (1899), Enrico Caruso became the first well-known performer to make a professional recording (1902), Arnold Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” premiered in Vienna (1902), Frederick Converse’s opera “The Pipe of Desire” became the first American opera to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera (1910), Irving Berlin obtained a copyright for “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” one of the most popular songs of the 20th century (1911), George I of Greece assassinated in Thessaloniki (1913), British magistrates in India sentenced the Mahatma Gandhi to 6 years imprisonment for disobedience (1922), Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan held a bat mitzvah for his daughter in New York City — the first public celebration of a bat mitzvah (1922), Schick put the first electric shavers on sale in the US (1931), Studebaker went bankrupt (1933), Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler met at the Brenner Pass, il Duce agreeing that Italy would join Nazi Germany in war (1940), Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9102 creating the War Relocation Authority to oversee the internment (imprisonment) of Japanese Americans during World War II (1942), Nazi Germany occupied Hungary (1944), Dwight Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill into law (1959), Dmitri Shostakovich became a member of the USSR’s Supreme Soviet (1962), French government representatives met with the Front de Libération National (FLN) to sign a peace agreement ending France’s disastrous seven-year colonial war in Algeria & 130 years of colonial rule (1962), Poppin’ Fresh Pillsbury Dough Boy introduced (1965), Gen. Lon Nol led a military coup d’état, forcing Prince Sihanouk to flee Cambodia (1970), Vietnam released US soldiers missing in action (MIAs) (1977), former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sentenced to death by the military junta in Pakistan (1978), in the first free elections in East Germany, the Christian Democratic Party defeated the Communist Party (1990), Leona Helmsley sentenced to four years for tax evasion (1992), Zsa Zsa Gabor files for bankruptcy (1994), Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube removed at her husband’s request (2005), Transnistria formally requested to join the Russian Federation (2014), Vladimir Putin elected to a new six-year term, his fourth term as president of the Russian Federation (2018) & the US House Judiciary Committee hearing held on the rise of violence & discrimination against Asian-Americans with 3,800 hate incidents recorded over the previous 12 months (2021) on this day.
March 19
William Bradford (baptized) (1589), Georges de la Tour (1593), Aleksei Romanov (first Romanov tsar of Russia) (1629), Tobias Smollett (baptized) (1721), Tupac Amaru II (1742), David Livingstone (1813), Richard Francis Burton (1821), Constantin Dimitrescu (1847), Wyatt Earp (1848), William Jennings Bryan (1860), Sergei Diaghilev (1872), Max Reger (1873), Josef Albers (1888), Earl Warren (1891), John Sirica (1904), Albert Speer (1905), Roy Roberts (1906), Adolf Eichmann (1906), Fred Clark (1914), Jiang Qing (1914), Irving Wallace (1916), Constantin ‘Dinu’ Lipatti (1917), Brent Scowcroft (1925), Hans Küng (1928), Lynda Bird Johnson Robb (1944), Myung-Wha Chung (1944), Said Musa (1944), Sirhan Sirhan (1944), Joseph Celli (1944), Tom Constanten (1944), Glenn Close (1947), Harvey Weinstein (1952) & Bruce Willis (1955) were born #OnThisDay. Edmund of Woodstock, first Earl of Kent, son of Edward I of England (1330), Ibn Khaldūn (1406), Arthur Balfour (1930), Anne Klein (1974), Willem De Kooning (1997), Arthur C. Clarke (2008), Paul Scofield (2008) & Jimmy Breslin (2017) died on this day. Mongol victory at the naval Battle of Yamen ended China’s Song dynasty (1279), Friedrich von Habsburg crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Nicholas V in Rome (1452), Giovanni da Verrazano landed in the Carolinas (1524), the Peace of Amboise granted religious rights to Huguenots in France (1563), Spanish troops occupied Manila (1571), mass suicide of 200 members of the Ming imperial family (1644), Robert Cavalier de La Salle murdered by his own men (1687), Joseph Haydn’s “Die Schöpfung” premiered in Vienna (1799), Charles IV of Spain abdicated, succeeded by Ferdinand VII (1808), Spain’s first constitution adopted (1812), Boston incorporated as a city in Massachussetts (1822), Charles Gounod’s opera “Faust” premiered in Paris (1859), the First Taranaki War ended in New Zealand (1861), Charles Gounod’s opera “Mireille” premiered in Paris (1864), the foundation stone laid for Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (1882), Pluto photographed for the first time (but not identified as such) (1915), the US Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles for the second time, refusing to ratify League of Nations’ covenant (1920), Nevada legalized gambling (1931), Adolf Hitler issued his ‘Nero Decree’ to destroy all German factories (1945), French Guyana, Guadeloupe, Martinique & Reunion became overseas ‘départements’ of France (1946), the Academy Awards were televised for the first time on NBC (1953), Nicolae Ceauşescu became leader of Romania’s Communisty Party (1965), Howard University’s administration building taken over by students (1968), the Chicago 8 indicted after the Democratic national convention (1969), Cambodia’s parliament granted Lon Nol emergency powers to suspend the constitution (1970), John Dean told Richard Nixon, “There is a cancer growing on the presidency” (1973), the last episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” aired on CBS (1977), Argentine forces landed on South Georgia Island, precipitating the Falklands War (1982), “Kate & Allie” premiered on CBS starring Susan Saint James and Jane Curtin (1984), Jim Bakker resigned amid rape accusations (1987), the Duke & Duchess of York (Prince Andrew & Sarah Ferguson) announced their separation (1992), the largest omelette (1,383 sq. ft.) in world history made with 160,000 eggs in Yokohama (1994), George W. Bush launched the US & British invasion of Iraq (2003), Russian forces captured the Ukrainian naval base at Savastopol (2014), the world’s last Northern White Rhino (‘Sudan’) died in Kenya (2018), Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev announced his resignation after nearly 30 years in office (2019), Sam Smith came out as non-binary (2019), & Iceland’s Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted in Iceland for the first time in 800 years (2021) on this day.
March 21
Zhao Kuangyin~emperor Taizi of Song China (927), Moritz, Kurfürst von Sachsen (Maurice, Elector of Saxony) (1521), Modest Mussorgsky (1839), Florenz Ziegfeld (1869), Hans Hofmann (1880), Paul Tortelier (1914), Arthur Grumiaux (1921), Peter Brook (1925), Hans-Dietrich Genscher (1927), James Coco (1930), Michael Heseltine (1933), Marie-Christine Barrault (1944), Slavoj Žižek (1949), Jair Bolsonaro (1945), Gary Oldman (1958), Matthew Broderick (1962) & Rosie O’Donnell (1962) were born #OnThisDay. Thomas Cranmer (1556), Pocahontas (1617), John Law (1729), Robert Southey (1843), Joseph E. Johnston (1891), Alexander Glazunov (1936), Walter Francis White (1955), Candy Darling [James Slattery] (1974), Dean Martin, Jr. (1987), Michael Redgrave (1985), Robert Preston [Meservey] (1987), Herman Talmadge (2002), Bobby Short (2005), Wolfgang Wagner (2010), Chinua Achebe (2013), Andrew Grove [András Gróf] (2016), Martin McGuinness (2017) & Colin Dexter (2017) died on this day. Jews killed in Black Death riots in Erfurt (1349), Henry V became king of England (1413), Code Napoléon adopted in France (1804), Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major (Op 130) premiered in Vienna (1826), Henry Morton Stanley began his expedition to Africa (1871), Otto von Bismarck elevated to rank of Fürst (prince) (1871), Germany launched an offensive on the Somme (1918), Gov. Austin Peay signed the Butler Act into law making Tennessee the first state to outlaw the teaching of the theory of evolution (1925), Paul von Hindenburg & Adolf Hitler presided over the opening of the new Reichstag building in Berlin (1933), Persia renamed Iran (1935), police killed 19 at a Puerto Rican nationalist parade (the Ponce massacre) (1937), Nazi Germany demanded the return of Danzig (Gdańsk) from Poland (1939), Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Rebecca” — based on Daphne du Maruier’s novel & starring Laurence Olivier & Joan Fontaine — premiered in Miami (1940), Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9835 requiring loyalty to the US on the part of all federal employees (1947), South African police killed 72 in the Sharpeville Massacre as the African National Congress was outlawed (1960), Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay closed (1963), socialist Mário Soares banished to Sao Tomé after having been arrested by secret police on the orders of Portugal’s dictator António de Oliveira Salazar (1968), CBS broadcast the episode of “Dallas” in which J.R. was shot (1980), Strawberry Fields memorial to John Lennon dedicated in Manhattan’s Central Park (1984), Twitter founder Jack Dorsey tweeted his first ‘tweet’ (2006), Russia formally annexed Crimea to international condemnation (2014) & Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg admits they “made mistakes” after data on 50 million users is harvested by Cambridge Analytica (2018) on this day.
March 22
Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1459), Anthony Van Dyck (1599), Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany (1797), Leonard ‘Chico’ Marx (1887), Karl Malden [Mladen George Sekulovich] (1912), Werner Klemperer (1920), Marcel Marceau (1923), E.D. Hirsch (1928), Lynden Pindling (1930), Pat Robertson (1930), Stephen Sondheim (1930), Derek Bok (1930), William Shatner (1931), Orrin Hatch (1934), Alan Opie (1945), Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948), Wolf Blitzer (1948), Fanny Ardant (1949), Bob Costas (1952), Reese Witherspoon (1976) & Constance Wu (1982) died #OnThisDay. Jean-Baptiste Lully (1687), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1832) & William Hanna (2001) died on this day. Æthelred of Wessex defeated an invasion of Danish Vikings (871), pogrom of Jews in Fulda blamed for the Black Death (1349), Reginald Cardinal Pole named archbishop of Canterbury (1556), the British parliament enacted George Grenville’s Stamp Act (1765), Edmund Burke spoke in the House of Commons in favor of a peaceful settlement with the British colonies in North America (1775), George Washington appointed Thomas Jefferson the first US secretary of state (1790), Charles Grey persuaded parliament to enact the Reform Act which significantly changed the British electoral system (1832), Puerto Rico abolished slavery (‘Emancipation Day’) (1873), the US became the first country to recognize Russia’s new post-revolutionary government (1917), James Stewart became the first American movie star to be inducted into the US military in World War II (1941), the Arab League formed (1945), Harry Truman signed an executive order establishing a Loyalty Review Board to investigate potential Communist sympathizers in the federal government (1947), Nicolae Ceauşescu elected general secretary of Romania’s Communist Party (1965), Jarmila Novotná resigned as president of Czechoslovakia (1968), Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment, which subsequently failed to get the required number of states to be ratified (1972), teachers at the McMartin preschool in California are charged with Satanic ritual abuse of the children in the school, charges later determined to be completely unfounded (1984), Congress overrode Ronald Reagan’s veto of a civil rights bill (1988) & the New York City Board of Estimate was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court (1989) on this day.
March 23
Marguerite d’Anjou (Margaret of Anjou) (1430), [Aloysius] Ludwig Minkus (1826), Fanny Farmer (1857), Felix Yussupov (1887), Juan Gris (1887), Dane Rudhyar [Daniel Chennevière] (1895), Erich Fromm (1900), Joan Crawford ([Lucille Le Sueur] (1905), Akira Kurosawa (1910), Wernher von Braun (1912), Ugo Tognazzi (1922), Roger Bannister (1929), Rex Tillerson (1952), Chaka Khan [Yvette Marie Stevens] (1953), Jayson Blair (1976), Perez Hilton [Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr] (1978), Kim Wall (1987), Eugenie, Princess of York (1990) & Kyrie Irving (1992) were born #OnThisDay. Agrippina the Younger (59), Peter the Cruel, king of Castile & Leon (1369), Pope Julius III [Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte] (1555), Nicolas Fouquet (1680), Tsar Paul I of Russia (1801), Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle] (1842), Bhagat Singh (1931), Raoul Dufy (1953), Peter Lorre (1964), Cristóbal Balenciaga (1972), Patricia Roberts Harris (1985), Rowland Evans (2001), Eileen Farrell (2002), Sarah Caldwell (2006), Elizabeth Taylor (2011), Adolfo Suárez (2014), Lee Kuan Yew (2015), Ken Howard (2016), Joe Garagiola (2016) & George Segal (2021) died on this day. Agrippina the Younger murdered on the orders of her son Nero (59), Pedro el Cruel (Peter the Cruel) of Castilla y León murdered by his half brother Henry of Trastámara (1369), London premiere of Georg Friedrich Händel’s “Messiah” at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1743), Patrick Henry declared “Give me liberty or give me death!” at the second Virginia convention (1775), “Les Liaisons dangereuses” by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos published by Durand Neveu (1782), Tadeusz Kościuszko returned to Poland (1794), Tsar Pavel (Paul) I of Russia assassinated (1801), Napoléon put his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Spain (1808), O.K.’ first published in the Boston Morning Post (1839), Austrian troops defeated the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia at the Battle of Novara (1849), Elisha Otis installed his first elevator at 488 Broadway in Manhattan (1857), Congress overrode Andrew Johnson’s veto to enact the 2nd Reconstruction Act (1867), Umberto Giordano’s opera “Andrea Chénier” premiered in Milan (1896), Germany began using a long-range gun — the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm Geschütz’ (‘Emperor William Gun,’ a.k.a. the ‘Paris Gun’ — to shell Paris from Crépy-en-Laonnais (1918), Benito Mussolini founded the Fasci di Combattimento (fascist party) in Italy (1919), the first telephone installed on the president’s desk at the White House (1929), Indian independence fighters Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru & Sukhdev Thapar hanged (1931), the Reichstag enacted the Enabling Act giving Adolf Hitler absolute power (1933), Italy & Austria-Hungary signed the Pact of Rome (1936), the Battle of Okinawa (1945), Gen. Efraín Rios Montt deposed Guatemala’s president Romeo Lucas in a military coup d’état (1982), Barney Clark died 112 days after becoming the world’s first recipient of an artificial heart (1983), Ronald Reagan called for the creation of a Strategic Defense Initiative (‘Star Wars’) in a televised address (1983), presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Coliso assassinated in Mexico (1994), “Titanic” won a record 11 Academy Awards (1998), the last territory of the ISIS ‘caliphate’ recaptured (2019) & Rochester police killed African American Daniel Prude (2020) on this day.
March 24
March 25
St. Catherine of Siena (1347), Joachim Murat (1767), Caroline Bonaparte (1782), Arturo Toscanini (1867), Béla Bartok (1881), Ed Begley (1901), A.J.P. [Alan John Percival] Taylor (1906), Bridget D’Oyly Carte (1908), David Lean (1908), Magda Olivero (1910), Jack Ruby (1911), Nancy Barbato Sinatra (1917), Howard Cosell (1918), Simone Signoret (1921), Alexandra of Greece & Denmark, queen of Yugoslavia (1921), Eileen Ford (1922), Flannery O’Connor (1925), Gloria Steinem, Johnny Burnette (1934), Anita Bryant (1940), Aretha Franklin (1942), Paul Michael Glaser (1943), Elton John [Reginald Kenneth Dwight] (1947), Marcia Cross (1962), Sarah Jessica Parker (1965) & Naftali Bennett (1972) were born #OnThisDay. Novalis [Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg] (1801), Claude Debussy (1918), Faisal, king of Saudi Arabia (1975), Roland Barthes (1980), Nancy Walker (1992), Warren Burger (1995), Larry Mc Murtry (2021) & Bill Brock (2021) died on this day. Venice founded (421), Richard I (‘the Lionheart’) of England wounded by a crossbow (1199), consecration of the Cappella Scrovegni (Arena) in Padova (Padua) (1305), Robert the Bruce crowned king of Scotland (1306), Pope Eugene IV consecrated the cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore — Filippo Brunelleschi’s dome was then the largest in the world (1436), Henry Hudson embarked on an exploration for Dutch East India Company to find a passage to Asia (1609), the first English colonists to colonize Maryland arrive on St. Clement’s Island (1634), Voltaire left the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia in Potsdam (1753), the British parliament enacted the Boston Port Act to punnish Bostonians for the Boston Tea Party of 1773 (1774), the House of Commons voted to abolish the slave trade throughout the British Empire (1807), George Canning became British foreign secretary (1807), Percy Bysshe Shelley expelled from the University of Oxford for his publication of the pamphlet “The Necessity of Atheism” (1811), official declaration of the ongoing Greek revolution against Ottoman Turkish rule (1821), 146 young women killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory fire in Manhattan (1911), the League of Nations Covenant adopted at the Paris peace conference (1919), Greek Independence Day (1920), Trans-Jordan granted autonomy within the British empire (1923), the US Supreme Court vacated the convictions of the ‘Scottsboro Boys’ on charges of raping a white woman in Alabama (1932), US Customs seized copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” for its alleged ‘obscenity’ (1955), the Treaty of Rome established European Economic Community (1957), France’s Charles de Gaulle recognized the Oder-Neisse line as the boundary between Germany & Poland (1959), a New York court ruled D.H. Lawrence’s novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” not obscene (1960), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led 25,000 in a civil rights march to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery (1965), the US Supreme Court ruled the ‘poll tax’ unconstitutional (1966), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march against the Vietnam War (1967), Lyndon Baines Johnson’s nine ‘Wise Men’ advised him to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War (1968), Faisal of Saudi Arabia assassinated (1975), Edwin Meese III became US attorney general (1985), “Dances with Wolves”, Kathy Bates & Jeremy Irons won Academy Awards at the 63rd Academy Awards ceremony (1991) on this day.
March 26
March 27
Robert II, king of the Franks (972), Francis II Rákóczi (1676), Carlo Buonaparte (1746), Louis XVII of France (1785), Georges Eugène, Baron Haussmann (1809), Wilhelm Röntgen (1845), Vincent d’Indy (1851), Henry Royce (1863), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886), Ferde Grofé (1892), Gloria Swanson (1899), Satō Eisaku (1901), James Callaghan (1912), Cyrus Vance (1917), Sarah Vaughan (1924), Anthony Lewis (1927), Mstislav Rostropovich (1927), David Janssen (1930), Michael York (1942), Maria Ewing (1950), Maria Schneider (1952), Mariano Rajoy (1955), Susan Molinari (1958), Quentin Tarantino (1963), Mariah Carey (1969), Princess Leila Pahlavi of Iran (1970) & Fergie [Duhamel] (1975) were born #OnThisDay. Marie de Bourgogne (duchess of Burgundy & Holy Roman Empress) (1482), James VI of Scotland & James I of England (1625), Giovanni Tiepolo (1770), Susan Blow (1916), Michael Joseph Savage (1940), Yuri Gagarin (1968), M.C. Escher (1972), Arthur Bliss (1975), Milton Berle (2002), Dudley Moore (2002), Billy Wilder (2002), Lyn Nofziger (2006), Farley Granger (2011), Adrienne Rich (2012), Hilton Kramer (2012) & Stéphane Audran (2018) died on this day. Ptolemy V ascended the throne of Egypt (196 BCE), Pope Clement V excommunicated Venice & Venetians (1309), Juan Ponce de León & his expedition first sighted Florida (1513), Elizabeth Tudor appointed Robert Devereux (Earl of Essex) Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1599), Charles I became king of England (1625), Charles II of England gave Bombay to the East India Company (1668), Spain ceded Menorca & Gibraltar to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Thomas Jefferson elected to the second Continental Congress (1775), Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, became British prime minister (1782), the modern shoelace with an aglet patented in England by Harvey Kennedy (1790), Andrew Rankin patented the urinal (1866), Andrew Johnson vetoed a civil rights bill that would later become the 14th Amendment (1866), Abraham Lincoln met with Ulysses Grant & William Tecumseh Sherman to plan the final Union drive to win the Civil War (1865), fingerprints were used for the first time to solve a murder case in London (1905), First Lady Helen Taft & the Japanese ambassador’s wife Viscountess Chinda planted cherry trees on the banks of the Potomac (1912), Typhoid Mary [Mary Mallon] arrested & returned to quarantine on North Brother Island (1915), Moldova & Bessarabia joined Romania (1918), Adolf Hitler signed Directive 27 directing an attack on Yugoslavia (1941), Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen’s film “Singin’ in the Rain” premiered at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan (1952), “Around World in 80 Days”, Ingrid Bergman & Yul Brynner won Academy Awards at the 29th Academy Awards ceremony (1957), Nikita Khruschchev became Soviet premier as well as general secretary of the Communist Party (1958), the strongest earthquake in US history hit southern Alaska (1964), UN troops arrived on Cyprus (1964), Suharto officially succeeded Sukarno as president of Indonesia (1968), “The Godfather”, Marlon Brando & Liza Minnelli won Academy Awards at the 45th Academy Awards ceremony (1973), Marlon Brando declined an Academy Award to protest Hollywood’s depiction of Native Americans (1973), Washington, D.C.’s Metro system opened (1976), 583 died in the Tenerife airport disaster — the worst ever disaster in aviation history (1977), Mount St. Helens erupted for the first time in 123 years (1980), Jiang Zemin became president of the People’s Republic of China (1993), “Forrest Gump”, Jessica Lange & Tom Hanks won Academy Awards at the 67th Academy Awards ceremony (1995), the US Federal Drug Administration approved use of the drug Viagra (1998), UN General Assembly condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea (2014), Narendra Modi announced that India had become a ‘space power’ (2019), Theresa May promised to step down as British prime minister if parliament voted for her Brexit plan (2019), a report on Yahya Jammeh’s corruption concluded that he stole $1 billion from Gambia as president (2019), Facebook announced a ban on white supremacy & white nationalism after the Christchurch terrorist attack on a mosque in New Zealand (2019), Boris Johnson announced that he contracted COVID-19 but would continue to serve as British prime minister (2020), Donald Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package (2020), & 114 people were killed in Myanmar protesting the military’s coup d’état (2021) on this day.
March 28
Fra Bartolommeo (1472), Rafaello Sanzio (1483), Teresa de Ávila (1515), Pieter de Groot (1615), Frederick Pabst (1836), Aristide Briand (1862), Maxim Gorky (1868), Paul Whiteman (1890), Flora Robson (1902), Rudolf Serkin (1903), Myfanwy Piper (1911), Edmund Muskie (1914), Dirk Bogarde [Derek van den Bogaerde] (1921), Frederick ‘Freddie’ Bartholomew (1924), Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928), Michael Parkinson (1935), Mario Vargas Llosa (1936), Neil Kinnock (1942), Samuel Ramey (1942), Daniel Dennett (1942), Conrad Schumann (1942), Jerry Sloan (1942), Ken Howard (1944), Rodrigo Duterte (1945), Dianne Wiest (1948), Nydia Velázquez (1953), Reba McEntire (1955), Bernice King (1963), Iris Chang (1968), Vince Vaughn (1970) & Lady Gaga [Stefani Germanotta] (1986) were born #OnThisDay. Publius Helvius Pertinax (193), Ivan the Terrible (1584), Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1794), Modest Mussorgsky (1881), Virginia Woolf (1941), Sergei Rachmaninoff (1943), Mary [Victoria Alexandra Alice Mary], Princess Royal & Countess of Harewood (1965), Dwight Eisenhower (1969), Dino Ciani (1974), Marc Chagall [Moise Chagall] (1985), Maria von Trapp (1987), Eugene Ionesco (1994), Peter Ustinov (2004), Caspar Weinberger (2006), Ronald Hines (2017) & Tom Coburn (2020) died on this day. Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (‘Caligula’) accepted the title of princeps conferred on him by the Senate (37), Roman Emperor Pertinax assassinated by Praetorian Guards, who then sold the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus (193), Philip II crowned king of Spain (1556), parliament urged George II to demand redress from Spain, eventually leading to the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1738), the British parliament enacted the Coercive Acts to punish Bostonians for the Boston Tea Party, only further fueling the American Revolution (1774), Juan Bautista de Anza identified the site for the Presidio in San Francisco (1776), the Musée du Louvre officially opened to the public (1794), the state of New York abolished slavery (1799), Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin’s funeral in France (1814), the US Congress censured Andrew Jackson for refusing to turn over documents (1834), Britain and France declared war on Russia, launching the Crimean War (1854), the first ambulance went into service (1866), Umberto Giordano’s opera “Andrea Chenier” premiered at the Teatro alla Scala di Milano (1896), 31-year-old Leon Thrasher became the first American killed in World War I (1915), Giacomo Puccini’s opera “La Rondine” premiered in Monte Carlo (1917), Tomáš Masaryk elected president of Czechoslovakia (1920), Constantinople & Angora changed their names to Istanbul & Ankara (1930), Leni Riefenstahl’s film “Triumph of the Will” released (1935), Madrid fell to Francisco Franco’s Nationalists, bringing the Spanish Civil War to an end (1939), the People’s Republic of China dissolved Tibet’s government 11 days after a popular uprising began in Tibet & installed the Panchen Lama in the place of the Dalai Lama (1959), Morarji Desai formed a new government in India (1977), the government of British prime minister Jim Callaghan fell (1979), Three Mile Island nuclear power plant disaster in Pennsylvania (1979), right-wing parties won parliamentary elections in France (1993), Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition won parliamentary elections in Italy (1994), two people in California tested positive for the H1N1 swine flu — the first cases in the US (2009), Donald Trump signed an ‘energy independence’ executive order undoing Barack Obama’s climate-related measures (2017), Kim Jong-un met with Xi Jinping in Beijing on the DPRK dictator’s first trip outside of North Korea since coming to power in 2011 (2018) & the European Parliament enacted a ban on single-use plastics to come into effect in 2021 (2019) on this day.
March 29
Jørgen Jørgensen (1780), John Tyler (1790), Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (1799), Ludwig Büchner (1824), Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826), Edwin Luytens (1869), Lou Henry Hoover (1874), Lavrentiy Beria (1899), William Walton (1902), E. Power Biggs (1906), Eugene McCarthy (1916), Pearl Bailey (1918), Sam Walton (1918), John McLaughlin (1927), Norman Tebbit (1931), Billy Carter (1937), John Major (1943), Walt ‘Clyde’ Frazier (1945), Bud Cort (1948), Karen Ann Quinlan (1954), Kurt Thomas (1956) & Amy Sedaris (1961) were born #OnThisDay. Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland (1461), Gustav III of Sweden (1792), Marquis de Condorcet (1794), Maria Fitzherbert (1837), John Jacob Astor (1848), Mark Hopkins (1878), Georges Seurat (1891), Robert Falcon Scott (1912), Annunzio Mantovani (1980), Carl Orff (1982), John, Earl Spencer (1992), Paul Henreid (1992), William ‘Bill’ Inge Lindon-Travers (1994), Johnny Cochran (2005), Howell Heflin (2005), Maurice Jarre (2009), Hobart ‘Hobie’ Alter (2014), Patty Duke [Anna Marie] & Krzysztof Penderecki (2020) died on this day. Paris was sacked by Viking raiders under Ragnar Lodbrok (845), Edward of York defeated the Lancastrian army at the Battle of Towton, deposing Henry VI of England & proclaiming himself Edward IV (1461), Salvador da Bahia — Brazil’s first capital — founded (1549), Québec restored to France in the Treaty of Saint-Germain (1632), Swedish Lutherans founded the first permanent European settlement in Delaware (1638), Charles II accepted the Test Act banning Catholics from public office (1673), Gustav III of Sweden died 13 days after being shot at a masked ball (1792), the 24-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven debuted as a pianist in Vienna (1795), Switzerland form as a republic (1798), New York’s state legislature enacted a law phasing out slavery (1799), Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden abdicated after a coup d’état (1809), Finland’s four Estates pledged allegiance to Alexander I of Russia at the Diet of Porvoo, commencing the transfer of the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden (1809), 20,000 attended Ludwig Beethoven’s burial in Vienna (1827), the great Bosnian uprising against Ottoman Turkish rule (1831), Niagara Falls froze over for 30 hours in an ice jam (1848), Britain formally annexed the Punjab after defeating Sikhs in India (1849), Gen. Ulysses Grant launched the final Union campaign of the Civil War (1865), Queen Victoria opened the Royal Albert Hall (1871), Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s opera “Yevgeny Onegin” premiered in Moscow (1879), the Catholic men’s organization the Knights of Columbus founded (1882), Japan went on the gold standard (1897), Captain Robert Falcon Scott — storm-bound in a tent near South Pole — made last entry in his diary — “the end cannot be far” (1912), Hjalmar Hammarskjöld resigned as prime minister over his defense of Sweden’s neutrality in World War I (1917), Yeshiva College (now University) chartered in Manhattan (1928), Herbert Hoover had the first telephone installed on the president’s desk in the Oval Office of the White House (1929), Heinrich Brüning appointed Germany’s Reichskanzler (1930), Benjamin Britten’s Requiem Symphony premiered (1941), the Royal Air Force bombed Lübeck — the RAF Bomber Command’s first major success in World War II (1942), Jimmy Stewart promoted to full colonel — one of the few Americans to rise from private to colonel (1945), Frankfurt fell to Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army (1945), Turkey recognized the state of Israel (1949), Julius & Ethel Rosenberg convicted of spying for the Soviet Union & sentenced to death (1951), Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical “The King & I” premiered in Manhattan (1951), “All About Eve”, Judy Holliday & José Ferrer won Academy Awards at the 23rd Academy Awards ceremony (1951), Billy Wilder’s film “Some Like It Hot” released (1959), ratification of the 23rd Amendment to the US Constitution allowing Washington, D.C. residents to vote in presidential elections (1961), Lt. William Calley, Jr. found guilty in My Lai massacre in Vietnam (1971), Salvador Allende nationalized banks & copper mines in Chile (1971), the last US combat troops left South Vietnam as North Vietnam released the remaining American prisoners of war held in the north (1973), Chinese farmers discovered Qin Shi Huang Di’s terracotta army near Xi’an (1974), NASA’s Mariner 10 became the first spacecraft to visit Mercury (1974), “Lady Marmalade” by Labelle reached #1 on US singles chart (1975), “The Carol Burnett Show” aired for the last time on CBS after winning 25 Emmy Awards (1978), dictator Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla resigned as president of Argentina (1981), “Chariots of Fire”, Henry Fonda & Katharine Hepburn won Academy Awards at the 54th Academy Awards ceremony (1982), “Rain Man,” Dustin Hoffman & Jodie Foster won Academy Awards at the 61st Academy Awards ceremony (1989), I.M. Pei’s pyramid entrance to the Musée du Louvre opened in Paris (1989), junk bond king Michael Milken indicted on racketeering charges (1989), Édouard Balladur formed a conservative government in France (1993), Elizabeth Taylor received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her AIDS/HIV activism at 65th Academy Awards ceremony (1993), the Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to ban smoking in all work places (2004), the first British same-sex couples married after enactment of the Marriage Act of 2013 (2014), Ivanka Trump took an unpaid position as an advisor to Donald Trump (2017), British prime minister Theresa May sent a letter to the European Union invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, formally triggering Brexit (2017), Democrat Lucy Flores accused Joe Biden of an inappropriate kiss (2019), Derek Chauvin went on trial in Minneapolis for the murder of George Floyd (2021) & Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law (2022) on this day.
March 30
Mehmed II (‘the Conqueror’) (1432), Franciso Goya (1746), Maria Reynolds (1768), Robert Bunsen (1811), Paul Verlaine (1844), Vincent Van Gogh (1853), Sean O’Casey (1880), Brooke Astor (1902), Ernst Gombrich (1909), Richard Helms (1913), McGeorge Bundy (1919), Ingvar Kamprad (1926), John Heddle Nash (1928), Richard Dysart (1929), John Astin (2940), Warren Beatty (1937), Robbie Coltrane (1950), Piers Morgan (1965), Céline Dion (1968) & Mark Consuelos (1970) were born #OnThisDay. François I of France (1547), George ‘Beau’ Brummell (1840), Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1842), Conchita Supervía (1936), Léon Blum (1950), Maxfield Parrish (1966), Airey Neave (1979), James Cagney (1986), Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (2002), Alistair Cooke (2004) & G. Gordon Liddy (2021) died on this day. Sicilian Vespers (1282), Edward I of England sacked Berwick-upon-Tweed (1296), Henry VIII appointed Thomas Cranmer archbishop of Canterbury (1533), George III gave royal assent to the New England Restraining Act requiring colonists to trade exclusively with Britain (1775), forces of the Sixth Coalition marched into Paris after defeating Napoléon (1814), Joachim Murat issued the Rimini Declaration that would later inspire the Risorgimento (movement for the reunification of Italy) (1814), East & West Florida merged into the Florida Territory by Congress (1822), ether used as an anesthetic for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long in Georgia (1842), ‘Border Ruffians’ from Missouri invaded Kansas & precipitated violence in ‘Bloody Kansas’ (1855), the Treaty of Paris ended the Crimean War (1856), Prince Wilhelm Georg von Schleswig-Holstein Sonderburg-Glücksburg chosen to be king George I of Greece (1863), Bedřich Smetana’s comic opera “Die Verkaufte Braut” (The Bartered Bride) premiered at Prague’s Provisional Theatre (1866), US secretary of state William Seward signed a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7,200,000 ($109 million in 2018, roughly 2 cents an acre) (1867), ratification of the 15 Amendment to the US Constitution guaranteeing all men the right to vote regardless of race (1870), Texas became the last Confederate state readmitted to the Union (1870), the Queensborough Bridge opened linking Manhattan to Queens (1909), the University of Southern Mississippi established by the Mississippi state legislature (1910), France established a protectorate in Morocco (1912), Henry Wallace criticized Harry Truman’s Cold War foreign policy (1948), “On the Waterfront”, Marlon Brando & Grace Kelly won Academy Awards at the 27th Academy Awards ceremony (1955), James Wong Howe became the first Asian American to win an Academy Award (for best cinematography) at the 27th Academy Awards ceremony (1955), India granted the Dalai Lama political asylum after his flight from Tibet following the People’s Republic of China’s invasion (1959), a car bomb destroyed the US embassy in Saigon & killed 19 Vietnamese, two Americans & one Filipino (1965), Israel killed six Palestinians protesting land theft (1976), Airey Neave killed by an Irish National Liberation Army car bomb as he left the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) in London (1979), John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan (1981), Hugh Hudson’s film “Chariots of Fire” premiered in London (1981), NYPD detective Robert Cunningham offered waitress Phyllis Penzo half of his lottery ticket which won $6 million the next day (1984), Marlee Matlin, Paul Newman & “Platoon” won Academy Awards at the 59th Academy Awards ceremony (1987), Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” sells for a record £22.5 million ($39.7 million) (1987), “The Silence of the Lambs”, Anthony Hopkins & Jodie Foster won Academy Awards at the 64th Academy Awards ceremony (1992), Richard Branson knighted by the Prince of Wales (2000), Park Geun-hye arrested on corruption charges after being the first president of the Republic of Korea to be impeached (2017) & Palestinians began the ‘Great March of Return’ to protest Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip & theft of land in illegally occupied Palestine (2018) on this day.
March 31
April 1
Otto von Bismarck (1815), Gaetano Mosca (1858), Ferruccio Busoni (1866), Edmond Rostand (1868), Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873), Leonidas ‘Lon’ Chaney (1883), Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill (1885), Alberta Hunter (1895), Whittaker Chambers (1901), Abraham Maslow (1908), Toshiro Mifune (1920), William Manchester (1922), Brendan Byrne (1924), Milan Kundera (1929), George Baker (1931), Ali MacGraw (1939), Wangari Maathai (1940), Samuel R. Delany, Jr. (1942), Paul Manafort (1949), Samuel Alito (1950), Susan Boyle (1961), Rachel Maddow (1973), David Oyelowo (1976) & Logan Paul (1995) were born #OnThisDay. Shenzong emperor of Song China (1085), Eleanor of Acquitaine (1204), Scott Joplin (1917), Kaiser Karl I (Austrian emperor Charles I) (1922), Cosima Liszt Wagner (1930), Helena Rubinstein (1965), Marvin Gaye (1984), Erik Bruhn (1986), Martha Graham (1991), Juan de Borbon & Battenberg (1993), Nicanor Zabaleta (1993), Jolie Gabor (1997), Leslie Cheung (2003), Carrie Snodgress (2004), John Forsythe (2010), Miguel de la Madrid (2012), Steven Bochco (2018), Efraín Ríos Montt (2018) & Michel Sénéchal (2019) died on this day. Scots recaptured Berwick-upon-Tweed from the English (1318), Plymouth colonists concluded a defensive alliance with Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags (1621), Cotton Mather blamed witchcraft for the death of his four-day-old son (1693), April Fools’ Day popularized in England (1700), Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre rediscovered the ruins of Pompeii (1748), New Orleans businessman Oliver Pollock created the $ symbol (1778), Jane Austen wrote to the Prince Regent, rejecting the future George IV’s suggestion that she write a historical romance novel (1816), Union troops defeated a Confederate army at the Battle of Five Forks (1865), the Second German Reich adopted a constitution (1871), Paul Gauguin left Marseille for Tahiti (1891), the Wrigley Co. founded in Chicago (1891), the Royal Air Force formed through the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) & the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) (1918), Adolf Hitler sentenced to five years labor for the Beer Hall Putsch but Gen. Erich Ludendorff acquitted (1924), Hebrew University dedicated in Jerusalem (1925), Louie Marx introduced the Yo-Yo (1929), “Der Blaue Engel” (The Blue Angel) starring Marlene Dietrich premiered (1930), Clyde Barrow killed two young highway patrolmen with Bonnie Parker, turning the public against Bonnie & Clyde (1934), Aden became a British colony (1937), the US recognized Francisco Franco’s fascist government in Spain (1939), 50,000 US troops landed on Okinawa (1945), the Faroe Islands granted autonomy within the Kingdom of Denmark (1948), the Big Bang theory first proposed in the journal “Physical Review” (1952), the US Census determined the resident population of the United States to be 179,245,000 (1960), U Nu elected prime minister of Burma (1960), the soap operas “General Hospital” (ABC) & “Doctors” (NBC) premiered (1963), Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer in the garage of Jobs’ parents house in Cupertino, California (1976), the last episode of “The Bob Newhart Show” aired on NBC (1978), the US formally transferred the Canal Zone to Panama (1982), Marvin Gaye, Jr. shot & killed by Marvin Gaye, Sr. (1984), dissolution of the Warsaw Pact (1991), Alan Bennett’s play “The Madness of George III” premiered in London (1993), Nunavut territory carved out of the eastern part of Canada’s Northwest Territories (1999), the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s former president Slobodan Milošević surrendered to special forces on war crimes charges (2001), the Netherlands became the first country to legalize euthanasia (2002), Google introduced Gmail (2004), Michael Phelps won his record seventh gold medal, surpassing his own world record in Melbourne (2007), Croatia & Albania joined NATO (2009), NATO suspended all civilian & military cooperation with Rusia (2014), Bob Dylan received his Nobel Prize for Literature at a private ceremony in Stockholm (2017), the Japanese government announced the reign name ‘Reiwa’ for the next emperor of Japan (Naruhito) (2019), Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee & five other pro-democracy protesters were convicted in Hong Kong (2021) on this day.
April 2
Karl der Große (Charlemagne) (742), Prince George of Denmark, prince consort to Queen Anne of England (1653), Giacomo Casanova (1725), August Heinrich Hoffmann (1798), Hans Christian Andersen (1805), Émile Zola (1840), Walter Chrysler (1875), Max Ernst (1891), Christian ‘Buddy’ Ebsen (1908), Alec Guinness (1914), Jack Webb (1920), George MacDonald Fraser, Joseph Bernardin (cardinal & archbishop) (1928), Serge Gainsbourg (1928), Marvin Gaye (1939), Penelope Keith (1940), Linda Hunt (1945), Camille Paglia (1947), Emmylou Harris (1947), Christopher Meloni (1961), Rodney King (1965) & Aiden Turner (1977) were born #OnThisDay. Arthur, Prince of Wales (1502), Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau (1791), Hermann Rorschach (1922), Georges Pompidou (1974), Pope John Paul II (2005) & Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (2018) died on this day. Turkish forces under Sultan Mehmed II began the siege of Constantinople (İstanbul) — which fell on May 29 (1453), Juan Ponce de León claimed Florida for Spain as the first European to reach Florida (1513), England & France signed the first Treaty of Le Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), Ludwig van Beethoven’s first symphony premiered in Vienna (1800), the British navy under Horatio Nelson destroyed the Danish fleet in the naval Battle of Copenhagen (1801), the first parliament of a united Italy met in Turin (18760), Confederate president Jefferson Davis fled Richmond (1865), Sun Yat-Sen founded China’s Guomindang (‘Nationalist Party’) (1912), Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany (1917), Ras Tafari Makonnen became Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) (1930), Italian Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti returned to Italy from the Soviet Union (1944), Sen. Eugene McCarthy won the Democratic primary in Wisconsin (1968), “2001 A Space Odyssey” — directed by Stanley Kubrick & starring Keir Dullea & Gary Lockwood — premiered at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C. (1968), “The Sting”, Glenda Jackson & Jack Lemmon won Academy Awards at the 46th Academy Awards ceremony (1974), Khiu Sampan succeeded Prince Sinahouk as prime minister of Cambodia (1976), “Dallas” premiered on CBS (1978), Martina Navratilova won her first WTA Tour Championship, beating Evonne Goolagong Cawley of Australia in Oakland (1978), anthrax poisoning killed 62 in Ekaterinburg (now Sverdlovsk) (1979) Argentine troops seized the Falkland Islands (las Malvinas, igniting the Falklands War (1982), Ed Koch signed the gay rights bill prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in New York City (1986), Edith Cresson resigned as prime minister of France, the first woman to head a French government (1992), Mafioso John Gotti convicted of murder (1992), NY Police Department & New York Transit Police merged into one organization (1995), Israeli forces besieged the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (2002), Uruguay’s parliament enacted legislation recognizing same-sex marriage (2013), Lori Lightfoot elected the first female African American Mayor of Chicago (2019) & Spain’s COVID-19 death toll surpassed 10,000 (10,003) (2020) on this day.
April 3
Philip III of France (1245), Henry IV of England (1367), George Herbert (1593), Washington Irving (1793), Edward Everett Hale (1822), William Magear ‘Boss’ Tweed (1823), Léon Michel Gambetta (1838), J.B.M. Hertzog (1866), Mistinguett [Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois] (1871), Alcide de Gasperi (1881), Leslie Howard [Stainer] (1893), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895), Henry Luce (1898), Camille Chamoun (1900), Michael Woodruff (1911), Henry Caen (1916), John Demjanjuk (1920), Doris Day [Kappelhoff] (1922), Marlon Brando (1924), Tony Benn (1925), Helmut Kohl (1930), Lawton Chiles (1930), Max Frankel (1930), Wally Moon (1930), Jane Goodall (1934), Petunia Pig (Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies) (1937), David Maves (1937), Marsha Mason (1942), Tony Orlando [Cassavitis] (1944), Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1946), Garrick Ohlsson (1948), Alec Baldwin (1958), David Hyde Pierce (1959), Eddie Murphy (1961), Nigel Farage (1964), Matthew Goode (1978), Amanda Bynes (1986), Julie Sokolow (1987) & Paris Jackson (1998) were born #OnThisDay. Jesus of Nazareth’s crucifixion (according to astronomer Humphreys & Waddington) (33), Khosrow II, Sāsānian king of Persia (579-628) (628), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1682), Jesse James (1882), Johannes Brahms (1897), Richard D’Oyly Carte (1901), Bruno Hauptmann (1936), Conrad Veidt (1943), Kurt Weill (1950), Ferde Grofé (1972), Peter Pears (1986), Sarah Vaughan (1990), Graham Greene (1991), Carl Stokes (1996), Ron Brown (1996), Eugène Terre’Blanche (2010), Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (2013), Sarah Brady (2015) & Andrew Porter (2015) died on this day. Edward the Confessor crowned king of England (1043), Peter of Castile defeated his brother Henry at the Battle of Navarrete [Nájera] (1367), Spain & France signed 2nd Treaty of Le Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell refused the crown of England (1657), Robert Walpole became the first Lord of the Treasury (in effect, British prime minister (1721), Joseph II crowned Holy Roman Emperor (1764), the Continental Congress authorized privateers to attack British ships (1776), the Pony Express began operating between St. Joseph (Missouri) & Sacramento (California) (1860), Union forces occupied Richmond & Petersburg (1865), Jesse James killed by fellow gang member Robert Ford in St. Joseph (1882), Vladimir Lenin arrived in Petrograd, returning to Russia from exile in Switzerland (1917), Austria expelled the Habsburgs (1919), Joseph Stalin appointed General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party by an ailing Vladimir Lenin (1922), Istanbul’s Ottoman Topkapi Palace converted into a museum on the orders of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1924), Bruno Hauptmann executed for the kidnapping & murder of 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh, Jr. (1936), Winston Churchill warned Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany was planning to invade the Soviet Union (1941), Harry Truman signed the bill into law creating the Marshall Plan (1948), Juliana of the Netherlands addressed the US Congress (1952), the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it would defend Allen Ginsberg’s book “Howl” against obscenity charges (1955), “Planet of the Apes” premiered (1968), US defense secretary Melvin Laird announced the policy of ‘Vietnamization’ (1969), 50th Academy Awards: “Annie Hall”, Richard Dreyfuss & Diane Keaton won Academy Awards at the 50th Academy Awards ceremony (1978), Jane Byrne was elected mayor of Chicago, becoming the first woman to lead a major US city (1979), Brixton race riots in London (1981), the UN Security Council demanded that Argentina withdraw from the Falkland Islands (1982), the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels auctioned for £31,380,197 (1987), the UN Security Council adopted a Gulf War truce resolution (1991), Theodore John Kaczynski arrested by the FBI after it determined he was the Unabomber (1996), US commerce secretary Ronald Brown & 32 other Americans killed in a plane crash in Croatia near Dubrovnik (1996), Australia formally adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2009), Barack Obama officially secured the Democratic presidential nomination (2012), publication of the Panama Papers documenting the corruption of the global elite (2016) & Brunei’s new Sharia law punishing adultery & homosexuality with death by stoning provoked worldwide outrage (2019) on this day.
April 4
Caracalla (188), William Strachey (1572), Pierre Paul Prud’hon (1758), Bettina von Arnim (1785), Thaddeus Stevens (1792), Dorothea Dix (1802), Tad Lincoln (1853), Pierre Monteux (1875), Maurice de Vlaminck (1875), Georg von Trapp (1876), Isoroku Yamamoto (1884), Arthur Murray (Moses Teichman] (1895), John Cameron Swayze (1906), Muddy Waters [McKinley Morganfield] (1913), Marguerite Dumas (1914), Antony Tudor (1919), Éric Rohmer [Maurice Schérer] (1920), Maya Angelou [Marguerite Johnson] (1928), Estelle Harris (1928), Anthony Perkins (1932), Richard Lugar (1932), A. Bartlett Giamatti (1938), Kitty Kelley (1942), Gen. Wiranto (1947), Christine Lahti (1950), Hun Sen (1951), Jane Eaglin (1960), Hugo Weaving (1960), Robert Downey, Jr. (1965), Heath Ledger (1979), Jamie Lynn Spears (1991) & Grumpy Cat [Tardar Sauce] (2012) were born #OnThisDay. Alfonso X (‘the Wise’) (1284), Oliver Goldsmith (1774), William Henry Harrison (1841), Karl Benz (1929), André Michelin (1931), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1972), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1979), Gloria Swanson (1983), John Heinz (1991), Roger Ebert (2013) & Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath (2020) died on this day. Ignatius de Loyola became the first superior-general of the Jesuit order (1541), Elizabeth Tudor knighted Francis Drake aboard the Golden Hind at Deptford (1581), Christian IV succeeded Frederik II as king of Denmark (1588), James II issued his Declaration of Indulgence, ordering it read in churches throughout England (1686), Napoléon abdicated as emperor of the French in favor of his son (1814), John Tyler succeeded William Henry Harrison as president following his death (1841), City of Los Angeles incorporated (1850), Abraham Lincoln had a dream that presaged his assassination (1865), Alexander II of Russia narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by Dmitry Karakozov in St. Petersburg (1866), Golden Gate park established in San Francisco under City Order #800 (1870), Susanna Madora Salter elected mayor of Argonia (Kansas), becoming the first woman elected mayor of any US city (1887), Jean-Baptiste Sipido attempted to assassinate the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) as a protest over British participation in the Boer War (1900), Cecil Rhodes started the Rhodes Scholarship fund with $10 million (1902), “The Perils of Pauline” film series premiered in Los Angeles (1914), the US Senate voted 82-6 to declare war on Germany (1917), the Second Battle of the Somme ended (1918), Gen. Charles de Gaulle formed a French government in exile with Communists & others (1944), Soviet forces liberated Hungary from Nazi German occupation (1945), US forces liberated Ohrdruf, the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by the US Army (1945), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty signed in Washington, D.C. (1949), Lana Turner’s 14-year-old daughter Cheryl Crane stabbed mobster Johnny Stompanato in self-defense (1958), “Ben-Hur”, Charlton Heston & Simone Signoret won Academy Awards at the 32nd Academy Awards ceremony (1960), Senegal declared its independence from France (1960), Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke out against the Vietnam War in a major address at Riverside Church in Manhattan (1967), Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, provoking riots across the country (1968), Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” premiered at Winter Garden Theater in Manhattan (1971), the World Trade Center opened in Manhattan, becoming the tallest building in the world (1973), Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth’s home run record (1974), Microsoft founded (1975), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto executed in Pakistan (1979), Henry Cisneros elected mayor of San Antonio, the first Mexican-American to be elected mayor of a US city (1981), Sen. John Heinz & six others killed in a plane/helicopter collision in Pennsylvania (1991), Jack Ma founded Alibaba (1999), the Angolan government & UNITA rebels signed a peace treaty ending the Angolan civil war (2002), Don Imus made disparaging comments about Rutgers’ women’s basketball team (2007), German Nobel Laureate Günter Grass published controversial poem that claims Israel is plotting to wipe out Iran (2012), Jack Ma’s Alibaba became the world’s largest retailer (2017), Belgian prime minister Charles Michel apologized for the kidnapping of thousands of mixed-race children during colonial period in the Congo, Burundi & Rwanda (2019) & Kathie Lee Gifford left NBC’s “Today” show after 11 years (2019) on this day.
April 5
Bianca Maria Sforza (1472), Thomas Hobbes (1588), Elihu Yale (1649), Adrienne Lecouvreur (1692), Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732), Sébastien Érard (1752), Jules Ferry (1832), Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837), Booker T. Washington (1856), Albert Roussel (1869), Spencer Tracy (1900), [Ruth Elizabeth] Bette Davis (1908), Herbert von Karajan (1908), Gregory Peck (1916), Arthur Hailey (1920), Nguyen Van Thieu (1923), Nigel Hawthorne (1929), Colin Powell (1937), Pedro Rosselló (1944), Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (1947), Agnetha Fältskog [Anna Ulvaeus] (1950), Pharrell Williams (1973), Sterling K. Brown (1976), Hayley Atwell (1982) & Lily James (1989) were born #OnThisDay. St. Vincent Ferrer (1419), Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier (la Grande Mademoiselle) (1693), Charles XI of Sweden (1697), Georges Danton (1794), George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon (1923), Douglas MacArthur (1964), Howard Hughes (1976), Abe Fortas (1982), John Tower (1991), Sam Walton (1992), Kurt Cobain (1994), Allen Ginsberg (1997), Saul Bellow (2005) & Charlton Heston [John Carter] (2008) died on this day. St. Patrick returned to Ireland as a missionary bishop (456), Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod defeated the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of the Ice (1242), James I returned to Scotland after 18 years in captivity at the English court (1424), James VI of Scotland left Edinburgh to become James I of England (1603), Pocahontas married John Rolfe in Jamestown (1614), Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen became the first European to reach Easter Island (Rapa Nui) (1722), parliament enacted George Grenville’s legislation levying a Sugar Tax on the American colonies (1764), Benjamin Franklin sent an open letter to British prime minister Lord North (1774) George Washington issued the first US presidential veto (1792), Ludwig van Beethoven conducted the premiere of his second symphony in D in Vienna (1803), British troops stormed the fortress of Badajoz held by French & Spanish forces (1812), Mount Tambora erupted on Java for the first time in several centuries (1815), Chile’s independence movement led by Bernardo O’Higgins & José de San Martín won a decisive victory over Spanish troops at the Battle of Maipú (1818), Johann Strauss Jr’s opera “Die Fledermaus” premiered in Vienna (1874), Chile declared war on Bolivia & Peru, starting the War of the Pacific (1879), Anne Sullivan taught Helen Keller the word ‘water’ (1887), Oscar Wilde lost his libel case against the Marquees of Queensberry (1895), failed assassination attempt against the Prince of Wales in Brussels (1900), Ricardo Viñes performed Maurice Ravel’s “Pavane pour une infante defunte (Pavane for A Dead Princess)” at its premiere in Paris (1902), Gen. Erich Ludendorff formally ended Operation Michael, the first stage of the final major German offensive of World War I (1918), Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) (1933), Hitler Jugend membership declared mandatory for German youth (1939), Julius & Ethel Rosenberg sentenced to death on espionage charges (1951), Anthony Eden succeeded Winston Churchill as British prime minister (1955), the first driverless trains ran on the London Underground (1964), “My Fair Lady”, Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady) & Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) won Academy Awards at the 37th Academy Awards ceremony (1965), Sri Lanka’s Communist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) launched an insurrection against the United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike (1971), Harold Wilson succeeded James Callaghan as British prime minister upon his resignation (1976), Lord [Peter] Carrington resigned as British foreign secretary over Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands (las Malvinas) (1982), the Fox TV network premiered with “Married With Children” & “The Tracey Ullman Show” (1987), Poland’s government granted legal status to trade union Solidarność (Solidarity) (1989), Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized biography of Nancy Reagan published (1991), Alberto Fujimori suspended Peru’s constitution & dissolved its Congress (1992), Kurt Cobain’s suicide (1994), Steve Irwin’s “The Crocodile Hunter” debuted (1997), North Korea launched its controversial Kwangmyŏngsŏng 2 rocket (2009), Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigned after the Panama Papers leak showed a conflict of interest (2016), San Francisco became the first US city to mandate paid parental leave (2016), PayPal announced cancellation of a $3.6 million investment in North Carolina after the state enacted anti-LGBT legislation (2016), Pepsi pulled an ad featuring Kendall Jenner after criticism that it was trivializing Black Lives Matter demonstrations against police brutality (2017), British prime minister Boris Johnson was admitted to the hospital with a case of COVID-19 (2020), India recorded over 100,000 new daily COVID cases for the first time, more than half in the state of Maharashtra (2021) & Italy scrapped its 1914 film censorship law that could ban films on moral and religious grounds (2021) on this day.
April 6
Raffaello Sanzio (1483), Aasmund Olavsson Vinje (1818), Joseph Medill (1823), Gustave Moreau (1826), René Lalique (1860), Joseph Lincoln Steffens (1866), Donald Wills Douglas (1892), Kurt Kiesinger (1904), Ian Paisley (1926), James Watson (1928), André Previn (1929), Billy Dee Williams (1937), Merle Haggard (1937), Felicity Palmer (1944), Marilu Henner (1952), Ralph Correa (1963), Paul Rudd (1969), Zach Braff (1975) & Candace Cameron Buré (1976) were born #OnThisDay. Richard the Lionheart, king of England (1199), Raffaello Sanzio (1520), Albrecht Dürer, (1528), Sir Francis Walsingham (1590), Dr. Sam Sheppard (1970), Igor Stravinsky (1971), Chiang Kai-shek (1975), Isaac Asimov (1992), Juvénal Habyarimana (1994), Greer Garson (1996), Tammy Wynette (1998), Habib Bourguiba (2000), Rainier III of Monaco (2005), Fang Lizhi (2012), Mickey Rooney (2014), Merle Haggard (2016), Don Rickles (2017), Daniel Akaka (2018) & Richard Green (2019) died on this day. Julius Caesar defeated Caecilius Metellus Scipio & Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) at the battle of Thapsus (46 BCE), Stilicho’s Roman army defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Pollentia (402), Karl der Große (Charlemagne) confirmed the gift to the Pope of the territories belonging to Ravenna made by his father Pepin the Short at Quiercy-sur-Loire in 753 (774), Scots reaffirmed their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath (1320), the Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck founded the Cape Colony — the first European settlement in South Africa (1652), Charles II of England signed the Carolina Charter (1663), Louis XIV’s France declared war on the Netherlands (1672), Catherine the Great lifted Peter the Great’s 1698 tax on Russian men with beards (1772), Rama I overthrew Taksin in a coup d’état in Siam (Thailand) (1782), Joseph Smith & five others officially organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fayette (New York) (1830), the Black Hawk war began in Illinois (1832), the cornerstone laid for the second Mormon temple in Nauvoo (Illinois) (1841), John Tyler sworn in as president upon the sudden death of William Henry Harrison (1841), Queen Victoria appointed William Wordsworth British poet laureate (1843), Union troops defeated Confederate forces at the Battle of Shiloh (1862), the city of Vancouver incorporated in British Columbia (1886), Tonga made neutral by the Declaration of Berlin (1886), George Eastman began selling his Kodak flexible rolled film (1889), Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City dedicated (1893), “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” by J. Stuart Blackton — the world’s first animated film (1906), Robert Peary & Matthew Henson reached the North Pole (1909), the House of Representatives voted for a US declaration of war on Germany two days after the Senate (1917), the Bavarian Soviet Republic declared (1919), Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi orders a general strike in India (1919), Hostess Twinkies invented by bakery executive James Dewar (1930), 418 Lutheran ministers arrested in Nazi Germany (1934), Nazis began evacuating prisoners from Buchenwald concentration camp (1945), the City of New York ended trolley car service (1957), “Gigi,” Susan Hayward & David Niven won Academy Awards at the 31st Academy Awards ceremony (1959), France’s prime minister Georges Pompidou formed a new government (1967), Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey” released (1968), Dr. Sam Sheppard died at the age of 46 (1970), the Scarman Tribunal Report (an inquiry into the causes of violence during the summer of 1969 in Northern Ireland) published, finding that the Royal Ulster Constabulary had been seriously at fault (1972), Indian troops invaded Sikkim (1973), ABBA for Sweden won the 19th Eurovision Song Contest singing “Waterloo” in Brighton (1974), the plane carrying Rwanda’s president Juvénal Habyarimana & Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down by surface-to-air missiles, abruptly ending peace negotiations & sparking the Rwanda genocide (1994), Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz re-elected prime minister of Hungary (2014), Bernie Sanders won the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary & Ted Cruz won the Wisconsin Republican presidential primary (2016), France enacted a law criminalizing paying for sex (2016), 30,000 Peruvians demonstrated in Lima against presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori on the 24th anniversary of her father Alberto Fujimori’s coup d’état (2016), China’s Xi Jinping arrived in Florida for talks with Donald Trump (2017), the Bronx Zoo’s tiger Nadia became the first cat to test positive for human-to-cat transmitted COVID-19 (2020) & Jeff Bezos topped the Forbes list of 2,755 billionaires with a fortune of $177 billion (2021) on this day.
April 7
(St.) Francis Xavier (1506), François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi (1644), John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham & Normanby (1648), William Wordsworth (1770), William Ellery Channing (1780), William Rufus DeVane King (1786), Flora Tristan (1803), Gabriela Mistral [Lucila Godoy Alcayaga] (1889), Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890), Allen Dulles (1893), Walter Winchell (1897), Robert Casadesus (1899), Billie Holiday [Eleanora Fagan], (1915), Ravi Shankar [Chowdhury] (1920), Kenneth Peacock (1922), James Garner (1928), Anderew Sachs (1930), Daniel Ellsberg (1931), Wayne Rogers (1933), Ian Richardson (1934), Hodding Carter III (1935), Tariq Aziz (1936), Jerry Brown (1938), David Frost (1939), Franciso Ford Coppola (1939), Gerhard Schröder (1944), Jackie Chan (1954), Christopher Darden (1956), Russel Crowe (1964), Leif Ove Andsnes (1970) & Guillaume Depardieu (1971) were born #OnThisDay. Charles VIII of France (1498), Doménikos Theotokópoulos (‘El Greco’) (1614), Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1719), Dick Turpin (1739), Toussaint L’Ouverture (1803), P.T. [Phineas Taylor] Barnum (1891), Henry Ford (1947), Frank Church (1984), Ruth Page (1991), Agathe Uwilingiyimana (1994), François de Grossouvre (1994), Mike Wallace (2012), Peaches Geldof (2014) & Tim Pigott-Smith (2017) died on this day. Attila the Hun sacked Metz (451), Byzantine emperor Justinian I issued the first draft of the Corpus Juris Civilis (529), Prague University founded by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (1348), Ferdinand Magellan reached Cebu (1521), Albrecht von Wallenstein appointed supreme commander of the Holy Roman Emperor’s army (1625), Michael Cardozo became the first Jewish lawyer in Brazil (1645), Fabio Chigi succeeded Pope Innocent X as Pope Alexander VII (1655), 6 white men killed in a slave revolt in New York & 21 African Americans executed for participating in it (1712), Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St John Passion” premiered in Leipzig (1724), Dick Turpin executed in England for horse stealing (1739), Revolutionary France adopted the metric system (1795), Ludwig van Beethoven conducted the premiere of his thir (‘Eroica’) symphony in Vienna (1805), Lewis & Clark’s expedition began at Fort Mandan on the Missouri River (1805), John Walker invented wooden matches (1827), Dom Pedro abdicated as emperor of Brazil, succeeded by Dom Pedro II (1831), Ulysses Grant defeated Confederate forces at the Battle of Shiloh (1862), Fridtjof Nansen reached a record 86°13.6′N latitude north (1895), Manuel de Falla’s ballet “El Sombrero de tres Picos” premiered in Madrid (1917), Sun Yat-sen elected president of the Republic of China (1921), Warren G. Harding’s interior secretary Albert B. Fall leased the Teapot Dome oil reserves to Harry Sinclair, setting in motion the Teapot Dome scandal (1922), Italy invaded Albania (1939), the northern half of East Prussia incorporated into the Russian SFSR (1946), France recognized Syria’s independence (1946), the UN General Assembly elected Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden UN Secretary-General (1953), West Germany’s government refused to recognize the DDR/GDR regime (1954), Dwight Eisenhower gave his ‘domino effect’ speech on Communism in Southeast Asia (1954), Spain relinquished its protectorate over Morocco (1956), Josip Broz Tito declared Yugoslavia’s president for life (1963), “Midnight Cowboy,” John Wayne (True Grit) & Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jane Brody) won Academy Awards at the 42nd Academy Awards ceremony (1970), Richard Nixon freed Lt. William Calley from house arrest after his conviction for his role in the My Lai Massacre (1971), Deng Xiaoping fired as vice-premier by the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (1976), John Poindexter (Ronald Reagan’s national security advisor) found guilty of five counts of lying to Congress & obstruction regarding the Iran-Contra scandal (1990), the Republika Srbska declared its independence from Bosnia-Herzegovina 91992), the murder of Rwanda’s prime minister & acting president Agathe Uwilingiyimana initiated the Rwandan genocide (1994), Alberto Fujimori sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings & kidnappings by security forces as president of Peru (2009), Joyce Banda became president of Malawi (2012), Rwanda commemorated the 25th anniversary of the genocide that killed 800,000 to a million Rwandans (2019), rebel forces began advancing on Tripoli to overthrow Col Muammar al-Gaddafi’s regime in Libya (2019), Australia’s highest court overturned the child sexual abuse conviction of Roman Catholic George Cardinal Pell (2020) & Wisconsin’s Democratic presidential primary went ahead after the Republican state legislature rejected mail-in voting in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020) on this day.
April 8
Siddartha Gautama (the Buddha) (563), Pedro I of Portugal (1320), Juan Ponce de León (1460), Claudio Merulo (1533), Philip IV of Spain (1605), Giuseppe Tartini (1692), Christian IX of Denmark (1818), Pancha Carrasco (1826), Edmund Husserl (1859), Albert I of Belgium (1875), Adrian Boult (1889), Mary Pickford [Gladys Smith] (1892), Yip Harburg [Isadore Hochberg] (1896), Sonia Henie (1912), Betty Ford [Elizabeth Bloomer] (1918), Franco Corelli (1923), Leah Schloßberg Rabin (1928), Jacques Brel (1929), Walter Berry (1929), Dorothy Tutin (1930), Seymour Hersh (1937), Kofi Annan (1938), Tom DeLay (1947) & Patricia Arquette (1968) were born #OnThisDay. Caracalla (217), Jean II of France (1364), Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicholas-Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1794), Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (1848), Elisha Otis (1861), Vaslav Nijinsky (1950), Pablo Picasso (1973), Omar Bradley (1981), Ryan White (1990), Marian Anderson (1993), Claire Trevor (2000), Margaret Thatcher (2013) & Annette Funicello (2013) died on this day. Caracalla assassinated & succeeded as Roman emperor by Marcus Opellius Macrinus, prefect of the Praetorian Guard (217), dedication of Winchester Cathedral (1093), Louis XII of France defeated Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan at the Battle of Novara (1500), Holy Roman Emperor Charles V convened an imperial diet in Augsburg (1530), Congregation Shearith Israel opened in Manhattan — the first synagogue in North America (1730), the Ayutthaya kingdom fell to Burmese invaders (1767), Catherine II of Russia annexed the Crimea (1783), discovery of the Venus de Milo on the island of Milos (1820), Piedmont-Sardinia’s troops defeated an Austrian army at the First Battle of Gioto (1848), John D. Lynde patented the aerosol dispenser (1862), the American Museum of National History opened in Manhattan (1869), Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera “La Gioconda” premiered in Milan (1876), William Ewart Gladstone introduced the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons (1886), Entente Cordiale signed by Britain & France (1904), Aleister Crowley transcribed the first chapter of the Book of the Law (1904), Longacre Square in Manhattan renamed Times Square in honor of the New York Times moving there (1904), H. H. Asquith succeeded Henry Campbell-Bannerman as British prime minister (1908), China’s first elected parliament met for the first time in Beijing (1913), Congress ratified the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution providing for the direct election of senators (1917), Norway approved the vote for women (1916), Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration legislation & Emergency Relief Appropriation Act enacted by Congress (1935), Zog I fled Albania after Italy invaded (1939), Franklin Delano Roosevelt initiated a wage/price freeze in the US (1943), the last meeting of the League of Nations (1946), Harry Truman seized US steel mills to avert a strike (1952), Jomo Kenyatta convicted of involvement with the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya & sentenced to seven years (1953), “Lawrence of Arabia,” Anne Bancroft & Gregory Peck won Academy Awards at the 35th Academy Awards ceremony (1963), Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record in the face of hate mail & death threats from white supremacists (1974), “The Godfather: Part II,” Ellen Burstyn & Art Carney won Academy Awards at the 47th Academy Awards ceremony (1975), Yitzhak Rabin resigned as Israel’s prime minister (1977), Clint Eastwood elected mayor of Carmel (1986), “Twin Peaks” premiered on ABC (1990), Birendra of Nepal lifted the 30-year ban on political parties (1990), New Democracy won the parliamentary election in Greece (1990), 18-year-old Ryan White died of AIDS (1990), Michael Landon announced he had inoperable pancreatic cancer (1991), grunge artist Kurt Cobain found dead three days after his suicide (1994), the Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement signed by the Sudanese government & two rebel groups ended the war in Darfur (2004), national security advisor Condoleezza Rice testified before the 9/11 Commission (2004), Somali pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama off the coast of Somalia (2009), Günter Grass labelled ‘persona non grata’ by Israeli internal affairs minister Eli Yishai over the poem “What Must Be Said” (2012), Viktor Orbán’s right-wing Fidesz/KDNP alliance won parliamentary elections in Hungary (2018), Allison Mack pled guilty to sex trafficking charges in the sex cult NXIVM trial (2019), seven killed and 2,500 arrested in Khartoum in protests against Omar al-Bashir’s dictatorship (2019), Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic presidential race (2020), Dr. Anthony Fauci thanked American health workers for their sacrifice during the pandemic, acknowledging their more than 3,600 deaths (2021) & Egyptian archaeologists announced the discovery of a lost 3,000-year-old ancient city of Aten near Luxor (2021) on this day.
April 9
Tamerlane (Timur) (1336), Giuditta Pasta (1798), Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806), Charles Baudelaire (1821), Léopold II of Belgium (1835), Paolo Tosti (1847), Helene Lange (1848), Erich Ludendorff (1865), Léon Blum (1872), Sol Hurok (1888), Curly Lambeau (1898), Paul Robeson (1898), J. William Fulbright (1905), Antal Doráti (1906), Hugh Gaitskell (1906), Victor Vasarely (1906), Abraham Ribicoff (1910), Jørn Utzon (1918), Hugh Hefner (1926), Tom Lehrer (1928), Jean-Paul Belmondo (1933), Michael Learned (1939), Dennis Quaid (1954), Joe Scarborough (1963), Marc Jabobs (1963), Doug Ducey (1964), Paulina Porizkova (1965), Jeff Zucker (1965), Cynthia Nixon (1966), Nikole Hannah-Jones (1976), Kristen Stewart 1990), Lil Nas X [Montero Lamar Hill] (1999) & Jackie Evancho (2000) were born #OnThisDay. Emperor Jimmu Tennō (according to legend, the first emperor of Japan) (585 BCE), Edward IV of England (1483), Francis Bacon [Lord Verulam] (1626), Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy (1693), Simon Fraser, 12th Baron Lovat (1747), Jacques Necker (1804), Erastus Corning (1872), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1882), Isabella II of Spain (1904), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1945), Frank Lloyd Wright (1959), Zog I [Ahmed Zogu] of Albania (1961), James F. Byrnes (1972), Andrea Dworkin (2005), Sidney Lumet (2011), Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh (2021) & Ramsey Clark (2021) died on this day. Septimius Severus proclaimed emperor by Roman legions in Illyricum (193), Mongols defeated Poles & Germans at the Battle of Liegnitz (1241), Swiss troops defeated a Habsburg army at the Battle of Näfels (1388), Henry V crowned king of England (1413), Edward V succeeded Edward IV upon his death but the new king of England & his brother Richard disappeared, never to be seen again (1483), Christian III of Denmark joined the Schmalkaldische Union (Smalkaldic League) (1538), first public art exhibition at the Palais-Royale in Paris (1667), Robert La Salle claimed ‘Louisiana’ (the lower Mississippi valley) for France (1682), Robert Jenkins’ ear cut off by the Spanish Guarde Costa, a casus bell for Britain’s war with Spain (1731), John Hancock refused to allow British customs agents to inspect his ship (1768), British ratification of the Treaty of Paris (9.3.1783) ending the American Revolutionary War (1784), the African Methodist Episcopal Church organized in Philadelphia (1816), Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) received his steamboat pilot’s license (1859), Robert E. Lee’s 26,765 Confederates surrendered to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox Court House (1865), Congress enacted a new civil rights law, overriding Andrew Johnson’s veto (1866), the Hudson Bay Company ceded its territory to Canada (1869), Mae West made her Manhattan debut in “Diamond Lil” (1928), Turkey’s parliament enacted a law establishing the separation of church & state (1928), Marian Anderson sang to a crowd of 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, d.C. (1939), Nazi German troops invaded Denmark & Norway, Denmark surrendering within six hours (1940), Major Gen. Edward P. King Jr. surrendered at Bataan (against Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s orders & 78,000 troops (66,000 Filipinos & 12,000 Americans) — the largest contingent of US soldiers ever to surrender — taken captive by the Japanese (1942), end of the Battle of Königsberg in East Prussia (1945), the Congress of Racial Equality’s Journey of Reconciliation — considered the first Freedom Ride — set out from Washington, D.C. (1947), Zionist massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yassin (1948), “West Side Story” (best picture, director & eight more), Sophia Loren (“Two Women”) & Maximilian Schell (“Judgement at Nuremberg”) won Academy Awards at the 34th Academy Awards ceremony & Rita Moreno became the first Latino to win an Oscar (1962), the German Democratic Republic (DDR/GDR) adopted a constitution (1968), Martin Luther King, Jr. buried in Atlanta (1968), Ralph Aberbathy elected to head Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1968), the Chicago Eight plead not guilty to federal conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 democratic National Convention in Chicago (1969), Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner convicted on corruption charges (1973), Peter Bogdanovich’s film “Paper Moon” (1973) premiered in Hollywood (1973), Alan Pakula’s film “All The President’s Men” released (1976), Spain’s 40-year ban on the Communist Party lifted (1977), “The Deer Hunter,” Jon Voight & Jane Fonda won Academy Awards at the 51st Academy Awards ceremony (1979), “Terms of Endearment”, Robert Duvall & Shirley MacLaine won Academy Awards at the 56th Academy Awards ceremony (1984), George Bush imposed economic sanctions on Manuel Noriega’s Panama (1988), Mike Tyson struck a parking attendant when asked to move his car (1989), John Major led the Conservative party to a landslide victory in the British general election (1992), Manuel Noriega found guilty on 8 out of 10 drug & racketeering charges in US federal court (1992), Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert held at Carnegie Hall (1994), Niger’s president Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara assassinated at the airport in Niamey (1999), Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother’s funeral in Westminster Abbey (2002), Baghdad fell to US forces, ending the invasion of Iraq but resulting in widespread looting (2003), Cammilla Parker Bowles wed the Prince of Wales in a private civil ceremony (2005), “Parks & Recreation” debuted on NBC (2009), France’s Senate voted for a same-sex marriage bill (2013), Tammy Duckworth of Illinois became the first US senator to give birth while in office (2018), nine prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters found guilty on public nuisance charges for their part in the 2014 Umbrella Movement (2019), Uganda opposition party National Unity Platform Party headed by Bobi Wine claimed 623 people were abducted & tortured by the government of Yoweri Museveni (2021) & La Soufrière volcano began erupting on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent with a plume of ash 20,000 feet into the sky (2021) on this day.
April 10
James V of Scotland (1512), Hugo de Grotius (1583), William Hazlitt (1778), Hortense de Beauharnais (1783), Matthew C. Perry (1794), James Bowie (1796), William Booth (1829), Ludwig Bösendorfer (1835), Joseph Pulitzer (1847), Frances Perkins (1880), Mohammed Nadir Shah, king of Afghanistan (1880), Clare Booth Luce (1903), Harry Morgan (1915), Max Von Sydow (1929), Hugh Morton, Baron Morton of Shuna (1930), Dolores Huerta (1930), Claude Bolling (1930), Omar Sharif [Michel Dimitri Shalhoub] (1932), David Halberstam (1934), Paul Theroux (1941), Lesley Garrett (1955), Yefim Bronfman (1958) & Rachel Corrie (1979) were born #OnThisDay. Louis the Stammerer, king of the West Franks (879), Gregory XIII [Ugo Boncompagni] (1585), Gabrielle d’Estrée (1599), Algernon Charles Swinburne (1909), Emiliano Zapata (1919), Khalil Gibran (1931), Joseph ‘King’ Oliver (1938), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1955), Evelyn Waugh (1966), Nino Rota [Giovanni Rota Rinaldi] (1979), Natalie Schafer (1991), Chen Yun (1995), Günter Grass (1995), Morarji Desai (1995), Dixie Carter (2010), Lech Kaczyński (2010) & Maria Kaczyńska (2010) died on this day. French troops captured Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan (1500), Venice restricted Jews to living in the ghetto (1516), Prussia defeated Austria at the Battle of Mollwitz in the War of the Austrian Succession (1741), Mount Tambora erupted, killing 71,000 people on Java (1815), Samuel Taylor Coleridge recited “Kubla Khan” to Lord Byron (1816), Delphine LaLaurie’s torture chamber discovered in New Orleans (1834), Horace Greeley began publishing the New York Tribune (1841), Walter Hunt patented the safety pin (1849), Maximilian von Habsburg became emperor of Mexico (1864), Robert E. Lee addressed his Confederate troops for the last time at Appomattox (1865), premiere of “Ein Deutsches Requiem” of Johannes Brahms (1868), Congress increased number of Supreme Court judges from 7 to 9 (1869), José Martí founds the Cuban Revolutionary Party (1869), publication of O. Henry’s second short story collection “The Four Million” including “The Gift of the Magi” (1906), RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton for her maiden (and final) voyage (1912), Castbergian Child Laws adopted in Norway — one of the first laws in the world to protect the welfare of extra-martial children (1915), Emiliano Zapata ambushed & shot dead by Mexican government forces in Morelos (1919), Adolf Hitler demanded “hatred & more hatred” in Berlin (1923), Tsaritsyn renamed Stalingrad (now Volgograd) (1925), Scribners published “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925), Paul von Hindenburg re-elected president of Germany in a runoff election against Adolf Hitler (1932), Édouard Daladier succeeded Léon Blum as prime minister of France (1938), Adolf Hitler renamed Austria the ‘Ostmark’ & made it a province of the German Third Reich (1938), Vidkun Quisling formed a Nazi puppet government in Norway (1940), the Independent State of Croatia led by Ante Pavelić established as a fascist German puppet state (1941), the Bataan Death March began (1942), Odessa liberated from Nazi German occupation by Soviet troops (1944), Dag Hammarskjöld became the second Secretary-General of the United Nations (1953), Sidney Lumet’s film “12 Angry Men” released (1957), Spain ceded the northern strip of Spanish Sahara to Morocco (1958), “A Man For All Seasons” (best picture), Elizabeth Taylor & Paul Scofield won Academy Awards at the 39th Academy Awards ceremony (1967), “In the Heat of the Night,” Rod Steiger & Katherine Hepburn won Academy Awards at the 40th Academy Awards ceremony (1968), Paul McCartney officially announced the split of The Beatles (1970), Golda Meir resigned as prime minister of Israel (1974), Rick Santorum suspended his presidential campaign, leaving Mitt Romney the probable Republican nominee (2012), he Council of Europe suspends Russia’s right to vote (2014), Hong Kong pro-democracy political party Demosistō established by Nathan Law, Joshua Wong & Agnes Chow (2016), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg begins testified before Congress about data use & security (2018), first photo of a black hole announced (2019) & the discovery of Homo Luzonensis species was announced (2019) on this day.
April 11
Lucius Septimius Severus (146), João I of Portugal (1357), Friedrich I, Kurfürst von Sachsen (1370), Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March (1374), Marguerite d’Alençon, queen of Navarre (1492), Antoine Coypel (1661), Jean-Joseph Mouret (1682), George Canning (1770), Edward Everett (1794), Charles Evans Hughes 91862), Kasturba Gandhi (1869), Gustav Vigeland (1869), Donna Rachele Mussolini (1890), Dean Acheson (1893), Percy Lavon Julian (1899), Adriano Olivetti (1901), António de Spínola (1910), Oleg Cassini (1913), Alberto Ginastera (1916), Jean-Claude Servan-Schreiber (1918), Hugh Carey (1919), Ethel Skakel Kennedy (1928), Father Abraham [Pierre Kartner] (1935), Richard Berry )1935), Richard Kuklinski (1935), Michael Deaver (1938), Kurt Moll (1938), Louise Lasser (1939), Ellen Goodman (1841) & Dakota Blue Richards (1994) were born #OnThisDay. Llywelyn ab Iorwerth the Great of Wales (1240), Thomas Wyatt the Younger (1554), Joseph Merrick (‘the Elephant Man’) (1890), James Anthony Bailey (1906), Luther Burbank (1926), S.S. Van Dine [pseudonym for William Huntingdon Wright] (1939), Enver Hoxha (1985), Primo Levi (1987), Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (2007), Ahmed Ben Bella (2012), Maria Tallchief (2013) & Jonathan Winters (2013) died on this day. Edward IV of England took London from Henry VI (1471), French forces under Gaston de Foix defeated the Holy League at the Battle of Ravenna in the Italian Wars (1512), John Dudley made Duke of Northumberland by Edward VI (1551), Edward Wrightman was burned at the stake for heresy in Lichfield — the last public burning at the stake in England (1612), William III & Mary II crowned joint sovereigns of England, Scotland & Ireland (1689), the Treaty of Utrecht ending the War of the Spanish Succession (1713), France’s foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand offered to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States (1803), Napoléon abdicated as empereur des français & went into exile on Elba (1814), the 12th century Lewis chess pieces exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland shortly after their rediscovery in a sand bank on the Scottish Isle of Lewis (1831), Hungary became a constitutional monarchy as part of the dual monarchy settlement with Habsburg Austria (1848), the Tokugawa shōgunate abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration in Japan (1868), the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks founded in New York City (1868), Spelman College founded as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary in the basement of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta (1881), the Concertgebouw inaugurated in Amsterdam (1888), Ellis Island in New York harbor designated as an immigration station (1890), William McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war against Spain, launching the Spanish–American War (1898), the Treaty of Paris ended the Spanish-American War, with Spain ceding Puerto Rico to the United States (1899), Tel Aviv established by Jewish settlers in British Mandate Palestine (1909), RMS Titanic left Ireland bound for New York (1912), the cornerstone of Technion laid in Haifa in British Mandate Palestine (1912), an Irish home rule bill introduced in the British parliament (1912), the Emirate of Transjordan created (1921), Chile’s Gen. Carlos Ibáñez named himself president (1927), WLS-AM began radio broadcasts in Chicago (1924), Dorothy Parker resigned as the New Yorker’s drama critic (1931), Hermann Goering became chancellor of Prussia (1933), Coventry bombed by the German Luftwaffe (1941), the Sixth Armored Division of the US Third Army liberated the Nazi concentration camp in Buchenwald (1945), Prince Rainier III became Monaco’s sovereign prince (1950), Harry Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of command of US troops in Korea (1951), the US Department of Health, Education & Welfare created (1953), Adolf Eichmann put on trial in Jerusalem for Nazi war crimes (1961), the New York Mets lost their first game (1962), Pope John XXIII published his encyclical “Pacem in Terris” calling for truth, justice, love & freedom (1963), Tom Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead” debuted at the Old Vic in London (1967), Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1968 Civil Rights Act into law (1968), the Beatles’ “Let It Be” single hit #1 & stayed #1 for 2 weeks (1970), the Apple I computer created by Steve Wozniak released (1976), Tanzania’s army captured Kampala, forcing Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin to flee into exile in Libya (1979), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began regulating sexual harassment (1980), Brixton race riot in London (1981), “Gandhi”, Ben Kingsley & Meryl Streep won Academy Awards at the 55th Academy Awards ceremony (1983), Communist Party General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko named president of the Soviet Union (1984), “The Last Emperor”, Michael Douglas (“Wall Street”) & Cher (“Moonstruck”) won Academy Awards at the 60th Academy Awards ceremony (1988), Claude-Michel Schönberg & Alain Boublil’s musical “Miss Saigon” opened at the Broadway Theater in Manhattan (1991), an attempted coup d’état failed to overthrow Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez (2002), Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran has successfully enriched uranium (2006), two women in Bougainville beheaded for sorcery in Papua New Guinea (2013), Barack Obama & Raúl Castro met in Panama, the first meeting of US & Cuban heads of state since the Cuban Revolution (2015), WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London by police & arrested on failure to appear in court on US extradition charges (2019), Sudan’s dictator Omar al-Bashir overthrown & arrested by the army in Khartoum after 29 years in power (2019), Pope Benedict XVI claimed Catholic sexual abuse was caused in part by the 1960s sexual revolution (2019), 20-year-old Daunte Wright shot & killed at a traffic stop by Brooklyn Center police in Minnesota (2021) & Pedro Castillo won the presidential election in Peru (2021) on this day.
April 12
Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1484), Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, Lord Great Chamberlain of England (1550), Christian IV of Denmark & Norway (1577), François de Bassompierre (1579), Caffarelli [Gaetano Majorano] (1710), Charles Burney (1726), Henry Clay (1777), Robert Delaunay (1885), R.D. Banerji (1885), Alice ‘Lily’ Pons (1898), Chief Thundercloud [Victor Daniels] (1899), Beverly Cleary (1916), Ann Miller [Johnnie Lucille Collier] (1923), Uwe Kitzinger (1928), Jean-François Paillard (1928), Lakshman Kadirgamar (1932), Tiny Tim [Herbert Khaury] (1932), Montserrat Caballé (1933), Alan Ayckbourn (1939), Herbie Hancock (1940), John Hagee (1940), Jacob Zuma (1942), Charles Ludlam (1943), Lee Jong-wook (1945), David Letterman (1947), Tom Clancy (1947), Joschka Fischer (1948), Scott Turow (1949), David Cassidy (1950), Shannen Doherty (1971), Claire Danes (1979), Tulsi Gabbard (1981), Saoirse Ronan (1994) & David Hogg (2000) were born #OnThisDay. Gnaeus Pompeius the younger (45 BCE), Seneca the Younger (65), Gordian I & Gordian II (238), Claude de Lorraine, duc de Guise (1550), Juana la Loca (Joanna the Mad of Castile) (1555), Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1704), Metastasio (1782), Charles Burney (1814), Charles Messier (1817), William Magear ‘Boss’ Tweed (1878), Clara Barton (1912), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1945), Josephine Baker (1975), Joe Louis (1981), Alan Paton (1988), Abbie Hoffman (1989), Sugar Ray Robinson (1989), George Wald (1997) & Boxcar Willie [Travis Martin] died on this day. Constantinople plundered by Crusaders of the 4th Crusade (1204), François I of France ordered the massacre of the Huguenots of Vaudois (1545), the Union Jack adopted (replaced in 1801 by an updated British flag) (1606), Pope Urban VIII’s chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculani da Firenzuola began the inquisition of Galileo Galilei (1633), Ordinance of Union between England & Scotland approved by the Council of State (1654), the hated Townsend Revenue Acts repealed by the British parliament (1770), Admiral George Rodney’s British fleet defeated the French fleet under the Comte de Grasse off Dominica in the Battle of Les Saintes, precluding a French & Spanish invasion of Jamaica (1782), Philadelphia’s Free African Society founded (1787), Alexander Ypsilantis declared leader of Filiki Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece (1820), Carl Maria von Weber’s opera “Oberon” premiered in London (1826), Texas signed a treaty of annexation with the United States (1844), Gustave Flaubert’s novel “Madame Bovary” published in book form (1857), Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter, launching the Civil War (1861), African American troops were massacred by Confederate Major Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s men after surrendering the Union garrison at Fort Pillow in Tennessee (1864), North Carolina’s state legislature enacted a law banning the Ku Klux Klan (1869), the British annexed the Transvaal (1877), Henrik Ibsen’s “Rosmersholm” premiered in Oslo (1887), Curt von François, colonial Governor of German South West Africa (now Nambia), initiated the Massacre of Hoornkrans by Schutztruppe soldiers on Nama leader Hendrik Witbooi’s headquarters (1893), Britain & Belgium signed a secret accord on dividing Central Africa (1894), Switzerland enacted a law reorganizing the army into a standing militia (1907), the Canadian Corps took the German-held Vimy Ridge in France (1917), the British parliament enacted a law requiring a minimum wage & a 48-hour work week (1919), Guomindang leader Chiang Kai-shek began a counterrevolution in Shanghai (1927), Spanish voters rejected the monarchy (1931), Edmund Goulding’s film “Grand Hotel” starring Greta Garbo & John Barrymore premiered in Manhattan (1932), Nazi Germany prohibited the publication of ‘non-Aryan’ writers (1935), Italy annexed Albania (1940), Japan killed more than 400 Filipino officers in Bataan (1942), Harry Truman sworn in as president upon the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1945), Syria gained independence from France (1946), Israel’s Knesset officially designated April 13 as Holocaust Day (1951), Bill Haley & His Comets recorded “Rock Around The Clock” (1954), the US Food & Drug Administration approved Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine (1955), S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s government took office in Ceylon/Sri Lanka (1956), Gen. Douglas MacArthur declined an offer to become baseball commissioner (1961), Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit Earth (on Vostok 1) (1961), Birmingham police used dogs & cattle prods on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Alabama (1963), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote ‘letter from a Birmingham jail’ after being jailed for participating in a civil rights campaign with the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (1963), Simon & Garfunkel released “Boxer” (1969), France recognized North Vietnam (1973), Sudan adopted a constitution (1973), Swaziland suspended its constitution (1973), the US ambassador to Cambodia & his staff evacuated the US embassy in Phnom Penh (1975), Anne Rice’s debut novel “Interview with a Vampire” published by Knopf (1976), Gyorgy Ligeti’s opera “Le Grand Macabre” premiered in Stockholm (1978), Samuel Doe seized control of Liberia in a coup d’état, ending over 130 years of national democratic presidential succession (1980), the space shuttle Columbia launched from Cape Canaveral, becoming the first reusable manned spacecraft to travel into space (1981), Harold Washington elected Chicago’s first African American mayor (1983), Sonny Bono elected mayor of Palm Springs (California) (1988), H.J. Heinz, Chicken of the Sea and Bumble Bee Seafood announced they would no longer buy tuna caught in nets that trap dolphins (1990), Greyhound Bus hired new drivers to replace strikers (1990), at the first meeting of the first democratically elected parliament in East Germany, the parliament acknowledged German responsibility for the Holocaust (1990), Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert held at Carnegie Hall (1995), Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert held at Carnegie Hall (1996), Bill Clinton cited for contempt of court for giving “intentionally false statements” in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit (1999), Hillary Clinton announced her second run (2015) on this day.
April 13
Catherine de’ Medici (1519), Elisabeth de Valois (1545), Guy Fawkes (1570), Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy (1618), Frederick Lord North (1732), Thomas Jefferson (1743), Louis Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans (1747), Frank Woolworth (1852), Butch Cassidy [Robert LeRoy Parker] (1866), Georg Lukács (1885), René Pleven (1901), Jacques Lacan (1901), Samuel Beckett (1906), Harold Stassen (1907), Eudora Welty (1909), [Harold] Howard Keel (1919), Madalyn Murray O’Hair (1919), Liam Cosgrave (1920), Roberto Calvi (1920), Claude Cheysson (1920), Hans Heincirch Thyssen-Bornemisza (1921), Julius Nyerere (1922), Stanley Donen (1924), Orlando Letelier (1932), Ben Nighthorse Campbell (1933), Lyle Waggoner (1935), Edward Fox (1937), Lanford Wilson (1937), Paul Sorvino (1939), Seamus Haney (1939), Philippe Petit (1949), Christopher Hitchens (1949), Brigitte Macron (1953), Amy Goodman (1957), Bob Casey, Jr. (1960), Garry Kasparov (1963) & Jonathan Brandis (1976) were born #OnThisDay. Jean de la Fontaine (1695), Cécile Chaminade (1944), Ernst Cassirer (1945), Luis Somoza Debayle (1967), Ralph Kirkpatrick (1984), Giorgio Bassani (2000), Muriel Spark (2006), Günter Grass (2015) & Miloš Forman (2018) died on this day. Pope Nicholas II issued a papal bull (“In Nomine Domine”) that ordained the election of future popes by bishops & cardinals rather than appointment by a predecessor (1059), Louis IX of France captured in Egypt as the Seventh Crusade was defeated (1250), Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino’s last masterpiece “The Transfiguration” put on display a week after Raphael’s death (1520), Portuguese Marranos who reverted to Judaism after conversion to Christianity were burned at the stake by order of the pope (1556), Henri IV issued the Edict of Nantes granting Huguenots rights in France (1598), Charles II appointed John Dryden the first poet laureate of England (1668), Georg Friedrich Händel’s oratorio “Messiah” premiered at the New Music Hall in Dublin (1742), the British ship Endeavour captained by James Cook arrived in Matavia Bay (Tahiti) with botanist Joseph Banks on board (1769), the first elephant in the US arrived from India (1796), Napoléon defeated Austria & Sardinia (Piedmont) at the Battle of Millesimo (1796), the British parliament enacted the Roman Catholic Relief Act (1829), Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate forces after 34 hours of bombardment, launching the Civil War (1861), the Society for the Relief of the Ruptured & Crippled incorporated under New York state law (1863), Ethiopia’s Emperor Tewodros II killed himself as British & Indian troops captured Magdala, ending the Abyssinian War (1868), George Westinghouse patented the steam power brake (1869), the Metropolitan Museum opened in Manhattan (1870), the Anti-Semitic League formed in Prussia (1882), indigenous Herero rose up against the German colonial regime in Südwest Afrika (now Namibia) at the Battle of Oviumbo (1904), the Petropavlovsk hit a Japanese mine sailing out of Port Arthur, sinking with 700 Russian sailors aboard during the Russo-Japanese War (1904), the US House of Representatives voted in favor of the direct election of members of the US Senate (1911), British & Gurkha troops opened fire on demonstrators in Amritsar, killing at least 379 unarmed Indians peacefully demonstrating against the British Raj (1919), establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (1919), Helen Hamilton became the first woman appointed US Civil Services Commissioner (1920), Greeks voted for a republic in a plebiscite in Greece (1924), Fitzmaurice-von Hunefeld-Köhl, James Fitzmaurice & Baron Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld completed the first trans-Atlantic flight from Europe to the US (1928), the Soviet Union & Japan signed a non-aggression pact (1941), Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial (1943), 1,500 French Jews were transported from Drancy to Auschwitz, of whom 91 were believed to have survived (1944), New Zealand established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union (1944), the Soviet army occupied Vienna (1945), Adolf Hitler proclaimed from his underground bunker that deliverance was at hand from encroaching Russian troops — but Hitler’s bluff didn’t forestall Berlin’s imminent fall (1945), Hank Aaron’s first game with the Milwaukee Braves (1954), Van Cliburn became the first American to win the Tchaikovsky piano competition in Moscow (1958), the UN General Assembly condemned South Africa’s apartheid system (1961), 36th Academy Awards: “Tom Jones” (Best Film), Patricia Neal (Hud) and Sidney Poitier (Lilies Of The Field) win; Poitier first Black actor in a leading role to win a competitive Oscar36th Academy Awards: “Tom Jones” (best film), Patricia Neal (Hud) & Sidney Poitier (Lilies Of The Field) won Academy Awards at the 36th Academy Awards ceremony with Poitier the first African American to win the best actor Oscar (1964), Ian Smith became prime minister of Rhodesia (1964), Jacob Javits (R-NY) appointed 16-year-old Lawrence W. Bradford, Jr. the first black US Senate page (1965), “The Girl From Ipanema” & the Beatles won Grammy Awards at the seventh Grammy Awards ceremony (1965), the Apollo 13 crew reported that an oxygen tank exploded 200,000 miles from earth (“Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here”) (1970), the Christian Falange killed 27 Palestinians, & launched the Lebanese civil war (1975), the US & its allies boycotted the summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1980), the Soviet Union officially accepted responsibility for the Katyn Massacre of nearly 5,000 Polish military officers in the Katyn Forest as part of Mikhail Gorbachev’s program of ‘Glasnost’ (1990), the Washington Post’s Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize for a story she later admitted was a hoax (1981), Ramiz Alia succeeded Enver Hoxha as Communist Party leader of Albania (1985), Portugal reached an agreement with the People’s Republic of China regarding Macau’s return to China in 1999 (1987), Ciriaco De Mita formed a new government in Italy (1988),Tom Stoppard’s play “Arcadia” premiered in London directed by Trevor Nunn & starring Rufus Sewell, Felicity Kendal & Bill Nighy (1993), Rwanda’s presidential guard chopped 1,200 church members to death with machetes in Kigali (1994), Israel’s target date for complete withdrawal from the illegally occupied Palestinian territories passed without withdrawal (1994), Asteroid 7373 Takei discovered & named for “Star Trek” actor George Takei (1994), Tiger Woods won the Masters Tournament in Augusta for the first time — the first person of Asian or African descent to do so (1997), Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert held at Carnegie Hall (2000), Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert held at Carnegie Hall (2002), Pedro Carmona resigned as interim president of Venezuela one day after taking office (2002), US record producer Phil Spector found guilty of the second-degree murder of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003 (2009), the US dropped ‘the Mother of All Bombs’ on an Islamic State tunnel complex with power equal to 11 tons of explosives, killing more than 90 ISIS militants (2017), BTS became the first K-pop band to perform on “Saturday Night Live” (2019), Bernie Sanders endorsed Joe Biden for president, ending the contest for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination (2020), New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared “the worst is over” as the COVID-19 pandemic raged on, surpassing 10,000 deaths statewide (2020) & Hank Azaria apologized for voicing the Indian character Apu on “The Simpsons” for 30 years (2021) on this day.
April 14
Abraham Ortelius (1527, Phili III of Spain & Portugal (1578), Abraham Elsevier (1592), Christiaan Huygens (1629), William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (1721), William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1738), Adolphe Thiers (1797), Charles Hallé (1819), Pyotr Stolypin (1862), Anne Sullivan [Johanna Macy] (1866), Cecil Chubb (1876), Arnold J. Toynbee (1889), B.R. [Baba Saheb] (Ambedkar (1891), Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger (1897), Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902), John Gielgud (1904), Faisal, king of Saudi Arabia (1906), François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier (1907), Thomas Schelling (1921), Rod Steiger (1925), Loretta Lynn (1932), Erich von Däniken (1935), Kenneth Mars (1936), Frank Serpico (1936), Bobby Nichols (1936), Julie Christie (1941), Pete Rose (1941), Brian Forster (1960), Brad Garrett [Gerstenfeld] (1960), Thomas W. Libous (1963), Vebjørn Selbekk (1969) & Adrien Brody (1973) were born #OnThisDay. Richard Neville ‘the Kingmaker’ (16th Earl of Warwick) (1471), James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell (1578), Georg Friedrich Händel (1759), Joseph Lanner (1843), Louis Sullivan (1924), Rachel Carson (1964), Fredric March (1975), Simone de Beauvoir (1986), Burl Ives (1995), Don Ho (2007), Sir Colin Davis (2013), Manfred Jung (2017), Birgitta ‘Bibi’ Andersson (2019) & Bernie Madoff (2021) died on this day. Mark Antony defeated the forces of Decimus Junius Brutus in Mutina at the Battle of Forum Gallorum (43 BCE), Lucius Septimius Severus crowned Roman emperor (193), Miesko I of Poland & his court baptized as part of the Christianization of Poland (966), Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians & killed the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet during the Wars of the Roses (1471), Prince Federico Cesi used the word ‘telescope’ for the first time (1611), Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language published (1828), Wisconsin Territory formed by Congress (1836), Edgar Allan Poe’s “Murders in Rue Morgue” — the first detective story — published (1841), Louis Kossuth declared Hungary independent of Habsburg Austria (1849), the first Pony Express rider arrived in San Francisco from St. Joseph (Missouri) (1860), formal Union surrender of Fort Sumter to Confederate forces (1861), US Secretary of State William H. Seward & his family attacked in his home by Lewis Powell as part of the same conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln (1865), John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. (1865), Léo Delibes’ opera “Lakmé” premiered with the Opéra-Comique at the Salle Favart in Paris (1883), first public showing of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope (moving pictures) (1894), premiere of Gustav Mahler’s (incomplete) 2nd Symphony (1895), J. C. Penney opened his first store (The Golden Rule Store) in Kemmerer (Wyoming) (1902), Theodore Roosevelt denounced ‘muckrakers’ among the US press (term taken from John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”) (1906), RMS Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. & sank overnight (1912), Firestone Tire & Rubber Company’s Stacy G. Carkhuff patented its non-skid tire pattern (1914), Turkey invaded Armenia (1915), the first Volvo car premiered in Gothenburg (1927), Spain became a republic after the overthrow of King Alfonso XIII (1931), the ‘Black Sunday’ Dust Bowl storm struck the Great Plains (1935), Édith Piaf questioned after nightclub owner & her patron Louis Leplée murdered in Paris (1936), John Steinbeck novel “The Grapes of Wrath” published (1939), Allied troops landed in Norway (1940), Gen. Eisenhower became the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (1944), Laika launched to her death aboard Sputnik 2 (1958), Motown, founded by Berry Gordy Jr., incorporated as Motown Record Corporation (1960), first live television broadcast from the Soviet Union (1961), Georges Pompidou became prime minister of France after the resignation of Michel Debré (1962), Gen. Gnassingbé Eyadéma became president of Togo (1967), “Oliver”, Cliff Robertson, Katharine Hepburn & Barbra Streisand won Academy Awards at the 41st Academy Awards ceremony in the first ever tie for best actress (1969), Richard Nixon ended the US blockade of the People’s Republic of China (1971), the US Supreme Court upheld busing as means of achieving racial desegregation (1971), Operation Baby Lift concluded after flying 2,600 Vietnamese orphans to the US (1975), Korean Air Lines plane shot down by Soviets over Russia (1978), “Kramer vs. Kramer,” Dustin Hoffman & Sally Field won Academy Awards at the 52nd Academy Awards ceremony (1980), Ronald Reagan signed a bill into law appropriating $165 billion to save Social Security (1983), Alan Garcia won the presidential election in Peru (1985), Desmond Tutu elected Anglican Archbishop of Capetown (1986), US air strikes hit Libya in retaliation for terrorism sponsored by Muammar al-Gaddafi (1986), Mikhail Gorbachev reached an agreement with the US for withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan (1988), Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh promised to surrender after completion of his Seven Seals manuscript (1994), NATO inadvertently bombed a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees, killing 75 (1999), Venezuela’s p resident Hugo Chávez returned to office two days after being ousted & arrested by the country’s military (2002), the Human Genome Project completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99% (2003), 200,000 demonstrators in Ankara protested the potential candidacy of Turkey’s incumbent prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (2007), Eyjafjallajökull began erupting in Iceland (2010), J.K. Rowling launched her ‘Pottermore’ website (2012), Justin Trudeau elected leader of Canada’s Liberal Party (2013), Kevin Hart arrested on drunk driving charges in California (2013), South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg announced his presidential campaign in Indiana (2019), Barack Obama endorsed Joe Biden for president (2020) & Joe Biden confirmed his decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11 (2021) on this day.
April 15
Leonardo da Vinci (1452), Guru Nanak (1469), Mimar Sinan (1489), Christian V of Denmark & Norway (1646), Domenico Gabrielli (1651), Catherine I of Russia (1684), Henry James (1843), Émile Durkheim (1858), Thomas Hart Benton (1889), Corrie ten Boom (1892), Nikita Khrushchev (1894), John Williams (1903), Kim Il-sung (1912), Richard von Weiszäcker (1920), Harold Washington (1922), Neville Marriner (1924), Vigdís Finnbogadóttir (1930), Elizabeth Montgomery (1933), Roy Clark (1933), Claudia Cardinale (1938), Jeffrey Archer (1940), Dzhokhar Dudayev (1944), Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (1947), Dodi Fayed (1955), Emma Thompson (1959), Philippe, roi des Belges (1960), Danny Pino (1974), Seth Rogen (1982) & Emma Watson (1990) were born #OnThisDay. George Calvert (1632), Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon (1719), Jeanette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (1764), Abraham Lincoln (1865), Matthew Arnold (1888), Edward Smith (1912), John Jacob Astor IV (1912), Jean-Paul Sartre (1980), Jean Genet (1986), Hu Yaobang (1989), Greta Garbo (1990), Pol Pot (1998), Byron ‘Whizzer’ White (2002) & Jean-François Paillard (2013) died on this day. Kublai acclaimed Great Khan by a Mongol great council (1250), Christopher Columbus met with Ferdinand & Isabella in Barcelona (1493), Henry VIII of England appointed Thomas Cromwell (1534), Hugo Grotius arrived in France after escaping prison in a book chest (1621), Gustavus Adolphus led his Swedish army to victory over the Holy Roman Emperor’s army under Graf Tilly in the Battle of Rain (1632), Louis XIV’s France declared war on Spain (1689), Karl XII (Charles XII) succeeded Karl XI (Charles XI) as king of Spain (1697), Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St Matthew Passion” premiered in Leipzig (1729), Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera “Serse” (Xerxes) premiered in London (1738), Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language published in London (1755), William Wordsworth & his sister Dorothy saw a “long belt” of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (1802), the City of San Francisco incorporated (1850), Emily Dickinson began a lifelong correspondence with author & future literary mentor Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1862), Mobile captured by Union forces (1864), Otto von Bismarck elevated to the rank of Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen (1865), Abraham Lincoln died nine hours after being shot by John Wilkes Booth (1865), the first ‘Impressionist’ exhibition opened in Paris with works by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro & Berthe Morisot (1874), Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) opened in Paris (1900), the RMS Titanic sank with between 1,490 & 1,635 people aboard (1912), Manuel de Falla’s ballet “El Amor Brujo” premiered in Madrid (1915), Georges Clémenceau published secret French-Austrian documents (1918), one killed in Flemish-francophone riots in Louvain (1924), Rand McNally published its first road atlas (1924), Franklin Delano Roosevelt buried on the grounds of his house in Hyde Park (1945), Fidel Castro began a US goodwill tour (1959), John Foster Dulles resigned as US secretary of state (1959), US national debt surpassed $300,000,000,000 (1962), the Chesapeake Bay Bridged opened (then the longest in the world (1964), James Baldwin’s play “The Amen Corner” premiered in Manhattan (1965), “Patton,” George C. Scott & Glenda Jackson won Academy Awards at the 43rd Academy Awards ceremony (1971), Diori Hamani deposed as president of Niger in a military coup d’état (1974), Janet Cooke admitted her Pulitzer award-winning story about an 8-year-old heroin addict was a hoax & the Washington Post relinquished the Pulitzer Prize it won (1981), New York State raised maximum unemployment benefits to $280 per week (1991), billionaire Leona Helmsley sent to prison for tax evasion (1992), Jay Leno’s final appearance as host of “The Tonight Show” (1992), volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland led to the closure of airspace over most of Europe (2010), 11 US Secret Service agents implicated in a sexual misconduct scandal (2012), Nicolás Maduro narrowly elected president of Venezuela (2013), Aretha Franklin posthumously received the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation honor — the first individual woman to win it since 1930 (2019), the roof & spire of the cathedral of Nôtre Dame de Paris were destroyed in a huge fire (2019), Moon Jae-in led his ruling Democratic Party to victory in a landslide in South Korea in the first general election in the world held during the Corona virus pandemic (2020), India recorded over 200,000 (200,739) daily new cases of COVID-19 for the first time with 1,038 deaths amid a massive second wave (2021) & a court in Abidjan sentenced sentenced former warlord Amadé Ouérémi to a life sentence for massacres by his militia after the 2010 election Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) (2021) on this day.
April 16
Holy Roman Emperor Louis I (778), Jean II ‘le Bon’ of France (1319), Jules Hardouin Mansart (1646), Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755), Ford Madox Brown (1821), Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844), Wilbur Wright (1867), John Millington Synge (1871), Charlie Chaplin (1889), Federico Mompou (1893), Milton Cross (1897), Guy Burgess (1911), Garth Williams (1912), Merce Cunningham (1919), Peter Ustinov (1921), Kingsley Amis (1922), Leo Tindemans (1922), Henry Mancini (1924), Pope Benedict XVI [Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger] (1927), Bobby Vinton (1935), Margrethe II of Denmark (1940), Margot Adler (1946), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar [Lew Alcindor] (1947), Peter Garrett (1953), Ellen Barkin (1954), Henri, Grand Duc du Luxembourg (1955), Antony Blinken (1962), Selena [Quintanilla-Pérez] (1971), Kelli O’Hara (1976), Claire Foy (1984) & Chance the Rapper [Chancellor J Bennett] (1993) were born #OnThisDay. Marcus Salvius Otho (69), al-Walid II (Umayyad caliph), Holy Roman Emperor Berengar (924), Sikelgaita (1090), Sviatopolk II of Kiev (1113), Filippo Brunelleschi (1446), George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham (1687), Aphra Behn (1689), Jacques Cassini (1756), Francisco Goya (1828), Madame Marie Tussaud (1850), Alexis de Tocqueville (1859), Bernadette of Lourdes [Bernadette Soubirous] (1879), Rosalind Franklin (1958), Jean Alexandre Barré (1967), Edna Ferber (1968), István Kertész (1973), David Lean (1991), Lucille Bremer (1996), Stavros Niarchos (1996) & Kenneth Gilbert (2020) died on this day. Egyptian forces of Thutmose III defeated a large Canaanite coalition under King of Kadesh at the Battle of Megiddo (1457 BCE), Masada fell to Roman troops, ending the Jewish Revolt (73), the Serbian empire proclaimed in Skopje at an Easter assembly — Stephen Uroš IV Dušan crowned emperor (1346), Martin Luther arrived at the Diet of Worms (1521), Albrecht von Wallenstein appointed supreme military commander of the Holy Roman Empire (1632), Queen Anne of England knighted Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge (1705), troops under the Duke of Cumberland defeated the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart at the Battle of Culloden (1746), Napoléon drove Ottoman Turks across the River Jordan near Acre in the Battle of Mount Tabor (1799), Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera “Le Prophète” premiered in Paris (1849), Abraham Lincoln outlawed business with the Confederacy (1861), slavery abolished in the District of Columbia (1862), US Post Office issued the first books of postage stamps (1900), Vladimir Lenin returned from exile to join the Russian Revolution (1917), the Treaty of Rapallo between Germany’s Weimar Republic & Soviet Union signed normalizing diplomatic relations, with each side renouncing their territorial & financial claims against the other (1922), Soviet troops breached the German front & advanced towards Berlin (1945), Colditz Castle prisoner of war camp liberated by American troops (1945), Arthur Chevrolet’s suicide (1946), Bernard Baruch coined the term ‘Cold War’ (1947), nearly 600 killed when ammonium nitrate caused an explosion aboard the freighter Grandcamp at a pier in Texas City (1947), British royal yacht Britannia launched by Queen Elizabeth II (1953), Walter Cronkite began anchoring the CBS Evening News (1962), Rhodesia’s prime minister Ian Smith broke off diplomatic relations with Britain (1966), NASA launched Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral (1972), the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh (1975), Alex Haley found his roots in Gambia (1977), Elizabeth II proclaimed Canada’s new constitution (1982), a treaty of accession signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union (2003), the Queen Mary 2 began its first transatlantic voyage (2004), 32 killed by Seung-hui Cho in the Virginia Tech massacre (2007), 304 Koreans drowned as the Sewol ferry sunk en eroute from Incheon to Jeju (2014), Theranos founder & CEO Elizabeth Holmes named one of Time’s 100 most influential people of 2015 (2015), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 18-article constitutional reform package adopted by referendum in Turkey (2017), Raúl Castro confirmed his resignation as Cuba’s Communist Party leader, ending his family’s six decade leadership of Cuba (2021) on this day.
April 17
Byzantine Emperor Michael IX Palaeologus (1278), Maximilian I, Kurfürst von Bayern (Elector of Bavaria) (1573), John Ford (1586), Alexander Cartwright (1820), John Pierpont Morgan, Sr. (1837), Artur Schnabel (1882), Isak Dinesen [Karen Blixen-Finecke] (1885), Thornton Wilder (1897), Alain Poher (1909), Sirimavo Bandaranaike (1916), Bill Clements (1917), William Holden (1918), Harry Reasoner (1923), Graziella Sciutti (1932), Daffy Duck (“Porky’s Duck Hunt”) (1937), Birgitta Jonsdottir (1967), Jennifer Garner (1972) & Victoria Adams Beckham (1974) were born #OnThisDay. Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I (1711), Benjamin Franklin (1790), Alexander Mackenzie (1892), Yi Sang (1937), Ralph Abernathy (1990), Chaim Herzog (1997), Linda Eastman McCartney (1998), John Paul Getty, Jr. (2003), Kitty Carlisle (2007), Aimé Césaire (2008), Gabriel García Márquez (2014), Doris Roberts (2016), Barbara Bush (2018), Alan García (2019) & Arlene Saunders (2020) died on this day. Geoffrey Chaucer related the “Canterbury Tales” for the first time at the court of Richard II of England (1397), Giovanni Verrazano sailed into what is now New York harbor (1524), Henry VIII ordered Sir Thomas More jailed in the Tower of London (1534), Henry Hudson departed London aboard the Discovery on his fourth & final voyage to discover a northwest passage to the Pacific (1610), Charles VI succeeded Joseph I as Holy Roman Emperor (1711), the first Unitarianism church service in England led by Theophilus Lindsey at the Essex Street Chapel in London (1774), Tambora erupted on Sumbawa in the Indonesian archipelago (1815), Mary Surratt arrested as a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination (1865), Treaty of Shimonoseki signed ending the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) (1895), seven high chiefs of American Samoa signed the Instrument of Cession (1900), Gen. Sir Edward Allenby led British & Allied troops against Ottoman Turkish forces in the Second Battle of Gaza (1917), Emperor Haile Selassie ended slavery in Ethiopia (1932), Daffy Duck — the Warner Bros. cartoon character created by Tex Avery & Bob Clampett (Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies series) — debuted in “Porky’s Duck Hunt” (1937), Yugoslavia surrendered to Nazi Germany (1941), Benito Mussolini fled from Salò to Milan (1945), US troops landed in central Mindanao during Battle of Mindanao (1945), Syria declared independence from France (1946), 1,400 Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs in a doomed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro (1961), “Apartment” (best film), Burt Lancaster & Elizabeth Taylor won Academy Awards at the 33rd Academy Awards (1961), Alexander Dubček forced to resign as first secretary of Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party (1969), Sirhan Sirhan convicted of assassinating US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (1969), the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, establishing their genocidal regime in Cambodia (Kampuchea National Day) (1975), Canada’s Constitution Act (1982), Yvonne Fletcher shot dead by someone inside the Libyan embassy in London (1984), two Los Angeles police officers convicted in federal court of violating Rodney King’s civil rights & sentenced to prison while two others were acquitted (1993), former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark became administrator of the United Nations Development Program — the first woman to lead the UNDP (2009), “Thor” —directed by Kenneth Branagh & starring Chris Hemsworth & Natalie Portman — premiered in Sydney (2011), “Game of Thrones” premiered on HBO (2011), the 8th century St. Cuthbert Gospel — Europe’s oldest intact book — purchased by the British Library for £9 million (2012), same-sex marriage recognized in New Zealand (2013), former FBI director James Comey’s political autobiography “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies & Leadership” published (2018) & Prince Philip’s funeral held at Windsor Castle (2021) on this day.
April 18
Lucrezia Borgia (1480), François de Coligny d’Andelot (1521), Thomas Middleton (1580), Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I (1590), Giacomo Carissimi (1605), Franz von Suppé (1819), Clarence Darrow (1857), Leopold Stokowski (1882), Barbara Hale (1922), Henry Hyde (1924), Günter Meisner (1926), Samuel P. Huntington (1927), George Shirley (1934), Robert Hanssen (1944), Margaret Hassan (1945), Catherine Malfitano (1948), Rick Moranis (1953), Conan O’Brien (1963), Niall Ferguson (1964), Saad Hariri (1970), David Tennant [McDonald] (1971), Kourtney Kardashian (1979) & Princess Haya Bint al-Hamzah of Jordan (2007) were born #OnThisDay. Filippino Lippi (1504), Roscoe Conkling (1888), Gustave Moreau (1898), Ottorino Respighi (1936), Isoroku Yamamoto (1943), Ernie Pyle (1945), Albert Einstein (1955), Thor Heyerdahl (2002), Kenneth Schermerhorn (2005), Dick [Richard Wagstaff] Clark (2012) & Lorraine Warren (2019) died on this day. Pope Julius II laid the cornerstone for St. Peter’s Basilica (1506), Bona Sforza crowned queen consort of Poland (1518), Martin Luther defined Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms (1521), Ottoman Turkey declared war on Habsburg Austria (1663), Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery”: Francis Daniel Pastorius presented the first formal written protest against African-American slavery in the English colonies (Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery) 1688), Paul Revere & William Dawes road from Charlestown to Lexington to warn patriots that the British were coming (1775), George Washington issued a general order announcing cessation of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War (1783), Sir Robert Peel resigned as British prime minister, succeeded by William Lamb, Lord Melbourne (1935), Col. Robert E. Lee turned down an offer to command Union armies in the Civil War (1861), Prussian & Austrian forces defeated Denmark at the Battle of Dybbøl — the decisive battle of the Second Schleswig War (1864), Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in North Carolina (1865), David Livingston buried in Westminster Abbey (1874), “L’Humanité” began publishing under the leadership of Jean Jaurès (1904), 75% of San Francisco destroyed by a massive earthquake that killed thousands (1906), a Los Angeles Times story on the Azusa Street Revival launched Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement (1906), the Fairmont Hotel opened in San Francisco (1907), Edith Wharton named a Chevalière de la Légion d’Honneur for her contribution to France’s war effort in World War I (1916), the People’s Council of Latvia proclaimed the country’s independence (1918), the World’s Fair opened in Chicago (1925), a BBC news announcer announced “there is no news” at 20:45 news bulletin & played music instead (1930), the “Stars & Stripes” military newspaper began publication (1942), Lt. Col. James Doolittle led 16 American B-25 bombers in bombing Tokyo & other Japanese cities (1942), Leonard Bernstein & Jerome Robbins’ ballet “Fancy Free” premiered in Manhattan (1944), the US recognized Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia government (1946), the International Court of Justice opened at The Hague (1946), the Republic of Ireland withdrew from the British Commonwealth (1949), France, West Germany & the Benelux countries formed the European Steel & Coal Community (1951), Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in Egypt & appointed himself prime minister (1954), the first Bandung Conference of African & Asian countries opened (1955), Egypt & Israel agreed to a ceasefire (1956), Grace Kelly wed Prince Rainier of Monaco (1956), a federal court ordered Ezra Pound released from an insane asylum (1958), London Bridge sold to a US oil company to be dismantled & reconstructed in Arizona (1968), Mart Crowley’s “Boys in the Band” premiered in Manhattan (1968), the Widgery Report on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Northern Ireland is published provoking outrage among the people of Derry who called it the ‘Widgery Whitewash’ (1972), the musical revue “Side by Side by Sondheim” opened at the Music Box in Manhattan (1977), Alex Haley awarded a Pulitzer Prize for “Roots” (1977), the Senate voted to turn the Panama Canal over to Panama at the end of 1999 (1978), Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) granted independence from Britain within the Commonwealth (1980), the Canada Constitution Act superseded the British North America Act (1982), Zimbabwe’s capital Salisbury renamed Harare (1982), Alice Walker won a Pulitzer Prize for the novel “The Color Purple” (1983), 63 people — including 17 Americans & the suicide bomber himself — killed in a car bomb explosion that destroyed the US embassy in Beirut (1983), Chinese students began demonstrating against the People’s Republic of China’s repressive regime (1989), the United States Supreme Court ruled the possession of child pornography criminal even in one’s home (1990), Richard Nixon suffered a stroke, dying four days later (1994), the US Supreme Court upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in a 5-4 decision (2007), 16 Nepali guides killed by an avalanche on Mt. Everest (2014) Teresa May announced a ‘snap’ British general election (2017), Nicaraguans demonstrated in Managua against proposed changes to social benefits (2018), a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer killed 18 in Nova Scotia in Canada’s worst mass shooting (2020) on this day.
April 19
Michel le Tellier (1603), Roger Sherman (1721), David Ricardo (1772), Ferdinand I of Austria (1793), Getulio Vargas (1883), Germaine Tailleferre (1892), Eliot Ness (1903), Kim Bok-dong (1926), Dick Sargent [Richard Stanford Cox] (1930), Fernando Botero (1932), Jayne Mansfield [Vera Jane Palmer] (1933), Dudley Moore (1935), Joseph Estrada (1937), Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei (1939), Tim Curry (1946), Murray Perahia (1947), Paloma Picasso (1949), Natalie Dessay (1965), Véronique Gens (1966), Ashley Judd (1968), Mswati III of Swaziland (1968), Kate Hudson (1979), Hayden Christensen (1981) & Maria Sharapova (1987) were born #OnThisDay. Robert II of Scotland (1390), Philipp Melanchthon (1560), Paolo Veronese (1588), Roger Williams (1684), Christina of Sweden (1689), Giovanni Antonio Canal (‘Canaletto’) (1768), George Gordon, Lord Byron (1824), Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (1881), Charles Darwin (1882), Charles Peirce (1914), Charles Scribner II (1930), Konrad Adenauer (1967), Percy Lavon Julian (1975), Daphne du Maurier (1989), David Koren [Vernon Howell] (1993), Octavio Paz (1998), Walter ‘Fritz’ Mondale (2021) & Jim Steinman (2021) died on this day. Chartres surrendered to Henri IV of France (1591), Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI issued the Pragmatic Sanction to protect his daughter Maria Theresa’s inheritance (1713), Captain James Cook sighted Australia for the first time (1770), the American Revolution began with the ‘Shot Heard ‘Round the World’ in Lexington (1775), Paul Revere, William Dawes & Samuel Prescott captured by British troops riding from Lexington to Concord, Prescott escaping to warn Concord (1775), John Adams secured the Dutch Republic’s recognition of the United States & the house he purchased in the Hague became the first American embassy (1782), Thomas Jefferson sold his indentured servant John Freeman to the newly elected president James Madison (1809), George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron died in the Greek war of independence (1824), the Treaty of London recognized Belgium as an independent kingdom & Luxembourg an independent grand duchy (1839), a secessionist mob in Baltimore attacked Massachusetts troops bound for Washington, D.C. — the first blood shed in the Civil War (1861), the first Boston Marathon held (1897), Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) beatified by the Roman Catholic Church (1909), Ottoman Turkey recognized Bulgaria’s independence (1909), the Assemblée Nationale voted for an eight-hour work day in France (1919), Italy’s territorial claims discussed at the Paris peace conference (1919), German Kaiserin Augusta Victoria’s funeral (1921), Mae West sentenced to 10 days in prison & fined $500 on obscenity charges over a Broadway play, launching her Hollywood career (1927), Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced the US departure from the gold standard (1933), the Great Uprising began in Palestine (1936), Bertolt Brecht’s play “Mother Courage and her Children” premiered in Zürich (1941), SS officer Jürgen Stroop ordered the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, provoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943), Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical “Carousel” opened at the Majestic Theatre in Manhattan (1945), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) TV network debuted (1948), Chiang Kai-shek elected president of the Republic of China (1948), Johnny Cash released the single “Ring Of Fire” written by his future wife June Carter & Merle Kilgore (1963), Charles Manson sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Sharon Tate (1971), Vietnam Veterans Against the War began a five-day demonstration in Washington, D.C. (1971), Sierra Leone became a republic (National Day) (1971), Sally Ride named the first American woman astronaut (1982), the violent rape of jogger Trisha Meili in Manhattan’s Central Park became one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980s, with the Central Park falsely arrested & imprisoned for the crime (1989), Contra guerrillas, leftist Sandinistas & the incoming government agree to a truce in Nicaragua’s civil war (1990), David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound went up in flames in Waco after federal agents raided the compound in Texas (1993), Rodney King awarded $3,800,000 compensation by Los Angeles County for his beating by the LAPD (1994), Timothy McVeigh sets a truck bomb at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 & injuring 500 (1995), the Bundestag moved from Bonn to the Reichstag in Berlin, reopened with a new glass dome by architect Norman Foster (1999), Nina Simone awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (2003), Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the papal conclave (2005), Fidel Castro resigned his position of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba after 45 years of holding the title (2011), Fox News confirmed the termination of Bill O’Reilly after allegations of sexual harassment (2017), US Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) became the first parent to bring a baby into the Senate chambers, a day after the Senate votes to allow babies on the chamber’s floor (2018), Britain’s COVID-19 death toll reaches 16,060 (hospitals only) as the Sunday Times criticized Boris Johnson’s government’s response, saying they “sleepwalked into disaster” (2020) & Cuba’s Communist party announced that Miguel Díaz-Canel would replace Raúl Castro as party leader (2021) on this day.
April 20
Napoléon III (Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (1808), Carol I of Romania (1839), Odilon Redon [Bertrand-Jean Redon] (1840), Paul Poiret (1879), Adolf Hitler (1889), Albert Jean Amateau (1889), Joan Miró (1893), Lionel Hampton (1908), Robert F. Wagner, Jr. (1910), Kukrit Pramjoj (1911), John Paul Stevens (1920), Tito Puente (1923), Nina Foch (1924), Pat Roberts (1936) George Takei (1937), Gro Harlem Brundtland (1939), Ryan O’Neal (1941), Edie Sedgwick (1943), John Eliot Gardiner (1943), Michael Brandon (1945), Andrew Tobias (1947), Jessica Lange (1949), Luther Vandross (1951) & Andy Serkis (1964) were born #OnThisDay. Pope Clement V [Bertrand Got] (1314), Zhengde, the 10th Ming emperor of China (1521), Elizabeth Barton [St. Magd van Kent] (1534), George Clinton (1812), Bram Stoker (1912), Christian X of Denmark (1947), Antony Tudor (1987), Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal (1991), Cantinflas [Mario Moreno] (1993), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2001), Dorothy Height (2010), Tom Lester (2020) & Idriss Déby (2021) died on this day. William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” had its first known performance at the Globe Theatre in London (recorded by Simon Forman) (1611), the dethroned James II began a siege of Derry (1689), Georg Friedrich Händel buried in Westminster Abbey in London (1759), representatives meeting in Kingston voted to adopt a state constitution for New York (1777), France declared war on Austria & Prussia, beginning the French Revolutionary Wars (1792), Friedrich von Schiller’s “Wallensteins Tod” premiered in Weimar (1799), Napoléon led French forces to victory over Austria at the Battle of Abensberg in Bavaria (1809), René Caillié became the first non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu, winning a 10,000 franc prize from the Société de Géographie (1828), Wisconsin Territory created (1836), Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” published in “Graham’s Lady’s & Gentleman’s Magazine” (generally considered to be the first detective story) (1841), Gen. Robert E. Lee resigned from the US Army to serve in the Confederate army (1861), Louis Pasteur & Claude Bernard completed the first test of the pasteurization process (1862), Congress enacted the Ku Klux Klan Act (1871), William McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war on Spain (1898), Marie & Pierre Curie isolated the radioactive compound radium chloride (1902), thousands of Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks in the town of Van (1915), Manfred von Richthofen’s final victories as ‘the Red Baron’ before being shot down the following day (1918), the British Mandate for Palestine recognized (1920), the Allies launched Operation Corncob in Italy on Adolf Hitler’s 56th birthday (1945), Frederik IX succeeded Christian X as king of Denmark upon his death (1947), UAW president Walter Reuther shot & wounded at home in Detroit (1948), Enoch Powell made his controversial ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech (1968), Pierre Trudeau sworn in as Canada’s 15th prime minister (1968), Bruno Kreisky became the first socialist chancellor of Austria (1970), Barbra Streisand records “We’ve Only Just Begun” (1971), the US Department of Defense confirmed a rise in ‘fragging’ incidents of the murder of fellow soldiers during the Vietnam War (1971), US Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation (1971), “Annie Hall”, — directed by Woody Allen & starring Woody Allen & Diane Keaton, is — released, winning the 1978 Academy Award for best picture the following year (1977), Soviet aircraft forced a Korean Air Lines passenger plan to land in the Soviet Union, killing two & injuring several others (1978), Jimmy Carter attacked by a swamp rabbit which swam up to his fishing boat in Georgia (1979), Fidel Castro announced the opening of Mariel for Cubans to leave & 125,000 Cubans would be transported by boat to the US in the coming days (1980), hundreds of Berbers arrested in the Berber Spring in Algeria (1980), Ronald Reagan signed a bill into law authorizing a $165 billion bailout for Social Security (1983), Vladimir Horowitz performed in Moscow, his first appearance in Russia since 1925 (1986), Uranus passed Neptune (which it does once every 171 years) (1993), Rote Armee Faktion (Red Army Faction) announced its dissolution after 28 years (1998), two teens killed 13 at Columbine High School in Colorado (1999), Danica Patrick became the first woman to win the Indy Japan 300 (2008), the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 & causing a massive oil discharge into the Gulf of Mexico (2010), Elizabeth Kolbert won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” (2015), one police officer killed & two injured in a terrorist attack on a police van on the Champs Élysées, in Paris (2017), Commonwealth countries agreed that Prince Charles would succeed Queen Elizabeth II as head of the Commonwealth (2018), Allison Mack arrested on charges of sex trafficking in relation to sex cult NXIVM in New York (2018), Derek Chauvin convicted of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis (2021), Idriss Déby reported to have been killed on a battlefield fighting rebels near the capital Ndjamena after ruling Chad for three decades (2021) WHO reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases (5.24 million) in one week around the world, a third in India (2021) on this day.
April 21
Ludovico Carracci (1555), John Law (1671), Catherine the Great [Sophia von Anhalt-Zerbst] (1729), Charlotte Brontë (1816), John Muir (1838), Max Weber (1864), Edmund ‘Pat’ Brown (1905), Leonard Warren [Warenoff] (1911), Elizabeth II of England (1926), Charles Grodin (1935), Thomas Kean (1935), Iggy Popp [James Osterberg] (1947), Gary Condit (1948), Patti LuPone (1949), Tony Danza (1951), Andie MacDowell [Rosalie Anderson] (1958), John Cameron Mitchell (1963) & James McAvoy (1979) were born #OnThisDay. Rome founded by Romulus & Remus, according to tradition (753 BCE), Liuvigild, Visigothic king of Hispania and Septimania (586), Anselm, archbishop of Canberbury (1109), Pierre Abélard (1142), Henry VII (1509), Jean Racine (1699), Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens] (1910), Manfred von Richthofen [der Rote Baron] (1918), Alessandro Moreschi (1922), John Maynard Keynes (1946), François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier (1971), Princess Deokhye of Korea (1989), Erté (1990), Willi Boskovsky (1991), Dzhokhar Dudayev (1996), Robert Hersant (1996), Jean-François Lyotard (1998), Nina Simone [Eunice Waymon] (2003), Mary McGrory (2004), Charles Colson (2012), Shakuntala Devi (2013) & Prince [Rogers Nelson] (2016) died on this day. Babur defeated Sultan Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat (1526), the Maryland Toleration Act (1649), William III & Mary II proclaimed king & queen of England — the only joint sovereigns in its history (1689), British troops rampaged through the Connecticut town of Danbury (1777), Catherine II of Russia issued the ‘Charter of the Nobility’ — increasing further the power of the landed oligarchs (1785), John Adams sworn in as the first vice-president of the United States (1789), Brazilian revolutionary Tiradentes hanged, drawn & quartered in Rio de Janeiro (1792), Napoléon led France to victory over a Piedmontese army at the Battle of Mondovi (1796), Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted was the first to identify electromagnetism when he observed a compass needle (1820), Sam Houston led the Texas militia to victory Mexico at the Battle of San Jacinto, capturing Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón & winning independence from Mexico in exchange for Gen. Santa Anna (1836), founder of the Bahá’í Faith Bahá’u’lláh entered garden of Rivden near Baghdad (1863), Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train left Washington, D.C. for Springfield (1865), First Lady Lucy Hayes began the tradition of the Easter egg rolling contest on the White House lawn (1878), Woodville Lathan & sons Otway & Gray demonstrated their Panopticon, the first movie projector developed in the US (1895), Congress declared war on Spain, initiating the Spanish-American War (1898), Crete’s elected assembly proclaimed the island’s union with Greece (1905), Manfred von Richthofen (‘der Rote Baron’) shot down & killed over France by Canadian pilot Arthur Roy Brown (1918), ohio State Penitentiary guards allowed a fire to kill 320 inmates in Columbus (1930), Martin Heidegger elected rector of the University of Freiburg (1933), Greece surrendered to Nazi Germany (1941), Brasilia became the capital of Brazil (1960), Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell & John Timmons publicly identified themselves as gay as part of the ‘Sip-In’ at Julius’ Bar in Manhattan (1966), Konstantinos Kollias became prime minister after a military coup d’état in Greece (1967), Joseph Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Allilueva arrived in New York City after defecting to the US (1967), Tony Orlando & Dawn’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” topped the US pop charts & created a cultural phenomenon (1973), Nguyen Van Thieu resigned after 10 years as president of South Vietnam (1975), Rosie Ruiz faked a Boston Marathon win (1980), Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s vault on live TV & found nothing (1986), thousands of Chinese crowded into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square cheering students demanding greater political freedom (1989), Brazil voted against a restoration of the monarchy (1993), the FBI arrested Timothy McVeigh, charging him with the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), comedian Volodymyr Zelensky won Ukraine’s presidential election in a landslide (2019) & Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.’s office announced it will no longer prosecute prostitution, dismissing 914 open cases, part of growing movement to change approach to prostitution (2021) on this day.
April 22
Muhammad the Prophet (570), Isabella I of Castile (1451), Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre (1518), Giuseppe Torelli (1658), Henry Fielding (1707), Immanuel Kant (1724), Madame de Staël [Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein] (1766), Lewis Powell (Confederate conspirator) (1844), Vladimir Lenin [Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov] (1870), Alexander Kerensky (1881), Ferdinando Nicola Sacco (1891), Vladimir Nabovkov (1899), Robert Oppenheimer (1904), Eddie Albert (1906), Kathleen Ferrier (1912), Yehudi Menuhin (1916), Richard Diebenkorn (1922), Aaron Spelling (1923), Bettie Page (1923), Charlotte Rae (1926), Glen Campbell (1936), Jack Nicholson (1937), Joshua Rifkin (1944), John Waters (1946), Donald Tusk (1957), Sherri Shepherd (1967) & Amber Heard (1986) were born #OnThisDay. Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra (1616), Anne Bonny (1782), Édouard Lalo (1893), Henry Royce (1933), Kathy Kollwitz (1945), Harlan Stone (1946), Will Geer [William Aughe Ghere] (1878), Melville Bell Grosvenor (1982), Earth ‘Fatha’ Hines (1983), Ansel Adams (1984), Mircea Eliade (1986), Emilio G. Segrè (1989), Andries Treurnicht (1993), Cesar Chavez (1993), Richard Nixon (1994), Maggie Kuhn (1995), Erma Bombeck (1996), Pat Tillman (2004), Alida Valli [Baroness Alida von Marckenstein-Frauenberg] (2006), Richie Havens (2013), Erin Moran (2017), Heather Harper (2019) & Shirley Knight (2020) died on this day. Pedro Álvares Cabral became the first European to see Brazil & claimed it for Portugal (1500), Henry VIII succeeded Henry VII as king of England (1509), François I of France declared war on Spain (1521), the first slave revolt in North America at the Spanish settlement of San Miguel de Gualdape (now in South Carolina) (1526), Spain & Portugal divided the eastern hemisphere in the Treaty of Saragossa (1529), Richard Cromwell disbanded England’s parliament (1659), Edward Bishop jailed for proposing flogging as a cure for witchcraft in Salem (1692), Austria & Bavaria signed the Peace Treaty of Füssen ending Bavaria’s participation (on the French side) in the War of the Austrian Succession (1745), Madame du Barry became Louis XV’s ‘maitress-en-titre’ (1769), German Jews emancipated after adoption of the constitution of the Second German Reich by Bavaria (1871), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky completes his ballet “Swan Lake” (1876), the US recognized Léopold II’s État Indépendant du Congo (Congo Free State) (1884), the Jewish Daily Forward first published in New York (1897), the Second Battle of Ypres began (1915), German forces fired more than 150 tons of lethan chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions in the Second Battle of Ypres (1915), Adolf Hitler admitted the Nazi war effort was lost (1945), Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) founded in Soviet-controlled East Germany (1946), Sen. Joseph McCarthy began the Senate hearings on alleged Communist infiltration of the US Army & the US State Department, (1954), the 1964 World’s Fair opened in Flushing Meadows/Corona Park in Queens (1964), first human eye transplant (1969), Bernadette Devlin made a controversial maiden speech in the House of Commons concerning the situation in Northern Ireland (1969), Wisconsin’s Sen. Gaylord Nelson launched the first Earth Day (1970), Barbara Walters joined ABC News as the first female nightly network news anchor in the US (1976), Ingmar Bergman left Sweden over tax issues (1976), Shimon Peres became acting prime minister of Israel (1977), the Oklahoma land rush began (1889), Holocaust Memorial Museum dedicated in Washington, D.C. (1993) 7,000 Tutsi slaughtered by Hutus in the stadium at Kibuye in Rwanda (1994), Peru’s president Alberto Fujimori ordered a commando assault on the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima to free hostages from Tupac Amaru terrorists (1997), Colombian serial killer Luis Garavito [The Beast, Tribilín] apprehended (1999), Pat Tillman killed by ‘friendly fire’ in Afghanistan (2004), “Veep” premiered on HBO (2012), Paris climate change agreement signed in New York (2016), Sudan banned female genital mutation & made it a criminal offense (2020) & India set a world record for daily COVID-19 cases on this day.
April 23
Malcolm IV of Scotland (1141), St. Jeanne, queen of France (1464), Robert Fayrfax (1464), William Shakespeare (1564), J.M.W. Turner (1775), James Buchanan (1791), Stephen Douglas (1813), Max Planck (1858), Gen. Edmund Viscount Allenby (1861), Sergei Prokofiev (1891), Ngaio Marsh (1895), Lester Pearson (1897), Halldór Laxness (1902), Shirley Temple (1928), Halston [Roy Halston Frowick] (1932), Roy Orbison (1937), Victoria Glendinning (1937), David Birney (1939), Lee Majors [Harvey Lee Yeary] (1939), Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (1947), Joyce DeWitt (1949), Michael Moore (1954), Valerie Bertinelli (1960), George Lopez (1961), Timothy McVeigh (1968), Stan Frazier (1968), Aisha bint al-Hussein & Zein bint al-Hussein, princesses of Jordan (1968), John Cena (1977), Kal Penn (1977), John Oliver (1977), Dev Patel (1990), Gigi Hadid [Jelena Noura Hadid] (1995), Chloe Kim (2000) & Prince Louis of Cambridge (2018) were born #OnThisDay. St. George (303), Wihtred, king of Kent (725), Æthelred I, king of Wessex (871), Brian Boru (1014), Æthelred II of England (‘the Unready’) (1016), Alexander I of Scotland (1124), Boris Godunov (1605), William Shakespeare (1616), Jean-Henri d’Anglebert (1691), James Abercrombie (1781), Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (1794), William Wordsworth (1850), Rupert Brooke (1915), Ellisabeth Schumann (1952), Sam Ervin (1985), Harold Arlen [Hyman Arluck] (1986), Otto Preminger (1986), Satyajit Ray (1992), Howard Cosell (1995), John Stennis (1995), Konstantinos Karamanlis (1998), James Earl Ray (1998), David Halberstam (2007) & Boris Yeltsin (2007) died on this day. Brian Boru defeated Viking forces at the Battle of Clontarf, bringing the Viking age in Ireland to an end (1014), Ferdinand III of Castile conquered Cáceres (1229), Edward III of England founded the Order of the Garter (1344), Wilhelm IV of Bavaria endorsed the German Beer Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot) (1516), William Shakespeare’s play “The Merry Wives of Windsor” first performed for Elizabeth Tudor (1597), Charles II crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey (1661), Anne crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey (1702), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera “Il Ré Pastore” (The Shepherd King) premiered in Salzburg (1775), John Paul Jones launched a surprise attack on Whitehaven in the south of England (1778), Fyodor Dostoyevsky & members of the Petrashevsky Circle arrested in St. Petersburg (1849), Robert E. Lee named commander of the Confederate army of northern Virginia (1861), Jefferson Davis wrote “panic has seized the country” of the Confederacy (1865), poet soldier Rupert Brooke died in Greece (1915), Turkey’s Grand National Assembly met in Ankara for the first time with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk denouncing the government of Sultan Mehmed VI & announcing a temporary constitution (1920), the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opened in Stratford-on-Avon (1932), Harry Truman confronted Soviet foreign minister Myacheslav Molotov (1945), Flossenburg concentration camp liberated (1945), Hank Aaron hit the first home run of his professional baseball career (1954), Algiers putsch by French generals in Algeria (1961), Judy Garland re-started her career with a legendary performance at Carnegie Hall (1961), the New York State Theater opened in Manhattan’s Lincoln Center (1964), Sirhan Sirhan sentenced to death for killing US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (later commuted to a life sentence) (1969), Columbia University shut down by a student strike (1971), Gerald Ford declared the Vietnam War finished as far as the US was concerned (1975), Coca-Cola introduced New Coke (1985), Chinese students in Beijing announced a boycott of university classes to support the Tiananmen Square protests (1989), former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry released from prison (1992), McDonald’s opened its first fast-food restaurant in China (1993), Eritrea voted to secede from Ethiopia (1993), 42 villagers killed in the Omaria massacre in Algeria (1997), Pope John Paul II met with U.S. Catholic Church leaders at Vatican regarding sexual abuse of minors (2002), Mark Rutte resigned as prime minister of the Netherlands (2012), the Assemblée Nationale voted in favor of legislation recognizing same-sex marriage in France (2013), Loretta Lynch confirmed as US attorney general — the first African American woman appointed to the post — succeeding Eric Holder (2015) Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan resigned after 10 years in office after mass protests (2018) & Donald Trump promoted Clorox & UV lights as COVID-19 treatments, prompting rebuke from government officials & disinfectant producers (2020) on this day.
April 24
William I, Prince of Orange (1533), Guglielmo Gonzaga (1538), St. Vincent de Paul (1581), Jan Peeters (the Elder) (1624), Cornelis Dusart (1660), Giovanni Battista Martini (1706), Nikolai Bestuzhev (1791), Anthony Trollope (1815), Philippe Pétain (1856), José Prima de Rivera (1903), Willem De Kooning (1904), Robert Penn Warren (1905), William Joyce (‘Lord Ha-Ha’) (1906), Shirley MacLaine (1934), Jill Ireland (1936), John Williams (1941), Barbra Streisand (1942), Richard M. Daley (1942), Valeri Abramovich Voloshin (1942), Jean Paul Gaultier (1952), Mumia Abu-Jamal (1954), John Epperson [Lypsinka] (1955), Cedric the Entertainer (1964), Djimon Hounsou (1964), Kelly Clarkson (1982) & Princess Iman bint Al Hussein of Jordan (1983) were born #OnThisDay. Daniel Defoe (1731), Prince Eugene of Savoy (1736), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1891), Lucy Maud Montgomery (1942), Willa Cather (1947), William ‘Bud’ Abbott (1974), Wallis Warfield Simpson (Duchess of Windsor) (1986), Oliver Tambo (1993), Estée Lauder (2004), Ezer Weizman (2005) & Christa Ludwig (2021) died on this day. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V defeated the Protestant princes of the Schmalkaldic League at the Battle of Mühlberg (1547), Jean-Paul Marat acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of charges brought by the Girondin in Paris (1793), John Adams signed a bill into law establishing the Library of Congress (1800), Joseph Haydn’s oratorio “Die Jahreszeiten” (The Seasons) (1801), Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, launching the Russo-Turkish War (1877), Eastman Kodak founded by George Eastman (1888), Spain declared war on the United States after rejecting a US ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba (1898), Armenian community leaders arrested in Constantinople (Istanbul) at the beginning of the Armenian Genocide (1915), Easter Rising in Dublin (1916), Ernest Shackleton launched a rescue of the Endurance in Antarctica (1916), beginning of the British Mandate in Palestine (1920), the Nazi party won 36.3% in Prussia in the Reichstag parliamentary election in Germany (1932), Harry Truman was briefed on the Manhattan Project (1945), Jordan formally annexed the West Bank (1950), Elizabeth II knighted Winston Churchill (1953), the Bandung conference of ‘non-aligned’ states concluded in Indonesia (1955), John F. Kennedy accepted ‘sole responsibility’ for the Bay of Pigs fiasco (1961), the Swedish warship Vasa salvaged after having been sunk in 1628 (1961), the US Army issued General Orders No. 100 to regulate Union treatment of Confederate civilians & prisoners of war (1963), Donald Reid Cabral led a military coup d’état in the Dominican Republic (1965), Gen. William Westmoreland said in a news conference about the Vietnam War that the enemy had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily” (1967), Columbia University’s administration building taken over by student protesters (1968), Mauritius became a member state of the United Nations (1968), Marshall Lin Biao named Mao Zedong’s designated successor as the sole vice chairman of the Communist Party of China (1969), Gambia became a republic within the Commonwealth (1970), Georgia designated Ray Charles’ rendition of “Georgia On My Mind” (written by Hoagy Carmichael) as official state song (1979), eight killed in three helicopters that crashed in Iran in a failed US mission to rescue 52 American hostages being held hostage in the US embassy in Tehran (1980), 150 of Ayatollah Khomeini followers assaulted a student dormitory in West Germany (1982), Jane Fonda released her first workout video (1982), German monetary & economic union on July 1 agreed to by the FRG & GDR governments (1990), an IRA car bomb in London killed a photojournalist & wounded 44 others in Bishopsgate (1993), Farm Aid VI concert in Ames (1993), Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church as Pope Benedict XVI (2005), Gyanendra of Nepal gave into the demands of protesters & restored the parliament that he dissolved in 2002 (2006), Iceland announced that Norway would shoulder the defense of Iceland during peacetime (2007), Armenia commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide (2015) & Joe Biden became the first US President to officially recognize the killing of Armenians in the Ottoman empire as ‘genocide’ (2021) on this day.
April 25
Louis IX (St. Louis) of France (1214), Edward II of England (1284), Roger de Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (1287), Oliver Cromwell (1599), Gaston, Duc d’Orléans (1608), Edward Viscount Grey (1862), Guglielmo Marconi (1874), Mary [Victoria Alexandra Alice Mary], Princess Royal & Countess of Harewood (1897), Edward R. [Egbert Roscoe] Murrow (1908), Ella Fitzgerald (1917), Astrid Varnay (1918), Al Pacino (1940), Bertrand Tavernier (1941), Björn Ulvaeus (1945), Dominique Strauss-Kahn (1949), Haider al-Abadi (1952), Dinesh D’Souza (1961), Hank Azaria (1964), Renée Zellweger (1969) & Gedhun Choekyi Nyima (11th Panchen Lama) (1989) were born #OnThisDay. St. Mark (the first pope of Alexandria & the founder of Christianity in Africa) (68), Diane de Poitiers (1566), Torquato Tasso (1595), Chongzhen, last Ming emperor of China (1644), Anders Celsius (1744), Carol Reed (1976), Ginger Rogers (1995), Jane Jacobs (2006) & Bea Arthur (2009) died on this day. Martin Waldseemüller became the first to use the name ‘America’ on his world map “Universalis Cosmographia” (1507), Albrecht von Wallenstein led the Holy Roman Emperor’s army to victory over a Danish army under Ernst von Mansfeld at the Battle of Dessau Bridge (1626), the Chongzhen Ming emperor of China hanged himself from a tree as Manchus captured Beijing (1644), parliament voted to restore the monarchy in England (1660), thimble patent granted (1684), French & Spanish forces defeated the British & Portuguese at the Battle of Almansa (1707), Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” — considered the first novel in English — published (1719), Elizabeth (Elizaveta Petrovna) crowned herself empress of Russia in Dormition Cathedral in Moscow (1742), highwayman Nicolas Pelletier became the first person executed by the guillotine in France (1792), Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed “La Marseillaise” in Strasbour (later to become the national anthem of France) (1792), the Thornton Affair provoked the Mexican-American War (1846), ground broken for the Suez Canal in Egypt (1859), Admiral David Farragut’s Union forces captured New Orleans (1862), Sigmund Freud opened his private practice at Rathausstrasse 7 in Vienna (1886), the United States declared a state of war with Spain from April 21 as the Spanish-American War began (1898), the Allied landing on the Gallipoli peninsula began the most disastrous campaign of World War I (1915), Paul von Hindenburg elected president of Germany’s Weimar Republic (1925), Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Turandot” premiered at the Teatro alla Scala di Milano (1926), the United Negro College Fund incorporated (1944), Soviet forces completed their encirclement of Berlin, cutting off all access points west of the German capital (1945), US & Soviet forces met at Torgau on the Elbe (‘Elbe Day’) (1945), Francis Crick & James Watson’s discovery of the double helix structure of DNA published in “Nature” (1953), Bell System announced the creation of the first solar battery made from silicon (1954), the government of Gaston Eyskens fell over Belgium’s Unitary Law (1961), Britain granted internal self-government to Swaziland (1967), West German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s aide Günter Guillaume exposed as a Stasi spy for the East German regime (1974), Mário Soares’ Socialist Party won Portugal’s first free election since 1925 following the Carnation Revolution of 1974 (1975), Portugal adopted a new constitution (1976), Yuri Andropov invited American schoolgirl Samantha Smith to the Soviet Union (1983), West Germany’s Bundestag criminalized Holocaust denial (1985), John Demjanjuk (‘Ivan the Terrible’) sentenced to death in Jerusalem (1988), James Richardson was released by Janet Reno after 21 years in prison for the murders of his children following the revelation of prosecutorial misconduct which led to the false conviction (1989), the Hubble Space Telescope launched into orbit around the earth (1990), Boris Yeltsin elected president of Russia (1993), the final piece of the Obelisk of Axum returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937 (2005), Bulgaria & Romania signed accession treaties to join the European Union (2005), Boris Yeltsin’s funeral became the first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Tsar Alexander III in 1894 (2007), Elijah Wood honored with the Midnight Award by the San Francisco International Film Festival (2009), the Flint water crisis began when Michigan officials switched the city’s water supply (2014), Peter Madsen found guilty of the murder of journalist Kim Wall & sentenced to life imprisonment (2018), Microsoft became the third US firm to be listed with a market worth of $1 trillion, after Apple & Amazon (2019), “Nomadland” won Academy Awards for best film, director (Chloé Zhao) & lead actress (Frances McDormand) Anthony Hopkins won for best actor at the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony (2021) on this day.
April 26
Antonius Marcus Aurelius (121), Marie de’ Medici (1573), Pedro II of Portugal (1648), Marie Louise d’Orléans, queen & consort to Charles II of Spain (1662), David Hume (1711), John James Audubon (1785), Ludwig Uhland (1787), Eugène Delacroix (1798), Alfred Krupp (1812), Frederick Law Olmsted (1822), Mikhail Fokine (1880), Ma Rainey [Gertrude Pridgett] 1886), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889), Rudolf Hess (1894), Douglas Sirk (1897), Bernard Malamud (1914), Wilfrid Howard Mellers (1914), I.M. Pei (1917), Carol Burnett (1933), Giorgio Moroder (1940), Peter Schaufuss (1950), Joan Chen [Chen Chong] (1961), Jet Li [Li Lianjie] (1963), Kevin James (1965), Melania [Knauss] Trump (1970), Channing Tatum (1980) & Jessica Lynch (1983) were born #OnThisDay. Robert Campin (1444), Giuliani de’ Medici (1478), Charles Sax (1865), John Wilkes Booth (1865), Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1910), Edmund Husserl (1938), ‘Gypsy’ Rose Lee [Hovick] (1970), Celia Johnson (1982), William ‘Count’ Basie (1984), Broderick Crawford (1986), Lucille Ball (1989), Mason Adams (2005), Jack Valenti (2007), Jayne Meadows (2015) & Jonathan Demme (2017) died on this day. Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) climbed Mont Ventoux (1336), Pazzi conspirators attacked Lorenzo de’ Medici & killed Giuliano de’ Medici in Florence (1478), Copernicus made his first observations of Saturn (1514), William Shakespeare baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon (1564), Jews expelled from Brazil (1654), Louis XVIII landed at Calais, returning to France from exile in England (1814), Russia declared war on Ottoman Turkey to support Greece’s independence (1828), Frédéric Chopin’s Grande Polonaise Brillante premiered in Paris (1835), Confederate Gen. J.E. Johnston surrendered to Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in North Carolina, ending the Civil War (1865), Sun Yat-Sen called for an uprising against Yuan Shikai’s regime in China (1913), Italy secretly signed the Treaty of London with Britain, France and Russia, bringing Italy into World War I on the Allied side (1915), Edna Ferber won a Pulitzer Prize for “So Big” (1925), Diego Rivera resigned from the Mexican Communist Party (1925), Germany & Russia signed a non-aggression pact (1926), Nazi Germany banned Jewish students from schools (1933), the Nazi German Luftwaffe destroyed the Basque town of Guernica in Spain (1937), Maréchal Philippe Pétain arrested for treason in France (1945), Nazi Germany won its last victory at the Battle of Bautzen (1945), Transjordan officially renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (1949), Jonas Salk began mass trials of his polio vaccine (1954), Akira Kurosawa’s film “The Seven Samurai” released (1954), Charles de Gaulle suppressed the French paratroopers’ revolt in Algeria (1961), Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Company” directed by Hal Prince opened at the Alvin Theater in Manhattan (1970), Studio 54 opened in Manhattan (1977), Argentine troops surrendered to British forces in the Falklands/ Malvinas (1982), Ronald Reagan visited China (1984), Maria Shriver married Arnold Schwarzenegger (1986), NBC announced that Conan O’Brien would replace David Letterman on “Late Night” (1993), Dr. Nomaza Paintin became the first black South African to vote in a multi-racial democratic election in South Africa (1994), Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor found guilty of war crimes in Sierra Leone (2012), Nursultan Nazarbayev ‘re-elected’ ‘president’ of Kazakhstan with 97.7% of the vote (2015), Bill Cosby found guilty of sexual assault in Pennsylvania (2018), “no religion” topped the survey of American religious identity for the first time at 23.1%, edging out Catholics 23.0% & evangelicals 22.5% in the long-running General Social Survey (2019) & the US Census results showed its population growth was second slowest in recorded history at 331,449,281 with only a 7.4% increase on 2010 (2021) on this day.
April 27
Mumtaz Mahal (1593), Mary Wollstonecraft (1759), Samuel Morse (1791), Friedrich von Flotow (1812), Herbert Spencer (1820), Ulysses S. Grant (1822), Otto I of Bavaria (1848), Arthur Burns (1904), Jack Klugman (1922), Coretta Scott King (1927), Sheila Scott (1927), Connie Kay (1927), Joe Moakley (1927), Igor Oistrakh (1931), Roelof ‘Pik’ Botha (1932), Casey Kasem (1932), Anouk Aimée (1932), Gian-Carlo Rota (1932), Sandy Dennis (1937), Judith Blegen (1941), John Shrapnel (1942), Cuba Gooding, Sr. (1944), August Wilson (1945), Larry Elder (1952), Sheena Easton [Orr] (1959), Russell T. Davies (1963), Willem-Alexander, king of the Netherlands (1967), Cory Booker (1969), Jenna Coleman (1986), William Moseley (1987) & Lizzo [Melissa Jefferson] (1988) were born #OnThisDay. Philippe le Hardi (Philip the Bold), Duc de Bourgogne (1404), Ferdinand Magellan (1521), Feodor III, tsar of Russia (1682), Zebulon Pike (1813), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1882), Alexander Scriabin (1915), Hart Crane (1932), Antonio Gramsci (1937), Edward R. Murrow (1965), Kwame Nkrumah (1972), Olivier Messiaen (1992), Carlos Castaneda (1998), Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (2002), Mstislav Rostropovich (2007), Suzanne Crough (2015) & Lynn Harrell (2020) died on this day. Edward I of England defeated a Scottish army at the Battle of Dunbar (1296), Pope Julius II excommunicated the Republic of Venice (1509), Ferdinand Magellan was killed on Mactan Island in the Philippines (1521), re-founding of the city of Bogotá in New Granada (Colombia) by Nikolaus Federmann and Sebastián de Belalcázar (1539), the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines at Cebu City (1565), Charles I of England fled Oxford (1646), John Milton — blind & impoverished — sold the copyright of “Paradise Lost” for £10 (1667), Friedrich August I (‘the Strong’) became king of Saxony (1694), Georg Friedrich Händel’s “Music for the Royal Fireworks” premiered in London’s Green Park (1749), the British parliament enacted the Tea Act, which would provoke the Boston Tea Party (1773), William Eaton led US Marines & Arab mercenaries to Tripoli to depose Yusuf Karamanli during the First Barbary War, inspiring the line “to the shores of Tripoli” (1805), Ludwig van Beethoven composed a piece “Für Elise” (1810), Zebulon Pike killed in battle during the War of 1812 (1813), architects Charles Barry’s wife Sarah Barry laid the foundation stone for the new Palace of Westminster in London (1840), Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus for the duration of the Civil War (1861), West Virginia seceded from Virginia (1861), Cornell university chartered in Ithaca (1865), the steamboat Sultana exploded in the Mississippi River, killing more than 1,700 of the 2,427 passengers in the greatest maritime disaster in United States history (1865), Charles Gounod’s opera “Romeo et Juliette” premiered at the Théâtre Lyrique (1867), Jules Massenet’s opera “Le Roi de Lahore” (The King of Lahore) premiered at the Palais Garnier in Paris (1877), Rutherford B. Hayes removes Federal troops from Louisiana, ending Reconstruction (1877), Ulysses Grant’s Tomb dedicated in Manhattan (1897), Chris Watson’s Australian Labor Party formed the first Labor government in the world (1904), Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hami II overthrown (1909), Mustafa Kemal (‘Atatürk’) led an Ottoman Turkish counteroffensive against Allied troops (1915), Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction of a concentration camp at Auschwitz (1940), Witold Pilecki escaped from Auschwitz after having voluntarily been imprisoned there to gain information about the Holocaust (1943), Italian partisans captured Benito Mussolini at Dongo on Lake Como (1945), the second Austrian republic established (1945), the Nazi Völkischer Beobachter newspaper ceased publication (1945), South Africa enacted the Group Areas Act segregating the races (1950), Mao Zedong resigned as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party after the disastrous failure of the Great Leap Forward (1959), Syngman Rhee resigned after 12 years as president/dictator of the Republic of Korea (1960), Togo declared its independence from France (1960), Sierra Leone declared its independence from Britain (1961), John Hinckley went on trial for his attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan (1982), the US Justice Department barred Austria’s Bundeskanzler Kurt Waldheim from entering the US because of his collaboration with Nazi Germany (1987), Chinese students took over Tiananmen Square in Beijing to protest the People’s Republic of China’s authoritarian regime *(1989), Betty Boothroyd became the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history (1992), Brandon Lee’s death on the set of “The Crow” declared the result of negligence by North Carolina district attorney Jerry Spivey (1993), Richard Nixon buried on the grounds of his presidential library in Yorba Linda (1994), Andrew Cunanan began his killing spree (1997), Barack Obama publicly released his birth certificate (2011), “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” late-night talk & news show fronted by John Oliver premiered on HBO (2014), Kim Jong-in & Joon Jae-in met in a historic Korean summit (2018), ABBA announced they recorded new songs for the first time since 1982 (2018), Pope Francis donates $500,000 for migrants stranded in Mexico trying to reach the US (2019), 3 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide (2020), the US Defense Department declassified & released videos of unidentified ‘aerial phenomena’ from 2004 to 2015 (2020) & Brazil’s Senate ordered an official inquiry into Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021) on this day.
April 28
Edward IV of England (1442), Yi-Sun-shin (1545), James Monroe (1758), Nikita Panin (1770), Lionel Barrymore (1878), António de Oliveira Salazar (1889), Maurice Thorez (1900), Kurt Gödel (1906), Tony ‘Big Tuna’ Accardo (1906), Pierre Boileau (1906), Oskar Schindler (1908), Ferruccio Lamborghini (1916), Nan Merriman (1920), Rowland Evans (1921), Kenneth Kaunda (1924), Blossom Dearie (1924), [Nelle] Harper Lee (1926), Saddam Hussein (1937), Ann-Margret (1941), Alice Waters (1944), Jay Leno (1950), Elena Kagan (1960), Helen Taylor [Windsor] (daughter of Prince Edward) (1964), Penélope Cruz (1974) & Jonathan Scott (Property Brothers) (1978) were born #OnThisDay. St. Hugh, 6th abbot of Cluny (1109), Conrad of Montferrat, king of Jerusalem (1192), Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland (1498), Mary Read (1721), Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1754), Samuel Cunard (1865), Gavrilo Princip (1918), Fuʾād I [Aḥmad Fuʾād Pasha], king of Egypt (1936), Benito Mussolini (1945), Clara Petacci (1945), Aurora Quezon (1949), Ed Begley (1970), Francis Bacon (1992), William Colby (1996), János Starker (2013) & Conrad Burns (2016) died on this day. Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), king of Jerusalem, assassinated by the Hashhashin in Tyre two days after his election (1192), Philip II of France expelled King John ‘Lackland’ of England from France (1202), Buddhist monk Nichiren founded Nichiren Buddhism, propounding ‘nam myoho renge kyo’ as the essence of Buddhism (1253), establishment of the Pontifical & Royal University of Santo Tomas (the Catholic University of the Philippines), the oldest existing university in Asia and largest Catholic university in the world (1611), Virginia Governor John Harvey accused of treason & removed from office (1635), Captain James Cook’s ship Endeavour landed at Botany Bay in Australia (1770), Fletcher Christian led a mutiny on HMS Bounty against its captain William Bligh in the South Pacific (1789), James Monroe proclaimed the naval disarmament of the Great Lakes & Lake Champlain (1818), France abolished slavery in its colonies (1848), the first veterinary college in the US incorporated in Boston (1855), Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera “L’Africaine” premiered in Paris (1865), France sent troops to. Tunisia (1881), Billy the Kid escaped from the Lincoln County jail in New Mexico (1881), Thor Heyerdahl & the crew of the Kon-Tiki sailed from Peru to Polynesia (1847), former Philippine First Lady Aurora Quezon assassinated while en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband along with her daughter & 10 others (1949), Mohammad Mosaddegh elected prime minister of Iran by the Majlis (parliament) (1951), the last French troops left Vietnam (1956), “My Name is Barbra” — Barbra Streisand’s first television special — premiered on CBS (1965), Lyndon Johnson sent 22,000 troops to the Dominican Republic to forestall an uprising against the US-installed military dictatorship (1965), Richard Helms replaced Marshall S. Carter as deputy director of the CIA (1965), Luciano Pavarotti made his debut at the Teatro alla Scala di Milan in Franco Zeffirelli’s production of “La Bohème” with Mirella Freni (1965), “The Sound of Music,” Julie Christie & Lee Marvin won Academy Awards at the 38th Academy Awards ceremony (1966), Muhammad Ali refused induction into the US Army (1967), Charles de Gaulle resigned as president of France (1969), Richard Nixon authorized US military intervention in Cambodia (1970), Andreas Baader & other members of terrorist group the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang) sentenced to life after a trial lasting nearly 2 years in Stuttgart (1977), the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure signed (1977), Afghanistan’s president Sardar Mohammed Daoud overthrown & murdered in a coup d’état led by pro-Soviet rebels (1978), Cyrus Vance resigned as Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state (1980), the Soviet TV news program Vremya announced a nuclear accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station two days after the event (1986), Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus & Tim Rice’s musical “Chess” opened at the Imperial Theater in Manhattan (1988), Aloha Airlines flight attendant killed when the roof of a Boeing 737 roof tore off in flight (1988), Carlo Ciampi formed a new government with the former Italian Communist Party (1993), CIA agent Aldrich Ames & his wife Rosario pled guilty to spying for the Soviet Union & Russia (1994), Martin Bryant shot & killed 35 in Port Arthur in Australia’s worst massacre in the 20th century (1996), Shrek the sheep shorn of 27 kg (60 lb) in New Zealand (2004), Craig Ferguson announced he would leave “The Late Late Show” at the end of 2014 (2014), 140 skeletons from the Chimú civilisation uncovered by archaeologists in Peru in what was the world’s largest child sacrifice in recorded history (2018), the “Game of Thrones: The Long Night” episode debuted with the longest battle ever screened (nearly 80 mins), surpassing “The Lord of the Rings” Battle of Helm’s Deep (44 mins) (2019), the US confirmed over one million cases of COVID-19 & death toll of 58,365 surpassed that of US soldiers killed in Vietnam War (2020) on this day.
April 29
Taliesin (534), James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde (1665), James Brooke, first rajah of Sarawak (1803), Alexander II of Russia (1818), Anatoly Liadov (1855), Lorado Taft (1860), William Randolph Hearst (1863), Constantine Cavafy (1863), Thomas Beecham (1879), Malcom Sargent (1895), Edward ‘Duke’ Ellington (1899), Hirohito, 124th emperor of Japan (1901), Celeste Holm (1917), Rod McKuen (1933), Willie Nelson (1933), Mark Eyskens [Marc Maria Frans, Viscount Eyskens] (1933), Zubin Mehta (1936), Bernie Madoff (1938), Ian Kershaw (1943), Debbie Stabenow (1950), Jerome ‘Jerry’ Seinfeld (1954), Gino Quilico (1955), Leslie Jordan (1955), Daniel Day-Lewis (1957), Michelle Pfeiffer (1958), Eve Plumb (1958), Andre Agassi (1970), Uma Thurman (1970) & Sofía, Infanta of Spain (2007) were born #OnThisDay. St. Catherine of Siena (1380), Constantine Cavafy (1933), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1951), Ntare V of Burundi (1972), Alfred Hitchcock (1980), Mike Royko (1997), John Kenneth Galbraith (2006), Denis Goldberg (2020) & Shiyiwe Mantfombi Dlamini Zulu (queen of the Zulu nation) 2021) died on this day. Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) arrived to lift the siege of Orléans (1429), Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ended the privileges of the city of Ghent (1540), Sweden & Denmark signed a defense treaty against the Holy Roman Empire’s troops led by Albrecht von Wallenstein (1628), Francis Drake sailed into Cadiz harbor & sank the Spanish fleet, thereby “singeing the King of Spain’s Beard” & delaying the Spanish Armada by a year (1587), the 18-day-long Battle of Zhovti Vody in Ukraine led to Poland’s King Casimir’s defeat by Cossacks (1648), Ming China occupied Taiwan (1661), Louis XIV’s France invaded the Netherlands (1672), the English & Scottish parliaments voted for the Act of Union creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain as of May 1 (1707), the first edition of Peter Roget’s Thesaurus published in London (1852), the Pennsylvania state legislature chartered the Ashmun Institute — the first US college founded to educate African Americans (1854), Maryland’s House of Delegates voted against seceding from the Union (1861), New Orleans fell to Union forces in the Civil War (1862), 230 Maori warriors defeated 1,700 British troops at the Battle of Gate Pā (Pukehinahina) — the worst British defeat in the New Zealand Wars (1864), Werner von Siemens tested the ‘Elektromote’ (forerunner of the trolleybus) in Berlin (1882), Congress extended the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibiting immigration of Chinese laborers from territories to the mainland to preclude Chinese immigration from the Philippines (1902), Irish republicans surrendered in Dublin, ending the Easter Rising (1916), the Whitestone Bridge opened connecting the New York boroughs of the Bronx & Queens (1939), Haakon VII & the Norwegian government fled to exile in Britain (1940), Jews ordered to wear a yellow Star of David in the Netherlands & Vichy France (1942), Dietrich Bonhoeffer arrested by the Gestapo for his criticism of the Nazi regime (1943), Noël Coward’s play “Present Laughter” premiered in London (1943), the German army in Italy unconditionally surrendered to Allied troops (1945), Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun just hours before their deaths by suicide (1945), Venice & Mestre liberated by the Allies (1945), the US 7th Army’s 45th Infantry Division liberated 31,601 people from the Dachau Nazi concentration camp in Bavaria (1945), conscientious objector Desmond Doss saved approximately 75 wounded soldiers in the Battle of Okinawa at Hacksaw Ridge (later depicted in the Oscar-winning film “Hacksaw Ridge”) (1945), 28 Japanese leaders indicted as war criminals in Tokyo (1946), Malta becomes 18th member of Council of Europe (1965), Aretha Franklin released her single “Respect” (written by Otis Redding) which became the 1967 Billboard Song of the Year (1967), US & South Vietnamese troops expanded the Vietnam War to Cambodia (1970), Richard Nixon announced that he would release the Watergate tapes (1974), Ethiopia nationalized all land (1975), the US began the evacuation of US citizens from Saigon in Operation Frequent Wind (1975), Charles McMahon & Darwin Judge became the last two United States servicemen killed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War (1975), Harold Washington sworn in as Chicago’s first African American mayor (1983), acquittal of Los Angeles Police Department officers on charges of excessive force in the beating of Rodney King sparked massive riots in the city (1992), Dick Cheney & George W. Bush testified before the 9/11 Commission in a closed, unrecorded hearing in the Oval Office (2004), the World War II Memorial opened in Washington, D.C. (2004), the last Oldsmobiled rolled off the assembly line at the Lansing Car Assembly plant in Michigan, ending 106 years of production (2004), New Zealand’s first civil union (2005), Prince William married Catherine Elizabeth ‘Kate’ Middleton (2011), “The Simpsons” surpassed the 635-episode count of “Gunsmoke” — the highest number of episodes of any series on TV (2018), Indonesia announced plans to relocate the national capital from the slowly sinking city of Jakarta (2019), Sports Illustrated featured a Muslim model (Halima Aden) in a burkini for the first time in their swimsuit edition (2019), Brazil’s official COVID-19 death toll passed 400,000 — with daily fatalities at 3,000 — down from 4,000 (2021), the world’s longest pedestrian bridge at 516 metres (1,700 feet) opened inside northern Portugal’s Arouca Geopark (2021) on this day.
April 30
Philip III of France (1245), Casimir III of France (1309), Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651), Mary II of England, Scotland & Ireland (1662), Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777), Kaspar Hauser (1812), George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll & secretary of state for India (1823), Franz Lehár (1870), Alice B. Toklas (1877), Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893), Eve Arden [Eunice Quedens] (1908), Juliana, queen of the Netherlands (1909), Cloris Leachman (1926), Gary Collins (1938), Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (1939), Jill Clayburgh (1944), Bob Livingston (1943), Carl XVI Gustaf (1946), António Guterres (1949), Jane Campion (1954), Stephen Harper (1959), Kirsten Dunst (1982), Gal Gadot (1985) & Jacob Blake (1991) were born #OnThisDay. Lucan (65), Galerius Valerius MAximinus [Daia] (313), Amalaswintha, queen of the Ostrogoths (535), Meister Eckhard (1328), Sigismund III Vasa, king of Poland, grand duke of Lithuania & king of Sweden (1632), John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1792), Édouard Manet (1883), Bessie Coleman (1926), A.E. Housman (1936), Beatrice Potter Webb (1943), Paul Poiret (1944), Adolf Hitler (1945), Eva Braun (1945), Alben Barkley (1956), Ntare V, king of Burundi (1972), Agnes Moorehead (1974), George Balanchine (1983), Muddy Waters [McKinley Morganfield] (1983), Sergio Leone (1989), Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (2002), Tom Poston (2007) & Daniel Berrigan (2016) died on this day. Roman Emperor Galerius issued an Edict of Toleration ending persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire (311), Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad landed at Gibraltar to begin the invasion & conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) (711), French chamberlain Enguerrand de Marigny hanged on the public gallows at Montfaucon after being convicted of sorcery (1315), Ferdinand & Isabella commissioned Christopher Columbus to sail for Spain (1492), Henry VIII & François I signed the Treaty of Westminster committing England & France to join forces against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in the War of the League of Cognac (1527), Jean Ribault & the first French colonists in North America arrived in Florida (1562), Charles VI expelled Jews from France (1563), the spire of Beauvais cathedral in France — then the tallest monument in the world — collapsed (1573), George Washington inaugurated as the first president of the United States of America (1789), Robert Livingston & James Monroe signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty in Paris, doubling the size of the USA for $15 million (1803), Charles Dickens’ “A Tale Of Two Cities” first published in literary periodical “All the Year Round” in weekly installments until Nov. 26 (1859), Robert E. Lee led Confederate troops to victory over the Union army led by Joseph Hooker at the Battle of Chancellorsville at which Stonewall Jackson was fatally wounded (1863), New York became the first state to charge a hunting license fee (1864), 144 killed in the Camp Grant Massacre of Apaches in Arizona Territory (1871), British physicist J.J. Thomson announced his discovery of electrons (1897), Congress enacted the ‘Hawaiian Organic Act’ making Hawaii a US territory (1900), Claude Debussy’s only completed opera “Pelléas et Mélisande” premiered in Paris (1902), the ice cream cone — invented by Ernest A. Hamwi — made its first appearance at the St. Louis World’s Fair (1904), Portugal gave women the vote (1911), Germany became the first country in the world to adopt daylight saving time (1916), the end of British military conscription until World War II (1920), the first federal prison for women opened in West Virginia (1927), Austria adopted a fascist constitution (1934), 90% of Filipino men vote to give Filipino women the right to vote in the Philippines (1937), the World’s Fair opened in Flushing Meadows/Corona Park in Queens (1939), the Soviet Red Army began its assault on the Reichstag in Berlin (1945), the Soviet army liberated Ravensbruck concentration camp (1945), Adolf Hitler & Eva Braun’s suicide in his bunker in Berlin (1945), the charter of the Organization of American States signed in Bogota (1948), Mr. Potato Head first advertisted on television (1952), Ostankino Tower in Moscow became the highest free-standing structure in the world at 540 meters when it was completed (1967), Richard Nixon announced the resignation of H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman & other top aides (1973), Richard Nixon handed over partial transcripts of the Watergate tapes (1974), North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon (1975), Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo begin protesting in Buenos Aires over the forced disappearances of thousands under the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina (1977), Juliana abdicated as queen of the Netherlands, succeeded by Beatrix Milhelmina Armgard (1980), World Wide Web (WWW) launched in the public domain by CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee (1989), 208th & final episode of “The Cosby Show” on NBC (1992), a deranged German stabbed tennis star Monica Seles in Hamburg (1993), 42 million watched Ellen DeGeneres publicly declare she was gay on the ABC sitcom “Ellen” (1997), the Mitchell Report on Israel/Palestine published (2001), CBS broadcast photos of US torture of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib on “60 Minutes” (2004), the skeletal remains of Alexei Nikolaevich & one of his sisters found in Ekaterinburg confirmed by Russian scientists (2008), seven killed & 17 injured in an attack on the Dutch royal family (2009), British combat operations in Iraq formally ended (2009), Willem-Alexander became the first king of the Netherlands in 123 years following the abdication of his mother Beatrix (2013), Bernie Sanders announced his presidential candidacy (2015), Akihito announced his abdication as emperor of Japan (2019), Donald Trump claimed COVID-19 originated in a lab in Wuhan (2020) on this day.
May 1
Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph I (1218), Magnus VI Lagabuter, king of Norway (1238), Joseph Addison (1672), Kamehameha I of Hawaii (1738), Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764), Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (1769), Mother [Mary Harris] Jones (1830), [Robert] Lawson Tait (1845), Calamity Jane [Martha Jane Canary] (1852), Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881), Francis Curzon, 5th Earl Howe (1884), Leo Sowerby (1895), Kate Smith (1907), Glen Ford (1916), Danielle Darrieux (1917), Jack Paar (1918), Art Fleming [Fazzin] (1924), Richard Riordan (1930), Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (1934), Judy Collins (1939), Max Robinson (1939), Joanna Lumley (1946), Dann Florek (1950), Marilyn Milian (1961), Sarah Armstrong-Jones (1964) & Tim McGraw (1967) were born #OnThisDay. Albrecht I von Habsburg (1308), Thomas à Kempis (1471), John Dryden (1700), David Livingstone (1873), Ludwig Büchner (1899), Antonín Dvořák (1904), Joseph Goebbels (1945), Yi Un, last crown prince of Korea (1970), Aram Khachaturian (1978), Sally Kirkland (1989), Eldridge Cleaver (1998) & Olympia Dukakis (2021) died on this day. Diocletian & Maximian retired as Roman emperors (305), England recognized Scotland as an independent state in the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton (1328), Christopher Columbus proposed his plan to search for a western route to India to Isabella of Castille (1486), the Acts of Union united England & Scotland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain (1707), Species Plantarum by Carolus Linnaeus published (1753), Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s “School for Scandal” premiered in London (1777), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducted the premiere of “Le Nozze di Figaro” in Vienna (1786), the British ‘Penny Black’ — the world’s first adhesive postage stamp — issued (1840), Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition opened in the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park (1851), the first part of Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm’s German dictionary published (1852), the Hospital for the Ruptured & Crippled first opens its doors in New York City — the oldest orthopaedic hospital in the United States (1863), Major Gen. Benjamin Butler’s Union forces occupied New Orleans (1862), 29,000 injured or killed in the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia (1863), the Confederate Congress passed a resolution about killing African American soldiers (1863), the Folies Bergère opens in Paris (1869), Emperor Franz Joseph opened 5th World’s Exposition in Vienna (1873), US Admiral George Dewey ordered “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley” as US forces destroyed the Spanish Pacific fleet in the Battle of Manila Bay (1898), Edward VII of England visited Paris (1903), China’s first republican president Yuan Shikai assumed absolute power (1914), the International Congress of Women meeting in the Hague adopted resolutions on peace & women’s suffrage (1915), “L’Ordine Nuovo” Italian socialist weekly newspaper established in Turin by Antonio Gramsci, Angelo Tasca & Palmiro Togliatti (1919), Adolf Hitler & Ernst Röhm called upon Nazis to break up May Day demonstrations (1923), Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie began their first joint venture (later merge into Mercedes-Benz) (1924), Cyprus became a British crown colony (1925), the Ford Motor Company became one of the first companies in the US to adopt a five-day, 40-hour week for workers (1926), the planet Pluto officially named by 11 year-old Venetia Burney (1930), the Empire State Building opened in Manhattan (1931), Kate Smith began her association with CBS, which would continue until 1945 (1931), the Philippine legislature accepted the US proposal for independence (1934), Emperor Haile Selassie fled Ethiopia as Italy invaded (1936), Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Neutrality Act into law (1937), Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 (1939), Orson Welles’ film “Citizen Kane” premiered in Manhattan (1941), General Mills introduced CheeriOats (renamed Cheerios in 1945) (1941), Admiral Karl Doenitz formed a new German government in the wake of Adolf Hitler’s suicide (1945), the Paris Peace Conference concluded that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy (1946), North Korea proclaimed itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (1948), Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical “South Pacific” won a Pulitzer Prize (1950), Babe Didrikson Zaharias won the Peach Blossom LPGA Tournament — her last golf tournament championship before dying of colon cancer (1955), Linda Lawson crowned ‘Miss-Cue’ in the Atomic Pageant after the Operation Cue test was repeatedly delayed by high winds (1955), Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed Law Day as an alternative to May Day (1958), Soviets shot down Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane over Sverdlovsk, provoking a crisis for the Eisenhower administration (1960), Fidel Castro announced that there would be no more elections in Cuba (1961), Harper Lee won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1961), Tanganyika granted full internal self-government by Britain (1961), Indonesia took control of Irian Jaya (western New Guinea) from the Netherlands (1963), Gloria Steinem’s exposé “A Bunny’s Tale” published in “Show” magazine (1963), Anastasio Somoza Debayle became president of Nicaragua (1967), 43 Unification church couples wed in New York City (1969), Amtrak began operation (1971), Cesar Chavez began a 24-day hunger strike in opposition to an Arizona law restricting farm workers’ ability to organize (1972), Ernest Nathan Morial inaugurated as the first African American mayor of New Orleans (1978), Elton John performed in Israel for the first time (1979), the Russian news agency Tass reported the Chernobyl nuclear power plant mishap (1986), Charles Kuralt retired from CBS (1994), Tony Blair led the Labour Party to a landslide victory over the Conservative Party in the British general election (1997), Tasmania became the last state in Australia to decriminalize homosexuality (1997), Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared the existence of a ‘state of rebellion’ in the Philippines after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor Joseph Estrada stormed the presidential palace at height of EDSA III rebellion (2000), Ridley Scott’s film “Gladiator” premiered in Los Angeles (2000), George W. Bush declared ‘mission accomplished’ in Iraq aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (2003), Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia & Slovenia joined the European Union — celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin (2004), the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) provoked the Los Angeles May Day mêlée (2007), Christopher Hitchens’ bestseller “God is Not Great” published (2007), the London Agreement on translation of European patents entered into force in 14 of the 34 contracting states to the European Patent Convention (2008), same-sex marriage recognized in Sweden (2009), Pope Benedict XVI beatified Pope John Paul II (2011), Chinese authorities labeled the British cartoon “Peppa Pig” subversive & removed it from the Douyin video website (2018), Naruhito succeeded Akihito after his abdication as emperor of Japan (2019), Justin Trudeau announced Canada’s ban on 1,500 types of assault-style weapons in response to a mass shooting in Nova Scotia (2020), tweets by Elon Musk saying Tesla’s share price was too high wiped $14 billion off the carmaker’s value (2020), armed protesters swarmed the state capitol in Lansing as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer reinstated a state of emergency in Michigan (2020) on this day.
May 2
Zhu Di — the Yongle emperor of Ming China (1360), Alessandro Scarlatti (1660), Vicente Martín y Soler (1754), Novalis [Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg] (1772), Abraham Gesner (1797), Elijah McCoy (1844), Theodor Herzl (1860), (Frederick) Tyrone Power, Sr. (1869), James F. Byrnes (1879), Hedda Hopper [Elda Furry] (1885), Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron) (1892), Lorenz Hart (1895), Benjamin Spock (1903), Axel Springer (1912), Satyajit Ray (1921), A.M. Rosenthal (1922), Gérard D. Levesque (1926), Faisal II of Iraq (1935), Michael Rabin (1936), Engelbert Humperdinck [Arnold George Dorsey] (1936), Bianca Jagger [Blanca Pérez-Mora Macías] (1945), Lesley Gore [Goldstein] (1946), David Suchet (1946), Philippe Herreweghe (1947), Christine Baranski (1952), Valery Gergiev (1953), Donatella Versace (1955), Stephen Daldry (1960), Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson (1972), Garðar Thór Cortes (1974), David Beckham (1975) & Princess Charlotte of Cambridge (2015) were born #OnThisDay. Leonardo da Vinci (1519), Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester (1711), Alfred de Musset (1857), Eliza Courtney (1859), Giacomo Meyerbeer (1864), Martin Bormann (1945), Joseph McCarthy (1957), Nancy Astor (1964), Franz von Papen (1969), J. Edgar Hoover (1972), Lee Salk (1992), Wilbur Mills (1992), Julio Gallo (1993), Michael Hordern (1995), Paulo Freire (1997), Oliver Reed (1999), Louis Rukeyser (2006), Jack Kemp (2009), Lynn Redgrave (2010), Osama bin Laden (2011), Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (2014), Maya Plisetskaya (2015) & Jacques d’Amboise (2021) died on this day. John Cabot’s expedition set sail from Bristol (1497), Anne Boleyn arrested & taken to the Tower of London (1536), Philip II named Albrecht of Austria guardian of Netherlands (1595), France & Spain signed the Peace of Vervins (1598), the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the War of Devolution, French-Spanish war in The Netherlands (1668), Charles II conferred a royal charter on the Hudson’s Bay Company (1670), Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa authorized the Haugwitzschen state reforms (1749), a Spanish uprising against French occupation began in Madrid (1808), Tsar Nicholas I banned the public sale of serfs in Russia (1833), Stonewall Jackson was wounded by his own men in the midst of the Confederate victory over Union troops at the Battle of Chancellorsville (1863), Andrew Johnson offered a $100,000 reward for capture of Jefferson Davis (1865), the Folies Trévise (later the cabaret hall Folies Bergère) opened as an opera house in Paris (1869), the État Indépendent du Congo (Congo Free State) formed by Leopold II of Belgium (1885), Gioachino Rossini’s corpse transferred to Santa Croce in Florence (1887), Abyssinian Emperor Menelik II & Italy signed the Treaty of Wichale (1889), Oklahoma Territory created (1890), Nicholas II dismissed Sergei Count Witte as Russia’s prime minister & replaced him with the reactionary Ivan Goremykin (1906), French troops occupy Fès in Morocco (1911), Patrick Mahon’s murder of Emily Kaye in Sussex led to the use of rubber gloves a standard practice in British crime investigations (1924), 14-year-old Billie Holiday ^ her mother were arrested on prostitution charges in a raid on a brother in Harlem (1929), Pearl S. Buck won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Good Earth” (1932), Adolf Hitler banned trade unions in Germany (1933), the Inverness Courier reported a sighting of the Loch Ness Monster in April (1933), Sergei Prokofiev’s musical “Peter & the Wolf” premiered in Moscow (1936), Ella Fitzgerald recorded “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” with Chick Webb & His Orchestra (1938), Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town” won a Pulitzer Prize (1938), a million German soldiers surrendered to the Allies in Italy & Austria (1945), Berlin surrendered to the Soviet Red Army (1945), Yugoslav troops occupied Trieste (1945), Tay Garnett’s film “The Postman Always Rings Twice” released (1946), Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” won a Pulitzer Prize (1949), Eugene O’Neill’s play “Moon for the Misbegotten” premiered at the Bijou Theatre in Manhattan (1957), Dick Clark testified in Congressional hearings on the Payola scandal (1960), more than a thousand African American schoolchildren participated in the Children’s March against segregation in Birmingham as part of the Children’s Crusade in Alabama (1963), Spiro Agnew disbarred (1974), the British submarine Conqueror sank the General Belgrano, killing more than 350 Argentinians aboard — the most casualties from any incident during the Falklands/Malvinas War (1983), Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Sunday in the Park with George” won a Pulitzer Prize for drama (1984), South Africa & African National Congress opened talks to end apartheid (1990), the Serbian army seized Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic (1992), Dr. Jack Kevorkian acquitted in assisted suicide cases (1994), police arrested transgendered sex worker Atisone Seiuli with Eddie Murphy (1997), “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” released (1997), Mireya Moscoso became the first woman to be elected president of Panama (1999), Osama bin Laden assassinated by US forces in Abbottabad (2011), pastel version of “The Scream” by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch sold at auction for $119,922,500 (2012), Rhode Island became the 10th US state to recognize same-sex marriage (2013), Kanye West widely criticized for saying “slavery is a choice” in a TMZ interview (2018), the Basque separatist group Eta announced it would disband after 50 years of operations (2018), the discovery of a butchered rhinoceros on Luzon prompted scientists to re-date the earliest hominids in the Philippines to 709,000 years ago (2018), the “Plos One” journal published research about plants communicating through their roots & soil (2018), Iowa enacted a law establishing fetal heartbeat as the standard for viability with regard to abortion (2018), Facebook banned Alex Jones (InfoWars), Milo Yiannopoulos (Breitbart), Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam), Paul Nehlen & Laura Loomer for hate speech (2019), a clean-up on Mt Everest removed three metric tons (6,613 pounds) of rubbish & four bodies in just two weeks (2019) on this day.
May 5
Afonso III of Portugal (1210), Philippe Quinault (1635), Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II (1747), Louis Christophe François Hachette (1800), Søren Kierkegaard (1813), Karl Marx (1818), Doña María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina de Palafox y Kirkpatrick, a.k.a., Eugénie de Montijo, empress of France (1826), Nellie Bly [Elizabeth Cochran Seaman] (1865), Hans Pfitzner (1869), Sylvia Pankhurst (1882), James Beard (1903), Tyrone Power (1914), Georgios Papadopoulos (1919), Richard Wollheim (1923), Leo Ryan (1925), Ann B. Davis (1926), Charles Rosen (1927), Patricia ‘Pat’ Carroll (1927), Sid O’Linn (1927), Michael Murphy (1938), Stanley Cowell (1941), Tammy Wynette [Virginia Pugh] (1942), Michael Palin (1943), John Rhys-Davies (1944), Richard E. Grant (1957), Naomi Klein (1970), Henry Cavill (1983), Adele [Adele Laurie Blue Adkins] (1988), Chris Brown (1989) & Tatiana Celia Kennedy Schlossberg (1990) were born #OnThisDay. Roman Emperor Galerius (311), Alfonso V of León (1028), Friedrich III (Frederick the Wise) (1525), Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (1705), Napoléon Bonaparte (1821), Bret Harte (1902), Carlos Saavedra Lamas (1959), Ludwig Erhard (1977), Michael Shaara (1988), Irving Howe (1993) & Walter Sisulu (2003) died on this day. Kublai Khan became ruler of the Mongol empire (1260), Charles I surrended in Scotland (1646), Russia & Prussia signed the Treaty of St. Petersburg ending the Seven Years’ War (1762), George Washington appointed Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben Inspector General of the Continental Army (1778), Louis XVI convened France’s États-Généraux (Estates-General) at Versailles, meeting for the first time since 1614 (1789), the first published poem of John Keats appeared in “The Examiner” (1816), Napoléon Bonaparte died on St. Helena (1821), the American Medical Association was founded in Philadelphia (1847), Confederate troops abandoned Alexandria (1861), the Mexican army defeated Napoléon III’s French troops in the Battle of Puebla (Cinco de Mayo) (1862), Union & Confederate troops met in the Battle of the Wilderness (1864), the British & Foreign Society for Improving the Embossed Literature of the Blind adopted Braille as best format for blind people (1870), Sitting Bull led a band of followers out of Montana & into Canada to avoid the US Army, returning to the US in 1881 (1877), anti-Jewish rioting in Kyiv (Ukraine) (1881), seven killed in the Bay View Tragedy in Milwaukee (1886), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducted as guest conductor at the opening of Music Hall (Carnegie Hall) in Manhattan (1891), the Panic of 1893 on the New York Stock Exchange (1893), the Soviet Communist Party’s Pravda newspaper began publication (1912), Eugene Bullard earned his pilot’s license from Aéro-Club de France & became the first African-American military pilot (French Air Service) (1917), the delegation from Italy — led by Vittorio Orlando & Sidney Sonnino — returned to the Versailles peace conference in Paris after leaving abruptly 11 days earlier (1919), Woodrow Wilson made the Communist Labor Party illegal in the United States (1920), Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti charged with murder in Massachusetts (1920), Coco Chanel introduced Chanel No. 5 perfume (1921), John Scopes arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee (1925), Afrikaans established as an official language in South Africa (1925), Sinclair Lewis refused a Pulitzer Prize for “Arrowsmith” (1926), Italian troops occupied Addis Ababa (1936), a Norwegian government-in-exile formed in London (1940), Haile Selassie returned to Addis Ababa (1941), Mohandas Gandhi released from prison (1944), the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria liberated by US forces from the 41st Reconnaissance Squadron (1945), the Netherlands & Denmark liberated from Nazi occupation (1945), Germany’s post-Hitler leader Admiral Karl Dönitz ordered all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases (1945), Robert Penn Warren won a Pulitzer Prize for “All the King’s Men” (1947), Bhumibol Adulyadej crowned King Rama IX of Thailand in Bangkok (1950), the “Lucy Does a TV Commercial” (also known as “Vitameatavegamin”) episode of “I Love Lucy” aired, garnering 68% of US television viewers (1952), Gen. Alfredo Stroessner led a military coup état in Paraguay, overthrowing the government of Federico Chávez (1954), the occupation of West Germany ended as the Allies recognized the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany (1955), Alan Shepard, Jr. was launched into space aboard the Freedom 7, becoming the first American in space 1961), “Cien Años de Soledad” (One Hundred Years of Solitude) of Gabriel Garcia Márquez published (1967), Michael Shaara won a Pulitzer Prize for his historical novel “Killer Angels” (1975), Voyager 1 passed Jupiter (1979), the siege of the Iranian embassy in London ended as police & special forces stormed the building (1980), Konstantinos Karamanlis elected president of Greece (1980), Congress began hearings on the Iran-Contra Affair (1987), Jacques Chirac won re-election as president of France, defeating Jean-Marie Le Pen of the Front National (2002), Tony Blair led the Labour Party to its third consecutive British general election victory (2005), Anna Wintour made a Dame Commander of the British Empire by Elizabeth II (2017), Childish Gambino [Donald Glover] released the music video to new single “This is America” (2018), Vajiralongkorn crowned king of Thailand in Bangkok (2019), publication of an article providing evidence of Africa’s earliest burial (of a three-year-old boy in a cave in Kenya) 78,000 years ago (2021) & Apartheid Israel’s move to evict a Palestinian family from their house in Sheikh Jarrah provoked an uprising in illegally occupied East Jerusalem (2021) on this day.
May 10
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (1536), Jean-Marie Leclair l’Aîné (the elder) (1697), Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727), Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760), John Wilkes Booth (1838), Thomas Lipton (1850), Léon Bakst (1866), Gustav Stresemann (1878), Karl Barth (1886), Alfred Jodl (1890), Ariel Durant (1898), Fred Astaire [Frederick Austerlitz] (1899), David O. Selznick (1902), Anatole Litvak (1902), Carl Albert (1908), Denis Thatcher (1915), Milton Babbitt (1916), Ella Grasso (1919), Nancy Walker (1922), Ettore Scola (1931), Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933), Judith Jamison (1943), Mark David Chapman (1955), Sid Vicious [John Simon Ritchie] (1957), Rick Santorum (1958), Bono [Paul Hewson] (1960) & Kenan Thompson (1978) were born #OnThisDay. Katherine Swynford (1403), Johan Banér (1641), Gustaf Horn (1657), Jean de La Bruyère (1696), Louis XV (1774), Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Élisabeth, princesse de France (1794), Comte de Rochambeau (1807), Paul Revere (1818), Katsushika Hokusai (1849), Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson (1863), Henry Morton Stanley (1904), Joan Crawford [Lucille Le Sueur] (1977), John Wayne Gacy (1994), A.M. Rosenthal (2006) & Leyla Gencer (2008) died on this day. Jews in England imprisoned on charges of coining (1278), Scottish nobles recognized the authority of Edward I of England (1291), Temür Khan declared emperor of Yuan China (1294), Jews expelled from Bern (Switzerland) (1427), Christopher Columbus stumbled on the Cayman Islands (1503), Jacques Cartier reached Newfoundland (1534), John Knox led a Protestant uprising against Scotland’s regent Marie de Guise (1559), Jamaica captured by the British (1655), John Wilkes imprisoned for criticizing George III, provoking riots in London (1768), Louis XVI succeeded Louis XV as king of France (1774), Napoléon led his French troops to victory over Austria at the Battle of Lodi (1796), the Barbary pirates of Tripoli declared war on the United States, launching the First Barbary War (1801), Henry Addington resigned as British prime minister, replaced by William Pitt the Younger (1804), the National Gallery in London opened to the public in its temporary home in a townhouse on Pall Mall (1824), New York banks failed in the Panic of 1837 (1837), Astor Place Riot in Manhattan (1849), Sepoy soldiers in Meerut began the great Indian Mutiny against the British East India Company (1857), Battle of Spotsylvania Court House (1864), Confederate president Jefferson Davis captured by Union troops in Georgia (1865), the photo of the Golden Spike completing the transcontinental railroad was taken excluding Chinese laborers (1869), Victoria Woodhull won the Euqal Rights Party’s presidential nomination, the first woman to be nominated for president of the United States (1872), Rutherford B. Hayes had the first telephone installed in the White House (1877), the first appendectomy performed in North America by Abraham Groves in Canada (1883), the Imperial Institute opened in London (1893), the Duma met for the first time in Russia (1906), Victor Emmanuel of Italy & Ludwig Forrer of Switzerland opened the Simplon tunnel between the two countries (1906), Paul Dukas’ opera “Ariane et Barbe Bleue” premiered in Paris (1907), the first Mother’s Day observed in Philadelphia (1908), the British House of Commons enacted political reform through three new statute laws (1910), Canadian physician Cluny MacPherson presented his gas mask invention to the British War Office (1915), Luigi Pirandello’s “Sei Personaggi in Cerca d’Autore” premiered (1921), J. Edgar Hoover appointed head of the FBI (1924), Paraguay declared war on Bolivia (1933),
May 11
Christian I von Anhalt-Bernburg (1568), Victoire de France (daughter of Louis XV) (1733), Chang & Eng Bunker (1811), Harriet Quimby (1875), Irving Berlin [Israel Beilin] (1888), Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (1891), Margaret Rutherford (1892), Martha Graham (1894), William Grant Still (1895), Salvador Dalí (1904), Valentino [Garavani] (1932), Louis Farrakhan (1933), James Jeffords (1934), Mike Lupica (1952), Natasha Richardson (1963), Nina Stemme [Thöldte] (1963), Gunilla Carlsson (1963) & Cory Monteith (1982) were born #OnThisDay. Matteo Ricci (1610), Jules Hardouin Mansart (1708), William Pitt the Elder (1778), Spencer Perceval (1812), John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1960), Alvar Aalto (1976), Bob Marley (1981), Kim Philby (1988), Douglas Adams (2001) & Jerry Stiller (2020) died on this day. Constantine re-named Byzantium ‘Constantinople’ & made it the new capital of the Roman Empire (330), “The Diamond Sutra” — the world’s oldest surviving & dated printed book — printed in Chinese & made into a scroll (868), Matilda of Flanders — wife of William the Conqueror — crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey (1068), Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and 100,000 crusaders departed Regensburg for the Third Crusade (1189), 54 members of the Knights Templar burned at the stake in France for being heretics (1310), Christopher Columbus set out on his fourth & last trip to ‘the Indies’ (1502), peasants besieged Frankenburg estate in Upper Austria (1625), Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam (1647), Battle of Fontenoy (Doornik) in the War of the Austrian Succession (1745), Pennsylvania Hospital founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia (1751), Jean-Baptiste Lamarck gave a lecture outlining his theories of evolution at the Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris (1800), British prime minister Spencer Perceval assassinated by John Bellingham at 49 (1812), the waltz introduced into ballrooms in England (1812), William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland & William Wentworth led an expedition westwards from Sydney, opening inland Australia up for continued expansion throughout the 19th century (1813), the HMS Beagle launched (1820), Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart mortally wounded in the Battle of Yellow Tavern in Virginia (1864), the Treaty of London drafted granting Luxembourg full independence & confirming its neutrality (1867), Russia’s future tsar Nicholas II survived an assassination attempt in Japan (the Otsu Affair) (1891), Tel Aviv became the first all-Jewish municipality in British Mandate Palestine (1921), Weimar Germany agreed to Allied occupation of the Ruhr Valley in lieu of reparations (1921), Robert Frost awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry (1924), Louis B. Mayer formed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (1927), Fritz Lang’s film “M” premiered in Berlin (1931), William Faulkner’s collections of short stories “Go Down, Moses” published (1942), the US Army recaptured the Aleutian island of Attu (1943), the Haganah seized Safed & Haifa (1948), Luigi Einaudi elected president of the Italian Republic (1948), Siam renamed Thailand (1949), Eugene Ionesco’s first play “La Cantatrice Chauve” (The Bald Soprano) premieres in Paris (1950), 1953 Winston Churchill criticized US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ domino theory (1953), Israel attacked the Gaza Strip (1955), Israeli soldiers captured Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires (1960), Antonio Segni electe president of the Italian Republic (1962), “Puff (The Magic Dragon)” by Peter, Paul & Mary hit #2 (1963)
May 12
Gustav Vasa, king of Sweden (1496), Cosimo de Medici (1590), Louis Hennepin (1626), Friedrich Augustus (Frederick Augustus the Strong) of Saxony & Poland (1670), Louis Philippe, duc d’Orléans (1725), Edward Lear (1812), Florence Nightingale (1820), Gabriel Dante Rossetti (1828), Jules Massenet (1842), Gabriel Fauré (1845), Henry Cabot Lodge (1850), Anatoly Lyadov (1855), Katharine Hepburn (1907), Archibald Cox (1912), Howard K. Smith (1914), Mary Kay Ash (1914), Andries Antonie Rieu (1917), Julius Rosenberg (1918), Joseph Beuys (1921), Lorenzo ‘Yogi’ Berra (1925), Burt Bacharach (1928), Tom Snyder (1936), Frank Stella (1936), George Carlin (1937), Gerry Studds (1937), Beryl Burton (1937), Ron Ziegler (1939), Christian Brando (1958), Emilio Estevez (1962), Vanessa Williams (1963), Jared Polis (1975), Rishi Sunak (1980), Rami Malek (1981) & Madeleine McCann (2003) were born #OnThisDay. J.E.B. Stuart (1864), [Friedrich] Bedřich Smetana (1884), Eugène Ysaÿe (1931), Józef Piłsudski (1935), Prince Aly [Ali Salman Aga] Khan (1960), Robert Reed (1992) & Erik Erikson (1994) died on this day. English barons compelled King John to sign Magna Carta (1215), Mughal emperor Shah Jahan commissioned construction of the Red Fort in what is now Delhi (1638), uprising against Philip IV of Spain (1640), Maria Theresa crowned queen of Bohemia in Prague (1733), American Gen. Benjamin Lincoln surrendered Charleston to the British (1780), British & Americans exchanged ratified copies of the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War (1784), William Wilberforce made his first speech in the House of Commons calling for the abolition of the British slave trade (1789), Napoléon’s French troops entered Venice (1797), the first major battle of the Greek War of Independence against Ottoman Turkish rule took place in Valtetsi (1821), Gaetano Donizetti’s opera “L’Elisir d’Amore” premiered at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan (1832), Oscar II crowned king of Sweden (1873), Frederick Middleton defeated Louis Riel & the Métis at the Battle of Batoche (1885), Gen. Józef Piłsudski returned to power in Poland after coup d’état against the Witos regime (1926), Benito Mussolini announced the end of women’s suffrage in Italy a speech to the Italian Senate (1928), Charles Lindbergh’s kidnapped baby found dead in New Jersey (1932), George VI crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey (1937), 1938 Arthur Honegger & Paul Claudel’s oratorio “Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher” (Joan of Arc at the Stake) premiered in Basel (1938), Nazi Germany’s Blitzkrieg in France began with the crossing of the Meuse (1940), Martin Bormann succeeded Rudolf Hess as Adolf Hitler’s deputy (1941), the Tate Modern opened in London (2000), 59 Democrats went into hiding to keep Republicans in the Texas state legislature from pushing through a redistricting plan (2003), Michel Temer became Brazil’s interim president after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (2016), Russia’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 reach 232,000 — the second highest in the world — a day after Vladimir Putin eased the country’s lockdown (2020), & the first images published of the supermassive blackhole Sagittarius A* that lies at the heart of the Milky Way captured by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (2022) on this day.
May 14
Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV of Bohemia (1316), Marguerite de Valois, queen of France (1553), Victor Amadeus II, duke of Savoy & king of Sardinia (1666), Thomas Gainsborough (baptized) (1727), Kurt Eisner (1867), Magnus Hirschfeld (1868), Otto Klemperer (1885), Sidney Bechet (1897), Mohammed Ayub Khan (1907), Franjo Tuđman (1922), Siân Phillips (1934), Bobby Darin [Walden Robert Cassotto] (1936), Francesca Annis (1944), George Lucas (1944), Jill Stein (1950), David Byrne (1952), Norodom Sihamoni, king of Cambodia (1953), Raphael Saadiq (1966), Cate Blanchett (1969), Sofia Coppola (1971) & Mark Zuckerberg (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Henri IV of France (1610), Louis XIII of France (1643), Fanny Cäcilia Mendelssohn Hensel (1847), Carl Schurz (1906), August Strindberg (1912), Henry John Heinz (1919), David Belasco (1931), Magnus Hirschfeld (1935), Gen. Edmund Viscount Allenby (1936), Emma Goldman (1940), Sidney Bechet (1959), Frances Perkins (1965), (Mary) ‘Billie’ Burke (1970), Rita Hayworth [Margarita Cansino] (1987), Jiang Qing [Madame Mao Zedong] (1991), Shintaro Abe (1991), William Randolph Hearst, Jr. (1993), Vera Chapman (1996), Harry Blackstone, Jr. (1997), Frank Sinatra (1998), Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1998), Wendy Hiller (2003), Robert Stack (2003), William Jackson [Pepper LaBeija] (2003), [Riley B.] B.B. King (2015), Tom Wolfe (2018), (Thomas) ‘Tim’ Conway (2019), Grumpy Cat [Tardar Sauce] (2019) & Phyllis George (2020) died on this day. Charles VIII crowned king of France (1483), Louis XII led the French to victory over the Venetians at the Battle of Agnadello (1509), Henri IV of France assassinated by the fanatical Catholic priest François Ravaillac in Paris (1610), Louis XIV became king of France at the age of four (1643), Britain & the Netherlands declared war on France & Spain (1702), Swedish troops under King Charles XII occupied Warsaw (1702), English country doctor Edward Jenner administered his revolutionary cowpox-based vaccine for smallpox Gloucestershire (1796), Friedrich von Schiller’s “Macbeth” premiered in Weimar (1800), Meriwether Lewis & William Clark’s expedition commissioned by Thomas Jefferson set out from St. Louis for Pacific Coast (1804), Paraguay gained independence from Spain (National Day) (1811), Felix Mendelssohn’s concert overture “Hebrides” premiered in London (1832), the “Illustrated London News” — the world’s first illustrated weekly newspaper — begins publication (1842), US patent granted for Vaseline (1878), Emperor Menelik of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) signed a treaty with Britain (1897), Enrico Caruso made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden opposite Nellie Melba in Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto” in London (1902), Sweden adopted universal suffrage for elections to its lower house & proportional representation for both houses (1907), Benito Mussolini’s fascists obtained 29 parliamentary seats in Italian elections (1921), Virginia Woolf’s novel “Mrs Dalloway” published by Hogarth Press (1925), Michael Curtiz & William Keighley’s film “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938), world premiere of Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” with Andre Kostelanetz conducting the Cincinnati Symphony in Ohio (1942),
May 15
Claudio Monteverdi (1567), Clemens von Metternich (1773), Pierre Curie (1859), Richard J. Daley (1902), James Mason (1909), Paul Samuelson (1915), Enrico Berlinguer (1922), Richard Avedon (1923), Peter Shaffer (1926), Jasper Johns (1930), Anna Maria Alberghetti (1936), Madeleine Albright (1937), Paul Rudd (1940), Roger Ailes (1940) & Brian Eno (1948) were born #OnThisDay. Emily Dickinson (1886), Edward Hopper (1967), June Carter Cash (2003) & Jerry Falwell (2007) died on this day. Abd-al-Rahman I became emir of Cordoba (756), Anne Boleyn was executed (1536), the War of the Spanish Succession began (1701), the Royal Italian Opera opened in London’s Covent Garden (1858), the Salon des Refusés opened in Paris (1863), Mickey Mouse made his first appearance in the silent film “Plane Crazy” (1928), the Moscow Metro opened (1935), the British Mandate over Palestine ended (1948), Vincente Minelli’s film “Gigi” premiered in NYC (1958), Peter, Paul & Mary won their first Grammy for “If I Had a Hammer” (1963) & Edith Cresson became the first woman prime minister of France (1991) on this day.
May 16
Ferdinand of Austria, Cardinal-Infante (1609), Friedrich Rückert (1788), William H. Seward (1801), Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804), David Edward Hughes (1831), H.H. Holmes [Herman Webster Mudgett] (1861), Richard Tauber [Denemy] (1891), Henry Fonda (1905), Margret Rey (1906), Studs Terkel (1912), Woody Herman (1913), (Wladziu) Liberace (1919), Adrienne Rich (1929), John Conyers (1929), Claude Morin (1929), Lowell Weicker (1931), Philippe de Montebello (1936), Aldrich Ames (1941), Dan Coats (1943), Danny Trejo (1944), Christian Lacroix (1951), Pierce Brosnan (1953), Debra Winger (1955), Olga Korbut (1955), Janet Jackson (1966), Tucker Carlson (1969) & Tori Spelling (1973) were born #OnThisDay. Charles Perrault (1703), Django Reinhardt (1953), Clemens Krauss (1954), Eliot Ness (1957), a. Philip Randolph (1979), Margaret Hamilton (1985), Jim Henson (1990), Sammy Davis, Jr. (1990), Wilfrid Howard Mellers (2008), Edward Hardwicke (2011), Bob Hawke (2019) & I.M. Pei (2019). Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, crowned the first emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204), Henry III of England laid the foundation stone for a lady chapel as part of the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey in London (1220), Florence became a republic (1527), Sir Thomas More resigned as Henry VIII’s lord chancellor of England (1532), Mary, Queen of Scots fled Scotland, crossing the border into England (1568), Johannes Kepler conceived at 4:37 a.m. by his own calculations (1571), François-Marie Arouet (a.k.a., Voltaire) imprisoned in the Bastille (1717), Samuel Johnson met James Boswell — who would become his biographer — for the first time in London (1763), Denmark abolished the slave trade (1792), Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln for president at their convention in Chicago (1860), the US Senate failed by one vote to convict Andrew Johnson & remove him as president in the first impeachment trial in US history (1868), political crisis in France (1877), Antonín Dvořák’s “Slavonic Dances” premiered (1879), Congress enacted the Sedition Act of 1918 (1918), Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) canonized (1920), “Wings”, Emil Jannings & Janet Gaynor won Academy Awards at the first Academy Awards ceremony (1929), SS General Jürgen Stroop ordered the burning of the Warsaw Ghetto, ending a month of Jewish resistance (1943), Irving Berlin, Dorothy & Herbert Fields’ musical “Annie Get Your Gun” starring Ethel Merman opened at the Imperial Theater in Manhattan (1946), Billie Holiday arrested for possession of narcotics (1947), Chaim Weizmann elected the first president of the state of Israel (1948), Israel issued its first postage stamps (1948), Egyptian troops entered the Gaza Strip (1948), Baudouin visited the Belgian Congo (1955), US-Soviet talks collapsed in the wake of the shooting down of the U-2 spy plane over russia (1960), the Campbell Soup Company introduced SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand (1965), Stokely Carmichael named chairman of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (1966), the May 16 Notification released justifying Mao Zedong’s launch of the Cultural Revolution (1967), workers mounted a general strike in France (1968), Benjamin Britten’s opera “Owen Wingrave” premiered in London (1971), “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes hit #1, retaining the top spot on the charts for the next 9 weeks (1981), Chinese American architect I. M. Pei awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in New York (1983), the discovery of the Ozone Hole announced in the journal “Nature” (1985), Tony Scott’s film “Top Gun” premiered (1986), Mikhail Gorbachev met with Deng Xiaoping in Beijing to end the 30-year rift between their countries (1989), Eugene Stoner met Mikhail Kalashnikov in Washington, D.C. (1990), Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address a joint session of Congress (1991), Day of Mourning in Bykivinia forest to commemorate the execution of over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians by Bolsheviks (2004), Alex Salmond elected first minister of Scotland (2007), Nicolas Sarkozy elected president of the Fifth French Republic (2007), Manmohan Singh led the United Progressive Alliance to victory in the general election in India, increasing the UPA government’s majority in parliament (2009), Bill Gates regained his position as the world’s richest man with $72.7 billion after losing the position in 2008 (2013), Barbara Walters retired from ABC News & “The View” (2014), New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his presidential candidacy (2019), DNA research published in “Current Biology” showed that bedbugs are 115 million years old & outlived the dinosaurs (2019), JC Penney filed for bankruptcy (2020) & Israeli air strikes killed 42 people in its pursuit of genocide in the Gaza Strip (2021) on this day.
May 17
Edmund, Earl of Rutland (1443), Albert, first duke of Prussia (1490), Edward Jenner (1749), Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV & queen of England (1768), Erik Satie (1866), Alfonso XIII of Spain (1886), Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife (1891), Jean Gabin (1904), Zinka Milanov (1906), Maureen O’Sullivan (1911), Archibald Cox (1912), (Märta) Birgit Nilsson (1918), David Ogilvy, Earl of Airlie (1926), Dennis Hopper (1936), Bill Paxton (1955), Bob Saget (1956), Enya [Eithne Ní Bhraonáin] (1961) & Craig Ferguson (1962) were born #OnThisDay. Sandro Botticelli (1510), Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (1521), George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford (1536), Catherine I of Russia (1727), John Jay (1829), Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1838), John Deere (1886), Charles Brooke, 2nd White Rajah of Sarawak (1868-1917) (1917), Paul Dukas (1935), Selwyn Lloyd (1978), Gunnar Myrdal (1987), Lawrence Welk (1992), Donna Summer [LaDonna Gaines] (2012) & Jorge Rafael Videla (2013) died on this day. George Boleyn, 4th Viscount Rochford beheaded (1536), Anne of Denmark crowned queen of Scotland (1590), Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III defeated Elector Maximiilan I of Bavaria (1648), Jouis Joliet & Jacques Marquette began exploring Mississippi (1673), Antonio Vivaldi’s first opera “Ottone in Villa” premiered at the Teatro delle Grazie in Vicenza (1713), Friedrich der Große von Preußen (Frederick the Great) led Prussian troops to victory over Austria at the Battle of Chotusitz (1742), Britain declared war on France in the Seven Years’ War (1756), the Continental Congress banned trade with Canada during the American Revolution (1775), Napoléon’s France annexed the Papal States (1809), Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden & Norway’s new constitution was approved by a constituent assembly at Eidsvoll (1814), six of George Gordon’s friends burnt Lord Byron’s diaries (1824), Frederick Douglass appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, D.C. (1881), Alaska became a US territory (1884), Pietro Mascagni’s opera “Cavalleria Rusticana” (Rustic Chivalry) premiered in Rome at the Teatro Costanzi (1890), John Philip Holland launched the first long-distance submarine (1897), the foundation stone for the Victoria & Albert Museum laid in London (1899), Boxers killed 60 Chinese Christians & burned three villages near Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion (1900), “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum with illustrations by William Wallace Denslow published in Chicago (1900), Maurice Ravel’s song cycle “Shéhérazade” premiered with Jeanne Hatto at the Salle Nouveau Théâtre in Paris (1904), Switzerland’s Simplon tunnel opened to rail traffic (1906), Vidkun Quisling & Johan Bernhard Hjort founded Norway’s fascist Nasjonal Samling party (1933), Nazi German troops occupied Brussels & began the invasion of France (1940), Howard Hughes crashed into Lake Mead while test flying his Sikorsky S-43, killing CAA inspector Ceco Cline & Richard Felt (1943), Harry Truman seized the railroads to delay a strike (1946), the Soviet Union recognized the state of Israel (1948), the British government recognized the new Republic of Ireland (1949), the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education to overturn its 1896 ‘separate but equal’ Plessy vs. Ferguson decision (1954), Thor Heyerdahl & his crew set sail on the Ra II from Morocco to cross the Atlantic Ocean (1970), the Senate Watergate committee began its public hearings (1973), “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Jack Albertson & Michael Learned won Emmy Awards at the 28th Emmy Awards ceremony (1976), Menachem Begin led the Likud party to victory in parliamentary elections in Israel (1977), Prince Charles called the proposed addition to London’s National Gallery a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend” (1984), “Cheers” star Kelsey Grammer sentenced to jail for 30 days for DWI (1990), Massachusetts issued the first marriage licenses to same-sex couples (2004),Narendra Modi led the fascist Hindu Nationalist Party (BJP) to a landslide election victory in India (2014), Gina Haspel confirmed as the first female director of the CIA by the US Senate (2018), Michigan State University ordered to pay $500 million in claims to 300 survivors of sexual abuse involving Larry Nassar in the largest sexual abuse case in sports history (2018), Taiwan’s parliament voted to legalize same-sex marriage, becoming the first Asian country to recognize marriage equality (2019), Benjamin Netanyahu & Benny Gantz formed a new government in Israel after 510 days (2020) on this day.
May 18
May 19
Giovanni della Robbia (1469), Isabella d’Este, Marchesa di Mantova (Marquise of Mantua) (1474), Charlotte von Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744), Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762), Johns Hopkins (1795), Roland Napoléon Bonaparte (1858), Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (1860), Nellie Melba [Helen Mitchell] (1861), Nancy Astor (1879), Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881), Mohammed Mosaddeq (1882), Ho Chi Minh (1890), Florence Chadwick (1918), David McLean [Eugene Joseph Huth] (1922), Malcolm X [Little], Pol Pot (1925), Guy Provost (1925), Lorraine Hansberry (1930), David Hartman (1935), Moisés da Costa Amaral (1938), Nancy Kwan (1939), Jane Brody (1941), Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. (1941), Nora Ephron (1941), Pete Townshend (1945), Ashraf Gani (1949), Joey Ramone [Jeffrey Hyman] (1951) & Nicole Brown Simpson (1959) were born #OnThisDay. Alcuin of York (804), Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury (988), Stephen, Comte de Blois (1102), Anne Boleyn (1536), Juan Bautista de Toledo (1567), Button Gwinnett (1777), James Boswell (1795), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1864), William Ewart Gladstone (1898), T.E. Lawrence [Lawrence of Arabia] (1935), Booth Tarkington (1946), Charles Ives (1954), Ronald Colman (1958), Ogden Nash (1971), John Betjeman (1984), Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1994), Tony Randall [Leonard Rosenberg] (2004), Garret FitzGerald (2011), Morley Safer (2016) & Alix Dobkin (2021) died on this day. Nôtre Dame de Paris consecrated by Henri Cardinal de Château-Marçay & Maurice de Sully (1182), Georg von Sachsen-Meissen sold Friesland for 100,000 golden guilders to Habsburg Archduke Charles of Austria (1515), public unveiling of Titian’s masterpiece “Assumption of the Virgin” over the altar of the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice (1518), Anne Boleyn executed by Henry VIII (1536), Elizabeth Tudor ordered the arrest of Mary, Queen of Scots (1568), Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi founded Manila in the Philippines (1571), Philip II launched the Spanish Armada against Elizabeth Tudor’s England (1588), Cardinal Richelieu directed France’s declaration of war on Spain (1635), the French army defeated the Spanish army at the Battle of Rocroi (Allersheim) (1643), George II granted the Ohio Company a charter to settle the Ohio Valley (1749), the Order of the Legion d’Honneur founded in France (1802), Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner spoke out against slavery (1856), Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show opened in Oamaha (1883), the Ringling Brothers circus premiered (1884), Germany took possession of Cameroon & Togoland (1885), Camille Saint-Saëns conducted the premiere of his 3rd Symphony in C at St. James Hall in London (1886), Oscar Wilde released from Reading Gaol (1897), Maurice Ravel’s opera “L’Heure Espagnole” premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris (1911), Mustafa Kemal Atatürk landed at Samsun on the Black Sea coast, beginning the Turkish War of Independence (1919), Pope Pius XI canonized John Cardinal Fisher & Sir Thomas More (1935), Berlin declared ‘Judenrein’ (1943), 240 Roma (Gypsies) transported to Auschwitz from Westerbork in the Netherlands (1944), Harold Pinter’s play “Birthday Party” premiered in London (1958), Patricia Harris became the first African American woman appointed a US ambassador (to Luxembourg) (1965), Valéry Giscard d’Estaing elected president of the Fifth French Republic (1974), Sophia Loren jailed in Naples for tax evasion (1982), Stephen Spielberg’s film “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” premiered (1997), Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko” premiered at the Cannes film festival (2007), Sri Lanka’s government announced its victory over the Tamil Tigers after a 25-year civil war (2009), “Glee” premiered on Fox TV (2009), historic first handshake between Prince Charles & Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams at the National University of Ireland in Galway (2015), Meghan Markle married Prince Harry in Windsor Castle (2018), Elizabeth II created Prince Harry & Meghan Markle Duke & Duchess of Sussex (2018), the BBC investigation finds Martin Bashir’s 1995 interview with the Princess of Wales was secured through ‘deceitful behavior’ (2021) on this day.
May 20
Henry Percy [Harry Hotspur] (1364), Pietro Bembo (1470), Jacob Jordaens (1593), Andreas Schlüter (1660), William Bradford 1663), William Thornton (1759), Honoré de Balzac (1799), John Stuart Mill (1806), Sigrid Undset (1882), Faisal I of Iraq (1883), Beniamino Gigli (1890), James Stewart (1908), Bill Hewlett (1913), Moshe Dayan (1915), José Mujica (1935), María Luisa Ozaita (1939), Cher [Cherilyn Sarkisian] (1946), Tony Goldwyn (1960), Dan Abrams (1966) & Doug the Pug (2011) were born #OnThisDay. Lorenzo de’ Medici (1503), Christopher Columbus (1506), Catarina Sforza, duchess of Forlí (1509), Marquis de Lafayette (1834), Clara Schumann (1896), Hector Guimard (1942), Max Beerbohm (1956), Walter Winchell (1972), Dame Barbara Hepworth (1975), Gilda Radner (1989), Jean-Pierre Rampal (2000), Stephen Jay Gould (2002), Hamilton Jordan (2008) & Robin Gibb (2012) died on this day. First Council of Nicaea (325), Second Battle of Lincoln (1217), shoes made for both right & left feet (1310), Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut, becoming the first European to reach India by sea (1498), William Shakespeare’s Sonnets first published in London by publisher Thomas Thorpe (1609), Magdeburg destroyed by Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II’s army under Johann Graf Tilly (1631), England’s parliament enacted the Act of Grace pardoning the followers of James II (1690), Charles X became king of France (1825), Otto named the first king of post-Ottoman Greece (1835), York Minster badly damaged by fire (1840), the cornerstone of the University of Washington laid in Seattle (1861), Kentucky proclaimed its neutrality in the Civil War (1861), North Carolina became the 11th & last state to secede from the Union (1861), Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law to provide cheap land for the settlement of the American West (80 million acres by 1900) (1862), the British parliament rejected John Stuart Mills’ proposal for women’s suffrage (1867), Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone for the Royal Albert Hall of Arts & Sciences (1867), Republicans meeting in Chicago nominated Ulysses Grant for president (1868), capital punishment abolished in the Netherlands (1870), Levi Strauss & Jacob Davis patented the first blue jeans with copper rivets (1873), Henrik Ibsen’s “Ghosts” (Gengangere) premiered in Chicago (1882), British House of Commons began debate on the Congo Free State (1903), nine kings gathered for Edward VII’s funeral (1910), Charles Lindbergh flew out of New York to Paris (1927), Saudi Arabia became independent through the Treaty of Jeddah (1927), Amelia Earhart left Newfoundland, becoming the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic (1932), Engelbert Dolfuss became chancellor of Austria (1932), Nazi Germany’s army broke through to the English Channel at Abbéville (1940), Nazi Germany began its airborne invasion of Crete (1941), Sukarno appointed president of Indonesia (1963), US troops captured ‘Hamburger Hill’ (Hill 937) after 10 days of battle (1969), the Quebecois rejected separation from Canada by 59.5% (1980), CBS News fired Connie Chung (1995), the US Supreme Court handed down Romer v. Evans, the first LGBT rights victory in the court’s history (1996), Frank Sinatra buried (1998), Mary Kay Letourneau married her former student Vili Fualaau (2005), the Church of Scotland voted to allow openly gay men & women to be ordained (2013), David Letterman’s last “Late Show” segment (2015) & Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela won re-election amidst charges of vote rigging (2018) on this day.
1
Aurelia Cotta (mother of Julius Caesar) (120 BCE), Albrecht Dürer (1471), Philip II of Spain (1527), Alexander Pope (1688), Lucien Bonaparte (1775), Elizabeth Fry (1780), Henri Rousseau (1844), Armand Hammer (1898), Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller (1904), Edward Lockspeiser (1905), Guy de Rothschild (1909), Harold Robbins (1916), Raymond Burr (1917), Andrei Sakharov (1921), Malcolm Fraser (1930), Maurice André (1933), Heinz Holliger (1939), Mary Robinson (1944), Richard Hatch (1945), Rosalind Plowright (1949), Al Franken (1951), Mr. T [Lawrence Tureaud] (1952), Judge Reinhold (1957) & Jeffrey Dahmer (1960) were born #OnThisDay. Henry VI of England (1471), Christian I of Denmark (1481), Pandolfo Petrucci (1512), Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk (1524), Hernando de Soto (1542), Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée de Beaumont, Chevalier d’Éon (1810), Franz von Suppé (1895), Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1929), John Henry Mackay (1933), Jane Addams (1935), Ida Kamińska (1980), Kenneth Clark (1983), Rajiv Gandhi (1991), Les Aspin (1995), Barbara Cartland (2000) & Sir John Gielgud (2000) died on this day. Pope Gregory V crowned his cousin Otto III as Holy Roman Emperor in Peter’s Basilica in Rome (996), Kublai Khan launched his second invasion of Japan (1281), Charles VI of France signed the Treaty of Troyes with Henry V of England making Henry heir to the throne of France upon Charles VI’s death (1420), Jan Sobieski elected king of Poland (1674), Catherine I of Russia created the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (1725), Napoléon suffered his first defeat in 10 years at the hands of Archuke Charles at the Battle of Aspern-Essling (1809), Frederic Mistral, Joseph Roumanille & five other Provençal poets founded the literary & cultural association Félibrige (1854), Lawrence captured & sacked by pro-slavery forces in Kansas (1856), Richmond designated the capital of the Confederacy (1861), thousands of Circassians forced into exile as Russia ended the Russian-Circassian War — the Circassian Day of Mourning (1864), 17,000 killed by the French army in its attack on the Paris Commune (1871), the American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton (1881), Ruggero Leoncavallo’s opera “I Pagliacci” premiered in Milan (1892), 22-year-old French anarchist Émile Henry executed by guillotine, declaring “Courage, camarades! Vive l’anarchie!” (1894), Louis Botha became the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa (1910), French troops entered Fez in Morocco to quell anti-European agitation (1911), the US House of Representatives voted in favor of a constitutional amendment allowing women to vote (1918), Mexico’s president Venustiano Carranza is executed by army generals after fleeing an armed rebellion in Mexico (1920), Amelia Earhart became the first woman to complete a transatlantic solo flight (1932), Sada Abe arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover’s severed genitals in her hand, creating one of Japan’s most notorious scandals (1936), Paul Reynaud formed a new government in France (1940), Heinrich Himmler captured (1945), Guy Mollet’s government resigned in France (1957), Leontyne Price became the first African American to sing in a leading role at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in “Aida” (1960), Robert F. Kennedy’s murderer Sirhan Sirhan sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment (1969), White Night riots broke out in San Francisco after Dan White was given a lenient sentence for assassinating Mayor George Moscone and the openly gay elected official Harvey Milk (1971), François Mitterrand elected the first (nominally) socialist president of France (1981) on this day.
May 22
Louis de Buade de Frontenac (1622), Richard Wagner (1813), Mary Cassatt (1844), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859), Laurence Olivier (1907), Hergé (Georges Prosper Remi) (1907), Harry Ritz [Joachim] (1907), Anatol Rapoport (1911), Charles Aznavour [Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian] (1924), T. Boone Pickens (1928), Harvey Milk (1930), Michael Sarrazin (1940), Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a., the ‘Unabomber’ (1942), Bernie Taupin (1950), Lisa Murkowski (1957), Naomi Campbell (1970) & Novak Đoković [Djokovic] (1987) were born #OnThisDay. Constantine the Great (337), Israel ben Eliezer (1760), Martha Custis Washington (1802), Victor Hugo (1885), Langston Hughes (1967), Margaret Rutherford (1972), Mieczyslaw Horoszowski (1993) & Dina Merrill (2017) died on this day. Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia at the Battle of the Granicus (334 BCE), the Jews of Brussels massacred & expelled (1370), the Wars of the Roses began with the Battle of St. Albans (1455), Christian IV of Denmark & Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II signed the Peace of Lübeck (1629), the foundation stone laid for the Würzburger Residenz (completed in 1744) (1720), Napoleon issued a statement in support of the Judaization of Jerusalem (1799), former US vice-president Aaron Burr tried (but acquitted) on treason charges in Richmond (1807), U.S. Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina assaulted Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the floor of the Senate (1856), Ulysses Grant began the siege of Vicksburg (1865), the Associated Press organized as a non-profit news cooperative (1900), Battle of Verdun (1916), Adolf Hitler & Benito Mussolini’s ‘Pact of Steel’ (1939), the “Vier Letzte Lieder” of Richard Strauß premiered in London (1950), LBJ’s ‘Great Society’ speech (1964) & Joe Clark succeeded Pierre Trudeau as Canada’s prime minister (1979) on this day.
May 23
Philip I of France (1052), Song emperor Qinzong (1100), Carolus Linnaeus (1707), Ambrose Burnside (1824), Helmuth von Moltke (1848), Douglas Fairbanks (1883), Pär Lagerkvist (1891), Jean Françaix (1916), Max Abramovitz (1908), Artie Shaw [Arthur Arshawsky] (1910), Betty Garrett (1919), Alicia de Larrocha (1923), Nigel Davenport (1928), Rosemary Clooney (1928), Alan García (1949), Martin McGuinness (1950), William Barr (1950), Anatoly Karpov (1951), Drew Carey (1958) & Ken Jennings (1974) were born #OnThisDay. Holy Roman Emperor Henry V (1125), Girolamo Savonarola (1498), William Kidd (1701), Kit Carson (1868), Leopold von Ranke (1886), Henrik Ibsen (1906), Ranavalona III of Madagascar (1917), Clyde Barrow & Bonnie Parker (1934), John D. Rockefeller (1937), Heinrich Himmler (1945), Wilhelm Kempff (1991), Lloyd Bentsen (2006), Roh Moo-hyun (2009), John Nash (2015), Anne Meara (2015) & Roger Moore (2017) died on this day. Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) captured at Compiegne & sold to the English (1430), Dutch declared independence from Spain (1568), Tycho Brahe given Hveen Island to build Uraniborg Observatory (1576), Matthias von Habsburg became king of Bohemia (1611), the Second Defenestration of Prague (1618), Charles II sailed from Scheveningen to England (1660) Captain William Kidd hanged in London (1701), the Duke of Marlborough led allied forces to victory over Louis XIV’s France at the Battle of Ramillies (1706), Benjamin Franklink announced his invention of bifocals (1785), Simón Bolívar proclaimed ‘El Libertarod’ upon entering Mérida (1813), Associated Press News Service formed in New York (1900), Wisconsin enacted a law creating the first direct primary election in the United States (1203), US troops captured Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo (1901), New York Public Library dedicated by William Howard Taft (1911), Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary (1915), “Shuffle Along” — the first major African American hit musical — premiered on Broadway (1921), Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow gunned down (1934), George VI’s cousin Louis Louis Mountbatten survived the German sinking of the British destroyer HMS Kelly but was ultimately assassinated by an IRA bomb in 1979 (1941), Admiral Karl Dönitz & other top Nazi leaders arrested by the Allies, who formally dissolve the Third Reich (1945), Heinrich Himmler’s suicide (1945), William Joyce (‘Lord Haw-Haw’) arrested (1945), Federal Republic of Germany created (1949), Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward (1958) Israel announced the capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina (1960), a tsunami hit Hawaii, killing 61 people in Hilo (1960), the US Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of convicted Watergate conspirators H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman & John Mitchell (1977), “All That Jazz” directed by Bob Fosse & “Kagemusha” directed by Akira Kurosawa jointly awarded the Palme d’Or at the 33rd Cannes Film Festival (1980) Ronald Reagan awarded Jimmy Stewart the Presidential Medal of Freedom & promoted him to Major General on the Retired List (1985), George H.W. Bush orders Coast Guard to intercept boats with Haitian refugees (1992), the Good Friday Agreement approved by 75% in a referendum in Northern Ireland (1998), Russia & China vetoed the UN Security Council resolution that would have established an International Criminal Court for war crimes in Syria (2014), 62% of voter voted to legalize same-sex marriage in Ireland (2015), Donald Trump met with Pope Francis in the Vatican (2017), Hamburg became the first city to ban diesel cars on some roads (2018), Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide re-election victory over the opposition Congress Party in India (2019), 50 children rescued from an international paedophile ring on the dark web in Thailand, Australia & the US by Interpol under Operation Blackwrist with the main organizer sentenced to 146 years (2019), the Clotilda — the last slave ship to bring slaves to the US from Africa, sunk in 1860 — found in the Mobile River in Alabama (2019) & Aleksandr Lukoshenko accused of ‘state-sponsored hijacking’ after diverting a commercial Ryanair flight to Minsk to arrest Belarus dissident journalist Roman Protasevich (2021) on this day.
May 24
Julius Caesar Germanicus (15 BCE), John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale (1616), Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686), Jean-Paul Marat (1743), Oliver Cromwell (1753), Abraham Geiger (1810), Queen Victoria (1819), Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven (1854), Arthur Wing Pinero (1855), Benjamin Cardozo (1870), an Christiaan Smuts (1870), Samuel Newhouse, Sr. (1895), Wilbur Mills (1909), Barbara West (1911), Theodore Hesburgh (1917), Jane Byrne (1933), Thomas ‘Tommy’ Chong (1938), Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) (1941), Patti LaBelle (Holte) (1944), Priscilla Presley (1945), Jim Broadbent (1949), Roseanne Cash (1955), Kristin Scott Thomas (1960), John C. Reilly (1965) & Jacob Rees-Mogg (1969) were born #OnThisDay. Taejo (Yi Seong-gye), king of Korea (1408), Nicolaus Copernicus (1543), Robert Cecil 1st Earl of Salisbury (1612), William Lloyd Garrison (1879), John Foster Dulles (1959), Edward ‘Duke’ Ellington (1974), Hermione Gingold (1987), Harold Wilson (1995), Dick Martin (Thomas Richard) (2008), Anneliese Rothenberger (2010) & Stormé DeLarverie (2014) died on this day. Malcolm IV became king of Scots (1153), the Fifth Crusade left Acre for Egypt (1218), Magnus Ladulås crowned king of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral (1276), Aldersgate Day — John Wesley’s conversion, launching the Methodist movement (1738), Louis Mandrin sentenced to be broken on the wheel (1755), John Hancock unanimously elected president of the Continental Congress (1775), Irish rebellion against British rule (1798), Simón Bolívar won the independence of Ecuador from Spain at the Battle of Pichincha (1822), “Mary Had A Little Lamb” by Sarah Josepha Hale first published by Boston firm Marsh, Capen & Lyon (1830), first telegraph message tapped out by Samuel Morse (1844), escaped slave Anthony Burns arrested by US marshals in Boston under the Fugitive Slave Act (1856), Union Major Gen. Benjamin Butler declared slaves ‘contraband of war’ (1861), Chester Alan Arthur & Grover Cleveland opened the Brooklyn Bridge (1883), Dr. Josef Mengele became the ‘Angel of Death’ as the Auschwitz concentration camp’s new doctor (1943), Iceland voted to sever ties with Denmark (1944) & Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister to visit Israel (1986) on this day.
May 25
Jacopo da Pontormo (Carucci) (1494), John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803), Jacob Burckhardt (1818), Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson (1878), Igor Sikorsky (1889), Bennett Cerf (1898), U Nu (1907), Princess Deokhye of Korea (1912), John Weitz (1923), Robert Ludlum (1927), Beverly Sills (Belle Miriam Silverman) (1929), Ian McKellen (1939), Leslie Uggams (1943), Eve Ensler (1953), Larry Hogan (1956), Amy Klobuchar (1960), Mike Myers (1963) & Yahya Jammeh (1965) were born #OnThisDay. Madam C.J. Walker (Sarah Breedlove) (1919), Gustav Holst (1934), Witold Pilecki (1948), Robert Capa (1954), Rosa Ponselle (Ponzillo) (1981) & George Floyd (2020) died on this day. Martin Luther & his followers outlawed by the Edict of Worms (1521), Charles II of England landed at Dover (1660), Samuel Taylor Coleridge poems (including “Kubla Khan”) published by John Murray in London (1816), American Unitarian Association founded (1825), Gilbert & Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” premiered in London (1878), gas lamp at the Palais Garnier (Opéra de Paris) caught fire, killing 200 (1887), Oscar Wilde sentenced to two years’ prison for gross indecency (1895), Republic of Formosa formed (1895), José Porfirio Diaz overthrown in a revolution in Mexico (1911), Irish Home Rule bill passed the British House of Commons (1914), 105,000 killed in the Second Battle of Ypres (1915), Abdullah & Transjordan recognized by Britain (1923), Jordan independent from Britain (1946), Witold Pilecki executed by Communist police in Warsaw (1948), Organization for African Unity formed by Chad, Mauritania & Zambia (1963) & Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd (2020) on this day.
May 26
Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici) (1478) Dirck Janszoon Sweelinck (1591), Philippe de Champaigne (1602), John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough (1650), Queen Mary (May von Teck, queen consort to George V of England) (1867), Isadora Duncan (1877), Al Jolson (Asa Yeolson) (1886), Estes Kefauver (1903), John Wayne (Marion Robert Morrison) (1907), Laurance Rockefeller (1910), Peter Cushing (1913), Peggy Lee (Norma Delores Egstrom) (1920), Miles Davis (1926), Jack Kevorkian (‘Dr. Death’) (1928), Teresa Stratas (1938), Stephanie ‘Stevie’ Nicks (1948), Hank Williams, Jr. (1949), Pam Grier (1949), Jeremy Corbyn (1949), Sally Ride (1951), Michael Portillo (1953), Helena Bonham Carter (1966) & Lauryn Hill (1975) were born #OnThisDay. Samuel Pepys (1703), Georges Gilles de la Tourette (1904), Victor Herbert (1924), Martin Heidegger (1976), George Ball (1994), Fritz Freleng (1995), Eddie Albert (2005), Sydney Pollack (2008), Art Linkletter (2010) & Zbigniew Brzezinski (2017) died on this day. Mystic Massacre in the first Pequot War (1637), Kaspar Hauser discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg (1828), Dred Scott & family freed three months after US courts ruled against his owner Henry Taylor Blow (1857), Andrew Johnson’s conviction fails in the Senate by one vote (1868), Nicholas II’s coronation in Moscow (1896), Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” published (1897), Germany’s Reichstag enacted legislation organizing Alsace & Lorraine as an autonomous state with a legislature (1911), Vladimir Lenin suffered a stroke (1922), Calvin Coolidge signed an immigration bill into law (further) restricting immigration to the US (1924), Anthony Eden led the Conservative Party to victory in the British general election (1955), San Francisco’s Union Square designated a state historical landmark (1958) & “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” released by EMI (1967) on this day.
May 27
Ibn Khaldūn (1332), Elisabeth Charlotte ‘Liselotte’ of the Palatinate, duchess of Orleans (1652), Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794), Julia Ward Howe (1819), Wild Bill Hickok (1837), Georges Rouault (1871), Dashiell Hammett (1894), Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894), Conrad Elvehjem (1901), Rachel Carson (1907), Hubert Humphrey (1911), Teddy Kollek (1911), John Cheever (1912), Christopher Lee (1922), Henry Kissinger (1923), Lee Meriwether (1935), Louis Gossett, Jr. (1936), Christopher Dodd (1944), Pauline Hanson (1954) & Joseph Fiennes (1970) were born #OnThisDay. Ludovico Sforza (1508), Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (1541), John Calvin (1564), François de Coligny d’Andelot (1569), François Ravaillac (1610), Marguerite de Valois (1615), Marquise de Montespan (1707), Niccolo Paganini (1850) & Jawaharlal Nehru (1964) died on this day. England’s parliament enacted the Habaeus Corpus Act (1679), Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg (1703), Euston Station’s Great Hall opened (1849), Alexander III crowned tsar in Moscow (1883), Chinese gold miners were slaughtered in the Hells Canyon Massacre (1887), Japan destroyed half of Russia’s fleet in the Battle of Tsushima (1905), the Golden Gate Bridge opened (1937), Dunkirk evacuation began (1940), Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “Huis Clos” premiered in Paris (1944), European Defense Community formed (1952), Jomo Kenyatta elected first prime minister of Kenya (1963), the Sex Pistols released their song “God Save the Queen” (1977), Gwangju massacre of Koreans participating in a popular uprising against the military dictatorship (1980), the Mafia bombed the Uffizi in Florence, killing six (1993), Christopher Reeve paralyzed after a horse riding accident (1995), Slobodan Milošević indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (1999), & DreamWorks’ film “Madagascar” released (2005) on this day.
May 28
Jean Sans Peur (John the Fearless), Duke of Burgundy (1371), George I of England (1660), Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738), William Pitt the Younger (1759), Edvard Beneš (1884), Ian Fleming (1908), Barry Commoner (1917), Gyorgy Ligeti (1923), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925), Martha Vickers (1925), Bulent Ecevit (1925), Edward Seaga (1930), Stephen Birmingham (1931), Betty Shabazz (1940), Maeve Binchy (1940), Gladys Knight (1944), Rudy Giuliani (1944), Hunter ‘Patch’ Adams (1945), Steve King (1949), Marco Rubio (1971) & Prince Louis de Bourbon (2010) were born #OnThisDay. Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich (1672), Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan (1707), Noah Webster (1843), Anne Brontë (1849), John, 1st Earl Russell (1878), US troops scored their first victory in World War I in an Allied offensive at Cantigny (1918), Unity Mitford (1948), Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor) (1972), Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (1973), Marta Scott (2003), Gary Coleman (2010), Maya Angelou (2014) & Harambe (2016) died on this day. The Spanish Armada sailed from Lisbon (1588), Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law (1830), Paris Commune crushed (1871), John Muir co-founded the Sierra Club (1892), Édouard & André Michelin incorporated the Michelin tyre company (1889), Neville Chamberlain became British prime minister (1937), Volkswagen founded (1937), King Leopold III surrendered Belgium to Nazi Germany (1940), last trip of the Orient Express (1961), Amnesty International’s first campaign launched (1961), Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) formed in Jerusalem (1964), US troops abandoned Ap Bia Mountain (a.k.a., ‘Hamburger Hill’) (1969), George Soros founded the Soros Foundation (1984), Mathias Rust landed in Moscow’s Red Square (1987), Addis Ababa fell to Ethiopian rebels of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), ending 17 years of Marxist rule (1991), Bill Clinton’s cronies Jim Guy Tucker, James McDougal & Susan McDougal convicted of fraud (1996) & Phil Hartman was murdered by his wife (1998) on this day.
May 29
Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier (Grand Mademoiselle) (1627), Charles II of England (1630), Patrick Henry (1736), Isaac Albéniz (1860), G.K. Chesterton (1874), Oswald Spengler (1880), Josef von Sternberg (1894), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897), Bob (Leslie Townes) Hope (1903), Desmond Shawe-Taylor (1907), Tenzing Norgay (1914), Karl Münchinger (1915), John F. Kennedy (1917), Bishop Gene Robinson (1947), Danny Elfman (1953), John Hinckley, Jr. (1955), LaToya Jackson (1956), Annette Bening (1958), Rupert Everett (1959), Melissa Etheridge (1961), Melanie Brown (1975) & Laverne Cox (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Bartolomeu Dias (1500), Joséphine de Beauharnais (1814), Sojourner Truth addressed the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention (1851), Winfield Scott (1866), Baha’u’llah (1892), William Schwenck Gilbert (1911), Josef Suk (1935), John Barrymore (1942), May Whitty (1948), Fanny Brice (1951), Mary Pickford (1979), Romy Schneider (1982), Erich Honecker (1994), Margaret Chase Smith (1995), Barry Goldwater (1998), Archibald Cox (2004), Karlheinz Böhm (2014) & Manuel Noriega (2017) died on this day. Sassanid Persian army defeated by Roman Emperor Julian at the Battle of Ctesiphon (363), Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa defeated by the Lombard League at the Battle of Legnano (1176), end of the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (1453), Admiral Yi Sun-shin introduced the turtle ship in the Battle of Sacheon (1592), Charles II returned from exile to become king of England (1660), Peter the Great became tsar of Russia (1727), Patrick Henry’s speech against the Stamp Act (1765), Wisconsin became the 30th state (1848), Abraham Lincoln said “You can fool some of the people…” (1849), Maximilian arrived at Veracruz to start his reign as emperor of Mexico (1864), Switzerland’s constitution goes into effect (1874), “L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” premiered by the Ballets Russes in Paris (1912), “Le Sacre du Printemps” ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris (1913), Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” recorded by Bing Crosby (1942), Edmund Hillary & Tenzing Norgay reach the summit of Mount Everest (1953), “Twilight Zone: The Movie” director John Landis found innocent of involuntary manslaughter in death of actor Vic Morrow and 2 child actors during filming (1987), Goddess of Democracy constructed in Tiananmen Square (1989), Boris Yeltsin elected president of the Russian Federation (1990), “Roseanne” cancelled by ABC (2018), gender identity disorder removed from the list of mental illnesses kept by the World Health Organization (2019) on this day.
May 30
Alexander Nevsky (1220), Peter Carl Fabergé (1846), Giovanni Gentile (1875), Riccardo Zandonai (1883), Howard Hawks (1896), Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Perry) (1902), Benny Goodman (1909), George London (1920), Christine Jorgensen (1926), Gustav Leonhardt (1928), Keir Dullea (1936), Bertrand Delanoë (1950) & Idina Menzel (1971) were born #OnThisDay. Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) (1431), Charles IX of France (1574), Christopher Marlowe (1593), Peter Paul Rubens (1640), Alexander Pope (1744), François Boucher (1770), Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) (1778), Wilbur Wright (1912), Georg von Trapp (1947), Boris Pasternak (1960), Rafael Trujillo (1961), Claude Rains (1967), Marcel Dupré (1971), Zinka Milanov (1989), Claude Pepper (1989), Giorgio Tozzi (2011), Joseph (Beau) Biden III (2015) & Thad Cochran (2019) died on this day. Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) burnt at the stake (1431), Margaret of Anjou crowned queen consort of England (1445), Hernando de Soto’s expedition landed in Florida (1539), Henri III succeeded Charles IX as king of France (1574), Christopher Marlowe killed in a tavern brawl (1593), Kansas-Nebraska Act repealing the Missouri Compromise (1854), Bedrich Smetana’s opera “Die Verkaufte Braut” (The Bartered Bride) premiered in Prague (1866), the first major Memorial Day observance held at Arlington National Cemetery as ‘Decoration Day’ (1868), the Treaty of London ended the First Balkan War (1913), Salzburg voted to join Germany (1921), Lincoln Memorial dedicated (1922), Fred Korematsu arrested for resisting the internment of Japanese Americans (1942), Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” premiered (1962), Republic of Biafra declared in Nigeria (1967), Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” published in Buenos Aires (1967), Mariner 9 departed for Mars (1971), Mikhail Gorbachev met with George Bush in Washington, D.C. (1990), Betty Shabazz set on fire by 12-year-old grandson (1997), “Finding Nemo” released (2003), Narendra Modi sworn in for a second term as India’s prime minister (2019) & R. Kelly was charged with 11 new counts of sexual abuse & assault in Chicago (2019) on this day.
May 31
Margaret Beaufort (1443), Manuel I of Portugal (1469), Feodor I of Russia (1557), Marin Marais (1656), Walt Whitman (1819), Big Ben rang for the first time (1859), Norman Vincent Peale (1898), Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson (1912), Alfred Deller (1912), Alida Valli (Baroness Alida von Marckenstein-Frauenberg) (1921), Prince Rainier III of Monaco (1923), Patricia Roberts Harris (1924), Clint Eastwood (1930), Shirley Verrett (1931), Peter Yarrow (1938), Terry Waite (1939), Joe Namath (1943), Sharon Gless (1943), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945), Viktor Orbán (1963), Brooke Shields (1965) & Colin Farrell (1976) were born #OnThisDay. Petronius Maximus (455), Cecily Neville (1495), Tintoretto (1594), Franz Joseph Haydn (1809), Elizabeth Blackwell (1910), Billy Strayhorn (1967) & Martha Mitchell (1976) died on this day. Rameses II became pharaoh of Egypt (1279 BCE), Romans breached the first wall of Jerusalem (70), Samuel Pepys recorded the last entry in his diary (1669), Madison Square Garden opened (1879), French fleet began its siege of Tamatave, Madagascar (1883), Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented ‘flaked cereal’ (1884), Treaty of Vereeiniging ended the Boer War (1902), Kaiser Wilhelm II arrived in Tangier (1905), Battle of Jutland (1916), Tulsa Race Massacre (1921), Dunkirk evacuated (1940), Crete taken by Nazi Germany (1941), the Luftwaffe bombed Canterbury (1942), Benjamin Netanyahu elected prime minister of Israel (1996), “Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban” released (2004), W. Mark Felt’s family revealed him to have been the ‘Deep Throat’ of Watergate (2005), Israeli military murdered 9 activists on the Mavi Marmara (2010), Psy’s “Gangnam Style” became the first video to reach 2 billion views on YouTube (2014), CNN fired Kathy Griffin over her Trump photo (2017) & Kim Kardashian met with Donald Trump to discuss prison reform (2018) on this day.
June 1
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury (1563), Christiane Vulpius, wife of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1765), Brigham Young (1801), Mikhail Glinka (1804), Otto of Greece (1815), Carl Bechstein (1826), John Marshall Harlan (1833), Frank Morgan (1890), Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson) (1926), Pat Boone (1934), Morgan Freeman (1937), René Auberjonois (1940), Edo de Waart (1941), Carol Neblett (1946), David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) (1953), Heidi Klum (1973), Alanis Morissette (1974), Amy Schumer (1981) & Tom Holland (1996) were born #OnThisDay. Władysław II Jagiełło, king of Lithuania & later also Poland (1434), Tokugawa Ieyasu (1616), James Buchanan (1868), Napoléon IV (1879), Lizzie Borden (1927), Leslie Howard (1943), John Dewey (1952), Adolf Eichmann (1962), Helen Keller (1968), Giuseppe Ungaretti (1970), Reinhold Niebuhr (1971) & Ann B. Davis (2014) died on this day. Genghis Khan’s Mongols captured Beijing (1215), Anne Boleyn crowned queen of England (1533), Battle of Öland (1676), Tennessee admitted as the 16th state (1796), Charles Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du Mal” published (1857), African Slave Trade Treaty concluded between the US & UK (1862), Herbert Hoover caught in the Boxer Rebellion (1900), Franz von Papen appointed Reichskanzler (1932), Nazi ban on Catholic publications in Germany (1941), Crete taken by Nazi German forces (1941), Holocaust deaths made public for the first time (1942), Charles de Gaulle elected prime minister of France (1958), Adolf Eichmann executed in Israel (1962), “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” released by the Beatles (1967), Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” hit #1 on the charts (1968), CNN launched (1980), Connie Chung joined Dan Rather as co-anchor of the CBS Evening News (1993), J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Beren & Lúthien” published posthumously (2017), Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy defeated in a vote of no confidence (2018), Giuseppe Conte sworn in as Italian prime minister (2018) & Rouzan al-Najjar was murdered by Israeli snipers (2018) on this day.
June 6
Diego Velázquez (1599), Pierre Corneille (1606), Nathan Hale (1755), Alexander Pushkin (1799), Alexandra Feodorovna (Princess Alix of Hesse) (1872), Thomas Mann (1875), Ninette de Valois (1898), Sukarno (1901), Isaiah Berlin (1909), Peter Carrington, 6th Baron Carrington (1919), Klaus Tennstedt (1926), Tom Ryan (1926), George Deukmejian (1928), Albert II of Belgium (1934), Marian Wright-Edelman (1939), Alexander Cockburn (1941), Holly Near (1949), Harvey Fierstein (1954), Sandra Bernhard (1955), Björn Borg (1956) & Paul Giamatti (1967) were born #OnThisDay. Patrick Henry (1799), Christiane Vulpius (1816), Jeremy Bentham (1832), Friedrich Hölderlin (1843), Count Camillo Benso di Cavour (1861), Yuan Shikai (1916), Gerhard Hauptmann (1946), Carl Jung (1961), Robert F. Kennedy (1968), Randolph Churchill (1968), J. Paul Getty (1976), Jack Haley (1979), Anne Bancroft (2005), Esther Williams (2013), Ronnie Gilbert (2015) & Peter Shaffer (2016) died on this day. Gustav Vasa elected king of Sweden, ending the Union of Kalmar (1523), Queen Christina’s abdication as queen of Sweden (1654), Sweden’s new constitution ending absolute monarchy (1809), YMCA founded by George Williams in London (1844), Paris Métro Line 5 inaugurated (1906), D-Day landing in Normandy (1944), Gaza occupied by Israel on the second day of the Six-Day War (1967), Robert F. Kennedy died from his wounds (1968), Indian troops stormed the Golden Temple of Amritsar (1984), “Sex & the City” premiered on HBO (1998) & Edward Snowden disclosed NSA mass surveillance (2013) on this day.
June 7
Alois Hitler (1837), Charlotte of Belgium (Carlotta of Mexico) (1840), Susan Blow (1843), Paul Gauguin (1848), Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868), Imre Nagy (1896), George Szell (1897), Jessica Tandy (1909), Peter Rodino (1909), Dean Martin [Dino Paul Crocetti] (1917), Georges Marchais (1920), Philippe Entremont (1934), Neeme Järvi (1937), Tom Jones [Woodward] (1940), Jaime Laredo (1941), Muammar Gaddafi (1942), Liam Neeson (1952), Prince [Rogers Nelson] (1958), Mike Pence (1959), Roberto Alagna (1963) & Bill Hader (1978) were born #OnThisDay. Robert the Bruce, King of Scots (1329), Louise de La Vallière (1710), Franz Xavier Gruber (1863), Chief Seattle (1866), Edwin Booth (1893), Jean Harlow (1937), Alan Turing (1954), Judy Holliday (1965), Jean Arp (1966), Dorothy Parker (1967), E.M. Forster (1970), [Francis] Max Factor (1996) & Christopher Lee (2015) died on this day. Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520), Pope Clement VII’s surrender to Charles V’s armies (1527), Louis XIV crowned king of France (1654), Great Plague of London (1665), British Museum founded (1753), “Essay on the Principle of Population” by Thomas Malthus published (1798), Abraham Lincoln nominated for re-election by the Republican Party (1864), Mohandas Gandhi’s first act of civil disobedience (1893), Norway dissolved its union with Sweden (1905), Moshe Dayan ordered an Israeli attack on the USS Liberty (1967), Sirhan Sirhan indicted for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (1968), West German Chancellor Willy Brandt visited Israel (1872), NBC Nightly News premiered (1976), Anita Bryant’s crusade against the Miami gay rights law (1977), James Byrd, Jr. dragged to death (1998) & Tony Blair led Labour to a second landslide victory in the British general election (2001) on this day.
June 8
Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625), Tommaso Albinoni (1671), Robert Schumann (1810), Frank Lloyd Wright (1867), Byron White (1917), Robert Preston [Meservey] (1918), Suharto (1921), Lyn Nofziger (1924), Barbara Bush (1925), Jerry Stiller (1927), Joan Rivers (1933), Nancy Sinatra (1940), William Calley, Jr. (1943), Emanuel Ax (1949), Tim Berners-Lee (1955), Julianna Margulies (1966), Gabrielle Giffords (1970), Kanye West (1977) & Andrea Casiraghi (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Edward the Black Prince (1376), Louis XVII of France (1795), Thomas Paine (1809), Sarah Kemble Siddons (1831), Andrew Jackson (1845), Abraham Maslow (1970), Sani Abacha (1998), Richard Rorty (2007), Omar Bongo (2009), Paul Cellucci (2013) & Anthony Bourdain (2018) died on this day. Elabagalus became Roman emperor (218), Italy invaded by Attila the Hun (452), death of the Prophet Muhammad (632) Viking sack of St. Cuthbert’s monastery on Lindisfarne Island (793), German Confederation of 39 states (1815), Theodore Roosevelt sent notes to Russia & Japan offering to serve as an intermediary in peace talks (1905), ‘Thailand’ replaced ‘Siam’ (1949), George Orwell’s “1984” published (1949), USS Liberty attacked by Israel (1967), James Earl Ray captured (1968), Kurt Waldheim elected president of Austria (1986) & Theresa May’s snap election cost the Conservative Party its majority in the British House of Commons (2017) on this day.
June 9
Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (1640), Tsar Feodor II of Russia (1661), Peter the Great [Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov] (1672), George Stephenson (1781), Frederic de Merode (1792), Carl Otto Nicolai (1810), Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836), Carl Nielsen (1865), Cole Porter (1891), Robert McNamara (1916), Eric Hobsbawm (1917), Princess Ragnhild Alexandra of Norway (1930), Donald Duck (1934), Nathanile Rosen (1948), Benny Gantz (1959), Michael J. Fox (1961), Aaron Sorkin (1961, Johnny Depp (1963) & Natalie Portman (1981) were born #OnThisDay. Claudia Octavia (62), Nero (68), St. Columba (597), Jeanne d’Albret (1572), Pauline Bonaparte (1825), James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak (1868), Charles Dickens (1870), Carrie Nation (1911), Victoria Woodhull (1927), Robert Donat (1958), Claudio Arrau (1991) & Adam West (2017) died on this day. Emperor Nero killed himself (68), Duccio’s Maestà altarpiece unveiled in Siena (1310), Jacques Cartier sailed into the mouth of the St. Lawrence River (1534), Book of Common Prayer adopted by the Church of England (1549), Congress of Vienna concluded (1815), Paul Gauguin arrived in Tahiti (1891), Boxers destroyed the race course in Beijing (1900), Donald Duck first appeared in the cartoon “The Wise Little Hen” (1934), Bhumibol Adulyadej succeeded Ananda Mahidol as king of Thailand (1946), Joseph Welch asked Joseph McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” (1954), the LDS Mormon church repealed its ban on black men in the priesthood (1978), General Efraín Rios Montt declared himself president of Guatemala (1982), Margaret Thatcher led the Conservative Party to a landslide victory in the British general election (1983), Edward Snowden outed himself as the NSA whistleblower (2013) & Laverne Cox the first transgendered person on the cover of Time magazine (2014) on this day.
June 12
John Roebling (1806), Egon Schiele (1890), Anthony Eden (1897), David Rockefeller (1915), Uta Hagen (1919), George H.W. Bush (1924), Ann Frank (1929), Jim Nabors (1930) & Oliver Knussen (1952) were born #OnThisDay. Medgar Evans (1963), Saul Alinsky (1972), Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1994), Nicole Brown Simpson (1994), Ron Goldman (1994), Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1995), Gregory Peck (2003) & William S. Sessions (2020) died on this day. The Peasants’ Revolt began in England (1381), the Act of Settlement enacted by British parliament (1701), Captain George Vancouver on the site of the future city (1792), France’s colonization of Algeria began at Sidi Ferruch (1830), Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy established (1867), Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed the independence of the Philippines (1898), Anne Frank began keeping a diary (1942), Medgar Evers assassinated (1963), “Cleopatra” premiered (1963), Nelson Mandela jailed (1964), Indira Gandhi convicted of election fraud (1975), Central African Republic ex-emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa sentenced to death (1987), Ronald Reagan’s Berlin speech (1987), Boris Yeltsin elected president of the Russian Federation (1991), O.J. Simpson murdered Nicole Brown Simpson & Ron Goldman (1994), the Globe Theatre opened in London (1997), the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando (2016), Otto Warmbier’s return from North Korea (2017) & Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un (2018) on this day.
June 19
James VI of Scotland/James I of England (1566), Blaise Pascal (1623), Alfredo Catalani (1854), Douglas Haig (1861), José Rizal (1861), May Whitty (1865), Wallis Warfield Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (1896), Moe Howard (1897), Guy Lombardo (1902), Lou Gehrig (1903), Mildred Natwick (1905), Pauline Kael (1919), Louis Jourdan [Louis Robert Gendre] (1921), Howell Heflin (1921), Nancy Marchand (1928), Aung San Suu Kyi (1945), Tobias Wolff (1945), Radovan Karadžić (1945), Salman Rushdie (1947), Phylicia Rashad (1948), Kathleen Turner (1954), Anne Hidalgo (1959), Boris Johnson (1964), Jean Dujardin (1972) & Hugh Dancy (1975) were born #OnThisDay. Piers Gaveston (1312), François, Duke of Alençon & Anjou (1584), Maximilian von Habsburg, emperor of Mexico (1867), J.M. Barrie (1937), Julius & Ethel Rosenberg (1953), Sam Giancana (1975), William Golding (1993), James Gandolfini (2013) & Ian Holm (2020) died on this day. Louis IX’s decree ordering Jews in France to wear a yellow badge in public (1269), National Assembly abolished titles of nobility in France (1790), Gioachino Rossini’s opera “Il Viaggio a Rheims” premiered (1825), Sir Robert Peel introduced the Metropolitan Police Act (1829), Juneteenth in Texas (1865), Emperor Maximilian of Mexico executed (1867), Republicans nominated William McKinley & Theodore Roosevelt (1900), “Moon Mullins” comic strip (1923), Julius & Ethel Rosenberg executed (1953), Civil Rights Act passed the Senate 73-27 (1964), Edward Heath led Conservatives to victory in the British general election (1970), “Garfield” comic strip (1978), Vincent Chin murdered (1982), Global Seed Vault ceremonial foundation in Spitsbergen (2006) & Felipe VI became king of Spain after the abdication of his father Juan Carlos (2014) on this day.
June 8
Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625), Tommaso Albinoni (1671), Robert Schumann (1810), Frank Lloyd Wright (1867), Byron White (1917), Robert Preston [Meservey] (1918), Suharto (1921), Lyn Nofziger (1924), Barbara Bush (1925), Jerry Stiller (1927), Joan Rivers (1933), Nancy Sinatra (1940), William Calley, Jr. (1943), Emanuel Ax (1949), Tim Berners-Lee (1955), Julianna Margulies (1966), Gabrielle Giffords (1970), Kanye West (1977) & Andrea Casiraghi (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Edward the Black Prince (1376), Louis XVII of France (1795), Thomas Paine (1809), Sarah Kemble Siddons (1831), Andrew Jackson (1845), Abraham Maslow (1970), Sani Abacha (1998), Richard Rorty (2007), Omar Bongo (2009), Paul Cellucci (2013) & Anthony Bourdain (2018) died on this day. Elabagalus became Roman emperor (218), Italy invaded by Attila the Hun (452), death of the Prophet Muhammad (632) the Viking sack of St. Cuthbert’s monastery on Lindisfarne Island initiated the Viking era (793), the German Confederation was formed out of 39 states (1815), Theodore Roosevelt sent notes to Russia & Japan offering to serve as an intermediary in peace talks (1905), ‘Thailand’ replaced ‘Siam’ (1949), George Orwell’s “1984” published (1949), USS Liberty attacked by Israel (1967), James Earl Ray captured (1968), Kurt Waldheim elected president of Austria (1986) & Theresa May’s snap election cost the Conservative Party its majority in the British House of Commons (2017) on this day.
June 10
Jacques Marquette (1637), James Stuart (‘the Old Pretender’) (1688), Gustave Courbet (1819), John Jacob Astor III (1822), Hattie McDaniel (1895), Frederick Loewe [Friedrich Löwe] (1901), Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911), Saul Bellow (1915), Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh (1921), Judy Garland [Frances Gumm] (1922), Robert Maxwell [Jan Hoch] (1923), Nat Hentoff (1925), Lionel Jeffries (1926), Maurice Sendak (1928), Edward O. Wilson (1929), F. Lee Bailey (1933), Jeff Greenfield (1943), Simon Jenkins (1943), Timothy Va Patten (1959), Eliot Spitzer (1959), Kate Snow (1969), Piyush ‘Bobby’ Jindal (1971) & Sasha Obama (2001) were born #OnThisDay. Alexander the Great (323 BCE), Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1190), Marie de Guise (1560), François, duc d’Alençon & d’Anjou (1584), Ernest Chausson (1899), Edward Everett Hale (1909), Antoni Gaudi (1926), Frederick Delius (1934), Marcus Garvey (1941), Sigrid Unset (1949), Spencer Tracy (1967), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1982), Hafez al-Assad (2000), John Gotti (2002), Donald Regan (2003), Ray Charles (2004) & Lee Hee-ho (2019) died on this day. Chartres Cathedral destroyed by fire (1194), Battle of Záblatí in the Thirty Years’ War (1619), Bridget Bishop — the first of the victims of the Salem Witch Trials — hanged (1692), Benjamin Franklin flew his kite (1752), Chicago Tribune began publishing (1847), Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan und Isolde” premiered in Munich (1865), Alcoholics Anonymous founded (1935), Italy declared war on Britain & France (1940), Norway surrendered to Nazi Germany (1940) & the Six-Day War ended with the illegal occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem & the Gaza Strip (1967) on this day.
June 11
Edmund Tudor (1430), Anne Neville (1456), Ben Jonson (1572), John Constable (1776), Richard Strauss (1864), Jeannette Rankin (1880), Jacques Cousteau (1910), Vince Lombardi (1913), Erving Goffman (1922), Queen Fabiola of Belgium (1928), Charles Rangel (1930), Athol Fugard (1932), Gene Wilder (1933), Chad Everett [Raymon Lee Cramton] (1937), Adrienne Barbeau (1945), Henry Cisneros (1947), Hugh Laurie (1959), Mehmet Oz (1960), Sophie Okonedo (1968) & Peter Dinklage (1969) were born #OnThisDay. Marie de Guise (1560), George I of England (1727), Elisabeth Farnese, queen of Spain (1766), Klemens Wenzel von Metternich (1858), Alexander I & Draga of Serbia (1903), Thích Quảng Đức (1963), Six-Day War ended with Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories (1967) Alexander Kerensky (1970), John Wayne [Marion Mitchell Morrison] (1979), Enrico Berlinguer (1984), Karen Ann Quinlan (1985), DeForest Kelley (1999), Timothy McVeigh (2001), David Brinkley (2003), Egon von Fürstenberg (2004), Ghen Dimitrova (2005), Ruby Dee (2014) & Martin Feldstein (2019) died on this day. Henry VIII wed Catherine of Aragon (1509), Cardinal Fleury became prime minister of France (1726), Rutherford B. Hayes nominated for president by the Republican Party (1876), Spain declared war on the United States (1898), Italy declared war on the Allies (1940), the University of Alabama desegregated (1963), Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức’s immolation in Saigon (1963), Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister in 160 years to win a third consecutive term (1987) & “Jurassic Park” set a box office weekend record of $502 million (1993) on this day.
June 18
Ottaviano Petrucci (1466), Ignaz Joseph Pleyel (1757), Édouard Daladier (1884), Anastasia Nikolaevna (1901), Jeanette MacDonald (1903), Keye Luke (1904), E.G. Marshall (1914), Tom Wicker (1926), Paul Eddington (1927), Jürgen Habermas (1929), Jay Rockefeller (1937), Paul McCartney (1942), Roger Ebert (1942), Thabo Mbeki (1942), Éva Marton (1948), William Randolph Hearst III (1949), Lech Kaczyński (1949), Jaroslaw Kaczyński (1949), Isabella Rossellini (1952), Idriss Déby (1952), Uday Hussein (1964) & Blake Shelton (1976) were born #OnThisDay. Rogier van der Weyden (1464), Helmuth von Moltke (1916), Robert M. La Follette (1925), Roald Amundsen (1928), Maxim Gorky (1936), Roberto Calvi (1982), Nancy Marchand (2000) & Vera Lynn (2020) died on this day. Henri d’Anjou secretly left Poland (1574), William Penn founded Philadelphia (1682), the US declared war on Britain in the War of 1812 (1812), Battle of Waterloo (1815), Carl Maria von Weber’s opera “Der Freischütz” premiered in Berlin (1821), Dowager Empress Cixi ordered the I-Ho-Chuan (Boxers) to kill all foreigners (1900), Winston Churchill’s ‘finest hour’ speech (1940), Pierre Mendès-France formed a government (1954), Edward Heath led the Conservative Party to victory in the British general election (1970), Juan Carlos abdicated as king of Spain (2014), Emmanuel Macron’s party La République en Marche won a majority in French parliamentary elections (2017) & Donald Trump announced his candidacy for re-election (2019).
June 19
James VI of Scotland/James I of England (1566), Blaise Pascal (1623), Alfredo Catalani (1854), Douglas Haig (1861), José Rizal (1861), May Whitty (1865), Wallis Warfield Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (1896), Moe Howard (1897), Guy Lombardo (1902), Lou Gehrig (1903), Mildred Natwick (1905), Pauline Kael (1919), Louis Jourdan [Louis Robert Gendre] (1921), Howell Heflin (1921), Nancy Marchand (1928), Aung San Suu Kyi (1945), Tobias Wolff (1945), Radovan Karadžić (1945), Salman Rushdie (1947), Phylicia Rashad (1948), Kathleen Turner (1954), Anne Hidalgo (1959), Boris Johnson (1964), Jean Dujardin (1972) & Hugh Dancy (1975) were born #OnThisDay. Piers Gaveston (1312), François, Duke of Alençon & Anjou (1584), Maximilian von Habsburg, emperor of Mexico (1867), J.M. Barrie (1937), Julius & Ethel Rosenberg (1953), Sam Giancana (1975), William Golding (1993), James Gandolfini (2013) & Ian Holm (2020) died on this day. Louis IX’s decree ordering Jews in France to wear a yellow badge in public (1269), National Assembly abolished titles of nobility in France (1790), Gioachino Rossini’s opera “Il Viaggio a Rheims” premiered (1825), Sir Robert Peel introduced the Metropolitan Police Act (1829), Juneteenth in Texas (1865), Emperor Maximilian of Mexico executed (1867), Republicans nominated William McKinley & Theodore Roosevelt (1900), Julius & Ethel Rosenberg executed (1953), Civil Rights Act passed the Senate 73-27 (1964), Edward Heath led Conservatives to victory in the British general election (1970), “Garfield” comic strip (1978), Vincent Chin murdered (1982), Global Seed Vault ceremonial foundation in Spitsbergen (2006) & Felipe VI became king of Spain after the abdication of his father Juan Carlos (2014) on this day.
June 20
Sigismund III Vasa of Poland, Lithuania & Sweden (1566), Salvatore Rosa (1615), Kurt Schwitters (1887), Jean Moulin (1899), Lillian Hellman (1905), Errol Flynn (1909), Jean-Marie Le Pen (1928), Martin Landau (1928), Ronald Hines (1929), Edith (Schlain) Windsor (1929), Olympia Dukakis (1931), Danny Aiello (1933), Stephen Frears (1941), Brian Wilson (1942), Anne Murray (1945), André Watts (1946), Linel Richie (1949), John Goodman (1952), Michael Landon Jr. (1964), Nicole Kidman (1967) & Patrisse Cullors (1983) were born #OnThisDay. Axel von Fersen (1810), Manuel Belgrano (1820) & Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel (1947) died on this day. Ottoman Turkish pirates began raiding Icelandic villages (1627), Black Hole of Calcutta (1756), Oath of the Tennis Court (1789), Louis XVI captured in the ‘Nuit de Varennes’ (1791), Queen Victoria succeeded William IV (1837), West Virginia admitted to statehood (1863), Andrew Johnson announced Alaska purchase (1867), Lizzie Borden acquitted (1893), Baron von Ketteler killed by Boxers in Beijing (1900), German chancellor Philipp Scheidemann resigned in protest against the Treaty of Versailles (1919), Deutsche Mark introduced in West Germany (1948), CIA Act enacted (1949), Georges Pompidou inaugurated as president of France (1969) & the Bundestag voted to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin (1991) on this day.
June 21
Ernst, Duke of Coburg (1818), Reinhold Niebuhr (1892), Al Hirschfeld (1903), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905), Jane Russell (1921), Judy Holliday (1921), Maureen Stapleton (1925), Carl Stokes (1927), Judith Raskin (1928), Bernie Kopell (1933), Françoise Sagan [Quoirez] (1935), Mariette Hartley (1940), Marjorie Margolies Medzvinsky (1942), William Bradford Reynolds (1942), Malcolm Rifkiind (1946), Maurice Saatchi (1946), Dana Rohrbacher (1947), Shirin Ebadi (1947), Benazir Bhutto (1953), Joko Widodo (1961), Gretchen Carlson (1966), Chris Pratt (1979), Prince William (1982), Jussie Smollett (1982), Edward Snowden (1983) & Lana Del Rey [Elizabeth Grant] (1985) were born #OnThisDay. Wenceslaus II of Bohemia & Poland (1305), Edward III of England (1377), Niccolo Machiavelli (1527), Oda Nobunaga (1582), Jon Smith (1631), Inigo Jones (1652), Antonio López de Santa Anna (1876), Leland Stanford (1893), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1908), Édouard Vuillard (1940), Andrew Goodman, James Chaney & Michael Schwerner (1964), Bernard Baruch (1965), Sukarno (1970), Alan Hovhaness (2000), CArroll O’Connor (2001), Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila (2005) & Charles Krauthammer (2018) died on this day. Vespasian led Roman troops into Jericho during the Great Jewish Revolt (68), Catherine of Aragon’s appearance before the Blackfriars Legatine Court (1529), great fire in Moscow (1547), St. Paul’s Cathedral foundation stone laid (1675), New Hampshire ratified the Constitution(1788), Louis XVI captured at Varennes (1791), Richard Wagner’s opera “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” premiered in Munich (1868), Frank Woolworth opened his first store (1879), Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee (1887), Theodore Roosevelt nominated by Republicans (1904), Arthur Miller refused to name Communists (1956), Andrew Goodman, James Chaney & Michael Schwerner murdered in Mississippi (1964), “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” released (1966), Menachim Begin elected prime minister of Israel (1977), Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice’s musical “Evita” premiered in London (1978), Socialist/Communist majority elected in France’s parliamentary elections (1981), JK Rowling’s fifth book “Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix” published (2003) on this day.
June 22
George Vancouver (1757), Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767), Giuseppe Mazzini (1805), Frank Damrosch (1859), Erich Maria Remarque (1898), Jennie Tourel (1900), John Dillinger (1903), Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906), Billy Wilder (1906), Peter Pears (1910), Joseph Papp (1921), Bill Blass (1922), Prunella Scales (1932), Dianne Feinstein (1933), Kris Kristofferson (1936), Ed Bradley (1941), Michael Lerner (1941), Klaus Maria Brandauer (1944), Jerry Rawlings (1947), Lindsay Wagner (1949), Meryl Streep (1949), Elizabeth Warren (1949), Graham Greene (1952), Cyndi Lauper (1953), Erin Brockovich (1960), Dan Brown (1964), Carson Daly (1973) & Bob the Drag Queen [Christopher Caldwell] (1986) were born #OnThisDay. Bishop John Fisher (1535), Vladimir Köppen (1940), David O. Selznick (1965), Judy Garland [Frances Gumm] (1969), Darius Milhaud (1974), Joseph Losey (1984), Fred Astaire [Austerlitz] (1987), Pat Nixon (1993) & Ann Landers [Eppie Lederer] (2002) died on this day. Bilbo Baggins returned to Bag End after his great adventure in “The Hobbit” (1342 in the reckoning of the shire), richard II succeeded Edward II as king of England (1377), Battle of Morat/Murten (1476), Bishop John Fisher executed (1535), Henry Hudson set adrift in Hudson Bay by mutineers (1611), Galileo Galilei forced to recant by the Inquisition (1633), Royal Greenwich Observatory established by Charles II (1675), Frederick the Great decreed freedom of religion & the press & the end of torture (1740), Zong slave ship trial (1783), Napoleon’s second abdication (1815), June uprising in Paris (1848), Haakon VII crowned king of Norway (1906), George V crowned king of England (1911), France’s surrender to Nazi Germany (1940), Nazi German invasion of Russia (Operation Barbarossa) (1941), FDR signed the GI Bill into law (1944), Battle of Okinawa ended (1945) & musicians & film industry professionals were named as Communists (1950) on this day.
June 23
Oda Nobunaga (1534), Johan Banér (1596), Justus Schottel (Schottelius) (1612), Maria Leszczyńska, queen of France (1703), Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763), Ernest Guiraud (1837), Anna Akhmatova (1889), Alfred Kinsey (1894), Edward VIII of England (1894), Jean Anouilh (1910), Alan Turing (1912), William P. Rogers (1913), Jean, Grand Duc du Luxembourg (1921), Bob Fosse (1927), Michael Shaara (1928), June Carter Cash (1929), James Levine (1943), Clarence Thomas (1948), Frances McDormand (1957), Selma Blair (1972) & Zinedine Zidane (1972) were born #OnThisDay. Emperor Vespasian (79), Cecil Sharp (1924), Reinhold Glière (1956), Sanjay Gandhi (1980), Vincent Chin (1982), Jonas Salk (1995), Andreas Papandreou (1996), Betty Shabazz (1997), Maureen O’Sullivan (1998) & Peter Falk (2011) died on this day. The Alþingi established in Iceland (930), William Penn’s treaty of friendship with the Lenni Lenape (1683), French Acadians ordered to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia (1713), Louis XVI rejected the demands of the Third Estate (National Assembly) (1789), Catherine the Great granted Jews permission to settle in Kiev (1794), Adolf Hitler toured Paris (1940), Gamel Abdel Nasser elected president of Egypt (1956) & a Thai soccer team became trapped in a cave (2018) on this day.
June 24
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (1533), St. John of the Cross [Juan de Yepes y Álvarez] (1542), Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771), Horatio Kitchener (1850), Agrippina Vaganova (1879), Gerrit Rietveld (1888), Pierre Fournier (1906), John Ciardi (1916), Albert ‘Al’ Molinaro (1919), Pete Hamiill (1935), Julia Kristeva (1941), Michele Lee (1942), George Pataki (1945), Robert Reich (1946) & Mindy Kaling (1979) were born #OnThisDay. Lucrezia Borgia (1519), Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1604), Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia (1860), Grover Cleveland (1908), John Herbert ‘Jackie’ Gleason (1987), Rufino Tamayo (1991), Brian Keit (1997) & Patsy Ramsey (2006) died on this day. Battle of Bannockburn (1314), St. John’s Dance in Aachen (1374), Henry VIII crowned king of England (1509), Gustav Vasa initiated the Reformation in Sweden, seizing Catholic church property (1527), King Philip’s War began (1675), France’s first republican constitution adopted (1793), Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grand Armée began its invasion of Russia (1812), Battle of Solferino (1859), Adolf Hitler began a month-long prison sentence (1922), Soviet blockade of West Berlin began (1948), US Senate repealed the Gul of Tonkin resolution (1970) & Chinatown garment workers launched a strike in NYC (1982) on this day.
June 25
Antoni Gaudí (1852), Gustave Charpentier (1860), Louis Mountbatten (1900), George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair] (1903), Sidney Lumet (1924), June Lockhart (1925), James Meredith (1933), Larry Kramer (1935), Marabel Morgan (1937), Carly Simon (1945), Jimmy Walker (1947), Phyllis George (1949), Sonia Sotomayor (1954), Anthony Bourdain (1956), Ricky Gervais (1961), George Michael [Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou] (1963) & Rain [Jung Ji-hoon] (1982) were born #OnThisDay. Mary Tudor, queen of France (1533), George Armstrong Custer (1876), Jonny Mercer (1976), Michel Foucault (1984), Warren Burger (1995), Jacques Cousteau (1997), Lester Maddox (2003), Michael Jackson (2009) & Farah Fawcett (2009) died on this day. Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to received a Ph.D. (1678), Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876), Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Firebird” premiered at the Opéra de Paris (1910), Korean War (1950), Madagascar declared its independence from France (1960), Prince’s “Purple Rain” album released (1984), Vigdis Finnbogadóttir elected president of Iceland (1988), & Kim Campbell was elected prime minister of Canada (1993) on this day.
June 26
Charles Messier (1730), Patrick Branwell Brontë (1817), Abner Doubleday (1819), William Thomson, Fist Baron Kelvin (1824), George Herbert, 5th Earl Carnarvon (1866), Pearl Buck (1892), Willy Messerschmmitt (1898), Hugues Cuénod (1902), Peter Lorre (1904), Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911), Aimé Césaire (1913), Wolfgang Windgassen (1914), Claudio Abbado (1933), Chuck Robb (1939), Greg Le Mond (1961), Mikhail Khodorkovsky (1963), Sean Hayes (1970) & Ariana Grande (1993) were born #OnThisDay. Julian the Apostate, Francisco Pizarro (1541), George IV (1830), Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1836), Strom Thurmond (2003), Dennis Thatcher (2003), Liz Claiborne (2007) & Nora Ephron (2012) died on this day. Roman Emperor Julian killed in battle (363), Pied Piper of Hamelin (Lüneburg manuscript) (1284), Duke of Gloucester becomes Richard III of England (1483), Swedish troops under Gustaf Adolf landed at Peenemunde (1630), Hong Kong proclaimed a British crown colony (1843), Richard Wagner’s opera “Die Walküre” premiered in Munich (1870), Victoria & Albert Museum opened in London (1909), Gustav Mahler’s 9th Symphony premiered in Vienna (1912), US troops arrived in France (1917), FDR signed the Federal Credit Union Act in to law (1934), United Nations Charter signed by 50 member states in San Francisco (1945), US airlift to Berlin began (1948), St. Lawrence Seaway opened (1959), JFK’s speech in Berlin (1963), Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India (1975), Elvis Presley’s last live performance (1977), Nelson Mandela addressed Congress (1991), Margaret Thatcher elevated to the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven (1992), Bill Clinton launched Cruise missile strikes on Iraq (1993), “Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone” published (1997), Lawrence v. Texas (2003), Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) on this day.
June 27
Ladislaus I of Hungary (1040), Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (1350), Louis XII of France (1462), Charles IX of France (1550), Charles Stewart Parnell (1846), Emma Goldman (1869), Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872), Helen Keller (1880), Karel Reiner (1910), Rudy Perpich (1928), Ross Perot (1930), Anna Moffo (1932), Bruce Babbitt (1938), Norma Kamali (1945), Vera Wang (1949), Isabelle Adjani (1955), Ted Haggard (1956), Tobey Maguire (1975), Bianca del Rio [Roy Haylock] (1975) & Khloé Kardashian (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Alfonso V (‘the Magnanimous’) of Aragon (1458), Giorgio Vasari (1574), Wenzel Anton Graf Kaunitz (1794), Philippe de Noailles (1794), Claude-Joseph Rougert de lisle (1832), Joseph Smith (1844), A.J. Ayer (1989), Georgios Papadopoulos (1999), Jack Lemmon (2001), George Patton IV (2004) & Shelby Foote (2005) died on this day. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo set sail from the Mexican port of Navidad to explore the west coast of North America on behalf of the Spanish Empire (1542), Peter the Great of Russia defeated Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava (1709), George II led British troops to victory at the Battle of Dettingen (1743), Flora MacDonald helped Bonnie Prince Charlie — disguised as Betty Burke, an Irish maid — evade capture by landing him on the Isle of Skye (1746), Gen. James Wolf began the British siege of Québec (1759), Louis XVI ordered the nobility & clergy of the États-Généraux to meet with the Third Estate — declared by its members to be the Assemblée Nationale of France (1789), James Smithson established the Smithsonian Institution with a bequest in his will (1829), Mormon leader Joseph Smith killed by a mob in Illinois (1844), Samuel Tilden nominated the Democratic presidential candidate (1876), Eleftherios Venizelos took over as prime minister of Greece & severed relations with the Central Powers, aligning Greece with the Allies in World War I (1917), Nazi Germany began using the Enigma cording machine (1940), Cherbourg liberated by the Allies (1944), Harry Truman ordered the US Air Force & Navy into Korea as North Korean troops reached Seoul (1950), CIA-sponsored rebels overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala Jacopo Arbenz in a coup d’état authorized by Dwight Eisenhower (1954), the British Medical Research Council published a report suggesting a direct link between smoking & lung cancer (1957), Ghana imposed a total ban on exports to apartheid South Africa & South West Africa (1961), John Dean told the Watergate committee about Richard Nixon’s ‘enemies list’ (1973), coup d’état in Uruguay led by Juan Maria Bordaberry (1973), Richard Nixon visited the Soviet Union (1974), Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (1981), Route 66 was decertified & highway signs were removed (1985), Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime launched the neoliberalization of Nigeria’s economy via deregulation & privatization with the support of the IMF & the World Bank (1986), Gordon Brown became British prime minister (2007), Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook reached 2 billion monthly users (2017), the European Union fined Google a record $2.7 billion for unfair competition practices (2017), US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement (2018) & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th House district (2018) on this day.
June 28
Henry VIII (1491), Peter Paul Rubens (1577), John Wesley (1703), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712), Étienne François, duc de Choiseul (1719), Joseph Joachim (1831), Luigi Pirandello (1867), Pierre Laval (1883), Richard Rodgers (1902), Sergiu Celibidache (1912), Mel Brooks (1926), Hans Blix (1928), Noriyuki ‘Pat’ Morita (1932), Leon Panetta (1938), Muhammad Yunus (1940), Gilda Radner (1946), Kathy Bates (1948), Thomas Hampson (1955) & Elon Musk (1971) were born #OnThisDay. Abraham Ortelius (1598), James Madison (1836), Franz Ferdinand (1914), Rod Serling (1975), José Iturbi (1980), Helen Gahagan Douglas (1980), Boris Christoff (1993), Mortimer Adler (2001), Brenda Howard (2005) & Robert Byrd (2010) died on this day. Battle of Kosovo (1389), Edward IV crowned king of England (1461), Charles V elected Holy Roman Emperor (1519), Catherine the Great seized power in a coup d’état (1762), Victoria crowned queen of England (1838), “Giselle” premiered at the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique in Paris (1841), Adolphe Sax patented the saxophone (1846), Treaty of Versailles signed (1919 of Versailles signed (1919), Night of the Long Knives (1934), Daniel Ellsberg indicted for leaking the Pentagton Papers (1968) & the Stonewall Riots began (1969) on this day.
June 27
Ladislaus I of Hungary (1040), Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (1350), Louis XII of France (1462), Charles IX of France (1550), Charles Stewart Parnell (1846), Emma Goldman (1869), Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872), Helen Keller (1880), Karel Reiner (1910), Rudy Perpich (1928), Ross Perot (1930), Anna Moffo (1932), Bruce Babbitt (1938), Norma Kamali (1945), Vera Wang (1949), Isabelle Adjani (1955), Ted Haggard (1956), Tobey Maguire (1975), Bianca del Rio [Roy Haylock] (1975) & Khloé Kardashian (1984) were born #OnThisDay. Alfonso V (‘the Magnanimous’) of Aragon (1458), Giorgio Vasari (1574), Wenzel Anton Graf Kaunitz (1794), Philippe de Noailles (1794), Claude-Joseph Rougert de lisle (1832), Joseph Smith (1844), A.J. Ayer (1989), Georgios Papadopoulos (1999), Jack Lemmon (2001), George Patton IV (2004) & Shelby Foote (2005) died on this day. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo set sail from the Mexican port of Navidad to explore the west coast of North America on behalf of the Spanish Empire (1542), Peter the Great of Russia defeated Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava (1709), George II led British troops to victory at the Battle of Dettingen (1743), Flora MacDonald helped Bonnie Prince Charlie — disguised as Betty Burke, an Irish maid — evade capture by landing him on the Isle of Skye (1746), Gen. James Wolf began the British siege of Québec (1759), Louis XVI ordered the nobility & clergy of the États-Généraux to meet with the Third Estate — declared by its members to be the Assemblée Nationale of France (1789), James Smithson established the Smithsonian Institution with a bequest in his will (1829), Mormon leader Joseph Smith killed by a mob in Illinois (1844), Samuel Tilden nominated the Democratic presidential candidate (1876), Eleftherios Venizelos took over as prime minister of Greece & severed relations with the Central Powers, aligning Greece with the Allies in World War I (1917), Nazi Germany began using the Enigma cording machine (1940), Cherbourg liberated by the Allies (1944), Harry Truman ordered the US Air Force & Navy into Korea as North Korean troops reached Seoul (1950), CIA-sponsored rebels overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala Jacopo Arbenz in a coup d’état authorized by Dwight Eisenhower (1954), the British Medical Research Council published a report suggesting a direct link between smoking & lung cancer (1957), Ghana imposed a total ban on exports to apartheid South Africa & South West Africa (1961), John Dean told the Watergate committee about Richard Nixon’s ‘enemies list’ (1973), coup d’état in Uruguay led by Juan Maria Bordaberry (1973), Richard Nixon visited the Soviet Union (1974), Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (1981), Route 66 was decertified & highway signs were removed (1985), Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime launched the neoliberalization of Nigeria’s economy via deregulation & privatization with the support of the IMF & the World Bank (1986), Gordon Brown became British prime minister (2007), Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook reached 2 billion monthly users (2017), the European Union fined Google a record $2.7 billion for unfair competition practices (2017), US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement (2018) & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th House district (2018) on this day.
June 28
Henry VIII (1491), Peter Paul Rubens (1577), John Wesley (1703), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712), Étienne François, duc de Choiseul (1719), Joseph Joachim (1831), Luigi Pirandello (1867), Pierre Laval (1883), Richard Rodgers (1902), Sergiu Celibidache (1912), Mel Brooks (1926), Hans Blix (1928), Noriyuki ‘Pat’ Morita (1932), Leon Panetta (1938), Muhammad Yunus (1940), Gilda Radner (1946), Kathy Bates (1948), Thomas Hampson (1955) & Elon Musk (1971) were born #OnThisDay. Abraham Ortelius (1598), James Madison (1836), Franz Ferdinand (1914), Rod Serling (1975), José Iturbi (1980), Helen Gahagan Douglas (1980), Boris Christoff (1993), Mortimer Adler (2001), Brenda Howard (2005) & Robert Byrd (2010) died on this day. Battle of Kosovo (1389), Edward IV crowned king of England (1461), Charles V elected Holy Roman Emperor (1519), Catherine the Great seized power in a coup d’état (1762), Victoria crowned queen of England (1838), “Giselle” premiered at the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique in Paris (1841), Adolphe Sax patented the saxophone (1846), Treaty of Versailles signed (1919), Night of the Long Knives (1934), Daniel Ellsberg indicted for leaking the Pentagton Papers (1968) & the Stonewall Riots began (1969) on this day.
June 29
Giacomo Leopardi (1798), Sergei Witte (1849), George Washington Goethals (1858), William James Mayo (1861), George Ellery Hale (1868), Robert Schuman (1886), Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900), Nelson Eddy (1901), Paul O’Dwyer (1907), Leroy Anderson (1908), Frank Loesser (1910), Prince Bernhard (1911), Rafael Kubelik (1914), Kwame Toure [Stokely Carmichael] (1941), Fred Grandy (1948) & Anne-Sophie Mutter (1963) were born #OnThisDay. Margaret Beaufort (1509), Henry Clay (1852), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1861), Ferdinand I of Austria (1875), Paul Klee (1940), Igancy Jan Padereski (1941), Jayne Mansfield (1967), Lana Turner (1995), Rosemary Clooney (2002), Katharine Hepburn (2003) & Carl Reiner (2020) died on this day. The Globe Theatre burnt down during a performance of “Henry VIII” (1613), Sofia declared herself regent of Russia (1682), first known recording of classical music Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” on wax cylinder) (1888), imperial decree against foreigners in China (1900), Goethals Bridge & Outerbridge Crossing opened on Staten Island (1928), Civil Rights Act passed the Senate (1964) & Isabel Martinez de Perón succeeded Juan Domingo Perón as president of Argentina (1974) on this day.
June 30
Charles VIII of France (1470), Johann Friedrich I, Elector of Saxony (1503), John Gay (1685), Jean-Dominique, Comte de Cassini (1748), Harold Laski (1893), Walter Ulbricht (1893), Willie Sutton (1901), Lena Horne (1917), Susan Hayward (1917), Thomas Sowell (1930), Esa-Pekka Salonen (1958), Rupert Graves (1963), Mike Tyson (1966) & Michael Phelps (1985) were born #OnThisDay. Aztec emperor Moctezuma II (1520), Jacob Israel de Haan (1924), Ernst Röhm (1934), Gregor Strasser (1934), Karl Ernst (1934), Kurt von Schleiger (1934), Gustav Ritter von Kahr (1934), Nancy Mitford (1973), Alberta King (1974), Lillian Hellman (1984), Federico Mompou (1987), Gale Gordon [Charles Thomas Aldrich, Jr] (1995), Buddy Hackett (2003), Christopher Fry (2005), Pina Bausche (2009), Harve Presnell (2009) & Yitzhak Shamir (2012) died on this day. Union of Kalmar concluded (1397), Hernán Cortés & Spanish Conquistadores expelled during ‘La Noche Triste’ (the Night of Sadness) (1520), Henri II of France mortally wounded in a joust (1559), Philip II moved into El Escorial (1598), Nazi ‘Night of the Long Knives’ (1934), Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind” published (1936), the Congo independent from Belgium (1960), Rwanda & Burundi independent from Belgium (1962), Leopoldville renamed Kinshasa (1966), Mikhail Baryshnikov defected (1974), the CCP denounced Mao Zedong (1981), the Equal Rights Amendment failed by three states (1982), Pierre Elliott Trudeau resigned as prime minister of Canada (1984), Bowers v. Evans (1986), same-sex marriage recognized in Spain (2005), Mohamed Morsi sworn in as president of Egypt (2012), Misty Copeland the first African American principal dancer of the American Ballet Theatre (2015) & same-sex marriage recognized in Germany (2017) on this day.
July 1
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646), Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau (1725), George Sand [Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dudevant] (1804), William Strunk, Jr. (1869), Walter Francis White (1893), Charles Laughton (1899), William Wyler (1902), Estée Lauder [Josephine Esther Mentzer] (1906), Olivia de Havilland (1916), Farley Granger (1925), Leslie Caron (1931), Jamie Farr (1934), Jean Marsh (1934), Sydney Pollack (1934), Claude Berri (1934), Twyla Tharp (1941), Geneviève Bujold (1942), David Duke (1950), Dan Aykroyd (1952), Diana Spencer (1961), Patrick McEnroe (1966), Pamela Anderson (1967) & Liv Tyler (1977) were born #OnThisDay. Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham (1782), Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1784), Mikhail Bakunin (1876), Harriet Beecher Stowe (1896), Marius Petipa (1910), Erik Satie (1925), Pierre Monteux (1964), Juan Domingo Perón (1974), R. Buckminster Fuller (1983), Margaux Hemingway (1996), Marlon Brandon (2004), Karl Malden (2009) & Hugh Downs (2020) died on this day. Vespasian proclaimed Roman emperor by troops in Egypt (69), Titus set up battering rams as part of the Roman siege of Jerusalem (70), sunglasses invented in China (1200), Alfonso the Wise crowned king of Castile & Leon (1252), first burning of Protestants in the Netherlands (1517), Sir Thomas More’s treason trial (1535), William of Orange defeated James II at the Battle of the Boyne (1690), Battle of Gettysburg (first day) (1863), Dominion of Canada formed (Canada Day) (1867), Zanzibar-Helgoland Treaty (1890), Wilfrid Laurier sworn in as the first French-speaking prime minister of Canada (1896), Theodore Roosevelt & the Rough Riders in the Battle of San Juan Hill (1898), first Tour de France in Montgeron (1903), Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity (1905), German gunboat Panther arrived at Agadir (1911), Battle of the Somme (1916), Chinese Communist Party founded (1921), Franklin Delano Roosevelt nominated for president at the Democratic Party’s national convention in Chicago (1932), Richard Strauss opera “Arabella” premiered in Dresden (1933), Rev. Martin Niemöller arrested by the Nazis (1937), Spanish bishops supported Francisco Franco & his fascist movement (1937), Battle of El Alamein (1942), Bretton Woods conference (1944), George Kennan’s ‘X’ article published in “Foreign Affairs” (1947), Rwanda & Burundi independent from Belgium (1962), Medicare went into effect (1966), Prince Charles investiture as Prince of Wales (1969), Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile (1974), Isabel Peron president of Argentina (1974), “O, Canada” Canada’s national anthem (1980), the Deutsche Mark replaced the Ostmark as East Germany’s official currency (1990), Hong Kong reverted to China (1997), Oresund Bridge (2000), Vermont’s civil unions law in effect (2000), Cassini-Huygens tracking of Saturn’s orbit (2004), Ford produced its last Thunderbird (2005), and William & Harry unveiled a statue of Diana (2021) on this day.
July 2
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury (1489), Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714), Hermann Hesse (1877), Alec Douglas-Home (1903), Olav V of Norway (1903), Thurgood Marshall (1908), Pierre Cardin (1922), Patrice Lumumba (1925), Medgar Evers (1925), Imelda Marcos (1929), Carlos Menem (1930), John Sununu (1939), Vicente Fox (1942), Larry David (1947), Luci Baines Johnson Nugent Turpin (1947), Sylvia Rivera (1951) & Lindsay Lohan (1986) were born #OnThisDay. Nostradamus [Michel de Nostre-Dam] (1566), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1778), Robert Peel (1850), Ernest Hemingway (1961), Betty Grable (1973), Vladimir Nabokov (1977), Michael Bennett (1987), James Stewart (1997), Beverly Sills [Belle Miriam Silverman] (1978), Elie Wiesel (2016), Michel Rocard (2016) & Lee Iacocca (2019) died on this day. Martin Luther promised St. Anne to become a monk if he survived a violent storm (1505), Chief Tecumseh urged Native Americans to unite against white settlers (1809), Bahia Independence Day (end of Portuguese colonial rule in Brazil) (1823), Amistad revolt (1839), alligator fell from the sky (1843), partial emancipation of Russian serfs (1858), Battle of Gettysbury (2nd day) (1863), James Garfield shot by Charles Guiteau (1881), Sherman Act enacted by Congress (1890) Jean Sibelius’ “Finlandia” premiered in Helsinki (1900), Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific (1937), Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” premiered in London (1941), South Vietnam recognized with Bảo Đại as head of state (1949), Kinkakuji in Kyoto burned down (1950), LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law (1964), Imelda Marcos & Adnan Khashoggi found not guilty of racketeering (1990), “Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets” published in the UK (1998), Ingrid Betancourt & 14 other FARC hostabes resued by the Colombian army (2008), GlaxoSmithKline settled the largest healthcare fraud case in history for $3 billion (2012) & Nicolas Sarkozy was charged with corruption (2014) on this day.
July 3
Louis XI of France (1423), Samuel de Champlain (1567), Alessandro Stradella (1643), Robert Adam (1728), John Singleton Copley (1739), Leoš Janáček (1854), George M. Cohan (1878), Franz Kafka (1883), Earl Butz (1909), Ken Russell (1927), Carlos Kleiber (1930), Tom Stoppard (1937), Lamar Alexander (1940), Betty Buckley (1947), Dave Barry (1947), Rob Rensenbrink (1947), Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier (1951), Montel Williams (1956), Tom Cruise (1962), Audra McDonald (1970) & Julian Assange (1971) were born #OnThisDay. Marie de’ Medici (1642), Henrietta ‘Hetty’ Green (1916), André Citroën (1935), Jim Morrison (1971), Andrei Gromyko (1989), Jim Backus (1989), Gaylord Nelson (2005), Andy Griffith (2012), radu Vasile (2013) & Arte Johnson (2019) died on this day. Hugh Capet crowned king of the Franks (987), Saladin’s victory over the Crusaders at the Battle of Horns of Hattin (1187), Louis IX of France captured by Baibar’s Mamluk army at the Battle of Fariskur (1250), Samuel de Champlain founded the city of Quebec (1608), French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin opened his magic theatre in Paris (1845), Battle of Gettysburg (third day) (1863), Leopold II of Belgium ceded the Congo Free State to the Belgian state (1890), Idaho was admitted to the union as the 43rd state (1890), Fridtjov Nansen convened an Intergovernmental Conference on Identity Certificates for Russian Refugees (1822), the US Navy cruiser Vincennes shot down an Iranian passenger jet (1988) & Mohammed Morsi deposed as president of Egypt in a military coup (2013) on this day.
July 4
Louis-Claude Daquin (1694), Oscar I of Sweden (1799), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804), Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807), Stephen Foster (1826), Calvin Coolidge (1872), Rube Goldberg (1883), Gertrude Lawrence (1898), Angela Baddeley (1904), Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904), Lionel Trilling (1905), Tokyo Rose [Iva Toguri D’Aquino] (1916), Abigail Van Buren [Pauline Phillips] (1918), Ann Landers [Eppie Lederer] (1918), Leona Helmsley (1920), Eva Marie Saint (1924), Gina Lollabrigida (1927), Neil Simon (1927), George Steinbrenner (1930), Geraldo Rivera [Gerald Michael Riviera] (1943), Michael Milken (1946), Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (1951), Álvaro Uribe Vélez (1952) & Malia Obama (1998) were born #OnThisDay. William Byrd (1623), Thomas Middleton (1627), Samuel Richardson (1761), John Adams (1826), Thomas Jefferson (1826), James Monroe (1831), Marie Curie (1934), Eva Gabor (1995), Jesse Helms (2008) & Otto von Habsburg (2011) died on this day. Battle of Hattin (Tiberias): Saladin’s victory over Crusader Reinoud of Châtillon (1187), US Declaration of Independence (1776), Louisiana Purchase announced by Thomas Jefferson (1803), slavery abolished in New York (1827), Wisconsin Territory formed (1836), Henry David Thoreau moved to Walden Pond (1845), Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” published (1855), Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) created Alice in Wonderland for Alice Liddell (1862), Gen. Robert E. Lee withdrew from Gettysburg (1863), Vicksburg surrendered to Union troops (1863), Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderrland” published (1865), Statue of Liberty unveiled (1884), Republic of Hawaii proclaimed with Sanford B. Dole as president (1894), William Howard Taft installed as first governor-general of the Philippines by Theodore Roosevelt (1901), Mehmed VI became the last Ottoman sultan (1918), Sukarno formed the Perserikatan Nasional Indonesia (PNI), Freedom of Information Act signed into law by LBJ (1966), CARICOM formed (1973), Entebbe hostage rescue mission launched (1976), Drew Barrymore’s attempted suicide (1989) & Donald Trump’s ‘Salute to America’ Fourth of July celebration in Washington, D.C. (2019) on this day.
July 5
Sarah Kemble Siddons (1755), David Farragut (1801), P.T. Barnum (1810), Cecil Rhodes (1853), A.E. Douglass (1867), Édouard Herriot (1872), Wanda Landowska (1879), Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1902), Andrei Gromyko (1909), Georges Pompidou (1911), Pierre Mauroy (1928), Katherine Helmond (1929), Nita Lowey (1937), Julie Nixon Eisenhower (1948), Edie Falco (1963), Meghan Rapinoe (1985) & Dolly the Sheep (1996) were born #OnThisDay. Stamford Raffles (1826), Walter Gropius (1969), Wilhelm Backhaus (1969), Harrison Salisbury (1993) & Régine Crespin (2007) died on this day. Scotland & France formed the Auld Alliance against England (1295), Isaac Newton’s “Principia” published by the Royal Society (1687), Napoléon’s victory over the Archduke Charles in the Battle of Wagram (1809), Venezuela’s Declaration of Independence (1811), France’s invasion of Algeria (1830), Thomas Cook opened the first travel agency (1841), Frederick Douglass delivered his “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech in Rochester (1852), Salvation Army founded (1865), Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Germany gave Austria-Hungary a ‘blank check’ of support (1914), António de Oliveira Salazar’s Estado Novo dictatorship (1932), National Labor Relations Act signed into law by FDR (1935), Clement Attlee led the Labour Party to victory in the British general election (1945), Philippines liberation declared (1945), Louis Réard introduced the bikini (1946), first US fatality in the Korean War (1950), Gen. Juvénal Habyarimana military coup d’état in Rwanda (1973), Arthur Ashe the first black man to win at Wimbledon (1975), Amazon.com founded by Jeff Bezos (1994), Dolly the sheep cloned (1996) & Babylon declared a World Heritage Site (2019) on this day.
July 6
John Paul Jones (1747), Stamford Raffles (1781), Nicholas I of Russia (1796), Maximilian von Habsburg, emperor of Mexico (1832), Marc Chagall (1887), Frida Kahlo (1907), Dorothy Kirsten (1910), Sebastian Cabot (1918), Nancy Reagan (1921), Bill Haley (1925), Merv Griffin (1925), Janet Leigh [Jeanetta Morrison] (1927), Pat Paulsen (1927), Della Reese (1932), Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (1935), Ned Beatty (1937), Vladimir Ashkenazy (1937), George W. Bush (1946), Jamie Wyeth (1946), Sylvester Stallone (1946), Peter Singer (1946), Geoffrey Rush (1951), Hilary Mantel (1952), Jennifer Saunders (1958) & Kevin Hart (1979) were born #OnThisDay. Henry II of England (1189), Jan Hus (1415), Sir Thomas More (1535), Edward VI of England (1553), John Marshall (1835), Guy de Maupassant (1893), Kenneth Grahame (1932), George Grosz (1959), William Faulkner (1962), Louis Armstrong (1971), Otto Klemperer (1973), Marsha P. Johnson (1992), ruth Lady Fermoy (1993), Roy Rogers (1998), Joaquín Rodrigo (1999), Robert McNamara (2009) & Ennio Morricone (2020) died on this day. Richard the Lioneart crowned king of England (1189), Richard III crowned king of England (1483), Swedish troops under Gustavus Adolphus landed at Peenemunde (1630), Captain William Kidd captured in Boston (1699), Battle of Chesme (1770), Louis Pasteur successfully used a rabies vaccine (1885), Dadabhai Naoroji first Indian elected to the British House of Commons (1892), T.E. Lawrence captured the port of Aqaba (1917), Magnus Hirschfeld opened the Institute for Sexual Science (1919), Anne Frank’s family went into hiding in the After House in Amsterdam (1942), AK-47 first produced in USSR (1947), Harry S. Truman Presidential Library established (1957), John Lennon met Paul McCartney for the first time (1957), Althea Gibson first African American to win at Wimbledon (1957), Beatles film “Hard Day’s Night” premiered in London (1964), civil war in Nigeria (1967), Carlos Salinas de Gortari elected president of Mexico (1988), “Forrest Gump” released (1994), US Army Private Barry Winchell died from attack over his relationship with Calpernia Addams (1999), Chilcot Report criticized Tony Blair for exaggerating the case for war in Iraq (2016) & Pokémon Go released (2016) on this day.
July 7
Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1752), Gustav Mahler (1860), George Cukor (1899), Vittorio De Sica (1901), Satchel Paige (1906), Gian-Carlo Menotti (1911), Ringo Starr (1940), Michael Howard (1941), Matti Salminen (1945) & Michelle Kwan (1980) were born #OnThisDay. Edward I of England (1307), Thomas Gray (1771), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1816), Mary Surratt (1865), Henri Nestlé (1890), Arthur Conan Doyle (1930), Max Horkheimer (1973), Veronica Lake [Constance Ockleman], Flora Robson (1984), Moshood Abiola (1998) & Jon Money (2006) died on this day. Joan of Arc exonerated of heresy at a retrial 25 years after her death (1456), Henri III & the Duc de Guise signed the Treaty of Nemours stripping France’s Huguenots of all their freedoms (1585), premiere of George Frideric Handel’s “Te Deum” & “Jubilate” (1713), British Jews granted citizenship (1753) Columbia U. founded as King’s College (1754), Toussaint L’Ouverture declared Haiti’s independence (1801), First Treaty of Tilsit signed by Napoleon & Alexander I of Russia (1807), Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold & George Atzerodt are executed for Abraham Lincoln’s assassination (1865), Hoover Dam construction began (1930), Heinrich Himmler ordered medical experiments on Auschwitz camp inmates (1942), Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini canonized as the first American saint (1946), Jimmy Carter married Rosalynn Smith (1946), Alaska statehood bill signed into law by Dwight Eisenhower (1958), “All You Need Is Love” album released by the Beatles (1967), US troops began a drawdown from South Vietnam (1969), French recognized as co-equal in Canada (1969), Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O’Connor to the US Supreme Court (1981), 1st ‘Three Tenors’ concert featuring Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti at Baths of Caracalla in Rome (1990), Nelson Mandel stepped down as president of South Africa (1996), “Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows part 2” — the last Harry Potter film — premiered in London (2011) & Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro announced he’d tested positive for COVID-19 (2020) on this day.
July 8
Don Carlos of Spain (1545), Artemisia Gentileschi (1593), Jean de la Fontaine (1621), John Pemberton (1831), Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838), John D. Rockefeller (1830), Kathe Kollwitz (1867), Percy Grainger (1882), Philip Johnson (1906), Nelson Rockefeller (1908), Walter Scheel (1919), Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926), John Dingell (1926), Phil Gramm (1942), Jeffrey Tambor (1944), Cynthia Gregory (1946), Wolfgang Puck (1949), Anjelica Huston (1951), Anna Quindlen (1952), Marianne Williamson (1952), Kevin Bacon (1958) & Tzipi Livni (1958) were born #OnThisDay. Diego de Almagro (1538), Christian Huygens (1695), Ellihu Yale (1721), Percy Bysshe Shelley 91822), Oscar I of Sweden (1859), Havelock Ellis (1939), Jean Moulin (1943), Georges Bataille (1962), Vivian Leigh (1967), Fatima Jinnah (1967), Kim Il-Sung (1994), Betty Ford (2011), Ernest Borgnine (2012), Tab Hunter [Arthur Andrew Kelm] (2018) & Oliver Knussen (2018) died on this day. Battle of Malta in the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282), Charles II of England granted a royal charter to Rhode Island (1663), Battle of Poltava (1709), Battle of Dynekilen (1716), Liberty Bell tolled to announce the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence (1776), slavery banned in Vermont’s constitution (1777), France declared war on Prussia (1792), US State Department issued the first US passport (1796), Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s blackship Susquehanna sailed into Tokyo Bay (1853), Charles XV Gustaf acceded to the throne of Sweden & Norway (1859), Wall Street Journal began publishing (1889), William Jennings Bryan’s ‘Cross of Gold’ speech at the Democratic convention in Chicago (1896), Gen. Douglas MacArthur named commander-in-chief of UN forces in Korea (1950), 2,000th birthday of Paris (1951), Col. Castillo Armas elected president of Guatemala by the military junta (1954), first Americans killed in South Vietnam (1959), nationalization of French banks, steel & aviation by prime minister Pierre Mauroy (1981), US Supreme Court nominee Sandra Day O’Connor confirmed by the Senate 99-0 (1981), “Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban” (the 3rd book of the series by J. K. Rowling) published by Bloomsbury in the UK (1999), “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (the 4th book of the series by J. K. Rowling) published by Bloomsbury in the UK (2000), Enrique Peña Nieto’s win in the country’s presidential election prompts massive demonstrations in Mexico City (2012), Jeffrey Epstein indicted on sex trafficking charges (2019)
July 9
Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1578), Ottorino Respighi (1879), Barbara Cartland (1901), Edward Heath (1916), Mathilde Krim (1926), Donald Rumsfeld (1932), Michael Graves (1934), David Hockney (1937), O.J. Simpson (1947), Viktor Yanukovych (1950), Jimmy Smits (1955), Tom Hanks (1956) & Fred Savage (1976) were born #OnThisDay. Jan van Eyck (1441), Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand IV (1654), Philip V of Spain (1746), Catherine the Great’s coup (1762), Edmund Burke (1797), Gilbert Stuart (1828), Zachary Taylor (1850), King Gillette (1932), Benjamin Cardozo (1938), Earl Warren (1974), Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg (1985), Barbara Woodhouse (1988), Melvin Belli (1996), Rod Steiger (2002), Isabel Sanford (2004), Eileen Ford (2014), Peter Carrington, 6th Baron Carrington (2018), Rip Torn (2019) & Ross Perot (2019) died on this day. Battle of Hwangsanbeol (660), Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV laid the foundation stone for the Charles Bridge in Prague (1357), Tamerlane (Timur) sacked Baghdad (1401), New York elected George Clinton its first governor (1777), the Second Treaty of Tilsit (1807), Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord became the first Prime Minister of France (1815), Argentina declared independence from Spain at the Congress of Tucumán (1816), the US seized Yerba Buena (San Francisco) from Mexico (1846), Zachary Taylor died after only 16 months in office (1850), Commodore Matthew Perry’s warships in Tokyo Bay (1853), first Wimbledon tournament (1877), Germany surrendered Southwest Africa to South Africa (1915), the Enigma code broken (1941), Henry Kissinger’s trip to Beijing (1971), Michael Fagan’s visit to Buckingham Palace (1982), massive demonstration against Chun Doo-hwan (1987), Oliver North admitted to shredding Iran-Contra documents (1987), Romanov family remains identified using DNA (1993), F.W. de Klerk indicted (1995), the African Union established (2002), South Sudan’s secession & independence from Sudan (2011) & Jokko Widodo elected president of Indonesia (2014) on this day.
July 10
John Calvin [Jehan Cauvin](1509) William Blackstone (1723), Camille Pissarro (1830), Henry Wieniawski (1835), Adolphus Busch (1839), Nikola Tesla (1856), Marcel Proust (1871), Ima Hogg (1882), Giorgio de Chirico (1888), Carl Orff (1895), Ljuba Welitsch (1913), David Brinkley (1920), Eunice Kennedy Shriver (1921), Mahathir bin Mohamad (1925), David Dinkins (1927), Jerry Herman (1933), Richard Hatcher (1933), Helen Donath (1940), Arthur Ashe (1943), Arlo Guthrie (1947), Cindy Sheehan (1957), Fiona Shaw (1958), Alec Mapa (1965) & Sofía Vergara (1972) were born #OnThisDay. Roman emperor Hadrian (138), Henri II of France (1559), William the Silent of Orange Nassau (1584), George Stubbs (1806), Louis-Jacques Daguerre (1851), Eugénie de Montijo, empress of France (1920), Donald Francis Tovey (1940), Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton [LeMothe] (1941), Arthur Fiedler (1979), Maria Jeritza [Jedlicka] (1982), Mel Blanc (1989), Roland Petit (2011), Omar Sharif [Michel Dimitri Shalhoub] (2015) & Jon [Jonathan Stewart] Vickers died on this day. Justin proclaimed Byzantine emperor in the Hippodrome (518), Dublin founded (988), Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry (1040), Richard of York defeated Henry VI at Northampton (1460), Treaty of Calais (1520) signed by Henry VIII (1520), Lady Jane Grey proclaimed queen of England (1553), 1st Anglo-Dutch War (1652), George II authorized reprisals in the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739), Louis-François Roubiliac’s monument to George Frideric Handel unveiled in Westminster Abbey in London (1762) Louis XVI’s France declared war on Britain (1778), French forces under the Comte de Rochambeau landed at Newport (1780), Paul Verlaine wounded his lover Arthur Rimbaud with pistol (1873), Wyoming the 44th state (1890), Emma Goldman imprisoned for obstructing the draft (1917), Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic formed (1918), Italy banned all non-fascist parties (1923), Denmark took control of Greenland after Norway ended its claim (1924), Meher Baba’s Silence Day (1925), the Scopes Monkey Trial began in Tennessee (1925), Howard Hughes flew around the world in 91 hours (1938), Battle of Britain commenced (1940), failed assassination attempt on Hassan II of Morocco (1971), Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior sunk by France in Auckland harbor (1985), Boris Yeltsin sworn in as Russia’s first elected president (1991), Confederate flag lowered on the South Carolina capitol grounds (2015) & Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ordered the Hagia Sophia re-converted back into a mosque (2020) on this day.
July 11
Robert the Bruce (1274), Frederick I of Prussia (1657), John Quincy Adams (1767), E.B. White (1899), Gough Whitlam (1916), Yul Brynner (1920), Nicolai Gedda (1925), Hermann Prey (1929) & Giorgio Armani (1934) were born #OnThisDay. Elisabetta Farnese, queen of Spain (1766), George Gershwin (1937), Laurence Olivier (1989) & Claudia ‘Lady Bird’ Johnson (2007) died on this day. Antoninus Pius succeeded Hadrian as Roman emperor (138), Charles IV of Luxembourg elected Holy Roman Emperor (1346), Zheng He’s first major expedition to the Spice Islands 91405), Henry VIII of England excommunicated by Pope Clement VII (1533), Battle of the Boyne (1690), Battle of Oudenaarde (1708), France’s finance minister Jacques Necker dismissed by Louis XVI (1789), Alexander Hamilton killed by Aaron Burr in a duel (1804), Niagara Movement launched by W.E.B. Du Bois (1905), Battle of Verdun (1916), Prussian plebiscite on ‘Polish Corridor’ (1920), Mongolia independent from China (1921), Maréchal Philippe Pétain president of the Vichy régime (1940), USSR agreed to hand West Berlin to the US & UK (1945), Dwight Eisenhower Republican presidential nominee (1952), Ivory Coast, Dahomey (Benin) & Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) independent of France (1960), Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” published by J.B. Lippincott & Co. (1960), Ross Perot’s ‘you people’ NAACP speech (1992), “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (the 5th film based on the books by J. K. Rowling) released (2007) & Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán recaptured (2015) on this day.
July 12
Josiah Wedgwood (1730), Henry David Thoreau (1817), George Eastman (1854), George Washington Carver (1864), Emil Hácha (1872), Louis B. Mayer (1884), Amedeo Modigliani (1884), Kirsten Flagstad (1895), Oscar Hammerstein II (1895), R. Buckminster Fuller (1895), Pablo Neruda (1904), Milton Berle (1908), Andrew Wyeth (1917), Van Cliburn (1934), Bill Cosby (1937), Lionel Jospin (1937), Cheryl Ladd (1951), Jamey Sheridan (1951), Kristi Yamaguchi (1971), Cheyenne Jackson (1975), Topher Grace (1978) & Malala Yousafzai (1997) were born #OnThisDay. Desiderius Erasmus (1536), Richard Cromwell (1712), Johann Joachim Quantz (1773), Alexander Hamilton (1804), William Howe (1814), Dolly Madison (1849), Alfred Dreyfus (1935), D.T. Suzuki (1966), Lon Chaney, Jr. (1973) & Sherwood Schwartz (2011) died on this day. Geoffrey Chaucer named chief clerk by Richard II of England (1389), Charles II of England ratified the Habeas Corpus Act (1679), Battle of the Boyne (1690), Stanislaw Leszcynski became king of Poland (1704), Civil Constitution of the Clergy adopted in France (1790), Alexander Hamilton shot by Aaron Burr (1804), Arthur Balfour succeeded Lord Salisbury as British prime minister (1902), Alfred Dreyfus exonerated of treason in France (1906), Battle of Kursk (1943), Congo, Chad & Central African Republic declared independence from France (1960), Moors Murders in England (1963), Thor Heyerdahl arrived in Morocco after crossing the Atlantic from Barbados on the raft Ra II (1970), George McGovern accepted